The wind has been behaving oddly in Liyue as of late.

Xiao has always noticed it acting a bit more alive— a bit more human, one could say— whenever the Anemo Archon is visiting, but it has never felt this… attentive before.

pay attention to what xiao calls “human” throughout the fic (vs. how he refers to himself)

He feels it carding through his hair as he wanders through Dihua Marsh in search of fragmented demon souls, whistling pretty tunes into his ears as he climbs the cliffs of Jueyun Karst. These days, it even swirls around him almost affectionately, often caressing the bare skin of his back and arms when he comes to rest on the roof of Wangshu Inn. And sometimes, it seems almost as if there is a ghost on the wind, pressing invisible kisses into his neck, cheek, and lips.

(It is at these times that Xiao finds himself wondering if he’s started hallucinating things.)

((After all, what else could it possibly be? Subtle gifts and well-wishes from the Anemo Archon himself? Or perhaps— Celestia forbid!— his own imagination, filling in the gaps where his desires would be, if he were human?))

xiao wrestling with his own humanity counter: 1

jokes aside, this is basically just setup for xiao’s arc throughout the fic abt deser­ved­ness and self-denial

There comes a day, however, not long after he knows the Anemo Archon has come to visit, when Xiao starts hearing Venti’s voice on the wind.

“Xiao~” the wind faintly calls his name, prettier than birdsong.

i chose the phrase “prettier than birdsong” rather than directly comparing venti’s voice to a song or something musical bc i described venti calling out to xiao as akin to holding a note when singing in a different (as of yet unpublished lol) fic, n i wanted to keep it Fresh™. that said, i also almost didn’t use this phrase bc i remembered, very suddenly, and very vividly, that birds typically sing bc they wanna fuck, but ultimately i chose to just pretend i hadn’t realized that.

Xiao freezes at the sound, the baby hairs on the back of his neck suddenly raised.

“Who’s there?” he calls, summoning his spear and sharpening his gaze. He’s dealt with many mimics in his lifetime; he won’t allow this to be the one to end him. But when the wind merely gives his sleeve a playful tug, laughing all the while, Xiao scowls. “Show yourself!”

“Aww, but that’s no fun, my dearest Conquerer of Demons~” the voice on the breeze teases.

(Xiao feels a ghostly kiss press into his cheek, and suddenly, the air outside is not so cold this evening.)

i presume you guys see the joke here, which is that the kiss makes xiao blush.

“Let’s play a game! Shall we see if you can guess my name?” asks the wind. “Loser has to pay for drinks, hehe.”

…This is definitely no mimic.

OKAY so, i think originally, i was gonna have xiao kind of elaborate on How he knew that the alcohol thing meant it was definitely venti, maybe have him reference some offscreen arc he had before the fic began where he met venti n had that perfect image of him shattered by realizing “oh my god this is the kind of guy who says, ‘it’s five o'clock somewhere!’ as an excuse to day drink at 11 a.m.” but then i didn’t really like how clunky it felt, so i ended up cutting that out n excusing it as, “ehhh­, someone’s probably either told him abt venti’s drinking habits, or venti’s been awake long enough that xiao’s figured this out abt him by now”

Xiao lowers his spear, bewildered nonetheless. “Venti?”

The wind whirls around him so forcefully, Xiao staggers forward; it feels as if someone has unexpectedly jumped onto his back or swung themselves into his arms.

“That’s meeeee~” more laughter rings through the air as pale green Anemo energy starts to gather in the air.

Xiao stares at the phenomenon unfolding before him. Something about this doesn’t feel quite right, but he is loathe to say that, for all their brief encounters since Barbatos’s recent reawakening, and for all the little tales the Traveler has told him, Xiao still does not know the neighboring god well enough to pinpoint exactly why.

“Oh, but what a shame,” the wind still sighs, as the Anemo continues to coalesce. “I never ever seem to have a single mora to my name.”

this is the end of venti’s first form (the pure, invisible wind). i’d kind of wanted it to go on longer, where venti as the wind would kind of silently play with xiao, pine after him, and basically just have the boistrous drunkard personality that venti canonically uses as his facade, bc that’s how he typically gets people to like him. however, it wouldn’t work on xiao, who finds no charm to fall in love with a disembodied breeze, and would just be kinda confused the whole time lol.

There is a sudden burst of light, and Xiao is forced to briefly shield his eyes.

“Will a song work instead?”

From the moment he first sees Venti standing before him, flute in hand, time seems to halt. (All doubt is cast from Xiao’s mind at the sight of the sunset’s dying light hanging its radiant halo’s glow upon the Anemo Archon’s hair.)

the line “all doubt is cast from xiao’s mind” was worded very deliberately, in order to mimic that thing in christianity where you are to “cast all doubt from your mind” in order to have faith. note that i don’t know what exactly i’m quoting from the bible or whatever for that, but the phrasing of it like that sticks out pretty prominently in my Deeply Christian Upbringing™

“the sunset’s dying light” was also deliberately worded as such because well obviously i love to describe beautiful things in terms of violence, especially when writing from xiao’s pov, but also because it felt like a fresh turn to the phrase “dying light” to describe evening light/sunsets

“radiant halo’s glow” is yes, another way of referencing venti’s divinity, and you would think that the way i like to describe light falling upon characters’ hair when someone else is falling in love with them as “haloing” them would have something to do with my Deeply Christian Upbringing™, but NO, actually. it comes from the fact that one time, my friend described seeing the morning light fall upon her crush’s hair as like seeing him haloed, and that it was an extremely magical crush moment.

Venti tilts his head at Xiao, the smile upon his face halfway between oblivious and coy. “Hello? Anyone home in your head, love?”

something i’ve always known is that i hate the vast majority of nicknames people give their s/o. i’m just extremely sensitive to names for some reason. however, venti is absolutely the kind of person to come up with one million billion silly little pet names, so i had to come up with y'know, a couple he could use on xiao that wouldn’t immediately strike me down from psychic dmg. “[my] love” is probably my favorite bc it has like, the kind of regency era romance vibes to it, and i am very weak to that lol. “[my] dear[est]” is similar in that regard.

HUGE fan of “little dove” in particular from venti → xiao, actually, bc:

1. reference to xiao’s original/true from as a bird, (so “little bird” is also valid imo)
2. “dove” rhymes with “love” so that’s cute, and
3. doves as a symbol of love and gentleness in particular, so it gives me the impression that he’s calling xiao gentle (something xiao does not even believe abt himself), n i just think that’s very sweet.

however, i’m pretty sure the one instance of it being used in this fic in the rough stages ended up being cut, so that’s sick and twisted.

for some reason, “good adeptus” also works for me. maybe it’s bc i think of it as 善仙? my first exposure to the word 善 was through chinese children’s classic 三字經 and its opening lines, “人之初,性本 善” [when humanity first is new, all are innately good/kind]”, and i just love love love the idea of venti seeing the innate kindness w/in xiao that xiao cannot– or sometimes even refuses– to see himself, and insisting upon it time and time again.

Xiao startles at the pet name— no one has ever dared address him so intimately— and a strangled noise comes out his throat. At first, it is merely out of surprise, but as if sensing his moment of weakness, the karmic debts clinging to his soul seize their chance at vengeance, and Xiao begins choking in earnest.

His hands fly to his throat on instinct, as if he could drag the old gods’ wrath from him like corpses exhumed from graves, but before his fate cuts off his breath, he catches Venti’s eyes go wide. Next thing Xiao knows, the sound of that flute rings through the crisp evening air.

“as if he could drag the old gods’ wrath from him like corpses exhumed from graves” is not a phrase that was in the rough draft and was added in the final edits. i’m not entirely sure how to fully articulate the train of thought that went into it, but there’s the connection btwn the fact that the old gods never truly die w/the description of them as dug-up corpses, so i suppose the comparison meant to be made here is that he’s dragging out something nasty and rotten from himself that, very importantly, should not be removed (bc why are you digging up graves and disrespecting the dead??)

the old gods’ wrath, his karmic debt, is also described as “his fate”, and is also portrayed here as having an active hand in his life, rather than something that he will just someday inevitably fall into. tying his “fate” to karmic debt is something that you could say comes up later? ehh just know that their meanings are meant to be linked in this fic.

(It’s as lovely as he remembers.)

((Not that Xiao could ever forget that night in Dihua Marsh— he knows the sound of that flute better than he knows his own heart.))

you might have noticed this already, but the (paragraph) ((new paragraph)) structure is very very common in my writing style. it’s something i’m actually very fond of and would even consider it to be a hallmark of my writing. typically (single shell) denotes a sort of passive thought the pov character is having that they’re not fully conscious of (but if asked could or would admit to having), or an outsider’s detached observation of the pov character, while ((double shell)) tend to be a character’s deeper thoughts or feelings that remain unspoken because they do not want them to be made real through admission. there’s always a sense of internal conflict with the double parentheses as i like to use them, like an aside to an aside, or a shameful secret that’s killing you to keep inside.

“better than he knows his own heart” is basically just saying that he doesn’t know what he wants, or refuses to acknowledge what exists w/in his heart (his feelings for venti, that he wants to live, among other things), bc again, it’s about his refusal to acknowledge the fact that he has desires.

The weight usually affixed to his shoulders grows considerably lighter. Xiao doesn’t quite know how to balance his own head without it, and his legs buckle beneath him as the tension holding him upright dissipates.

Immediately, Venti crouches down to approximately Xiao’s level. “You know, I’m not the kind of god who asks their followers to kneel,” he jokes.

this paragraph was reordered a lot between drafts. i think originally his legs buckled, then the weight disappeared, and he didn’t know how to balance his own head w/o it, and then the tension dissipated.

Xiao, still recovering his breath, finds his chin gently tilted upwards to meet Venti’s gaze. His breath shorts out on him again— for even though the sun has finished its set and the moon has yet to rise, there is something sidereal about the Archon from his current point of view, as if bathed in stellar light.

i struggled a lot with the “something sidreal […] stellar light” thing. see, i’ve always wanted to use the word “stelliferous” (meaning star-shaped) for something (bc i read a fic with its title when i was in high school and have been enchanted ever since), so my first thought was “something stelliferous […] bathed in holy light? glitter? we’re not calling it holy glitter, that’s for sure.” ahaha. anyway, i settled on “sidereal” bc it means “of or pertaining to the distant stars” which i think is just extremely lovely n romanticizable, n i liked how it sounds similar to “ethereal”. i also almost had it then be “stelliferous light” but then i realized that was technically incorrect usage of the word stelliferous, so i changed it to stellar.

But there is also something amiss about Venti’s appearance, now that Xiao has a chance to get a closer look at him. The flowers in his hair, for example, have never once been qingxin, and when the ever-flowing breeze blows between them, feathers flutter from under his cape— a glamour, Xiao belatedly realizes, to camouflage his wings.

the page in my (handwritten) notes where i figure out what the hell to alter abt venti’s appearance for what is describe in my notes as the “savior figure”, aside from the qingxin in his hair is titled, “society if i could chara design” and is dated 20 september 2022. suffice to say, character design is not my forte LOL.

other highlights from those notes include “ofc he gets divine glow & sparkle. that’s just what’s fashionable & holy.” and “what else makes shit seem holy other than the light. oh my god what if. sunset halo.”

originally, there was also supposed to be like, music quietly playing around him bc magic, but that ended up getting cut bc i couldn’t figure out how to integrate it subtly. this caused a bit of trouble later, bc at some point in one of the rough drafts, xiao is supposed to suddenly realize/place the song that’s just kinda quietly There now as the same one as the one that saved him that night in dihua– actually, i think in a very early draft, the ((not that xiao could ever forget that night in dihua)) bit was actually around here instead lol.

anyway one day while i was at work (which is where i wrote a lot of this fic btw) i, in my infinite obsession with flowers and floral symbolism, decided to come up with a language of flowers for teyvat Just Because, n so i have a (hand) written record of my thoughts for all the mond + liyue plants .

at some point months ago, i remember a friend of mine looked into what cecilias meant, and came back with “the prodigal son returns home” which is basically just abt “unconditional acceptance and love of someone who was gone (and fucking up miserably all the while) and has returned home as a ‘failure’ ” to give it the (fake) floral language meaning of “loneliness, unconditional love, and resilience”. qingxin, i mostly looked at the characters who use it as ascension material in-game n gave it the association w/“loneliness, good intentions, and reticence.”

obviously, i am not the first person to call cecilias n qingxin both lonely flowers, but the important thing to keep in mind here, is the idea that cecilias would be associated w/unconditional love, vs. qingxin and good intentions. in this Shit I Just Made Up, the swap from cecilia to qingxin in venti’s character design would then signify the way venti is willing to give up being loved unconditionally (or hides it bc he thinks he can’t be loved unconditionally) in exchange for the good intentions of saving xiao from his karmic debt.

ALSO just final bit before i move on, i just wanted to acknowledge the fact that venti’s cape being a glamour to hide his archon wings is absolutely borne from all the fanart i’ve seen of venti where his cape is kind of feathered underneath to resemble wings. it is truly such a high quality class of venti fanart

“Venti,” he croaks at last, though his voice is still sandpaper from the recent attack, “what are you doing here?”

Venti drops his hand, and the place where he held Xiao’s face feels colder for it. “Isn’t it obvious? I came here to visit you, xiao~” He smiles like the sun hasn’t died at all tonight. “Did you miss me, oh-dearest? It seems you need my song to save you again.”

“he smiles like the sun hasn’t died at all tonight” see again “i love love love to use violent imagery to describe beautiful or romantic things”

i had a lot of trouble with “it seems you need my song to save you again.” for some reason. probably bc it never felt like it fit w/what i had written in my original notes: “venti presents himself as someone who can help xiao, save him from himself/his own karmic debts, if he were to simply lay down his burdens. essentially, venti is trying to make himself seem needed, which he will accept in place of being wanted as himself.”

A strange emotion carves itself into the bony cage of Xiao’s ribs.

when i was younger, i used to prefer to use the sternum as like, the thing when um. (not sure how to word/describe it lol) chest area feelings, but at some point, i remember reading a quote that drew attn to the fact that our ribs are considered a cage, which keep a wild animal within it (our hearts), and i have been kind of obsessed w/the ribcage ever since.

He has never spoken of that night in Dihua Marsh with anyone— not even his own Lord— for fear of somehow realizing that the song meant far more to himself than to the one playing it. That to his savior, that night had been worth nearly nothing in its ordinary nature when to Xiao, it had been almost everything. hearing Venti acknowledge it now is almost more than the poor yaksha can bear, and he feels his cheeks start to burn in a way he’s never felt before.

(Normally, he only blushes in shame, but this feeling weighing down his tongue is not all that unpleasant, nor does it seem to be worth hiding.)

this is neither here nor there, but for some reason i’m very fond of “normally, he only blushes in shame”. maybe it’s bc it gives xiao this kind of shy, maidenlike image in my mind lol.

“So, what do you say? Would you like to hear me play?” asks the Archon disguised as a mere bard, an excited light in his eyes.

Xiao does not know what to say in the face of all his private daydreams offering themselves up to him so openly— he has never been the kind of adeptus to receive mortal offerings, and thus, has never known how to accept them either.

“his private daydreams offering themselves up to him” was worded to have a saucy vibe, which was deliberately done bc of a combination of asexuality and the Deeply Christian Upbringing™ that results in a feeling of visceral discomfort w/suggestive language that i find compelling. however, i’m also fully aware that i am very repressed, so i doubt the visceral discomfort comes across for most people.

Something ugly threads itself through his veins, seeps into the marrowed hollows of his bones, and makes the proudly guarded chambers of his heart start to ache.

“something ugly” again, desire, made explicit in the following paragraph

not sure why i’m always so obsessed w/describing thoughts/emotions/desires as being threaded through characters’ skin and bones. probably bc i like the idea of something thin passing through a sensitive area, and no matter how delicate it may be, you cannot ignore the way it runs through the deepest, most vulnerable parts of you.

“the marrowed hollows of his bones” is meant to be a reference to the fact that xiao’s original form was a bird, and, at least in my mind, something he can never be again. bc, like, y'know, birds have hollow bones, and i’m under the Impression that that means they don’t have bone marrow in them, and i’m trying to read through the wikipedia pages on bone marrow and bird anatomy rn to figure out if this is true. (cannot find a source on this) SO ANYWAY, basically, the intended meaning behind “the marrowed hollows of his bones” is that he’s become undeniably and irreversibly human because of his desires. i also tend to associate the bone marrow with deep-rooted yearning, so like, that goes into that cocktail too.

“the proudly guarded chambers of his heart” i just really really love the assonance of “proudly guarded heart”. the heart is also nestled inside the ribcage, which is nestled inside your chest, but in choosing the chambers of the heart, that’s nestling the desire one layer deeper, one layer further from sight, and that is why i chose to describe it as the chambers of his heart.

( Desire, he knows, is not something he should have. The hearts of the adepti should be as clear and empty as the pure skies that rule the lands from above. Desires speak of a soul unfulfilled, of a heart left needing, but Xiao still remembers every stolen dream that slid down his throat. He knows there should be no space left inside him to want so selfishly.)

i talked abt this one in a reply to a comment: the “clear and empty” as well as “pure” refer to 空, which generally means “empty”. during the 2.8 summer islands event, i believe kazuha used that word when talking about how “a clear heart is still an empty heart”. 空 is also used in 天空 ([pure/empty/clear] sky), which is where celestia gets its name in cn (天空島, sky island), which is why the “pure skies” get referenced as ruling over the lands. (that line is also a reference to the chinese phrase 'the heaven covers and the earth bears’ but that is neither here nor there.)

all this just to say that since the liyue adepti are considered to basically be tiny gods on earth, they carry with them the expectations to be as unattached to the earth as the gods up in celestia; in order for them to be to be “good” or “righteous”, their hearts must be empty. they must want for nothing, for they need nothing from this earth. when moving along this train of thought, “desires speak of a soul unfulfilled, of a heart left needing” feels like a very natural conclusion to that thought.

((Still, he is left wishing he knew how to control his own disobedient heart.))

we all know what this means right, that he wants to say yes to venti, even though he knows that by admitting he has desires, it would basically be akin to admitting that he is not the adeptus he is expected to be [by his god rex lapis].

He looks away, unable to bear this kind of kindness when his work is still so far from over.

“kindness” was actually changed to “grace” in an intermediate draft, then changed back to “kindness” at the last second bc in using “grace”, it led them to a conversation abt the difference btwn grace and mercy (a difference that has been pretty strongly internalized via my Deeply Christian Upbringing™), which, as much as i love love love to always discuss, was just not taking the fic in a direction i wanted. bc the change was so last second, it’s also why i didn’t change it back to “type of kindness” rather than “kind of kindness” bc i am hideously blind sometimes.

“I have duties to attend to,” he says, and watching the newborn moon float into the starry sky, he regrets how gruff he sounds even to his own ears.

“newborn moon” to contrast with the previously “dying sun”

Venti makes an upset, disappointed sort of noise. “Always fighting,” he grumbles, distaste crinkling his nose. “Always off to war.”

Xiao gets to his feet and summons his spear, watching Venti’s reflection in it until their eyes meet.

i had SO MUCH TROUBLE with the bit where xiao watches venti’s reflection in the jade spear bc i just COULD NOT word it well. originally, xiao watches venti’s distorted reflection in the spear until he makes eye contact w/the reflection, at which point he looks away bc he doesn’t like how seen he feels. side note, but i did in fact notice how often xiao breaks eye contact in this fic, and that is bc that’s a pretty common sign of admitting subservience to the other party, an unwillingness to fight, and i like to see xiao do that bc it’s just so blatantly non-aggressive. he’s compensating for the fact that he believes himself to be a monster, something violent and aggressive by nature.

“There must be someone watching over the people,” Xiao says, casting his gaze downward. He speaks softly this time, as a proper servant should when deferring to their duty. “Peace and prosperity take hard work to maintain. Should times of crisis return to Liyue, I do not wish to leave them in harm’s way.”

this is the first time in the fic xiao admits to wanting something, anything. it must be done in the context of wanting something for the sake of liyue, for his duty, because he is not yet ready to bear the shame of the admission that he also holds selfish desires.

Venti sighs. Whether he is upset at Xiao, the late Rex Lapis, or something else entirely, Xiao cannot tell.

“You may accompany me on my patrols, if you wish,” Xiao offers, “but only if you do not get in my way. Though Liyue has not been to war in many hundreds of years, I have never once fought with mercy.”

“i have never once fought with mercy” was an interesting line to write. the most common interpretation will obviously be that he does not grant his opponents mercy when in battle, that he is a merciless fighter, but i like that it can also be interpreted as him saying he has never had to struggle w/the act of mercy, either giving or receiving it.

He does not expect Venti to follow, only to hear fading disappointment as he walks away. This is the script that has always played out between them every time they meet— that’s why they’re always brief— and for as badly as Xiao wishes it would diverge, he no longer believes it ever could. Venti is a timid god, after all; it doesn’t take much for Xiao to push him away, in the direction of something better, more deserved than this sin-soaked monster he always wants to pursue.

“for as badly as xiao wishes it would diverge, he no longer believes it ever could.” when i was in high school, i did speech competitively, and i remember one year, one person on our team had a script whose story was held around the phrase, “i would if i could, but i can’t so i don’t.” and i think abt that phrase a lot, partly bc it rolls off the tongue very easily, but also bc the story itself was ultimately abt hesitancy and holding back and regret, themes that are coincidentally pretty relevant to xiao imo.

“venti is a timid god” was also a fun line to write, bc it’s xiao thinking he knows venti on a deeper level (since obviously, he’s not timid at all, often even downright shameless, when putting up his usual facade), but in actuality simply making assumptions abt him. assumptions that are very quickly abt to be upturned.

xiao wrestling with his own humanity counter: 2

But that is not what happens. While the version of Venti inside of Xiao’s head might be meek and compliant, always defaulting in the face of others’ free choice, the Venti behind him right now laughs as Xiao starts to go, and mirthlessly so.

“Dear adeptus, have you forgotten who won the Archon War?” he asks, and a harsh wind starts to blow. “I may not have slain Decarabian with my own hand, but I would be damned if I ever let another steal Freedom’s land.”

i think a lot of people forget that even though venti won his seat as the anemo archon by default, he’s kept it for thousands of years by this point, and he never had it taken from him during the war. he’s definitely more powerful than he lets on, and has definitely done war crimes that he still hasn’t told us abt in canon.

anyway, i capitalized the f in freedom on purpose, to basically make it its own entity separate from venti. also, i almost called it freedom’s dreamland, in the kind of idyllic utopia sense of the word, but i also considered doing that bc of xiao’s association w/(eating) dreams. not sure what that would’ve added tho, which is probably why it got cut ahaha

this also marks the end of venti’s second form, that of the savior figure from dihua marsh.

The winds in Liyue, while not as sweet as the ones in Mondstadt, have never been this vicious, at least not on their own. Xiao knows how to handle them, but these winds are not his to command. Against his better judgement, he turns around.

Venti’s appearance has shifted once again. (Xiao is starting to wonder if there is a disorderly ley line nearby affecting them.) He keeps the same face, but the godly glamour is no more: His braids no longer glow with Anemo, while the cecilia pinned to his breast now rusts from its petaltips. The threadbare, bloodstained clothes are not quite ones Xiao can recognize, and neither are the jaded, stormcloud eyes now blazing straight at him.

the disorderly ley line comment is a reference to the fact that in the original pitch for this fic, the reason venti’s appearance starts shifting and reflecting his identity issues is bc he gets affected by some ley line disorder. in my heart, that’s still what happens, but since it’s not ever outright stated or confirmed in the text, it’s open to interpretation.

anyway i hope we can all see and know that this third form is that of the nameless bard– not of venti taking his form, but the memory of the mortal bard. i’ll elaborate on this more later probably.

“My warrior, you have worked without rest for so long, watching over these people of stone.” Despite the hardened appearance, the voice that comes from Venti’s throat is so fragile and cracked and terribly human.“But Xiao, even mountains are someday worn down to molehills, and you are likewise not infallible. Who will be there to catch you, should you someday fall?”

never really liked the way en translated venti’s teapot line out as “my warrior” bc like i said earlier, for some reason i’m incredibly sensitive to names, but i kept it anyway when referencing it here. the cn uses 勇者, which typically gets translated out as 'hero’, and that makes sense bc if i’m not mistaken, that’s the word jrpgs use to refer to their protagonists.

“people of stone” should be fairly obvious in the context of this being a genshin fic as referring to the people of liyue. this is a bit of a side tangent, but i never really liked how fanon has decided that “liyuen” is the best way to describe the people of liyue (i am of the opinion that it should be “liyuenese” but that is neither here nor there. (in another unnecessary opinion, i think the people from fontaine should be called “fontch”.)) bc it reads too much as like. just not what it is trying to convey. i am not articulate enough to convey my meaning further here :MonaAnguish: x38.

anyway obvious interplay btwn the hardened appearance n the fragile voice that betrays venti’s true feelings of insecurity in this form

“even mountains are someday worn down to molehills” is a pretty obvious reference to the idiom “making mountains out of molehills”, and here is used to mean “the powerful remnants of the old gods you used to fight are fading fast n are no longer as pressing a problem as they used to be.” i also used it as an acknowledgement that xiao is very much of liyue (n is therefore also a 'person of stone’), and yet, their own archon has grown exhausted from erosion and has chosen to retire accordingly.

He takes a step forward, reaching a hand out to Xiao, palm up, as if offering it up for service. “O Vigilant Yaksha, I know what it is like to carry the guilty burden of death upon one’s shoulders,” Venti says, an arduous sincerity to his words. His appearance wavers right when his touch is just shy of Xiao, as if the winds of time are pulling at his appearance, but his eyes never once falter. “You tirelessly fight for others’ protection, but when fate starts to fall, who will be protecting you?”

“as if offering it up for service” i think is a really fun thing to say here bc usually venti likes to portray himself as kind of lazy and unwilling to do hard work– the opposite of xiao– so for him to portray himself as someone willing to act is meaningful to xiao, who places a lot of value on those sorts of things.

“i know what it is like to carry the guilty burden of death upon one’s shoulders” haha i remember sitting at work n realizing this line. i think this line, taken in combination w/the way his appearance starts to waver, is a pretty clear reference to the nameless bard’s death during the archon war. this form is basically venti’s guilty conscience bc i love guilty characters. anyway, this is basically venti saying, "hey, i understand the kind of loss you’ve experienced, because i have experienced it too. i understand your grief, and i have never coped well with it alone.”

then “but when fate starts to fall, who will be protecting you?” → “i don’t want you to feel like you have to carry the burdens of your grief alone.”

“the guilty burden of death upon one’s shoulders” also refers to xiao’s karmic debt in this case. although we currently don’t know if venti canonically has done anything to protect mondstadt from the various nasty evils that plague the other nations (the withering in sumeru, the miasma in inazuma, and the remnants of old gods in liyue), i do notice that this implies that he chose to burden himself with whatever secrets mondstadt might be hiding beneath its idyllic surface. mostly, the intent is in reference to his own guilt around his friends’ deaths during the archon war, but the alternate interpretation does exist here.

the first time i heard the word “shy” used in the context of not quite touching something, being slightly less than, was when i was building something with my dad, a carpenter, growing up, and we were measuring things. i don’t know why, but i have been obsessed with things being just shy of one another ever since.

“the winds of time” we’ve all read every single in-game book multiple times by now, right? we all know how of sun and moon of the byakuyakoku collection gives us reason to believe that istaroth, the god of time, is like basically venti’s mom, right? and we know how istaroth is associated with memories and being forgotten, right, and this form is basically of venti’s memory of the nameless bard, and so the fact that the winds of time are pulling at his appearance (at his memory) is indicative of venti’s fear of forgetting his friend is pretty obvious, right? we all saw that immediately, right? ok cool.

“when fate starts to fall” is what i was talking abt earlier when i mentioned xiao’s karmic debt == his fate was gonna come back later kind of. i also like this line bc it’s very common for people to associate fate with the stars n the night sky, so this line also conjures up the image of the sky falling, of the end of the world.

in the original draft, if you could call it that bc it was more like a random dialogue scrap that was later put in, venti calls xiao “little dove”. it got cut bc i started to feel self-conscious abt all the pet names.

Venti’s fingers ghost over Xiao’s jawline; his eyes search the adeptus’s face. “Please, Xiao, won’t you let me protect you?”

there’s nothing much to say here except that this paragraph just makes me into a lunatic. the way venti is already taking on the form of a ghost. the insane amount of yearning and restraint in the way he touches xiao. the role reversal in the way he offers to protect xiao. excuse me while i scream into the void.

His hand falls away.

(Xiao wishes it would linger.)

this is the first time xiao admits to wanting something that is kind to him.

The last yaksha swallows. “Lord Barbatos,” he says, feeling too small, somehow, to use the god’s mortal name. “These sins are not yours to carry. You need not burden yourself for me.”

i’ve mentioned several times by now that i’m very sensitive to naming, and this obviously carries over into my writing. particularly, i like to use the way characters call each other to imply things abt how they view each other, what their relationship to that character is. in this case, xiao feels like he can only refer to venti as “lord barbatos” bc of what i suppose you could call self-esteem issues. in a sense, he is once again putting venti on a pedestal– “these sins are not yours to carry (because you are above such rotten work, unlike me)”

“These sins were not made by your hand, either. You need not chain yourself to them,” the God of Freedom replies.

“Perhaps,” Xiao agrees, slowly. (A touch of wind sweeps over his back, layering a dull and distant chill over the long-numb scars where his wings were once anchored.) “But there were still countless many violations performed long ago by my own unwilling hands.”

this is another moment in the fic where it’s implied that xiao cannot turn into a bird anymore, this time because his wings were cut out from the bone when he was under the control of his previous master.

i actually spent some time reading abt bird anatomy, trying to figure out if there was a word for doing that to a live bird, the same way people used to dock horse tails, but ended up not using anything i found. the way the sensation is described is meant to reflect how when you come out of a major surgery, you often have this numbness that goes away after a while, except in this case, it never fully goes away.

the wind here is, of course, venti’s doing, a gesture similar to, but not quite, a comforting physical touch, although xiao is left with this distant reminder of what happened to him long ago.

The nearby winds continue to rise. “That doesn’t make them yours, not when you lacked the freedom to choose—”

“—Yet it will never change how my hands were the ones stained in their blood when my old master was slain and my life was suddenly— violently— made my own again.”

“suddenly– violently– made my own again” is probably one of my favorite lines. of course, i like a lot of lines in my own writing; i wouldn’t publish it otherwise. when xiao’s life was not his own, when he was under the control of his previous master, he was forced to perform violence, and it is by violence that his life was returned to him. by that point, i imagine that he only really knew life to be violence, and part of choosing his contract w/rex lapis was to return to the familiarity.

“it will never change how my hands were the ones stained in their blood” is basically xiao telling venti to ignore the context that explains that he was forced to act at that time in his life, as whether they were his intentions or not are not what matters: what matters instead is that the outcome was still traumatic, and that traumatic outcome is what he feels compelled to atone for.

The surrounding tempest quells.

Xiao catches a calming breath, and when he lets go of his flash of anger, he finds only tiny, blackened worms of fear left feeding at its source. “I do not think I would have let myself live had I not accepted this duty of mine as atonement,” he confesses. “I chose to shoulder these debts by my own hand. You cannot deny me my choice.”

returning to the thing i mentioned abt how violence was what was most familiar to xiao when he was freed, and how i think that influenced his choice to make a contract w/rex lapis: months before i came up w/this fic, i was working on a diff xv fic, and i ended up musing for a bit on xiao and contracts:

“i think xiao likes contracts bc they give his life structure and direction. he came out of a very overwhelming situation when he signed his contract– how does he live with himself now that it’s in his hands? there is so much he needs to atone for– i think he might have killed himself (or at the very least let himself die) had zhongli basically not said, 'here’s what you can do to improve this shitty world you helped make.’ ”

anyway, it’s pretty clear that’s what i based xiao’s dialogue off of this time lol

Then, there is laughter, like a breathless sob. “And indeed, what a lovely thing to do with your own free will!” replies Venti, who now shakes with emotion. “To pledge one’s life to the safety of their beloved… for as annoyingly stubborn as you may be about your deliverance, I still admire such a heart.”

very fond of “laughter, like a breathless sob.” like when you’re so overwhelmed by grief that you just start laughing.

“what a lovely thing to do with your own free will!” is actually a reference to a dnd podcast i have never seen, dimension 20 a starstruck odyssey, bc one of my mutuals got drunk n blogged abt it for a night a few months ago, n i was absolutely enraptured by the quote, “i was afraid she would be disappointed in what i chose to do with my own free will.” apparently, the context is that an android who was built w/free will was afraid of meeting her own creator out of fear of disappointing her, but honestly i still find the quote enthralling w/o context. i just really like the idea of venti telling xiao that the latter’s deliberate choice to confine himself to his duty is still valid, even though it’s very unlike how venti himself prefers to conceptualize freedom, simply because xiao chose it himself.

“to pledge one’s life to the safety of their beloved” at the end of the day, mond n liyue are still dearly loved by their respective anemo boys, and i don’t want them to try to change that abt each other for the sake of a romance. venti, for all his long absences, understands xiao’s love for liyue, and he understands that xiao expresses himself through action. mostly, i think this particular line was born bc i’m grey-aro/ace, and the final chapter of the springtimes you never saw by windsgrandode lives rent-free in my mind.

i chose the word “deliverance” also very deliberately bc of its ~christian~ vibes (i should make a jingle at this rate, to spice up my jokes about my Deeply Christian Upbringing™), but i was also simultaneously banking on the hopes that most readers’ first impression upon reading “for as annoyingly stubborn as you may be about your deliverance” would be to interpret it as xiao delivering on his promises, making good on his contract. but anyway, to interpret the sentence in the christian sense of deliverance, the deliverance from sin (or perhaps in this case, his duties?), would change venti’s meaning into smth more like “even though you repeatedly refuse to seek out my aid in cleansing your karmic debts[…]”, and i like that the phrase can be interpreted either way.

(Xiao feels some part of him shy away from such brazen praise, given as if he has finished paying back all he still owes.)

in continuation of the prev notes on xiao and his contract: “and that’s why he struggles to give up his duty to this day in canon– he’s served for >2,000 years, but that’s a mere 200 lifetimes out of the presumably hundreds or even thousands more he stole. it’s not until he feels like he’s paid enough back that he can put down his spear and have his life be his own again.”

Venti’s breathing sobers, as does his gaze. “But the people have grown up, my love,” he says. “You have seen them take care of themselves in light of their bygone Archon. The shadows of old have faded greatly in the dawn of the new era— they will never weigh more than your sole mortal life again.”

really really proud of the wordplay around light going on in here: “in light of their bygone archon”, which heralds “the dawn of the new era”, which obviously forces “the shadows of old” to fade.

“[the old gods you fight] will never weigh more than your sole mortal life again” is basically just “while in the past, your death would have likely been a necessary sacrifice (bc the foes you faced were too powerful for the still fresh and vulnerable humanity to fight alone), the scales of the war have long since shifted, and your intrinsic value as a person now outweighs the benefits of sacrificing your life.”

The air upon them stills; they stand dead center to the eye of a storm.

“I don’t want you to die,” adds Venti, as his form still flickers. “Not like this, choking on these impotent, long-forgotten nightmares. Not without ever realizing your dreams.”

at first, venti not wanting xiao to die was just going to remain unspoken, but i was having trouble transitioning to the next bit, “why do you still deny yourself relief”, which was like incredibly important bc it appears in my outline as basically a pivot bit, n honestly, i’m glad i chose this method of transition, because venti so rarely talks about loss bc those experiences have always been deeply personal to him. “i don’t want you to die” is just as vulnerable a thing for venti to say, standing there in the form of his oldest friend and his first experience of agonizing loss, as it is for xiao to admit that he has a selfish desire, that he doesn’t want to die.

the old gods that form xiao’s karmic debt being akin to nightmares is in order to contrast xiao’s own [sweet] dream, yes, but in calling them long-forgotten nightmares, venti is also saying that their danger is no longer real. yes, they have plagued xiao and all of liyue for centuries, and the effects of their harm remain very real. but it’s kind of like how an especially terrible nightmare can rock a person’s sense of security long after they wake up: just because it wasn’t real doesn’t mean it didn’t mean anything. dreams n reality is actually an elaborate topic that i love to talk about, but i’m just gonna cut this annotation off here before i get out of hand w/my tangents lol.

A hand, light and breezy, caresses Xiao’s own, right above his Vision.

obvious implication being that venti knows xiao’s dearest wish because xiao has an anemo vision

(Xiao swallows something down at the fleeting touch— exactly what, he absolutely knows but dares not name.)

finally… xiao is starting to acknowledge to himself that he has Desires™

“I don’t want to die either,” he admits.

“So then why, sweet adeptus, do you still deny yourself relief?”

Xiao knows his reasons, but it is heavy, heady shame that keeps him from speaking them out loud. After all, what could he possibly say to the God of Story and Song that would adequately express the weeping tempest in his chest? He still remembers the taste of each beautiful dream he had stolen in his youth— how many hundreds of years of life were cut short because of him? Two thousand years of service hardly feels like enough recompense to earn such pretty pleasures for a karma-damned monster.

i made sure to look up the word “heady” before i used it here; it wasn’t JUST bc i liked the sound n rhythm of “heavy, heady”–! shame, like any emotion, can become like a security blanket when it’s one you’re intimately familiar with and used to feeling. intoxicating? perhaps if you fear losing it. perhaps if you think it’s what you deserve.

“beautiful dream” is the literal translation of how chinese describes what we in english call sweet dreams: 美夢. by contrast, nightmares are 惡夢, or “evil dreams”. this is also neither here nor there, but 惡 is the opposite of the word for good i mentioned a while up, 善.

xiao wrestling with his own humanity counter: 3

It truly seems as if all he can do is stare at Venti’s furrowed brow, as if the proper words will be carved into all the unfamiliar lines and scars which adorn this version of his face.

obvious bit of imagery in describing the lines n scars of venti’s face/expression as something that could possibly be read, huge fan of that. bc this form is meant to be as true to the original form of the nameless bard as possible, i imagine that stress would’ve given him early wrinkles, n that battles would have definitely scarred him. i wanted this form to feel more human, more down to earth, compared to all the others, and i find it interesting that it happened to last the longest in terms of word count.

“I do not think I deserve such grace,” he answers at last. He stares at Venti’s mouth as he says it, unable to meet the latter’s gaze for the shame of the admission.

ah yes, here we have the grace thing again! so the difference between mercy and grace, as my mother (with her bachelor’s degree in philosophy) told me when i was younger, is that mercy is forgiveness and a second chance given to someone who truly “deserves” it, who is in desperate need of such a thing– for example, when your enemies have lost their weapons and wills to fight and are groveling at your feet, allowing them to live would be to grant them your mercy.

grace, on the other hand, is that same forgiveness, that same fresh start, given to someone “undeserving” of such a thing: the reason i’ve been told as to why christianity says that god grants people grace, specifically, now is bc sin taints us permanently or whatever, and that naturally those who sin deserve to be punished rather than forgiven. (ideally, this explanation is coming off in as merely informative, but hot diggity shit lads, am i feeling that Deeply Christian Upbringing™ rn.)

now, “deservedness” is a whole other can of worms that i can and have written essays to myself about, so we are not going to talk about what it means for someone to “truly deserve” something.

anyway, there’s an obvious irony now to “i do not think i deserve such grace,” bc if it had been deserved, it would have been a mercy instead! (this is actually where they started to have the conversation abt grace vs. mercy that ended up being cut.)

i was gonna make xiao stare at the ground as he spoke, but then i was like, “nah. he’s been looking completely away from venti sooo much this entire time. let’s have him stare at some other part of venti’s face, so that he’s still avoiding eye contact, but not so pointedly.” and then chose the mouth to make that kind of obvious joke abt how he clearly wants to kiss venti, and while his self-restraint is off the charts, his subtlety is six feet under lol.

The storm around them dies down to nothing. The look on Venti’s face holds an incalculable amount of grief, while the cecilia at his breast curls in on itself. His hand trails up and up as he reaches out to Xiao, who thinks, for half a moment, that Venti will touch him again.

i chose grief as venti’s reaction here, because i mean. what’s not to mourn here? the person in front of him doesn’t want to die, knows this about themselves, and yet chooses not to be saved bc they are so convinced of their own monstrosity, and will die if venti goes with his principles on non-interference. this is the side of venti who wants so desperately to protect xiao, but if xiao’s as good as dead, then all of venti’s love will have nowhere to go!!!

if you will recall all the Flower Language I Made Up, cecilias → loneliness, unconditional love, and resilience. the cecilia at his breast withering represents his resilience failing him. and i mean, personally, i can’t blame him– resilience is notoriously difficult to maintain.

admittedly, when i wrote “[xiao] thinks, for half a moment, that venti will touch him again”, i was thinking about how i can never seem to remember the fact that the song memory comes from cats: the musical, except whenever i rewatch the sideways video essay on why the music in cats (2019) is terrible, and he talks abt the importance of the line “touch me” in that song and, like, yeah. (…i never said every single annotation will improve your view on my writing process…!)

It stops just shy of cupping Xiao’s cheek, however, as the wind pulls the last threads of his appearance away.

the winds here are meant to be the winds of time again, rather than venti’s specifically, as it was the winds of time specifically that were mentioned earlier to be pulling at his appearance. it’s also described as “threads” of his appearance bc in chinese, you would say “a thread of wind” to describe a small part of the wind, and venti is, despite his changing forms, still ultimately a being of the wind. thinking about it, maybe i should’ve said “the wind unravels the last threads of his appearance” instead to reinforce the thread imagery, but oh well.

  

  

There is a weighted emptiness where Xiao thinks his heart should be, and a sickening lightness where Xiao thinks his head should be.

obvious contrast btwn “ weighted emptiness” and “sickening lightness” and oh hey this sentence has parallel structure! man i used to use parallel structure in my writing all the time.

 

 

(Is this the moment he chases Venti away for good?)

 

 

 

 

((It is lonelier than he had expected, somehow, to open up that cage of hope and set free the little bird which had settled itself inside.))

remember how earlier i said i’ve been obsessed with the ribcage ever since i saw it described as containing the wild beast of a human heart? metaphor for love going on here! <3
(it feels like if i spell out the symbolism in exact detail, i’ll ruin the writing somehow, so i’ll leave this annotation at that)

 

 

the use of space to create literal distance between words is a… technique, i guess you could say? i picked up from a fic i read in like, 2016 or 2017. it’s another hallmark of my style, this use of space to shape the meaning of my writing. i like to use it when a character is too shocked/stunned to think, or when trying to give the impression of a camera backing away from an intimate scene– though in this fic, the former was pretty much exclusively used.

But then, the tall grass nearby stirs with the wind’s sigh.

“Lie down with me?” it asks as Anemo starts to once again coalesce, and, oh— it’s Venti.

obligatory italicized oh moment.

Hearing his voice is of little relief on its own, but to someone as quietly desperate as Xiao, a little relief feels like a whole awful lot.

reference to this tumblr post :

“in this terrifying world you continuously have the power to offer someone else a little relief . why would you withhold that. do you remember what a little relief feels like? it feels like a lot”

“All right,” the adeptus says, his shoulders slanting as he obliges. He settles down in the tall grass, surprised by how soft it feels, and stares up at the twilight sky with its silvered smatterings of tiny evening stars. Lying in the grass, Venti is hidden from his sight, but truth be told, Xiao rather prefers it this way. His heart beats more predictably when he isn’t feeling so carefully perceived.

“silvered smatterings of tiny evening stars” the letter s just means that any alliteration attempts are on easy mode lol. that said, it’s very common for me to describe the night sky as having “smatterings of” or “scattered” stars… i should probably come up with something fresh one of these days, just to spice things up.

They lie together in silence for a few minutes. Xiao doesn’t know if he’s supposed to say anything, but Venti seems to be content with just his quiet company, so Xiao simply waits. It remains unspoken between them, but somehow they both know that if Venti calls, then Xiao will answer, and that if Venti falls asleep, then Xiao will guard his dreams.

you know how sometimes, someone’s presence is calming enough in stressful situations? like neither of you even need to say anything, just sitting n being together.

(It is lucky that Liyue is quiet tonight.)

admittedly, this line was put in to acknowledge the fact that xiao is technically neglecting his duty for this, but at the same time, it is a reflection of the truth venti told him earlier, that liyue does not need xiao’s guardianship nearly as much as it used to.

“What makes you think you’re undeserving?” Venti asks after a spell.

Xiao says nothing at first. The words, as always, sit jumbled inside of his throat, but for as embarrassing as his failings always are, Venti’s sweet patience gives him the space to line up his thoughts correctly.

“I’m a weapon, not a person,” Xiao answers slowly.

xiao wrestling with his own humanity counter: 4

remember how earlier, xiao struggled to articulate his reasoning bc he felt like anything he could come up with would be inadequate for the god of story n song? similar thing happening here, when he calls his inability to express himself an embarrassing failure.

“So what?” Venti asks.

Xiao has to stop himself from stupidly repeating the question in disbelief. “Only humans are ever worth receiving grace,” he responds instead. “A weapon’s only pleasure is meant to be in death. How could something steeped in violence possibly deserve the gentle kindnesses you offer?”

xiao wrestling with his own humanity counter: 5

anyway, "a weapon's only pleasure is meant to be in death" was deliberately worded as such so that it may be interpreted both as "i'm only supposed to be killing things, and i'm supposed to enjoy that ruthlessness" and also, "the only time i'm allowed to be happy is when i'm dead."

“I don’t think you’re just a weapon. I think you’re a person.”

ooooo and here we finally have the end of the nameless bard form! despite it visually being the most human (except for, y'know, the way his image flickered in the wind), it was also meant to be the strongest show of his power as an archon. in my notes, this was also called “archon war criminal venti who, from his perspective, let his friends die/leave him”, or “war criminal” for short.

also fun fact, the next form was the first one i wrote lol.

Before Xiao can even think to reply to such an absurdity, the grass beside him rustles, and the next thing he knows, the glittering stars and night sky are blocked out by the sight of nothing but Venti, Venti, Venti.

“I think you deserve it,” Venti says, holding himself steady right above Xiao. White hood and white wings, perfect teal plaits framing pretty blue-green eyes— this is his Archon form now.

a lot of alliteration/repetition going on here! this is because i like repetition.

anyway, the first line venti says in his archon form being “i think you deserve it” is significant bc it’s basically supposed to represent divine forgiveness. if xiao’s going to insist on venti’s goodness (due to his divinity) whilst continuing to deny the good present in himself (due to his past sins), then venti’s basically like, “fine then. i, the divine being whom you consider to be good, think you, the filthy sinner, deserve kindness.” and it’s basically a checkmate.

(Xiao struggles to draw breath.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I love you,” Venti quietly says.

And he means it.

The weight of intimacy sits heavy in the air as the words shiver down Xiao’s sensitive neck, take root in the hollow bones of his spine, and make something warm bloom in the pit of his gut. He tries to look elsewhere, but when he turns his head away, his neck prickles from the way it is suddenly, terrifyingly, made vulnerable.

*stares from behind my tumblr anon logo fan* i don’t have the mental fortitude to explain myself here.

And yet, he does not teleport away, even though he knows he could. He does not silently pray for the earth to swallow him whole, even though he otherwise normally would. He remains there, caged between Venti’s arms, on purpose, because he…

another paragraph structured with “i would if i could, but i can’t so i don’t” in mind.

(Because he…?)

i didn’t notice that the way this was written made it look like venti was answering xiao’s unspoken question aloud until after i published the fic (bc the “because he…?” was added in the final edits), but honestly i’m very fond of that interpretation. the original intent was that he stayed there bc he wanted to be there, in case you were curious.

“I can make you happy,” Venti offers through the stunned silence. He idly stretches his wings after what must be centuries of disuse and blinks slowly at Xiao. “I can kiss you and love you and satisfy your hunger for touch.”

we all know what’s happening here, right? he’s offering to fuck xiao. ok cool.

And then, Venti brings his face even closer to Xiao’s. “I know you’d never ask for it yourself,” he continues, voice low and a little bit rough, like he’s confiding a dirty secret, “but I can still give it to you. Do you want me to make you happy, love? Would you like me to help you feel good?”

the original notes for this section were so embarrassing that i highlighted them the same color as the text on the notes doc so that i could pretend they were redacted.

anyway. *stacking up layers and layers of tumblr anon logo fans* calling it a “dirty” secret specifically was something that was added in the final edits. i put it in there, stared at it, and went, “okay fine. we can make it like 18% clearer that venti is speaking with sexual intent.”

Though the Archon’s wings shelter them both from the outside winds, goosebumps form on Xiao’s arms, littering every inch of his exposed skin like the stars in the sky, while his heart flutters helplessly with every subtle breath that lightly sweeps his cheeks.

The word yes sits right atop his tongue, trapped, deliberately, between his teeth, behind his fangs.

i liked the image of xiao’s consent as something purposely trapped behind his own sharp teeth. there is a deep-rooted, arguably instinctual, willingness, and yet a conscious unwillingness to be willing, and the internal conflict that ensues compels me.

There’s no one around for miles, save for the two of them. He could say it, if he wanted to.

(He really wants to.)

xiao and the gripping struggles of absolutely overwhelming mortal physical desire lol.

But it doesn’t feel right.

so FUN FACT i made some of my friends (who were once readers from prev fandoms so like, don’t worry abt me springing fandom upon unsuspecting normies i know) basically vote on whether this fic should be rated T or M based on what i’d written from “i think you deserve it” to here, bc um. Deeply Christian Upbringing™ likes to breathe down my neck sometimes lol.

anyway, they voted for T, and considering the rest of the fic yeah i think that’s fair, but every time i think of this section. i do consider that M rating.

Xiao lowers his gaze, focusing instead on the bare hollow of Venti’s throat. “I don’t know,” he says.

“bare hollow of venti’s throat” you know. like he’s gonna bite it or something.

Venti tilts his head as he hums. “Why not?” he asks.

And although he isn’t physically held down, isn’t even being touched, something about Venti’s gaze seems to pin Xiao in place anyway.

okay this is probably a good time to talk about the use of touch in this fic.

this wasn’t originally intended, but once i noticed it towards the end of the rough draft, i ended up emphasizing it in the editing: venti touches xiao less and less as the fic progresses.

at the start, when he was just the wind, he was, y'know, all clingy kissie-kissie kind of thing. obnoxiously touchy-feely. then, as the savior figure, he still touched xiao, playfully tilting his chin up, but by the time we hit the war criminal/nameless bard form, he becomes terribly restrained, barely ghosting his touch over the yearning xiao. and now, in his archon form, he never touches xiao at all.

sure, he gets close, and it’s still incredibly intimate— he's literally caging xiao in w/his arms— but venti does not initiate touch from this point forward until the fic is nearly over.

i thought this interesting during the writing process, bc pretty early on in the rough draft, i noticed that venti otherwise gets more and more assertive throughout the fic:

he goes from asking for nothing,

• waiting for xiao to notice him as the playful wind to
• offering/suggesting his abilities as the undercover archon bard to
• requesting xiao allow him to fight in his stead, relieving xiao of his duties, as the battle-hardened nameless bard to
• asserting his thoughts clearly and outright with "i think you deserve it", offering himself again and pushing a little when refused in his archon form to
• regretting his actions and despairing his efforts when reverting to his true form as a wind sprite.

i found this progression and contrast fascinating as i was writing/editing, watching as desperation made venti more and more unlike himself, like he's falling apart or something.

Because you deserve better, he thinks. Because a god like you shouldn’t be wanting a bloodstained weapon like me.

xiao wrestling with his own humanity counter: 6

originally, xiao's thoughts were just "bc you deserve better" n then "bc a god like you shouldn't be wanting a boodstained weapon like me. a weapon's only pleasure is meant to be in death." came after. i then moved "a weapon's only pleasure is meant to be in death" up to right before venti's form shifts during edits bc i wasn't rlly sure if i liked having it here.

anyway, this is the only time we hear xiao's thoughts inside his head. there was originally like one other place where his thoughts are written out, but then i decided to cut them out so that this moment, when he thinks "you deserve better" outright, was Special as like, a turning point or something.

But at this point, considering their positions alongside everything that’s been said, even Xiao isn’t stupid enough to think that’s an excuse. Venti is willing to have him; Xiao cannot change that. Even if he personally thinks the god could do better than himself, what a person wants is not always what they deserve, for better or for worse.

so as you may have noticed, i have a really hard time being straightforward abt like. situations that are very romantically or sexually charged. (or at least feel that way to me lol) so i often feel that what ends up on the publishing page can be very… obfuscated? sidestepped? merely implied in extremely victorian terms. but anyway, obviously, the intended image here is that it looks like they're abt to fuck. it all comes down to the consent, and from there, it's this discussion of willingness and deservedness and how they interact.

i've spent a lot of time in the past overthinking whether or not people deserved the things that came their way and where faults would lay if it was something undeserved. in doing so, i have come to the conclusion that "deservedness" is pretty bullshit after an event is over, because there is no longer anything we can do to change the fact that it happened, but there is still everything we can do to better live with its outcome. of course, "deservedness" is still something that makes sense to consider when in the thick of things, assuming we had solid answers as to what makes a person "deserving" of anything.

however, as stated, "what a person wants is not always what they deserve, for better or for worse: this relates back to xiao's character arc throughout the fic, as he comes to accept the idea that he is not innately undeserving of love and kindness. what a person wants is often tied to what they think they deserve, and xiao thinking himself undeserving of venti n release from his duty leaves him consciously wanting to deny himself → deliberately choosing not to accept venti's offers.

however, the line "what a person wants is not aways what they deserve" as used in the context of xiao's thoughts is him acquiescing to the fact that he can no longer lie to himself and believe that venti can be pushed away, leaving himself in a state of tortured heartbreak (as he thinks he deserves) for the rest of time. he is accepting the futility of thinking abt deservedness and now finally, finally moving forward and facing his own desires square on.

No; the question suffocating in the air between them now is entirely about whether Xiao wants to be willing in turn.

"suffocating" was chosen bc well.

1. they're both anemo, so it's always fun to use words pertaining to the air and breathing with them.
2. it's not all that uncommon to describe tension as suffocating in writing anyway, but you know how often times, hesitancy to answer is taken for a negative?

the question suffocates between them because the longer xiao waits to respond, the more and more likely the answer will be taken as "no", but he wants to say yes . the word "yes" is still living in his mouth, trapped behind his teeth, but if he doesn't relieve the pressure, there will be nothing left to affirm.

(It is not as complicated a question as Xiao makes it in his heart. He wants this, to be loved and touched and left feeling like he is enough for what little he is actually worth— and so, he should be willing just because of that, right?)

((It’s not even about the pleasure being offered to him, not really. He only wishes he didn’t want so terribly, because perhaps if he wanted Venti a little less, it would be a little easier to deny them both.))

"perhaps if he wanted venti a little less, it would be a little easier to deny them both" was written with "if i loved you less, i might be able to talk about it more" from jane austen's emma in mind.

It is not like the God of Freedom to keep people caged in his arms for this long, however. Xiao knows this. Venti hasn’t been like himself this entire time.

in the original pitch, xiao was actually going to be pinned down by venti this entire time, but then i liked the word "cage" a lot more bc of how unlike venti that would be.

as mentioned earlier, i'd originally wanted to make it pretty clear in the fic that venti was basically being affected by a ley line disorder, which exacerbates his identity issues n causes him to essentially shift btwn these different forms n aspects of his personality. but, since i wasn't sure entirely how to integrate that (bc i'm not sure how easily xiao would be able to figure that out lol), i end up just acknowledging that this is odd behavior a few times.

“You are not the Venti I know,” he breathes.

And then suddenly, that overwhelming sense of proximity vanishes.

(not sure how clear it is here, but the intention here is that venti basically sits up, making it so that their faces are no longer so close; they lose that sense of intimacy in exchange for faraway vulnerability.)

“Do I have to be the Venti you know?”

i know i mentioned in the original a/n that this fic came about bc i was thinking abt the seventh episode of flip flappers again, and i think it's kind of funny that i don't even mention flifla in the annotations until now, but anyway.

so flip flappers is, underneath its magical girl anime trappings, a queer coming-of-age story abt a 14/15 year-old girl named cocona realizing that she's a lesbian, and in the seventh episode, she loses track of her love interest, papika, in the magical fantasy mindscape and ends up coming across several different versions of papika, which each fall into a different yuri love interest archetype, apparently, to kind of gauge her interest in/feelings for each one.

cocona meets the final version of papika in a hotel at night, dressed in a nightgown, and they have the following conversation:

(papika in italics, cocona in bold)

• "is change really that bad? no matter how much you change, i'll always love you. what about you?"
• "do i love you? i don't know."
• "why not?"
• "because you are not the papika i know."
• "do i have to be the papika you know?"

and then cocona also changes into a nightgown n they lie down in bed together n talk a bit more, but you see where this bit comes from now, right?

Xiao looks up at the Archon’s face again and finds it knitted with some sort of fear.

He doesn’t know what to say. So instead, he puts a cautious hand on Venti’s chest and gently pushes him off, then sits himself up properly.

xiao taking initiative to touch venti for the first time. it's also xiao taking initiative to put them on the same level again, face-to-face as equals rather than underneath venti

Venti looks a lot smaller now, just sitting in front of Xiao with a hurt expression etched onto his face. “You don’t want me,” he brokenly realizes, his pristine wings falling until they settle in the dirt.

there's not rlly much to say here, but the image of venti saying, "you don't want me" like he's abt to fall apart is probably one of my favorites in the fic.

Xiao, who had just been able to breathe easily again, freezes once more. He opens his mouth to deny Venti’s words, but chokes on his own instead.

at first, i'd written xiao's exact thoughts here— "no! i do. i promise i do. i want you. please don't leave me." —but they read as ooc to me, even though they were important as xiao's first admission to himself of wanting venti specifically. so they got cut, n "bc you deserve better than me" was turned into the only time we get to read xiao's thoughts.

(There is a cavern of desire that has spent the last few centuries carving itself into his chest, longing only for that bard in the marsh to want him back.)

this was originally put right after "[xiao] doesn't know what to say" but got moved here to portray the same thoughts and feelings mentioned above that got cut. also, i chose the word "carving" here bc not only does it alliterate w/"cavern" but that's like. how caves are made. they're eroded slowly through time until suddenly, they threaten to swallow you whole.

“I can’t say I don’t understand why, though,” the god sighs, getting smaller and smaller as he speaks. Either he doesn’t know how desperately Xiao is trying to talk, or he doesn’t think the adeptus is saying anything to disagree. “There must be something there to love before you can love it.”

"there must be something there to love before you can love it" identity issues but said out loud this time! but also, people don't usually think of the thin air as being "something": it is overlooked bc we are immersed in it at all times. it makes for kind of a fun parallel btwn xiao n venti in that deep down inside, neither of them think they are worth the love they desperately want to receive.

this also marks the end of venti's archon form in the fic! as i mentioned earlier, it's the form i wrote first bc it tied directly in w/an image from flip flappers. the tension, while pretty mortifying to write, is just something i find very compelling to explore, although i can't always manage to put to words why. this is meant to be a part of venti who desperately wants xiao to be happy bc he loves xiao and thinks it cruel or unfair that xiao leads a life of suffering w/o reprieve. venti was taught the love of freedom by rebels; i don't think he's the type to stand idly by when faced with situations he feels passionately about. but again, he was taught by rebels— he would never push his final word onto anyone unwilling, especially when he holds power over them.

but it is still hard to watch someone you love deny themselves the way xiao does, which is part of why i picked venti's archon form for this scene: beyond its thirsty design lending itself to everything that just happened (lol), it's also the form i imagine he hates to take on the most, as it is a show of his authority as an archon, and only uses it as a last resort. it is also the form xiao would likely submit to most easily, giving him the easiest excuse to relinquish accountability should the guilt of giving in to pleasure come for him: a god asked him to do it.

anyway, i think it's important that they didn't fuck here, bc if they had, then even tho xiao's character arc abt letting himself have nice things would be fulfilled, we still wouldn't have settled venti's identity issues.

Realizing that his words are not going to work with him at the moment, Xiao decides to ditch them. Instead, he desperately reaches out to Venti’s shrinking form, but rather than grabbing onto a shoulder or an arm, Xiao finds a tiny, little wind sprite cupped in both of his gloved hands. It trembles like a leaf in the autumn wind— fitting, perhaps, for such a sprite, if that fact did not already panic Xiao out of his mind trying to correct his mistakes.

"xiao decides to ditch [his words]" bc at the end of the day, he's better with actions. he's been struggling w/expressing himself verbally this entire fic, n he's not gonna magically learn to talk here when it counts.

i actually also always forget that xiao wears gloves, so often times in my drafts, the xiao in my imagination is handling things with his bare hands (having very regency romance era moments wherein xv hands barely touch n stuff lol) n then i open up the game n i'm unable to look him in the eye anymore, so i look at his hands and go, "hang on a second. THIS BITCH WEARS GLOVES. GODDAMN IT."

"trying to correct his mistakes" now, i don't think that venti's identity issues rearing up n becoming a problem in this fic is xiao's fault. how could it be?? but xiao thinks it's his fault, and the fic is told from his pov. i'm not even sure what his mistakes would even be, but i guess xiao is used to correcting for others' problems and treating them like his own (see: his entire duty), so in this situation where he's trying desperately to fix smth wrong, it makes sense that he calls it "correcting his mistakes."

“The Venti you knew doesn’t exist,” the wind sprite continues to explain. “He never did. In truth, I’m just a single thread of the Thousand Winds, filling up whatever space I’m given.

"i'm just a single thread of the thousand winds, filling up whatever space i'm given." is a line that came first from the fact that that's literally just what gases do (otherwise you have a vacuum), but i like it a lot in general bc of the way venti took on the shape of the nameless bard as his way of honoring the bard's memory (and likely thinking him much more deserving of the seat in celestia than himself).

it's also reflective of his identity issues n feeling like he doesn't have one of his own: he simply shapes his personality into whatever facade is convenient for the situation and will have people asking him the least amt of uncomfortable questions.

“I’m sorry I can’t protect you, or take away your burdens, or release you from your duty, or even make you happy. I’m not a lot of things I think you deserve from someone who loves you, but I thought that maybe, I…”

Venti the wind sprite trails off, leaving only silence between them.

in a different draft, i let him say, "i thought that maybe i could accept being needed in place of being wanted by you" or something, but i cut it bc that's getting a bit too close to trying to get an A grade in therapy for my tastes.

Xiao holds his breath, afraid that if he doesn’t, his very heart will disintegrate into thin air.

“…I don’t know what came over me today,” Venti mutters, darkly shaking out his little head. “Sorry for forcing you to put up with my pathetic whining all night; I’ll just head back to Mondstadt now—”

"sorry for forcing you to put up w/my pathetic whining" i chose the word "forcing" here bc of how strong it is, and for how much regret it conveys for venti as a result.

"pathetic" also adds to the self-deprecation going on here, but i also chose it bc when i was in high school learning abt that damned ethos-pathos-logos triangle of rhetoric in english class, my teacher's mnemonic for pathos's appeal to emotions being the word "pathetic". choosing the word "pathetic" here thus gave me the vibe of venti calling himself manipulative and regretting it.

Xiao suddenly seizes up, clutching his hands— clutching Venti— close to his chest.

“Wait!” he gasps, and Venti stills in his hands, as if he is the frightened animal in this situation. Xiao feels his face start to flush at his own sudden outburst.

"as if he is the frightened animal in this situation" → xiao admitting that he is afraid and acting not out of reason, but out of emotion, and that he doesn't want to lose venti.

“Wait,” he repeats, more softly, more patiently this time. “Please.”

Venti starts to shake again, and Xiao fears he’s made the tiny Anemo Archon feel trapped or forced down by his words.

And then, Venti starts to laugh, genuinely laugh, this time.

as compared to the mirthless laughter of his transformation into the nameless bard form

“What is it, Xiao?” he asks, almost teasingly. (The laughter is starting to look more like a pathetic attempt to cover his own cracking feelings.) “Did you want something?”

okay the pathetic in this situation is actually meant to just be pathetic ignore the annotation like two paragraphs above here.

The heat in Xiao’s cheeks grows ever-more fervent. For as often as he has said, “Adepti have no desires,” he has lied about it every single time.

xiao blushed more in the rough draft, but then i decided i was making him too… not whatever blank-faced old man he is in canon, so i cut back. i just think it's fun to embarrass him <3

anyway, "for as often as he has said, '[…]' he has lied abt it every single time" is another one of my favorite lines bc of how much of an obvious liar xiao is every time he says, "adepti have no desires" in canon. like we KNOW you have desires, xiao, we can SEE the vision in your glove!!! methinks the lady doth protest too much!!!!!!!!! and now he's finally admitting this to himself and letting himself want something…!!! very exciting.

“I do,” he replies— and for once, admitting such does not feel like he is dragging something rotten and dying from his throat. His hands lower onto his lap as he speaks, like he is preparing to let a fledgling bird leave the nest for the final time. “I want you to stay.”

"dragging something rotten and dying from his throat" again i am obsessed w/using the imagery of death n disgust to describe how it feels to do something.

i also described his admission of desire as normally feeling "rotten and dying" bc i wanted it to sound kind of similar to how he literally chokes on karmic debt from time to time. he has since forgiven himself, however, similar to how venti's music basically forgave his karmic debts. they do say that forgiveness is divine (i think. never have been able to find a source on that one), and i think there's something nice abt xiao learning to forgive himself from an archon.

"like he is preparing to let a fledgling bird leave the nest for the final time" → returning to the bird metaphor from way way up earlier w/the cage n hope n stuff, this is basically xiao making it known that he's willing to let venti go if that's what he wants to do. he's returning the favor of free choice to venti, showing he's willing to give up on his feelings for venti, if he's really crossed into the point of no return.

Venti says nothing, sitting tight in Xiao’s open palms.

i like the contrast btwn the tiny, airy wind sprite sitting tight inside deliberately open palms. like he could fly away, but he stubbornly chooses not to.

“I don’t care about what you can offer me,” Xiao continues, once it seems clear that Venti has deliberately chosen not to fly away just yet. “It doesn’t matter to me if you are one of the Seven Archons of Teyvat or a single thread out of the Thousand Winds. You are still the one who saved me with your music, and I… although at first I will admit I only cared for you so much as I felt indebted to your grace, at some point, that changed.”

Xiao swallows. He does not remember the last time he prepared to voice his own desires so plainly, but somehow, this feels like the only way to fix things. It does not matter, however, not really— for the first time in forever, he is ready to do so entirely willingly.

admittedly i added that last line in bc i didn't want to make it seem like xiao felt like he was forcing himself to confess just for the sake of not losing venti.

“I love you,” he says.

The air is deathly still, but it clings to the echoes of his confession all the same. Xiao wishes he could carry the weight of the sky upon his back, the way he’s taken on every burden he’s met since the end of his wicked youth, if only it meant the heavens would stop bearing down upon Venti as it seems to at this moment. He hopes he’s not too much for the flighty god.

association of venti w/the wind and air to imply his reaction in "the air is deathly still […]"

"weight of the sky" sky again here i wrote w/the association to celestia/天空 in mind → implies xiao's willingness to fight literal the literal heavens for the sake of venti lol. also idk if i've ever made it clear, but i'm on the side that thinks celestia is up to no good and also #fuckcelestia

"the way he's taken on every burden he's met since the end of his wicked youth" → referencing his duty after zhongli rescued him

(He thinks he’s being too much.)

"he hopes he's not being too much. / (he thinks he's being too much.)" was a line i wrote on the ride to work.

anyway, this marks the end of venti's final… nonstandard??? form!! i just noticed that the pet names cease in this form bc the featured facet of venti is no longer trying to essentially convince xiao to care abt him, maybe even fall in love w/him. he thinks he has failed to capture xiao's heart, so he denies himself the chances to express his love for xiao through his words bc he thinks he doesn't have the right to do that anymore.

Then, the gentle breeze picks up again, sweeping circles around them both and swirling rings around the sprite held in Xiao’s hands. As the wind grows stronger, it starts to glow the pale green-blue of Anemo, and Xiao has to shut his eyes while the rising storm comes to a head and powerful gales buffet him from all around.

And then, soft arms come to rest on Xiao’s shoulders. A familiar face, wet with tears, buries itself into the crook of his neck, and on his lap sits a light, comforting weight.

venti has to be as light as air, naturally. i know xiao is obviously strong as hell, but how else is he supposed to be able to princess carry venti long distances if venti is not light as a feather?? also fun fact, this moment was originally (flippantly) described as "a magical transformation of anemo glitter and wind"

“Do you mean it?” Venti— not the savior, not the Archon, not the meddlesome breeze, but merely the simple, free-spirited bard from Mondstadt— asks as he quietly weeps.

The question makes Xiao’s chest ache, because how can he not? while he has never known much of love outside of pure devotion, he is willing to take on a lover’s oath if it means he can prove his sincerity to the bard in his arms. And with so much of his life having been defined through the binding vows of stone contracts, he knows that his loyalty is not something to be given lightly.

AAAA­­AAAA­AAAA­AAAA­AAAA­AAAA­AAAA­AAAA­AAAA­AA i love this paragraph a lot

you know how sometimes, someone asks you a question and it's almost painful to hear bc of how obvious the answer is and how passionate you are abt it? "do you mean it?" HOW CAN XIAO NOT??? truly, how can he not!!! xiao is not in the business of lying to people about his feelings on purpose— denying them, yes, because he is also denying himself— but xiao is not typically in the business of lying about anything. esp at a time like this where he is also letting himself be vulnerable for the first time through allowing himself to want w/o punishment or strings attached.

"he has never known much of love outside devotion" is basically a reference to his contract and the love a subject pays to their lord. interestingly, i was reading a book abt chinese symbols a while back, n it mentioned that there is a parallel that can be drawn from father and son to emperor and subject, which i found to feel quite true in my heart. i think that parallel is a huge part of why zhongli-xiao dynamic feels simultaneously very lord/servant and yet also father/son.

"but he is willing to take on a lover's oath" i GASPED out loud when i thought of this line, n i specifically sought out the lover's oath ost to play on loop whilst writing this part lol. i like the idea of there being a specific "lover's oath" in liyue bc of it now. i also waffled btwn several variations of this line: " make a lover's oath" vs. "take on the lover's oath" vs. " make the lover's oath" sort of thing.

"make" alone seems to imply he'd just be making it up, which xiao is not all that great at, while replacing "a" for "the" in both versions implies more strongly that this is a particular oath you can recite, like a popular wedding vow or something. in the end, i chose "take on a lover's oath" bc "take on" feels like it carries w/it the connotations of a burden, and the sheer weight of one's own sincere meaning can certainly seem like you're placing a burden on someone under the wrong circumstances; and i didn't want to like, imply that this was an oath that already existed. for some reason.

anyway, his life being defined through contracts is just a reference to the way zhongli rescued him from his time underneath the prev master/evil god.

But just because fear no longer cages his heart in, it doesn’t mean that speaking is suddenly, miraculously, made easy. The proper words sit heavy inside of Xiao’s chest, and he dares not even open his mouth yet to make them real, lest the awkward noises he knows he will make in the meantime are mistaken for denial.

"just bc fear no longer cages his heart in" aww yeah more ribcage-birdcage comparisonsssss… just realized that there's like, at least four of them in the fic now lol.

anyway, if i let xiao be too eloquent, it will no longer sound quite like xiao and sound more like someone trying to get an A in therapy and emotional intelligence.

Venti does not stop crying, however. Xiao has not had to comfort anyone in many, many years: He does not know what to do with his hands in these sorts of situations. As Venti clings tighter to the back of his shirt, Xiao’s hands end up hovering just shy of the corset lacing that trails down the bard’s backside, right underneath his cape.

Xiao knows he is not the only one left terrifyingly vulnerable by this lovely mess he’s made himself, so with a soft sigh to banish his hesitance, he carefully settles his hands on Venti and simply holds him.

originally, the fic was supposed to end w/xiao, still hesitant to make himself vulnerable in front of the real venti, just slowly, delicately coming to hold venti as if he were spun from glass n saying yes. i'm still a bit sad i didn't get to use the whole spun from glass thing, since i think it's lovely imagery.

“I do,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to waste your time trying to be anyone, anything else for me.”

this was around the point in the rough draft where i stopped writing the end bc i hadn't written the beginning yet n i was having trouble wrapping it up lol. even now, the rough draft doesn't really have a solid ending, just brackets that go "and then smth abt how venti will never have to hide away parts of himself in order to fit what it is xiao loves abt him or w/e ever again. n then they start making out again bc they are obnoxious the end."

xiao also said "all i want is you" and "i care abt you just as you are" in the rough draft, right after "i do", but i cut it bc i just didn't like the way it sounded. it felt kinda stiff and overall too direct abt his feeling for xiao.

"you don't have to [be] anyone, anything else" felt like a very familiar phrase to me when i was writing it, so i looked through my ao3 history n realized i'd read a xv series titled i could have been anyone, anyone else , and the title had simply stuck w/me, heh.

Venti clings tighter and bawls.

Xiao closes his eyes and rests his cheek on Venti’s hair. The action pushes Venti’s hat off his head, but neither of them can bring themselves to care. He has nothing left to say, but it seems that his presence alone is comfort enough.

Eventually, Venti stirs in Xiao’s arms. He unburies his face from the hollow of Xiao’s neck and faces the adeptus properly.

Xiao watches Venti as the latter’s eyes search his face for something, expression softening when he apparently finds it.

“Oh,” venti sighs, and trails his hands up Xiao’s back until he cups Xiao’s warm face in his hands. “How nice it is to be selfish for once, isn’t it, love?”

second obligatory italicized "oh"

also there's smth abt the whole, "trailing his hands up until he cups xiao's face in his hands" bit that just feels so… "can you people please get a room?"

(It is.)

Xiao nods.

Venti finally smiles, like the light of the bright full moon after a long storm at sea. “You should give in to your desires more often, then,” he says, pressing their foreheads together.

"like the light of the bright full moon" so like, y'know how venti got compared to the sun a couple times towards the start of the fic? i've seen people call xv a kind of sun/moon dynamic (or maybe that was just me when i first entered genshin, fresh out of the [redacted] fandom where the very popular [also redacted] pairing was very big on its sun/moon dynamic, and they reminded me a bit of xv), but that has never really felt right to me when describing xv. instead, if we must use celestial bodies to describe their dynamic (which we must, bc the night sky is SO romanticizable), i'd actually argue they're both like the moon.

where venti reflects something brighter, "more real" than himself (and is thus similar to the bright full moon), xiao's life revolves around something greater than himself (his duty) and hides in the shadows like the new moon. by arguing that both are like the moon, one argues that xv are much more similar than they may appear at first glance, though they are still as complimentary as the sun and moon.

"you should give in to your desires more often" can you people please get a room. i know you're alone but there are bugs outside.

Xiao doesn’t remember the last time he felt his heart beating so vividly inside of his chest, but it is lovely, he finds, to feel like some long-forgotten part of him is coming alive again— like he is allowed to come alive again.

"vividly" was chosen bc it shares the same root as "vivacious" ("lively"), but i wanted it to have the heightened senses of "vivid" to it. these connections also tie into the "coming alive again" thing.

speaking of the coming alive again thing, i'm actually incredibly fond of romanticizing the feelings of spring and renewal and coming alive again. i just think that the moment a character realizes that being alive is itself a beautiful thing is, like, the bees knees.

(He never wants to starve in self-denial ever again.)

(//heaves a dreamy sigh) isn't it so nice to be satisfied? no more romanticizing withering away bc of your passions!!!!! it is time to romanticize choosing to live out of love for one's self and the world!!!!!!!!!

Xiao closes the gap between them, kissing Venti.

“You should be yourself more often,” he murmurs afterward, as his hand finds its way upwards, fingers tangling in Venti’s hair.

Venti, already slightly flushed from the surprise kiss, reddens further; a strange, shocked sort of sound falls from his mouth as he gapes at Xiao like a tiny baby bird.

realizing now that venti is associated w/birds a lot more than i realized in this fic. but anyway, the gaping like a baby bird thing is actually taken from the basic eight by david handler (aka the guy who wrote a series of unfortunate events).

i read it a while ago bc asoue's writing style stood out to me a lot growing up, and i copied down a lot of lines that stood out to me while reading. among them was of a moment when the protagonist was rendered speechless, and she describes herself as gaping like a hungry baby bird, and as she loses her ability to speak (from shock) several more times during that conversation, the baby bird gets hungrier and hungrier and like.

that passage stood out to me not only for how it was written, but also bc i couldn't believe i'd never realized how good of a comparison the baby bird was for someone rendered speechless. i often hear abt character gaping like fish, but never starving like birds, n i'm simply enthralled by that.

“Perhaps I should be!” he declares, flippantly at first. Then, as Xiao holds him a little closer, the facetious mask falls away, and he leans into the touch. “I think I will be, actually.”

mask was called a mask bc of xiao's association w/masks specifically. except this time it's venti being true to himself too. hell yeah

And the kiss he gives back to Xiao is all the more earnestly reassuring for it.

the reassurance comes in part bc of the very pivotal "you are not the venti i know" bit from earlier. xiao knows that this is the true venti now, the venti he wants, who loves him n whom he loves in turn.