The face in the moon reflects over the ocean as Venti plays a lullaby with his lyre for the paintings on the wall. All of Mondstadt, himself included, dreams so quietly since he stopped keeping the light.

He wonders how much longer their memories of him will keep, now that the lighthouse sleeps over the sea.

Still, he misses when Vennessa—

Venti’s breath catches in his throat when he senses Xiao’s return.

Something’s wrong.

Without a second thought, he lays down his instrument and sprints towards the entrance point. He knows it hasn’t been that long in the grand scheme of things— what’s a couple years to a pair of immortals? They have the time to spare— but it’s such a worry just how hurried that silly Yaksha can sometimes be to die.

Well, not on Venti’s time.

Although the deepest black of night has passed outside, the palest morning light still lies beneath the ocean horizon: the fading starlight is all he has to illuminate his footfalls, swift as swallows taking flight, along their path through the warp and weave of his eternal lighthouse dream.

Please be all right, he hopes with all his might. He must be, surely, for the Reverend Mother’s dawn-light prayer begins to echo through his panicked head— the sun must be soon to rise. There’s not a nightmare in Liyue which can survive its light.

Yet, like a canary lost to the coal mines, his hope fails to sing as he bursts through the final set of doors and finds the Eastern ballroom entombed in foul stench. “Xiao!”

His chest seems to ache with the bleeding of his own heart at the sight of the poor creature, caught in the clutches of the thickest shroud of darkness and half-collapsed from the weight of sin surrounding him. There’s no time to get his lyre, or to find his flute, or to pick any other instrument, so he’ll simply have to make do and—

“You wait, little bird, in a gilded cage,
“for a gentle breeze to glide on…”

—sing.

“Your song, little bird, may have failed on stage,
“but the skies have held the lights on.”

The choking darkness begins to fade. Carefully as he can, Venti approaches the despairing beast, relief cradling his lungs when he sees the line between monster and man form along the edges of a mask. Xiao draws an audibly ragged breath, and Venti draws life from the cleansing air:

“You know, little bird, that your tattered wings
“are nothing to be ashamed of.”

He catches Xiao from behind as he haphazardly falls, the stress evidently no longer able to keep him standing, and searches his neck for a pulse, sinking slowly to the floor so as to hold Xiao on his lap.

“Please, wake up,” Venti whispers, for fear that any louder might crack his voice into a sob.

(The common people begin to breathe their morning commune into his ears, an ancient hymn which plays a little differently each time: Please, Lord, give me wisdom, give me strength, give me hope, give me peace; make me clean…)

He finds Xiao’s heartbeat just as the morning light slips and falls through the lattice window panes and onto their hidden cage. Xiao coughs wetly, then he stirs. Venti pulls his hand away.

“Xiao!!” he cries, finally letting his heart rise, and something flutters against his throat at how easily, how obviously, his voice draws Xiao’s attention.

The wooden mask, of course, reveals nothing, but the quietly avoidant gaze beneath speaks volumes in its shame.

“Apologies,” Xiao hoarsely murmurs. “You shouldn’t spend your precious dream saving a demonic wretch like me.”

Venti feels the same blood and grime grating at his own throat. He cards his fingers through Xiao’s matted hair. “Is this duty truly what old Morax ordered of you?”

Xiao pushes Venti’s touch away and teleports, albeit reappearing not at all far away— he kneels just outside the morning light. “My Lord would never write a contract which was not fair.”

(Please, Lord, grant me mercy, grant me truth, grant me goodness, grant me faith; lead me not astray…)

Every memory that which wind has gathered through the centuries as it threaded through the mountain passes whispers, that is so. Venti ignores them all. “You nearly died again.”

The instant Xiao draws breath, Venti hears it catch inside his throat. The yaksha looks away. “Then that is what is deserved,” he murmurs.

Then why come here? Venti wonders. “Don’t give me that,” he chides. “I missed you, same as always.”

Xiao casts his doubtful gaze upon Venti.

Venti has never asked for anyone to have faith in him before— never will, for as long as that throne of Heaven holds high in the sky— but sometimes, he still wishes. “What happened to you?”

There is silence for all the moments it takes for the light to crawl off of Venti’s lap. Then, Xiao says, “I sensed a darkness encroaching upon your lighthouse.”

Venti says nothing.

(I beg of thee, Lord Barbatos, master of the Four Winds…)

“I worry that my presence—” Xiao continues.

“Don’t say that.”

(…let there be light still.)

The air is sharp with the bleeding edge of tension between them.

Venti remembers he has to breathe to pass for human, and he exhales all at once. “What if you don’t make it back in time?” he pleads. “I can’t leave my dream to help you.”

“You have no duty to,” Xiao plainly states.

A cavernous ache grows within Venti’s ribcage. “Please,” he adds. “I promise you, Xiao, you will never be the reason I have nightmares.”

Amen.

He watches Xiao struggle with this for a few minutes before finally deciding to rescue him. “Xiao, your life is valuable, too.”

Shadows dance like butterfly wings as Xiao bristles, and long, dark horns form a crown and collar of thorns. “You shouldn’t care so much about me,” he snarls, canines pushing from his mouth like dandelions between stones.

The distance between them grows too much for Venti to bear. He inches his way across the floor, so as never to tower over the other man, and reaches out his hand to delicately kiss the monstrous lines carved into the mask. He watches shivers trace down Xiao’s bare neck as goosebumps flare across his skin. “But I do.”

((I could never bear to forgive myself if I were to let you die.))

(He watches as Xiao’s thin, catlike pupils blow dark and wide behind the mask, hears the hollow, echoing breeze of Xiao’s faintly staggered breathing, as humanity swiftly reclaims the battlefield of expressions on his face.)

Venti drops his hand to take one of Xiao’s into his own. “It’s not a sin to want,” he reminds Xiao, who continues to look plagued with guilt all the same. “To desire can be a beautiful thing.”

He waits for the moment Xiao pulls his hand away.

It never comes.

“I…” Xiao trails off, then looks away.

(He can tell that Xiao wants this to be an order so badly, he could die; yet, that is the sole thing Venti will not offer him.)

Feeling a little daring now, Venti draws closer, as if Xiao could feel the sincerity of the bard’s beating heart through sheer proximity alone. He quietly picks up Xiao’s other hand and keeps his gaze steady— an act which is delightfully rewarded when Xiao flicks his pretty eyes back to Venti, and they meet for a glancing moment.

But then, Xiao seems to withdraw into himself, his hands slipping out of Venti’s loose grip as he says in a low voice, “It is when it is too much. Greed is still a sin.”

The wind itself seems to sigh as the rushing tides crash to shore just outside the window. “Oh, but Xiao, you never ask for anything. How could someone like you ever want too much?”

His answer comes not in the form of words, but in that of Xiao’s burning gaze.

Venti swallows.

(He thinks of a bird, pinned to the ground between its shoulders (struggling, screaming, writhing) as its wings are tied behind its back until— CRACK!)

((There was a time when blood dripped down his spine as the gift of wings from up on high split the skin between his shoulderblades. He still feels it trailing down every now and again.))

Xiao looks away, shame hanging off his entire being like a storm cloud over the ocean. “I’ve taken too much in the past to deserve even mercy,” he murmurs.

Venti bites his lower lip. Tell me about it, he thinks, words lurking just beneath his tongue.

But does he truly dare…?

He gives Xiao back his personal space. He begins to stand, and he extends a hand to Xiao in invitation.

(Xiao looks at him as though the sun is about to set its crown upon his head, and something close to shame swirls dimly through Venti’s own veins.)

“Why don’t I finally teach you Mondstadt’s dances today?” Venti brightly asks. “I know it’s been a long delay, but life’s so short, and you’re here now! We can seize the moment, if you’ll allow~”

Xiao hesitates for a moment, and Venti reads the conflict between duty and desire as it plays out behind his eyes. Yet, like every gift he’s ever offered others, he leaves his open palm out for Xiao, just in case he chooses to stop lingering in the doorway.

Xiao sighs, but ultimately takes his hand. “All right,” he acquiesces.

Venti lets his smile bloom into something true as he pulls Xiao close and spins around.

As expected, Xiao makes for an incredibly attentive follower. He seems keenly aware of the size and position of his own body at all times, and it’s astonishing, really, to see how very exactly he moves and to experience the subtle grace he uses to shift even the slightest bit of weight. They fit together so easily, Venti even has the focus to spare on using Anemo to maintain a pair of woodwinds as their accompaniment.

“You’re a quick learner,” he notes some time later. It’s hardly mid-afternoon, and already Xiao has picked up the basics of a folk dance well enough for them to circle around the room together without stepping on any toes, even when, on a whim, Venti sprinkles in a playful handful of those pretty pivots and exciting twirls.“Perhaps I should let you lead, hmm?”

Xiao hardly reacts, that impassive mask hiding him from view. “What for?” he asks.

Venti puts on a pout and says, “Because you never know what your partner might prefer!”

He says it teasingly— really, he just wants to know if Xiao can do much more than follow— but naturally, Xiao takes him seriously. (Venti coaxes him into a spin, just to distract him.)

“Which do you prefer?” Xiao, evidently not to be deterred, asks him the moment they return to closed position.

“Me?” Venti sweeps a gust of wind beneath their feet to lighten up their steps. “I like surprises.”

For a while, the conversation ends. Swathes of sunlight drape over the dance floor from a central skylight; flotsam specks of dust catch the long, bright rays like stars in the twinkling night. A dreamy string harmony rises from the purest aether of imagination to join the melody, as clear and meandering as the creeks which feed into Cider Lake, with the wind in the lead, weaving the notes into an ambiance so carefree…

Something about Xiao’s mask grows lighter while together, they dance on the breeze. Venti studies it closely, etching each scratch and scuff in the finish into his memory, but there’s something deeper than appearances happening, he reasons. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be getting this sense of how Xiao must be feeling underneath—

Xiao lets go with one hand, and for a second, Venti thinks he’s asking to be spun— a new development in itself— but then he catches Xiao’s gaze and sees his sharp, bright eyes have become bold as brass, and suddenly, he’s not so sure anymore.

Venti readies himself for anything, and before he knows it, he feels his cape swish like a skirt as Xiao leads him into the most careful of open spins. “Oh!”

Time passes differently in dreams. Venti knows this better than perhaps any other being in Teyvat, but it still feels like pure and utter magic, the way this one unexpected turn of events seems to last forever. Each second, their every step floats farther into the sky, like the blossoms of spring.

(Venti laughs when Xiao ever-so-slightly curls his fingers into their touch at the apogee of his turn, as if the bard were at risk of simply flying away, and he delicately reaffirms his connection with Xiao in kind.)

He looks back, and his heart swells with the joy overflowing, like the sweetest of wines, at the sight of Xiao standing there with an expression of awestruck wonder all over his bare face.

It steals his very breath away, on the swiftest, most silent of wings.

((For just this moment, they are both free.))

“Oh,” Venti breathes as Xiao pulls him back from the clouds and picks him up for a lift, and he stares, still fully enthralled, at the way his own shadow eclipses the sparkling sunlight which otherwise falls upon Xiao’s dark hair.

Xiao furrows his eyebrows as he guides Venti back. “Are you… disappointed?” he tentatively asks.

“…Huh?” The sound escapes Venti’s mouth, his eyelashes still fluttering from the pleasant high of surprise, before he even notices that Xiao has relinquished the lead. Then, flustered, his heart skips half a beat— “Oh, no; not at all!” —and he breaks into a laugh, nearly tripping over his own feet as they touch solid ground again.

“You simply surprised me,” Venti says with a smile, and he watches as Xiao’s expression alights with almost a hunger of sorts, as if he were some long-starving man suddenly offered a hot meal. “Although, I will say, most people don’t like it when their partner hijacks the lead.”

Xiao looks away. “I was out of place, then.”

“Don’t be silly,” Venti tells him, and he nudges Xiao’s shoulder to mark that last dance as complete. He changes their accompanying tune to something more quiet, something slow to calm his heartbeat. “I enjoyed it.”

(He watches as Xiao’s Adam’s apple slowly bobs up and down.)

For a moment, Venti considers reaching out to tease Xiao’s bare face, pleased by his humanity; yet, he hesitates, wondering if Xiao even knows what’s going on there. If he mentions it, will it turn into another mark of shame?

“Xiao,” Venti says, and it’s so sweet, how quickly Xiao turns his full attention to him. He takes a step forward to start their next dance. “If I may ask— whyever do you always wear that mask?”

A cloud overhead closes the skylight’s sunbeam spotlight. Xiao purses his lips and seems to take a sudden interest in the wall over Venti’s shoulder; yet, his face remains bare as ever in the long, long pause which follows.

“We yaksha fight only for the safety and protection of Liyue, such that our Lord Rex Lapis’s people may prosper,” he eventually murmurs of his own accord, “unfettered by the sins which history has left pressed between the rock layers. As our battles are against evil which seek to harm humanity once more, our masks are a part of that duty, hiding the desires of those who depend on us.” There is a throatiness to his voice, as if his lungs would rather keep his breath to himself instead of pushing those words out.

Venti holds his tongue, and he guides Xiao around the dance floor.

“It is pointless for us to seek recognition for our deeds,” Xiao explains, and there is no fury, no resentment in his voice. “It would be like thanking a bow for firing its arrow, or one’s heart for simply beating.”

Their accompanying strings slowly fade away, leaving only the two woodwinds under Venti’s direct command to play their melancholy melody. He hears in the silence:

And yet…

“When our task began, there were five guardians at the forefront,” Xiao continues. “By the time I fell asleep, I was already the only one left. I was the youngest; I now hold their legacy. Despite the meaninglessness recognition should have to a yaksha, everything my elder siblings did for me after I swore fealty to Rex Lapis— all the lessons they imparted, all the kindnesses they found and shared with others, even in our dire situation… they were meaningful to me.

“It is only fair that I, the undeserving survivor, continue to fight in order to be worthy of their good. It is my duty to carry their life’s work through history so that their contributions will never be lost to the eroding sands of time.”

The song ends, and they stand together in the center of the ballroom, holding each other like statues in the silence.

And there is a hole inside of Venti’s heart, one which he never realized has always been bleeding until now, when he reaches out and finds those same fresh stains dripping over Xiao’s words. (A single lonesome wisp will always have a hard time taking part in a place where a human was always meant to start.)

((There once was a bard who rallied the wind.))

It’s such a frightening thing, to be seen— or even worse, to be understood. Venti’s first instinct in the face of fear has always been to run, and perhaps long ago, perhaps in another dream, he would, if he could. (He can’t, so he won’t, but if given the option…)

((Gave it the courage to face tyrants cold.))

The glass window panes rattle with the wind outside. Venti lowers his arms and takes both of Xiao’s hands, watching as flickers of guilt paint his face. There, underneath the half-born mask, he sees something struggling just to be: he’s somewhere between human and monster, trapped between two ugly desires.

((“For Mondstadt,” they cry; for freedom, they’ve sinned.))

“Before I was a yaksha, Liyue would suffer under my hand,” Xiao says, voice weighed heavily with the repression of regret. He pulls one gloved hand out from Venti’s gentle hold, and he curls it into a fist above his own chest, as he stares far away. “If I forget my mask, then I forget myself.”

((But “sin” is defined by the gods, they’re told.))

Venti knows this is not an argument he will easily win, not against someone as culturally stubborn as Xiao. Despite this, he asks, “May I see it?”

Xiao stares at him.

“Your mask,” Venti adds.

Drops of rain begin to tap against the windows. “It’s not your debt to forgive,” Xiao says.

“I wouldn’t dare.” I’m not your god.

Only when Xiao takes it from his face does the mask fully materialize again, and suddenly, the man looks so much… smaller, almost. So much more vulnerable, even compared to the times when it came off on its own accord. He tries to hand the wooden thing to Venti, but the bard knows what he asked for.

Venti reaches out, and he cups Xiao’s naked face in both his hands. “I don’t think that you’re unworthy of forgiveness,” he says, and the palest of blushes dusts over Xiao’s soft cheeks. “I’m sure Morax knows this, too.”

“I…”

Venti waits patiently for Xiao to formulate a reply, but it seems the yaksha is stunned beyond compare.

“Xiao,” he says, and it’s a little terrifying, how quickly Xiao turns his full attention to him. “If I may ask— whyever do you always wear that mask?”

“Every yaksha to have served under Rex Lapis has always worn a mask,” Xiao replies.

“Even amidst dreams?”

“It is part of our duty to the people of Liyue in the waking world. Why should it be any different in their dreams?”

(Because I am not of Liyue, Venti thinks but does not say.)

A bit reluctantly, Venti takes his hands off of Xiao’s face, even though he feels that much colder for it. He plans to change the subject, but then he hears the tiny, quiet truth:

“I don’t ever want to be that sort of violent beast again.”

He remembers old rumors of a goddess’s defeat, long ago in Liyue, and how Morax took in her bloodhound. Venti studies Xiao’s face, and he files them away. Now is not the time to push.

“Shall we keep dancing?” he offers instead, even as the rain picks up.

Without a word, Xiao hangs his mask by his hip, and he nods.

Yet, before they can resume, the distant roll of thunder forces ancient memories of an eternal storm through Venti’s head, and he flinches.

Lightning flashes. The Gnosis in his chest burns.

((God— safe in his tower, blind to their power.))

“I need to go do something,” Venti blurts all of a sudden, guilt twisting around in his gut.

Xiao lets him go, and Venti runs off to the lighthouse tower.

The lighthouse is just as he left it several years ago, without a speck of dust or sand, nor fallen feathers from his friends, to spoil the sterile room.

Resentment sears within his breast as he switches on its light, and just like magic, the clouds clear from the sky.

Gnosis quiet, Venti collapses.