~Chapter Two: Morning Song~
Word Count: 4,313
Venti often dreams of people.
He can’t help it. He loves them, for one thing, has loved them since he was but a single wisp in the Thousand Winds. But also— and perhaps more importantly— he misses many of them dearly. From his first friend the bard (whose face he stole) to the more recent Vennessa (whose life Celestia stole), at least in his dreams he can see them once more, if he’s lucky.
This dream has been lucky.
Still, when Venti dreams of people, they are usually people he knew well. At the very least, they are one of his own children of the wind, finding their way into his dreams through sheer power of faith and prayer. (Those ones are rare, though still quite impressive.)
It is the harsh sound of choking, as well as the way the shadows of the night seem to darken all at once, that cuts Venti’s idle flute practice short and betrays the being who enters his dream.
Sensing their presence immediately, Venti turns to look at them, clutching his flute as if a weapon. Though the nearby lighthouse provides barely enough light to see by, it takes only a single glance for him to know that this Abyss-stained, almost beastly creature who has fallen into his dream is not someone he is at all familiar with.
Shadows gather around their convulsing form, further obscuring their shape as bright, teal eyes blink open, shining like lanterns from a hollow face twisted by either agony, sin, or both. Their whole body wracks with violent shudders as if being forcibly dragged down; they snarl and writhe as darkness itself swirls around them, clawing at their throat like a mad dog trapped on a chain.
For what feels like an eternity, Venti feels trapped. It’s as if he is rooted to the spot, unable to look away as the stranger’s body seems to sharpen and crack, almost as if about to be split asunder by some great being beyond either of their comprehension.
And then, they collapse.
It’s as sudden as it is unceremonious, the way they ragdoll onto the sandy beach a mere stone’s throw away from Venti’s feet. However, though their breath still gasps and their mouth still foams, the winds begin to gather around them as if to form a tomb.
Well, that won’t do, Venti thinks, bringing his flute to his lips again on instinct. Gathering all his powers of Anemo to his side, he takes a deep breath, dispels the harsh wind, and brings the flute to his lips.
There was once a time when Venti wished he knew how to be human, when he had no hands to lend to those in need and knew nothing of what it meant to fight. He watched, sure, and he learned, too, but there’s a certain naïveté to someone who has never stood through sheer force of will alone. That’s a good thing, he now knows.
(It is impossible to forget the weight of the sky sitting dead on your head as you realize, “oh,” for the first time with gravity.)
It breaks a person. Or a thing, or a god, as he soon became. It’s not hard to blow the same winds that gave him form through his flute now that he commands them, but it’s also not hard to remember how hollow grief flowed in place of notes when the privilege of playing was first thrust upon him.
He doesn’t play like that now. It’s not a song he’s ever played before, choosing to make something up just for the occasion instead. After all, the act of creation is far more powerful than that of recital, and the darkness he seeks to banish is choking a stranger powerful enough to invade an Archon’s dream.
With the stars above as his witness, he pulls hope from the marrow of the soul to give the stranger, transforms damnation into something which could be holy, if he let it be. He’s never known quite how it works, but the song that rings from his flute swells with echoes of strength, brave like a man given grace for a second life, with the power humans taught him to hold in his heart.
The full moon had been high in the sky when Venti first came out to admire its reflection upon the sea, and now it sinks low upon the horizon as he plays for a stranger’s life. He watches the hazy black smoke billowing out of their body gradually dissipate, and as their heaving chest quells, Venti slows his desperate tempo down to a lullaby’s pace. It’s a bit late for a sweet dream now (or too early, if the redding of the dawn is any sign of the time), but what matters is that the worst has come to pass.
Are they dead? he wonders as the first rays of light touch the land. It’s been quite a while since they stopped struggling by now. In fact, they haven’t moved at all—
The stranger starts to stir, and a flock of birds dotting the sand erupts into flight.
Venti, startled, abruptly ends his piece. His chest aches at the sight of the birds flying somewhere far beyond the rising sun, a little pinhole in his heart letting longing trickle out until he hears quiet shifting and remembers the stranger in his care.
His braids whip into his face as he turns to check on them, only to laugh in relief at the sight of them standing.
“Thank Barbatos you’re alive,” he says as he settles his flute onto his lap. “There were moments I worried you wouldn’t survive.”
The stranger, a young man by the look of him, immediately stiffens: he’s not so far away that Venti cannot see the way his muscles tense through that odd back window on his shirt. (What must that be for? Venti wonders.) And, if his clothes are anything to judge by, he must be from Liyue, which only further baffles Venti. This person really has no reason to be here unless Morax sent one of his adepti after him, but as far as Venti is aware, he fell asleep within Mondstadt’s borders this time, so the old blockhead has no reason to summon him.
Before Venti can second guess whether his blockheaded neighbor might actually have reasons to contact him in his sleep, the stranger pivots around, and, oh— beneath the snarling, black, demon mask, he has the most piercing golden gaze Venti has ever met in those catlike eyes of his.
(And all he uses them for is to stare (to gawk, really!) at Venti, like he can’t quite believe his eyes.)
Well, he’s not making any move to introduce himself, Venti thinks. He crosses his legs and gives a friendly wave to break the ice.
“Quite the shy one, I see. Cat caught your tongue?” he asks, playful now that the direness has passed. The silence serves as his answer, so he dismisses his flute and shifts around to sit more comfortably. “I’m Venti the Bard, from the land the wind holds dear. I must say, however, that while I’ve met many a stranger through the years, I never expected to see someone like you here in my dreams. Might I ask what brings you here today?”
The masked stranger finally seems to regain his bearings. Briefly shaking out his head, he gruffly says: “Pardon the intrusion. I must return to my work.”
Work? How curious. Venti watches the other man turn around as if to leave. If this really is one of Liyue’s adepti, then he is going to have to have a talk with old Morax about giving his helpers time off because, honestly, to dream of work when one should be free to do as they please is unacceptable.
How irresponsible of the old man, he huffs to himself, then calls out to the stranger: “Might I ask what kind of work you are referring to?”
The stranger pauses and slowly turns to face Venti again, though the latter notices he doesn’t— even seemingly refuses to— make eye contact this time.
“I roam the Land of Dreams hunting nightmares,” the stranger answers evenly.
“Ah, a resident of the Land of Nod!” Venti muses. How very peculiar. He hadn’t known there were people living in the spaces between dreams. Though, judging by the baffled noise the stranger makes, it appears he came to the wrong conclusion. “Oh, from the outside world?”
“Liyue,” the stranger answers, looking at Venti now. There is a prolonged pause between them, during which tension winds itself taut, until the stranger decides to break it. “Adeptus Xiao, of the five foremost guardian yakshas. I… nevermind.”
Venti wonders what he had been about to say but has the tact not to ask. “Well, if nightmares are your fated foe, there’s something that you ought to know.” He gestures to the morning sun. “The light reflects the skies outside; right now is when your nightmares hide. While I agree, daydreams can be quite sublime, there won’t be nightmares worth your time.”
“My time does not matter to me,” Xiao instantly replies, crossing his arms. “What matters is that they are vanquished, and that the people are kept safe.”
Venti raises a curious brow. He props his chin up with a fist as he hums and leans in. “So what brings you to the dreamscapes of this lowly Mondstadtian bard, then?” he asks, careful to keep it light and cheerful so as not to sound accusatory or demanding.
Xiao looks around, turning his head this way and that. “…I have no idea,” he admits, then curtly bows his head. “Apologies for ruining the end of your dream. I will leave at once.”
As disappointed as he is with the short company, Venti is willing to let the man return to his duties. That is what the people of Liyue are so fond of doing anyway; who is he to intervene with their free choice?
At least, he was willing to let him go, but then the Anemo Vision embedded in Xiao’s glove catches the light, and Venti’s chest lurches, unbidden, at the sight.
(Oh, he dumbly thinks, with an ache nested deep in his heart. I know how you desire.)
“Wait,” he blurts out before he can stop himself.
Miraculously, Xiao waits. His back is still kept to Venti, however, his muscles tense and ready to go at a moment’s notice.
Suddenly embarrassed by his own impulses, Venti puts his hands on his hips in an effort to appear more flippant than he really feels, even though it’s clear that Xiao is barely looking at him through the corner of his eye anyway. “Don’t tell me you’re about to go back to work already, good adeptus! Don’t you need time to rest and recover first? You were just on Death’s doorstep, after all.”
For some reason, Xiao seems to find this amusing. “That is nothing new. Demons do not rest. Neither should I.”
Something tells Venti that hunting nightmares is not Xiao’s usual line of work. “But you aren’t fighting demons,” he points out. “These are nightmares. Those do stop, at least during the day.”
A pause. Xiao does not respond, though he casts his gaze downward.
“Rest a while,” Venti says.
A beat. Still nothing.
Then, he adds (more softly this time), “I know you want to go, but please. You cannot protect the living if you are dead.”
The long silence that follows really brings out the tension between hope and reluctance. Venti thinks he could cut a rope from the air with a knife from how palpable it is.
Then, at last, Xiao sighs. His hand falls down to his side, the Vision winking out of full view as he turns to face Venti fully. “Where,” he says, calmly enough, but his tone is clearly tinged with skepticism.
The tide is coming in; Venti can feel the sea spray misting his back. “Here,” he says, matter-of-fact. It’s not like he has anywhere else to offer Xiao anyway.
“My continued presence will only give you nightmares.” Blunt, and presented with level acquiescence.
“I insist.” He refuses to order anything from anyone— least of all from one of Morax’s servants, Celestia knows how hard-headed they can get sometimes— but what happened at dawn truly was concerning. “Besides, what makes you so certain that you’re the one creating nightmares?”
“It is an obvious result of my karmic debts. To exist in proximity to me is to be tainted by that which is not yours to bear.” Xiao looks towards the pale blue sky as if he very nearly has the velleity to stay. “Shouldn’t you be waking up soon?”
This time, it’s Venti’s turn to unexpectedly laugh, although he manages to quickly stifle it. “You don’t need to worry about that.”
Xiao once again takes more than a minute to respond, and Venti worries he’ll have failed to convince him. But, when he sighs yet again, defeat in his breath, Venti thinks he’s won him over—
“Are you one of the Seven?” Xiao asks instead.
Venti’s heart skips a beat, and he automatically plasters on a smile. “I’m not that powerful,” he replies. (And technically, he tells himself, he’s not lying.)
It seems to satisfy Xiao anyway. “Very well,” he relents, and Venti senses he’s showing softness in doing so. However, it is but a brief glimpse as the adeptus stiffens his posture and hardens his gaze. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you. If one day you awake to a knife at your throat, if monsters dig their claws into you, and if death comes knocking at your door… you know whose name to curse.”
Despite the man’s dramatics, Venti is delighted by his response. A breeze sweeps forth as he hops off his rock, skips on air once, twice—! until he’s next to Xiao with the ocean’s waves lapping at their feet.
“Come, now— Xiao, was it?— that’s a touch excessive,” he gently chides, his footfalls light upon the sand as he dances around the other man. “I also have a Vision, and I’m not quite human either, though my dreams have never gotten to that level of aggressive.” He taps his chin in dreamlike thought, then yelps, skipping abound, when the ocean surprises him.
Xiao, meanwhile, says nothing. It’s likely he’s too bewildered, if the look in his eyes is anything to go by. Nevertheless, he plants his feet in the sand and doesn’t shy away from Venti’s playful approach.
“You need not be so anxious; perhaps a spot of cider will help distract you from your task?” Venti puts on his most winsome smile (that’s how he’d get even stubborn Morax to drink with him) and reaches out to Xiao. “But, bear in mind that wine’s designed for people to remove their—”
Xiao jerks backward when Venti’s fingers happen to brush against his jaw, a harsh sound halfway between a hack and a snarl choking out his throat; the soft sea breeze suddenly stills.
Venti immediately withdraws his hand and skips back a step or two himself, alarmed by the unexpectedly violent response. Cradling his hand to his chest as if burnt, he can’t help but to shamelessly gawk at Xiao.
(That is when he finally notices: those fangs of Xiao’s are not carved from wood, and those horns upon his head are not tipped with iron.)
Oh, that is not a mask, Venti faintly realizes, breath hitching in his throat.
What had appeared from afar to have been a simple wooden mask is instead a part of Xiao’s face— more accurately (or perhaps more chillingly), what might have once been a mask has melded with his skin, leaving the space between monster and man sickeningly blurry, if still there at all.
“…You want me to remove my mask?” Xiao asks, and Venti has to admit, he’s impressed by how convincingly he disguises panic as a scoff.
But that’s not… Venti blinks as he tries to sort his thoughts, and between the fluttering of his own eyelashes and the spinning of his senses, he thinks he sees some sort of butterfly magic flittering at the seams of Xiao’s face, turning the mask back into a mask.
Realizing he’s taking too long to reply, Venti ends up dismissing the thought for later. Dreams are always toeing the fine line between real and not-real anyway.
Putting a smile back on and waving his hand in the air to bring back his illusion of carelessness, he says, “Don’t worry, I have no interest in altering your state of dress.” (Which is true; he had planned merely to playfully trace the mask’s edge.) “I was simply suggesting you might like a drink to unwind, in which case, your life will be made much easier by taking off your mask.”
Xiao folds his arms across his chest again and seems to scowl underneath his mask. “I won’t be here for long,” he snips. “Don’t bother to accommodate me.”
Venti looks beyond Xiao to the lighthouse, its light still flickering over the ocean. (The sight makes his stomach pitch with worry again.)
“Pleasure’s still pleasure, regardless of measure,” he says to Xiao, as he starts gingerly stepping away from the sea’s advancing tides. Somehow, they’ve lost their joyful spark, leaving him feeling cold and miserable at their touch.
“Perhaps, but they are not worth going out of your way to give to me,” Xiao stubbornly replies.
Venti merely sighs and shakes his head. “Fine. As you choose. But just so you know, this dream won’t be ending any time soon anyway.”
There’s a castle not too far off the shore from the lighthouse where they can stay. He gestures for Xiao to follow him.
But Xiao makes no effort to move. “Is it your job to sleep?” he asks, obviously baffled.
Venti shrugs and starts trotting off without him anyway. He has to check on the light, regardless of whether Xiao accepts his hospitality or not. “You can think of it a little something like that if you’d like, but I’m not too keen on calling it that. I’m asleep because I want to be.”
While Xiao does not respond, he does begin to follow. Venti suspects he’s usually not the type to speak unless spoken to or in objection to something, so he takes it as a tacit acceptance of the situation and skips the rest of the way over to the castle.
~***~
Venti leaves Xiao behind with little more than an offering for a room, if he’ll wait just a minute for his return, before taking off like a shot towards the lighthouse.
He jumps from one of the castle towers, the wind catching his glider and carrying him through the air until he tucks in his wings and tumbles onto the lighthouse balcony deck. From there, he bursts into the lantern room, breathless, where the only things there to greet him aside from the beacon itself are a few long, brown feathers scattered around the floor.
“Ah,” he says to himself. The anxious energy leaves his body as he deflates, replaced by nothing but a faint sense of resignation. “As I expected.”
(There was really nothing else for him to expect, but he always dares to hope anyway.)
With a casual flick of the wrist, his summoned winds choke out the lantern light.
His job now complete, he draws the room’s shutters and returns to the castle’s main hall, where he had abandoned Xiao. However, the man is nowhere in sight when he arrives a few scant minutes later.
The door shuts behind Venti of its own accord while the bard hums to himself, a bit out of disappointment, though mostly out of curiosity. He folds one arm across his chest and props up his chin with the other. “Now where did that adeptus go?” he wonders aloud.
As if on cue, a nearby set of curtains flutter on a breeze coming through a window Venti knows was not open when he left for the lighthouse. It carries his answer with it— that Xiao is still nearby, just hiding out of sight.
“Like some sort of cat,” Venti muses, a smile creeping onto his face. (That is, until he sneezes— even in his dreams, he is never free.)
He walks over to the window, his pace airy and light, and leans halfway out of it. “I meant it when I offered you my hospitality,” he calls, seemingly to the thin air. He’s not sure if Xiao is within earshot, but he hopes the wind will carry his voice the rest of the way. “Music, wine— whatever you desire, you’re always free to ask should you ever want it. Even if you never rest for long, you’re welcome to return to my dreams for as long as I’m asleep.”
He hangs half-out the window for a moment, waiting in case Xiao might like to reply. Nothing happens for a few seconds, but when a sudden gust of wind nearly blows his hat clean off, vanishing just as quickly as it came, Venti grins. Well, there’s an answer if I’m ever going to get one!
Satisfied that he’s done everything he could, Venti leaves Xiao to recover in his own way, wherever he might be, and wanders away to while away his own hours until dusk.
~***~
When night falls, Venti feels an odd sensation briefly warp beneath his sense of consciousness as he turns on the lighthouse beacon, and he knows what it means in a heartbeat.
Xiao has left the dream.
“And without even a word of goodbye!” he huffs to the lantern light. “How impolite!”
He doesn’t particularly mind, though. Dreams are transient by their nature; it only makes sense that the people in them should leave eventually. The waking world is so much more vibrant than his dinky little dream, though he’s still sorely grateful to the few who sometimes choose to come back.
(Is Xiao someone who comes back? Venti idly wonders, but it’s obviously much too soon to tell.)
Absolutely alone now, Venti finishes tending to the light, then begins to gather the feathers still sitting on the floor by its bright white glow. Having spent the day playing for the sweet flowers outside, he hasn’t had the chance to pick them up until now. Besides, sometimes they vanish all on their own at sunset, so in his opinion, he’s just being efficient with his work.
Venti carefully pockets the feathers, gently cleaned of dust and sand, and heads for the door. Yet, he hesitates before leaving, glancing back at the lighthouse beacon from over his shoulder, and an empty, almost ghostly emotion gnaws at his ribs.
The night’s chill sinks into his bones; it doesn’t help that the lantern gives off no heat. Quiet prayers from the people of Mondstadt make their way to the forefront of his mind, although there’s not much he can do about any of them. He supposes the fact that he listens and hears them all will have to be enough. There’s very little he can do to answer his people’s prayers even when he’s awake anyway.
He blinks.
“Wind, hear me…” seems to continuously play in his head as he returns to the castle, sounding sometimes like a chorus and at other times a round as people settle into their evening prayers. Venti absently listens as he stares at the paintings lining the castle halls, which depict various aspects of life in Mondstadt, from the members of the Favonius Church holding evening mass to the latest Ragnvindr heir finishing up inventory in the cellars of Dawn Winery.
(All is well, he sees, running a hand along the stone brick walls of the castle.)
He finds a few soft, grey dove feathers sitting on a windowsill halfway up a tower staircase, and he picks them up and cleans them just as he had the ones on the lighthouse floor. He rests his elbows on the windowsill, feels the fresh air on his cheeks, and admires the way they shine in the moonlight for a moment before letting them with a puff of his breath.
He watches the breeze carry them away, and he hums to himself, pleased. Lovely things should not be left to languish, he thinks, skipping up the steps two at a time now. Even feathers should have one last chance to fly.
His mind is blissfully quiet when he emerges onto the roof of the tallest tower of the castle. There’s always a few things murmuring in the background, but Mondstadt is a sleepy city past midnight, after the taverns all close.
He sighs contentedly as he sits on the stone railing’s ledge, one leg tucked underneath him while the other dangles off the edge, and stares up at the night sky. What new constellations have appeared in the sea of stars, and what old ones have finally faded from sight?
(His eyes linger on the formation of a bird in flight.)
The pale grey light on the horizon warns Venti of dawn’s approach, so he shifts in his seat to face the sea with both legs dangling freely off the ledge. Pulling the feathers from earlier out of his pocket, he hums a little tune to himself as he twirls them in thought.
How shall I send them off today?
Venti thinks again of the stranger, Xiao, and of the way the birds took flight when he first stood up, and he decides, yes, that sounds like it can get a song going.
He lets the early morning breeze carry away the falcon feathers one by one, spinning lyrics on the fly as day breaks.
“Pretty flocks of feathers fly on the wind into the sky…”