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Everyone seems to forget, all too often, that archons aren't immortal.
They never have been—they bleed, they suffer, they fall. The majesty of Teyvat was built upon the mounting corpses of fallen gods, and the losses of those who fled.
He remembers it vividly: remembers being but a tiny wisp of wind, feeble and weak. Remembers the joys of ascension, of freedom, the pure euphoria of Anemo power gently swirling around him in the wake of Decarabian's fall; the winds welcoming him and proving his newfound divinity. Remembers the grief that immediately cooled the joy, like freezing water set over warming coals. Remembers crimson blood beneath his nails, remembers gritting his teeth and marvelling at the foreign pain that bloomed behind his ribs, that bloomed where there were no wounds, that terrible feeling of utter lack; remembers the shackles that formed, how he would eventually muse that in the act of destroying a cage of storms, he had created one for himself. One wrought from grief.
Sometimes, and really, he means often, on the days where the chain around his neck feels particularly tight, he could almost convince himself it was a home.
Sometimes, and this time it actually is only sometimes, he thinks that he has let himself languish in grief far too long—for at what point does the grief stop, and 'Venti' begin? Where is 'Barbatos' in the midst of all this?
…He doesn't like thinking about it.
His first act as the Anemo Archon had been one of grief, taking the face of his lost friend in the desperate hope to let his memory live on through the visage of a god. He had failed, in that respect—his people do not recall the bard, he who had been the spark of the entire affair, the heart of it all. Time had stripped from the bard his name, eroded him into the dulled memory of a single entity and left him to join those lost in the sands of time.
Instead, what the people of Mondstadt remember is him, the writhing mass of grief that does not deserve to cling on to life the way he continues to do, centuries later. They remember 'Barbatos,' the missing god, they remember 'Venti,' the drunkard bard.
They do not remember the beginning of it all—dead, dead, dead; dead and gone with no one but the winds to remember him, through whispered apologies that no one but the stars will ever hear.
Perhaps that first act had coloured his future. A blackened stain upon the soft teal of Anemo. Perhaps it had then stained the element itself; because in the eyes of most Anemo Vision-holders that he meets, he sees buried there an ugly, all too familiar grief. It stares back at him like a twisted mirror, asking him why, why, why.
He wants nothing more than to ask the same; ask Celestia if they do it on purpose, if they purposefully see those who are grieving, those bound by shackles they cannot see and cannot break, and bestow upon them the element of freedom. Gnash his teeth at the stars and ask them the bitter questions sitting on his tongue, burning the inside of his mouth much like acid would.
Ah, never mind. He will continue singing his songs and drowning himself in alcohol and being the weakest of the Seven. This is how he creates his freedom. He has lived too long to make it any other way. This is how he will be for all eternity—flighty and immature, all in an effort to forget the red, red blood coating the underside of his fingernails, the tarlike mass of Anemo beating in his chest in the place where a heart should be.
/
"Barbatos."
Venti is idly strumming his lyre, humming to himself, alone on Starsnatch Cliff, when he hears a familiar voice. One that should belong to someone dead, if the news from Liyue were to be believed. And yet.
He turns.
"It's Venti now, Morax," he says, grinning. "Or Zhongli, I should say." He doesn't ask him why he had chosen to fake his death. Doesn't ask why he has journeyed all the way here. Doesn't need to. He understands all too well, even without speaking.
It's obvious, from the look in Zhongli's eyes.
I'm He's tired.
Zhongli merely looks at him impassively. Takes everything in stride. Doesn't say anything. Doesn't ask anything. That's how it's always been, with the two of them.
"...Of course," Zhongli answers. And he knows Zhongli will call him Barbatos all the same, stubborn bag of rocks that he was. It was the old fool's way of clinging to a past already long gone, and how could he ever blame him for that? Venti's even worse than him in that regard.
( Seven figures sit around a table and share a bottle of osmanthus wine, laughing.
He clutches a corpse to his chest, and for the first time, cries. )
Venti laughs. "You don't need to be so stiff!" he exclaims. "I'm the same old me you've always known, see?" He strums out a scale, grinning mischievously at his fellow archon.
"Indeed," Zhongli murmurs. He steps closer to him. "Barbatos."
"Yes, that's me," he responds cheekily, strumming out another set of notes.
Zhongli's hand hovers, outstretched in the air as though he weren't quite sure if he was still allowed to touch the bard.
Venti laughs again and takes Zhongli's hand, pulls him along and into an embrace. It's funny; he only reaches up to Zhongli's chest, yet he is the one who does all of the holding, wrapping his arms around the taller man's waist and clinging to him as though he wishes to never let go.
"We're the only ones left," he says quietly. He lets the constant facade of cheer break the barest amount. He is with Morax, after all.
"We are," Zhongli answers, hand finding purchase behind Venti's head. "For a long time, now."
Venti closes his eyes. Tucks his head into Zhongli's chest. He laughs. It's a little sad, this time. "We're so old."
He does not see it, but the impassive look on Zhongli's face crumples. "We are," the former Geo archon says. "But at least we are no longer gods, no?"
"There is that, at least," Venti responds. He does not voice the question: If we are no longer gods, then what are we now?
He doesn't want to think about it. Take away the gnosis and what becomes of the scraps? It doesn't matter, anyway. His people have been ruling themselves long before his gnosis ever got taken. They were godless long before their god actually fell.
"Of us, you know best how to act like a mortal," Zhongli murmurs, pulling away. His hand cups Venti's cheek, tilts his head upwards so that amber meets teal. "Teach me." There is an edge of desperation in the tone of his voice. It's a request Venti cannot refuse, with his oldest friend looking so terribly broken open in front of him.
Fissures run along Morax's mask of impassivity like the cracks left behind by an earthquake. It's a sight that breaks his heart—or whatever thing is now beating in his chest, after losing the gnosis.
"Alright," he answers, voice half-lost in the wind.
/
All too often, he finds himself envying the mortals.
Them, in all of their ephemerality, in all of their limitations. Them. They were perhaps the freest beings he had ever seen; even more so than the birds and the butterflies. They were who he envied most—not the other archons, not the gods up in Celestia.
He finds himself wanting to get into their heads, wanting to figure out how they could be so wonderfully vivid despite the shortness of their lifespan. Like the brief flash of a supernova in the midst of an abyss. He wants to take the moment and encase it in amber, let it fossilize so that it could be studied beneath his watchful eye.
That is probably why he chooses to live among them, more often than not.
Morax would tell him that he knows best how to act like a mortal as though it were a compliment. He's sure the blockhead meant it as one, too. With gods, there is always that envy for life.
But he knows this to be the truth: he cannot ever rid himself of the ichor flowing in his veins. No matter how much he tries, however many centuries he spends wearing the face of a long-dead friend and gallivanting around Monstadt like he belonged there, in the throng of people milling about their short, short lives. But he isn't. He doesn't.
Divinity weighs upon his shoulders with nearly the same weight as his grief. That is, unbearable. They go hand in hand—because he is divine, he will remain stuck in grief. For all eternity and all eternities to come. It's a cage he cannot break out from, and all the more reason he envies his people.
They do not need to carry the weight as wearily as he does. Their time prevents them.
What, then, can a being as old as him do, if not imitate? In the hopes that he might share in that lightness, in that freedom, however paltry his share might be.
His imitation of them is a clunky, exaggerated one—singing songs and drowning in alcohol. All of the flair and none of the substance. He doesn't understand them, not truly.
He is nowhere near as close to mortality as Morax seems to think he is, that stony bastard.
But he tries nonetheless.
( And this is a secret no one will ever know except for the stars:
Sometimes, on the rare times he lets himself fall, he wishes he were mortal.
But every time, the winds catch him before he can hit the ground.
...Those moments are among his greatest heartbreaks. )
/
"Mortals really are quite funny."
Zhongli hums. "You don't say?"
Venti laughs. "They truly are." He plucks a Cecilia off from the ground, all silky petals and open blooms. Hands it over to Zhongli, who takes the flower from him and holds it with a gentleness that is wholly uncharacteristic of him. Long, long ago, in a time now lost to memory and fragmented history, those hands once carved a bloody graveyard out from the earth. Now, those same hands tenderly hold a flower in their grip. Zhongli eyes the Cecilia warily, as though it could crumble to dust at any moment, just from his touch.
"They're so fragile," Venti murmurs, staring at the Cecilia in Zhongli's hands. "Yet they do not care. I barely understand how they do it."
"The not caring?" Zhongli asks. A beat. He places the Cecilia in Venti's hair, adds another to the one already there. "Or the being fragile?"
"You know me too well." Venti laughs. "Can it not be both?" he responds. He places a hand over Zhongli's, keeps it upon his head. The hand is smooth and suspiciously free of calluses; a mystery of how for one known as a warrior god, one known for boundless slaughter.
Morax has softened, that much is clear. Sharp edges eroded away by time and peace. Hands once crimson with blood now instead covered by soft ebony gloves. His touch gentle where there had been no gentleness to be found, once upon a time.
Venti wants to ask him how he managed the feat. It's one more thing that he cannot understand—how did Morax change, yet not he?
The unshakeable rock shifts before the flighty wind does. It's something that seems impossible. And yet.
He has languished in stagnancy for centuries, languished in guilt, with no true freedom to speak of. He had tried to change, long ago, but found himself helplessly stuck in his ways. He had long thought that that stagnancy was something inherent—he was a god, and thus, he cannot change, not in any meaningful manner. Zhongli's presence is challenging that.
If the earth can shift, then why not the wind?
"Perhaps we can learn together, then," Zhongli answers. It's something that never would've slipped from the mouth of the him in Venti's memory, soft and rare and delicate as gossamer strands of silk. He smiles fondly down at Venti. "We have never quite been allowed to be fragile. Now is our chance to be. To learn how."
It's a wonder. Venti grins. "Perhaps."
It feels like a beginning. Born from the ashes of those long gone, but a beginning nonetheless.
/
Everyone seems to forget, all too often, that archons aren't immortal. Aren't beings that are immune to the turn of time's gears, and the change it brings with it.
Sometimes, and really, he means often, he forgets, too.
But the earth changes.
The wind meets it halfway.