Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Dragonspine.

When he is here, standing on these frost-hardened gravels with frigid winds biting through his thin cape, Venti comes the closest to the being known as Barbatos — it's the closest he'll ever come to being the Archon Mondstat knows and loves again.

Oh, little god of gentle winds, the voice of Durin's shadow rumbles. What are you afraid of?

"I'm not afraid of you," Venti mutters. "And neither am I here for you."

Little god Durin laughs, equal parts cruel and delighted. You're not even a god anymore, are you?

Venti closes his eyes and exhales slowly, unwilling to reveal weakness in front of what used to be Mondstat's greatest threat. It is true, anyway ─ without his gnosis, Venti is... mortal. Too close to being human to be an immortal; too close to being divine to be a human.

Without his gnosis, Venti was just... Venti. A nameless wind spirit that had named itself and created a vessel reminiscence of an old friend.

"You're different," Venti changes the subject. "You weren't so carelessly..." Malicious? Teasing? He doesn't know.

It's been five hundred years, Durin reminds him. Even conduits of the Abyss cannot fight off the effects of corruption for so long.

Power balances power, Venti knows that. Barbatos knew that. It is here, five hundred years ago, that Barbatos shed his name, his ichor; his love, his history, his freedom ─ all to lay the Shadow Dragon to rest; to ward off his corruption and prevent it from spilling into Mondstat.

If Durin was drawing power from the Abyss to fight off corruption spawning from the Abyss? Venti shudders to think.

"Troubled times lie ahead," he says. "I can taste the ominous sighs, so palpable, in the winds ─ take back what you have bled."

Or?

"Witness Mondstat, drowned in rivers red."

Durin is silent for a time, mulling the words over. Tell me, little wind, I have been here for the past five hundred years ─ has the world changed much?

"The grass is still emerald, frost crisp where morning dew sleeps; the people are still people, they still dream, still feed, still die ─ though much is taken, much abides¹."

And though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth and heaven, Himmel ─ for the nameless bard once had a name, when Venti's world consisted of just a bard who knew all and the winds who heard all ─ would have continued. That which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will ─

─ to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. It is Durin, surprisingly, who finishes Venti's thoughts. The latter snaps to attention, confused.

"How ─"

The part of you that gained the name Barbatos had been trapped here with me for the past five centuries, Durin says. You were annoyingly persistent.

The explanation all makes sense to Venti, but he can only focus on the words that make dread pool in his stomach as he speaks the truth that he knows to be true.

"I'm not there anymore."

You aren't, Durin agrees. Corruption consumes weaker wills and erodes the edges of stronger minds.

Venti sighs at the terrible news. In the old days, Barbatos packed enough power to slice through Mondstat and flatten its terrain ─ he had certainly hoped a major slice of his essence could hold the Abyss better, but alas.

Ye of so little faith, Durin chides. At least allow me the liberty of finishing, little wind ─ weaker wills bend to stronger ones. Neither Barbatos nor Durin wanted to fall prey to the Abyss, and so they decided to swallow each other: the combination of their desires are not greater than that of the Abyss', but if left unchecked this tug-of-war will remain at an impasse for decades to come.

I cannot give you what you seek, Durin says. But you can take what I offer to you ─ strength for strength; power for power. Destroy the barriers, and embrace both peril and the chance to prevail over evil.

It's not as easy a decision as Durin ─ not Durin anymore, but something new and something unknown ─ makes it out to be. If Venti accepts, then he himself will cease to exist, just as Barbatos and Durin did.

A rather morbid part of him wonders if every second the merging process would be as excruciating as having his physical body torn asunder. If it would feel like the raw anguish of watching his old friends age and die while he himself remains stagnant.

He hopes that it would be as painless as drifting off after a long day of tiring labour.

It is for this reason that Venti reasons to himself, as he raises the next question, that all humans are occasionally susceptible to bouts of cowardice.

"And what if I don't?"

Your winds have already whispered to you their prophecy, Durin reminds him, not unkindly. 'Witness Mondstat, drowned in rivers red', I believe it was.

If Venti refuses to take back his power, he will be dooming Mondstat to the same fate as that of Khaenri'ah. A civilisation without the protection of an Archon is a civilisation not meant to last ─ the city may still be protected from the Abyss, but what of the far more sinister plot now spreading across Teyvat? And Venti... he may just be a bard, but he is the protector of Mondstat first and foremost.

In the end, it's not much of a decision at all.

Courage, dear heart, ² Venti thinks, and accepts the offer. He leans into the no longer familiar power and lets the tidal waves pound against his skull and submerge his consciousness.

Citations:

¹ ── "Ulysses" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, written in 1833 and published in 1842 in his well-received second volume of poetry. Ulysses speaks of the search for adventure in human beings that makes their lives worth living.

² ── "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader" by C. S. Lewis and published by Geoffrey Bles in 1952.

Original excerpt:

But no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, ‘Courage, dear heart,’ and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan’s, and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face.

In a few moments the darkness turned into a grayness ahead, and then, almost before they dared to begin hoping, they had shot out into the sunlight and were in the warm, blue world again. And all at once everybody realised that there was nothing to be afraid of and never had been.

Chapter Text

The cliffs of Brightcrown Mountains oversee Decarbian's tower and the roaring tempest swirling around it. To the south, snow and hail falls in relentless torrents where Andrius prowls in rage. Further west yet, the earth itself tremors in fury against each challenging god. Thunder clashes somewhere in the distance, a promise of swift divine retribution.

But it is here, in the middle of nowhere, that Gunnhildr and the bard decided to set camp. It is still cold, the ground still barren, but it is a brief respite from anemo gods nearby trying to wrestle each breath from their lungs.

In the flickering light of the campfire, the bard strums his lyre:

Let me give you this nameless flower

and may the spring-times you never saw

mean nothing to you.

Pray repay me with hope and a smile

and stand with me to welcome the day 

when the storms blow no longer

Be it tonight or tomorrow's dawn

if I perish before the taste of freedom

ever graces my lips

Then i wish not

for my name to be remembered

in the whispers of the wind.

“Worry not,” the little wind wisp snorts. “There is no name that you have given, freely or otherwise, that anyone could possibly sing of.”

"Oh," the nameless bard says in realisation, then laughs, his voice the sound of chiming bells. "To you I offer my sincerest apologies!"

“Then let me sing you this song, ” he begins anew, and the camp perks up at the starting pitches of the familiar rhyme.

“Of a longing lost in the river of time

But uttered in each old wife’s tale

as her nimble fingers spin and weave ─”

“How many petals doth a flower hold?

Ce-ci-li ce-ce-li ce-ce-li ah!

What is that which lifts up to the winds?

Ce-ci-li ce-ce-li ce-ce-li ah!”

“Eyes to witness, ears to listen, and a tongue to sing, my friend!” The young bard grins as the crowd continues on the chant of “ce-ce-li-ah”, gesturing at each organ in turn. “Such is the only legacy for us who are blind to truth, who have been hidden away, but still wish to see!”

And the little wind wisp thinks, again, as it watches the faces of its friends flickering in firelight, of the meeting it had with the sun-dailed one earlier, of the raw, borrowed power that courses through its body now. 

“A promise then,” it chirps at last. “I will bring you tomorrow's dawn. I will bring you spring’s blossoms and the taste of freedom.”

Emotions are unnecessary and unnatural for elemental beings. Still, the little wind wisp finds itself learning what concern is. Concern, and a deep, sinking feeling of existential dread.

//

What they always fail to tell you, is that fear is more of a bone-deep exhaustion than a shot of pure adrenaline.

It would be lying to say you're not afraid anymore, but that's alright. To fear is to be sane, and the sheer absurdity of your psyche remaining intact after the fusion of three personalities and three lifetimes might have made you laugh, if you weren't so tired.

You open your eyes.

//

"You speak of freedom, Barbatos," the man roars. "So tell me, what of us? Those who had been satisfied, who had been safe, until you killed him!"

In the end, it's the man's young daughter, wise beyond her age, who reaches out and rests a hand on his thigh to silence him.

"Lord Decarabian is already dead," she says, and in her eyes the little wind wisp sees quiet fury and resignation in equal measure. He doesn't ask where the woman who the girl shares her soft dove-grey eyes with is. He's already seen her ─ trapped and crushed to death underneath one of the many fallen pillars, when she had been trying to escape the chaos and confusion.

"We mustn't make ourselves enemies to the one who now claims these lands. It matters not what Lord we serve, not while there is food in our stomachs and a bed to return to at night."

And though she does not speak her mind, her prayer comes through loud and clear: We will not forgive you, nor will we forget that you brought war to us, harbringer.

//

The power you have absorbed into themselves is an ill-fitting puzzle piece, jagged and angular and throbbing against your heart in an unsynchronised march.

And yet it does not reject you, and that is all you need.

Six limbs, you remind yourself. Not four, not five, not seven. Two wings, two arms, two legs. A god in a human vessel.

Your form stabilises.

You rise, unsteadily.

//

Two white-hooded figures stand amidst a sea of flames, impassive observers of the carnage around them.

Twelve-thousand-seven-hundred-and-fifty-six slain. Men, elders, women, children. Gods. Barbatos heard all of their final pleas as they longed to escape this hellscape.

There is no time for shock; no time for grief. The winds' warning murmurs press ever-insistingly against his ears.

"I- I have to go," he says, to no one in particular. Morax, staring off into the crimson horizon, gives no sign he's heard. "Mondstadt needs me."

He disappears in a whirlwind of anemo and feathers.

//

“Wouldn't gliding be faster? Yahoo!”

//

Two days later, the little god slumbers, bound by a seal of his own making, and with corruption running in his veins.

//

Dawn breaks from beyond Decarbian’s tower. You walk down the steps, dragging unsteady legs and unsteady arms.

It's Ragivindor who sees you first, narrowing his eyes.

“You're not..”

“No,” you agree crisply. You are not a creature of Hydro. There are no tears swirling in your turquoise eyes, a poor mimicry of the brightest shade of the skies.

Heaven… Himmel…

You think of the nameless flower you held in your hands, a gift forever undelivered. It is now tucked in your hair.

Power was what you asked for, raw strength to counter Decarbian's brawn. Istaroth smiled at you, a foretold grief in her eyes as she granted your wish, and with a jolt you realise she knew. 

You, another creature with no name and no legacy, now bear part of her name, part of her fate. The borrowed power shatters Decarbian's defences almost effortlessly. It did not, could not stop a single arrow.

There was a bloodied body, not held in your arms, because you did not have arms then. Time was the domain you pulled desperately from, and with a final, fierce tug, winds from a long distant past bellow.

Red. Blood. Death. A woman lies, unmoving.

An infant bawling, his eyes as blue as the high heavens. An elderly midwife, eyes blind but not unseeing, hums to herself.

“Himmel. Your name. Your eyes are so very blue. Ce-ci-li ce-ce-li ce-ce-li ah.”

Time does not rewind.

“Why,” the little wind wisp screams. The battle rages on around them, uncaring. No one seems to notice the woman in white with sand in her clothes and sun dials on her head.

Istaroth does not answer.

“I promised him the sight of tomorrow's dawn,” the wind wisp sobs. “I promised him the taste of freedom. I promised him spring.”

Neither of us are fond of broken promises, it imagines Istaroth saying, perhaps in another life. Its form elongates and stretches, bloodied wings enclipsing the heavens his friend was named after.

//

There is a beautiful dragon. There is a beautiful bard. The bard's melodies whisper sweet-nothings to your soul, and you answer its pull in unfettered joy.

Your great wings lifts you up in the -summer drafts, and you try to nibble at the tips of their soft feathered wings, weaving after their nimble forms as they weaved and twisted in the azure skies ─

//

Dawn breaks from beyond Decarbian’s tower. You walk down the steps, dragging unsteady legs and unsteady arms.

It's Ragivindor who sees you first, narrowing his eyes.

“You're not..”

“No,” you agree crisply. You are not a creature of Hydro. There are no tears swirling in your turquoise eyes, a poor mimicry of the brightest shade of the heavens. There is blood on your hands now, both from the inability to save someone and the cold-blooded taking of a life.

“I despise violence,” was what you projected in the air as you stared down Decarbian, bow and arrow manifested from your divinity pointed unerringly at the elder god. “But that does not mean I am not intimately acquainted with it.”

It is the same words, the same mantra you repeated as you stared down the greatest threat to Mondstadt ever since the aristocracy.

//

“Ah! Traveler, we meet again!”

//

You open your eyes, and you see pure destruction leaking from between your scales. The beautiful dragon has its jaws clasped around your throat, its teeth sunk deep into your flesh. There is a bright burning pain as the bard shoves a glowing ornament into your chest.

You try to cry out, try to apologise for the trouble you've caused, but the winds drowns out your voice.

//

You funnel your fury into levelling the unforgiving terrain of Mondstadt. You are the wind. You do not like to be restrained, and the walls of granite are infuriating to your senses. In a fit of temper, you shave off the top of a mountain and throw it out to the open sea.

There are words carved on his grave now, not borne of your hand ─ you may look human, but you still do not understand them, their need for physical mementos.

There is no name on a slab of stone that will eventually crumble into dust. On it, deep strokes record these words, his elegy:

“Silence is still the story the East tells;

of people depicted on the walls of ancient caves

immortalised, wordlessly

forgotten, wordlessly.

If blood is what feeds you

then on tomorrow’s branches

on the fruits that will ripen,

I will leave behind my own colors¹.”

Privately, selfishly, you think Himmel might have preferred his dying words to this.

“Live on, and sing,” he had said, even as traitorous blood gushes into his trachea and he chokes on it every other breath, his impeccable control over his voice vanished. “For the people that will never… never know... the grief that war brings.”

“For the people... that will only know…the taste of freedom on their lips.”

//

Eons later, a fiery girl with fiery hair plants a tree at the spot where you stand and he once rested.

“Stone is a home for the dead,” she says, two bottles of cider in hand. “And I won't ever want to be remembered as cold, unchanging.”

You look up, and you see both the eternally gentle spring of Mondstadt, and the lush emerald shade that will be.

//

References:

¹: excerpted from "the end or the beginning" by Beidao. (結局或開始，北島) - i did the translation myself