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“I think Morax is trying to kill me.”
One foot on his chair, one fist on the table: this was how Venti preferred to make a point, like a clumsy bard onstage at a tavern. And this was an important one. He scanned the room, where the rest of the Seven—save for one—are meeting him with mixed expressions of impatience, incredulity, and amusement: the reactions Venti least wanted to see right then.
They were in Fontaine, in the courthouse over the gardens, where light slanted in from the open windows across the mahogany table. This was a new location in their rotation, but the meeting was routine: a semiweekly conference with the same few things on the agenda. Trade, borders, that sort of thing. Strictly business.
Of course, it was never strictly business. But that was mostly Venti’s fault. He had a penchant for causing distractions, or so Morax liked to put it.
“I’m serious,” Venti hissed. He scanned the table, but no one seemed to be taking this declaration with the gravity it should receive. “He’s trying to murder me! I mean it!”
The Pyro Archon crossed his arms and leaned back, fixing Venti with a look that thinly concealed what was clearly laughter. “And what exactly makes you feel this way?”
“I don’t feel this way! I know it!” Venti almost stomped his foot, but that would be juvenile, and this was serious. “I have the evidence.” He cast a furtive glance over his shoulder at the open door and the hallway beyond it. It was rare for Morax to be late to a meeting, but that gave him an opening to at least plead for help. Venti would be the first to admit that he might not be as strong as his neighbor to the south, but he’d like to think he had the upper hand when it came to gaining favors.
“Then by all means,” the Cryo Archon snorted, “regale us.”
“Okay, I can tell you’re being sarcastic, and I don’t think you’re taking this seriously, but when I die, you’re going to regret this, because I’m the one who brings the good wine to the parties.”
“And we’re all going to rue the day when you can’t get us drunk anymore,” the Cryo Archon muttered.
“Alright, look,” Venti started, turning back to the table. “You have to admit that some of the things he says and does are… for lack of a better term, suspicious.”
“How so?”
“I mean, first of all, he shows up in Mondstadt unannounced. All the time,” Venti said, leaning across the table for emphasis. “This is Morax we’re talking about, right? He doesn’t go anywhere unplanned, much less without telling anyone! Why else? If he weren’t scouting out the perfect opportunity to off me without anyone knowing?”
“Right, and he’s totally not just… visiting you? A completely normal thing to do?” said the Electro Archon.
“No!” Venti exclaimed. “I mean, does he visit you?”
Baal shrugged contemplatively. “Well, no. But the rest of us are further away. Or maybe he just likes Mondstadt.”
“Do you hear yourself?” Venti shook his head, incredulous. How were they not getting it? “Oh, yeah, Morax, the god of stone and money and all things boring, famously loves music and dandelions and drunk people, so much so that he just up and leaves his work and his responsibilities to just coincidentally show up without warning. Please. He has no reason to want to be here, and yet he’s always here.”
The Cryo Archon rolled her eyes, then said, “Do you have anything a bit more… substantial?”
“Yes. Obviously.” Venti nodded firmly. He had been preparing this for a while, and if this wasn’t going to save him, at least he could say ‘I told you so’ when he eventually got squashed under a mountain or whatever Morax’s preferred form of deicide was. “I’m just getting started. There’s the showing up, and then there’s what we talk about. Like, he literally won’t stop waxing poetic about Mondstadt and how pretty the land is and how different it is to Liyue, and how the people are so charming and the wine is so good and ‘Oh, Barbatos, you’ve done such a beautiful thing with this place,’” Venti went on, tossing back his hair in an exaggerated imitation that he knew sounded nothing like the Geo Archon. “Like, come on, like I’ll believe that you suddenly love poems about freedom and dandelion wine? And that this isn’t a not-so-subtle hint that you want to unseat me from Celestia and take over?”
“Barbatos, it sounds like he’s just being nice.” The Hydro Archon set one hand on his shoulder, looking almost concerned.
“Maybe out of context it does, but you weren’t there. If you hear him say it, you’ll know what I mean. It’s definitely not a ‘I just really admire your nation’ voice. It’s definitely a ‘I’m going to invade and overthrow you’ voice.”
“Are you sure that’s not just his normal voice?”
“How would I know?” Venti threw his hands in the air. “That’s just how he talks to me! Maybe he’s just constantly thinking about killing me!”
“Look, this is ridiculous,” the Dendro Archon cut in. “He clearly hasn’t done anything to actually try and harm you. Can we drop this and get to business?”
“B-b-b-b-b-but! I’m not done!” Venti held out a finger. He could hear some exasperated sighs around the table, but he shrugged them off. He was a performer first and foremost, and these kinds of things required style, even if it was a matter of life and death. He supposed being millennia-old gods lended to his audience’s blasé reaction to this entirely serious matter, but Venti had moved many a heart in his time on this continent, and he wasn’t so easy to get rid of.
“He has done things to actually harm me. For example: last week, I was in Liyue, and he took me to a street food stall next to an alley full of stray cats.”
The man across from him blinked. “I don’t see the problem here.”
“I’m allergic!” Venti cried. “I almost passed out from sneezing. And I missed all the assemblies in the afternoon because of it, so obviously I get the short end of the stick, and obviously Celestia thinks I’m just asleep again and I get in trouble again, which is all exactly what he wants!”
All he got in response was a series of half-hearted murmurs. Finally, the Pyro Archon spoke. “Hang on. Go back,” he said. “Why were you in Liyue last week?”
Venti blinked. “What?”
“You just said you were in Liyue last week,” the other Archon repeated. “Why? We didn’t have a meeting.”
Venti huffed. “Well, if you must know, he invited me. Clearly, so he could suss out my weaknesses, which he successfully did.”
“But you still went,” Baal pointed out.
Venti put his hands on his hips. “Of course I went. I’m not about to show any signs of cowardice.”
“Honestly, it seems like you spend a lot of time with him, for someone whom you suspect wants to kill you,” the Pyro Archon quipped.
“Not helping!” Venti grumbled. “It’s not like I want to be around that old fart, it’s just that he’s always around! Oh, and, here’s the kicker—he keeps asking me if I want to spar or train with him—something like he’s worried I won’t be able to protect myself, which is so obviously a threat—and plus, who likes fighting that much? Who carries their weapons around that much?”
“You two spar?”
“Yes,” Venti said. “I’m about to get into that. Hang on.”
He paused, taking a swig from his flask, and ignoring the Hydro Archon saying something about how he “promised you would stop day drinking at business meetings, Barbatos,” and continued.
“It started a few years back. He asked me if I needed help training, and like the fresh young fool I was, I said yes, not knowing what cruel fate was to befall me—”
“Get to the point.”
“Alright, fine,” Venti said. He was thinking about the last time he had seen Morax in his weapons hall, a good few months ago now. Morax had been in his training attire, loose pants hanging low on his hips, bands of gold circling his upper arm. He stood, as he always did, behind Venti, his gloved hands cupped over Venti’s and his face barely inches away, guiding his archery posture.
Venti had tried to focus on the target taunting him from across the hall, but it was increasingly hard to with Morax towering over him like a stone wall against his back. He was unbelievably close, one hand now steadily gripping Venti’s forearm, the other wrapped around to his other side, adjusting the angle of the bow.
“Is something bothering you?” Morax had asked him, in that low and serious voice of his. “Your aim’s off today.”
Fuck, Venti remembered thinking. He’s analyzing my every move!
It was fear for his own life, he had been certain, that was making his heart race and his fingers grow clumsy on the bowstring.
“I’m fine!” he said quickly, trying to change the subject. “Are we still sparring today?”
Morax regarded him. Venti tried not to shrink under that gaze, but it was hard not to, not when the gold in his eyes seemed to look right through him.
“Sure.” In one swift motion, Morax summoned his spear; a tall, angular thing, deathly sharp.
It wasn’t hard to keep up, at first. Morax was not the fastest combatant Venti had ever been up against, but his endurance outpaced Venti’s by orders of magnitude. It wasn’t long before he began getting winded, but Morax’s movements were still as razor-edged and focused as they had always been.
There was something to be enjoyed in this, Venti thought, as he narrowly ducked under another blow. There was a rhythm to this, a dance; a give-and-take sort of companionship. Maybe Morax meant well, he thought. Maybe there was something here that he shared, an opening, a slice of vulnerability.
Right then, Morax swept forward in a menacing semicircle, and kicked Venti’s legs out from under him.
Before he knew it, he was pinned to the cold wooden floor, one wrist caught in a death grip, keeping his arm to his side. A knee pressed not painfully against his chest, but with enough force to keep him in place.
Something sliced through the air beside him, the sheer speed of it rendering him breathless. The Vortex Vanquisher glinted sinisterly in the setting sunlight, mere centimeters from Venti’s neck, so close that he could almost feel the cold of metal against his skin.
When he dared to look up, Morax’s face was scarcely above his. He could feel his ragged breath dusting over his collarbone, and Venti felt more than heard the low vibrations of his voice, stern and level as always, but with a hint of something he couldn’t name: “Good try. Maybe next time.”
“So, yeah, he has literally tried to stab me,” Venti grumbled as he finished recounting.
“Barbatos, do you understand the definition of sparring?” the Pyro Archon exclaimed, seeming exasperated, as if he should be the one losing his patience, and not Venti. “That’s what you’re supposed to do. And you agreed to do it!”
“Fine, but I don’t think you’re getting how extremely stabby Morax gets. He just casually sharpens his spear while talking to me. All the time. All the time! I mean, who does that? How am I supposed to not perceive that as a threat?”
“To be fair, we are talking about a god of martial arts, here,” the man across from him suggested. “That seems pretty par for the course. He’s got an impressive collection of weapons, and the skills to wield them. Why shouldn’t he want to show them off?”
“No! You should’ve seen his face! Sometimes, we’ll be talking, and he’ll just slice into a training dummy to ‘make a point,’” Venti retorted, accentuating with air quotes.
“Is the point showing you how to fight? Because again, that is literally just how it works.”
“Now, I guess I could see why that could be a little scary,” the Hydro Archon mused, “but we’ve all known each other for a while. He’s just not the most expressive. It doesn’t mean he wants to hurt you.”
“This is true. Morax just looks a little bit angry all the time. That’s just his resting face. You can’t really do anything about it,” the Electro Archon added, to a chorus of murmurs of agreement.
“Okay, you are all being way too calm about this!” Venti snapped, slamming his hands down on the table so hard it clattered. “I’m not going crazy here, right? You guys realize he only does this to me? I mean,” he started, counting on his fingers, “did he stab the ground right next to any of your heads? Does he threateningly show off his spears when talking to any of you? Did he buy any of you a bunch of fancy wine right before the winter gala so you’d get super drunk and make an ass of yourselves? No!”
He was near yelling by now, to the point where he could probably be heard down the hall, but it didn’t matter. “It’s only me! It’s always me! Because he has it out for me! Because he’s trying to get rid of me at any cost!”
“Barbatos, you know,” the Hydro Archon told him, surprisingly gently, “there’s an adage common among the scholars here. Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” There was a circle of light laughter around the table, and it infuriated Venti. “It’s probably far more likely that these are just honest mistakes.”
“But that’s the thing!” As much as he’d like to believe there was something else about all this, if there was one thing Venti knew about Morax, it was that his rationality superseded all. “Morax doesn’t make mistakes! Morax doesn’t do spontaneity! I mean, this is the guy who drafted a seventeen-page legal document when he was put in charge of refreshments—he plans everything. I’m sorry, but there’s just no way that this isn’t all just a part of some master plan—”
Someone interrupted him. “Barbatos—”
“No, this is all calculated, he knows exactly what he’s doing, he knows that I’m the weakest, he knows this is psyching me out, and he’s probably relishing in my fear! And when I meet my brutal end and my poor people get—”
“Barbatos—”
“No, I’m not done—subject to whatever terrors he has in mind—”
“Barbatos!”
“What?”
“…Behind you.”
Venti froze. The room suddenly seemed to grow extremely cold. He stared back at the faces around the table, whose eyes were all looking somewhere over Venti’s shoulder.
Venti turned, and found himself face to face—or rather, given their height difference, face to massive pec—with the Geo Archon himself.
Venti could have laughed. He could have cried. The room was so still he could hear the leaves rustling on the trees outside. Morax was right up in front of him, cornering him against the table, and Venti swore he could feel his heart leap straight into his throat.
“Morax!” he stammered. “What a surprise! What brings you here?”
“…The meeting.”
“Oh, of course, of course—how silly of me—yes, let’s get that started.” Venti laughed nervously, turning awkwardly. Anything to break that terrifying stare. “So, about those crystal ore deposits—”
Morax’s expression was completely unreadable. As Venti’s spluttering died down, he crossed his arms and said, “So I see I’ve been discussed.”
“What?” Venti waved his hand rapidly, feigning ignorance. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was playing dumb. “Of course not! We were merely jesting, O Lord of Geo—”
Morax’s frown deepened. He opened his mouth to say something, and Venti almost flinched, pulling back as if he could carve a giant hole in the floor and disappear into it right then and there, because that might be the only thing that might save him now from the Geo Archon’s wrath.
But instead, Morax’s voice was almost wounded when he spoke, and took on a tender quality Venti had never before heard from him: “Is this truly what you think of me, Barbatos?”
It felt like being punched in the gut. Venti shrunk back against the table, feeling something uncomfortable taking root in the pit of his stomach. “Look, I…”
There was a thick pause. After what felt like years, Morax cleared his throat awkwardly and addressed the five seated around the table. “Would you excuse us? I just would like to speak with Lord Barbatos. For a moment.”
“Of course,” the Cryo Archon said coolly. “We’ll all just wait outside.”
“What? No!” Venti yelped. With a quick and furtive glance at Morax, he lowered his voice, and hissed at the Archons beginning to leave their seats, “You’re gonna leave me alone with him? After all that?”
“Barbatos,” the Dendro Archon said to him, “If he kills you after all that, I would not even blame him.”
“Hey!” Venti cried as the others shuffled past him to leave the room. “I’m serious! My blood will be on your hands! Is that what you want?”
He cast his gaze about wildly as his pleas were ignored. There was still a way out of this. He considered his options. Jumping out the window might work, but there was no telling if Morax would give chase. What if he lied down and pretended to be dead?
The clanging of metal against wood pulled him out of his thoughts. He turned to find that Morax had produced a bow from somewhere, a gorgeously sharp, radiant blue weapon with a set of glowing strings.
“What is that…?” Was that a brand new weapon? Venti had never seen it before. Oh, gods, he thought, he’s serious about this, isn’t he? He even brought a special bow to deliver the final strike!
“It’s for you,” Morax said simply. “I was late arriving to our meeting because I was picking it up from the smithy. I enjoyed our training sessions, and I thought it would make a nice gift. I thought you’d like it.” There was a terse silence. “I don’t know what I’ve done to make you hate me so much,” he confessed finally. There was an edge to his voice, that of heavily veiled anger or exhaustion. Venti gulped. He was finding it suddenly quite hard to breathe.
“Barbatos,” Morax continued, putting one arm limply on Venti’s shoulder, “I do not have a… ‘master plan’, as it were.” He paused, taking a deep breath, before sighing, looking defeated. “Listen, I am sorry if I caused you any discomfort. That wasn’t my intention.”
Venti took his hand gingerly, feeling more confused than he’d ever been. This seemed genuine, but then again, he was known to not always have the best judgment. And there was still so much that didn’t make sense. “So what is your intention?” he asked. “What’s with all the—the visits, and the wine, and the stares? It’s just—it’s so unlike you. You don’t act like this around anyone else. What am I supposed to think?”
Morax sighed again. “This is hard to admit. And I confess I didn’t think I’d have to say it so soon.” When his gaze met Venti’s, Venti almost sensed fear, but that couldn’t be right. Morax did not fear, Morax did not make mistakes, Morax did not act on impulse—that had to be true, because if it wasn’t, what was? “The truth is, it’s hard to be my usual self around you.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean that I find myself… caught. By you.”
Venti snorted. “Oh, come on, I’m not falling for that,” he groaned. “I’m not that stupid, Morax, and I’m frankly insulted—I know you’re vastly more powerful and more tactical and you have way more experience than me, but I wasn’t born yesterday, okay?”
“Barbatos,” Morax said, impatience marching along the low undertones of his voice. “I am not trying to deceive you. I am not trying to play you for a fool.” He grabbed both of Venti’s hands, clasping them in front of him. “I am sorry if others have done that to you in the past. But I—”
He broke off, contemplating. Venti stared, stared up at the amber gleaming through the leaves of dark hair, and held his breath.
“I don’t know how I can make this any clearer,” Morax said finally. He put one hand under Venti’s chin, tilted his face gently upwards, and caught his lips in a slow kiss.
Had the world gone mad, Venti thought, balancing himself with one arm around Morax’s neck, where the rhythmic beating of his heart betrayed undeniable truth, and it almost staggers him, because there was something here that felt right, something here that pushed past the part of him that feared.
“Does this convince you?” Morax said when they parted, looking hesitant.
Venti blinked. Everything felt like it was in motion, bits and pieces of what he thought he knew rearranging themselves without warning. “I—you—this—this is a thing? I—what?”
Venti shook his head. He could still taste it lingering on his lips, affection and something heavier, an aching sort of desire. “You?”
Morax nodded mutely.
“Me?”
Morax nodded again.
“That’s insane,” he stammered. Was it? Was it so far-fetched? It had to be, he thought, because if this was genuine, then Morax’s hurt was genuine, and that stung. Was it so improbable that he could hurt? That he could feel, that lofty god whose mind was as set in stone as his country?
Because if he could hurt, then it was Venti who hurt him. And that was the most terrifying thought of all.
“I don’t understand,” he said slowly. “I mean,” he began, treading carefully, “this still doesn’t explain the sparring—and the spears? What was up with that?”
For the first time that day, Morax didn’t meet his eyes. Was that bashfulness dancing in the hard edges of his gaze? “I… I thought it would impress you.”
“What?”
“I spoke to Guizhong, about… about the ways you hold my attention. She said that if I wanted to catch your eye, I should just be myself. Play to my strengths.” He shrugged. “I’m good at fighting.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that,” Venti said. That was undeniably true.“But did that mean you had to be sharpening your spears every time we talked?”
“In retrospect, I see why that alarmed you,” Morax mused. “I didn’t mean to. I… I just thought it looked cool,” he admitted.
Venti couldn’t believe this. He was speaking with such candor, such simplicity, as if it were absolutely obvious. As if it weren’t the most unpredictable thing that could come from the lips of a man so cast in permanence.
“Alright, fine,” Morax grumbled. “And I liked the sparring, and the archery lessons, because they gave me an excuse to be close to you.”
Venti stared. “Wait… do you mean, like, physically?”
“Look,” Morax said, not offering an answer either way, “if I caused you worry, or offended you, I’m sorry. I’ll be the first to admit emotions aren’t my forte.”
“No, I guess I’m the one who jumped to the worst possible conclusion. It’s just that I—I’ve never really had a good experience with relationships,” Venti replied. “Especially ones that didn’t end in someone getting killed.”
“I understand that,” said Morax. “And you don’t need to reciprocate any of this. I merely… wanted you to know,” he continues quietly, “that I am, at every juncture, continuously impressed by you. I can’t explain it, but I am.”
Venti blinked. A light, prickly thing had begun to settle in his chest, pulling the strings of his heart akin to fear, but far more unfamiliar. Finally, he said, “You’ll have to understand why I’m surprised by that, then. Why it’s even a little hard to believe. I mean, you have so much victory and conquest to your name,” he said quietly, “and I—”
“You,” Morax said, “are a wonder, Barbatos. You turned a barren land into a land of song. You make people believe a better future with little more than faith to go on. You made me believe in things I didn’t think possible. And I insist that you fail to see your own strength simply because no one has ever told you of it.” He took his hands. “I am sorry that I am not as adept with the lyrical as you,” he said, “but, in the simplest of terms, I care about you. Need there be any other explanation?”
“Oh,” Venti breathed. He thought about the thing that hammered in his chest, the thing that spun him round until he became dizzy and lightheaded, the thing he once called fear. “I guess there doesn’t.”
He thought of saying more, but before he could, there was whispering and shuffling from outside in the hall. Finally, the Cryo Archon appeared in the doorway, and said, “I hate to interrupt, but you two should know that you have literally taken up all the meeting time, so the rest of us are going to leave now.”
The rest of the group nodded. Venti swore he saw some mora exchange hands, but that could have been a trick of the light.
“Hm.” Morax tilted his head, contemplating. “Do you think they were listening?”
“Oh, definitely,” Venti said. He turned back to him slowly. “Well, I…” This was awkward. “I guess I’ll see you around?”
“Yes,” Morax replied, looking hopeful. “Come by the training hall this evening, if you like. After all, you’ve yet to beat me once.”
“Oh, you have no idea what’s coming for you, old man!”
Morax smiled, and the sight of it made Venti feel surprisingly warm, and this, he decided, was a much more pleasant thing. “I’ll be waiting.”