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Vennessa comes to him one late lazy afternoon, lovely as always in her clear purpose. Red hair, set alight by bright summer sun, crowns her in fire – and so he must lower his lyre to simply delight in her approach. The birds titter unhappily at the halt of his playing, and the ears of the small foxes curled at the tree’s foot twitch to hear another draw near. Venti smiles all the same. His song can wait. There is always another waiting to be sung.
She raises a hand, and he returns the gesture; the acknowledgement, however, doesn’t speed her progress. Yet she moves as light as a flame, her elegance assured as it is innate. She was not born of Mondstadt, but she is perfectly at home here. And he, always, will welcome whatever time she might choose to come share with him.
The last of his animal audience has long since scattered by the time he leaps down from the tree branch from upon which he’d held court to them, though his feet never touch the ground. Instead he shifts light upon the air to come to her side, their height equalised only by the kindly winds that keep him half a foot aloft. In turn one callused hand moves to a hip, her eyebrow raised high.
“Do I make you feel somehow inadequate, Lord Barbatos?”
The exaggerated tilt of his pout cannot help but curl almost to a smile. “Only in that you choose to address me as master rather than friend!”
One long slow blink demonstrates how unimpressed she is. But Venti cannot keep in his delight, by grinning wide as a fool. Only then does she relent, though with a roll of her eyes for good measure. “Venti,” she corrects. And when she herself smiles, it is as a supernova. “It’s good to see you.”
He wants nothing more than to throw his arms around her, pull her tight – but Vennessa has never been one to welcome such casual touch, even from friends. “Oh, that our paths more often should cross,” he warbles instead, “for the lack of your blinding light is such loss!”
“Please, please: no poetry.” But still she smiles, her fondness clear as the blue skies at her back. “Though…was that a new song I heard?”
“You just said you didn’t care for my poetry!”
“I do enjoy your lyre.” She tilts a nod to the instrument in his hands. “It’s been some time since last I listened to you play.”
With furrowed brow, Venti picks out a run of simple notes. “I’m often enough at the taverns. Too often, according to some of the proprietors.”
“They truly don’t mind.” At the frankly incredulous look this earns her, she actually laughs out loud. “Well, save for when you drink the bar taps dry, but I suspect you usually haven’t got quite the Mora enough for that.”
Pouting, again, he sweeps a dramatic hand to the sky. “If only my advisory services to the fledging Knights were better paid!”
She only snorts at that, well used to such an old tease. But there’s a more serious tilt to her expression when she says, “Speaking of which, I have a letter for you.”
“You didn’t have to write me a letter, I’m right here!”
By now digging in the satchel at her hip, Vennessa purses her lips. “No, it’s an actual letter. Delivered to the Knights, as apparently it was the only address they could ascribe to the bard they wished to send it to.”
“What?” Perplexed, he only watches as she pulls a thick envelope free. Venti hasn’t been to their headquarters in some time, though he understands the temporary building will soon be replaced by the new one they’ve been building for the last two years. He really only wants to see it when it’s finished, and he has no real business there aside from pestering Vennessa anyway, which he can do perfectly well anywhere else. For someone to send a message to him there—
“Who is it from?”
The look she gives him is that of the mother he never had. “The Liyue Qixing, it seems.”
“I…” He swallows. Hard. “…oh.”
This time her arched eyebrow makes him very glad he’d never had to face her across a gladiator arena. “Yes,” she says, and then adds with measured tone, “Our relationship with them remains cordial.”
Venti looks at the letter in her hand as though she holds a scorpion there. “And therefore you’re encouraging me not to upset that oh so delicate balance?”
“Well, I am intrigued as to why they would send a missive to you, specifically.” Tilting her wrist, she frowns at the front of said missive. “It’s not as though you advertised Venti’s hand in the fall of the aristocracy, after all.”
“That’s because it wasn’t Venti who did it,” he says, quite practically. He still doesn’t reach for the damned thing. “Is it really addressed to me?”
Now she turns it to him: The Wandering Bard of Mondstadt, it says, carefully lettered in the common tongue. But one can still catch the elegant hand of one raised on the Liyuen script, with all its tempered flourish and careful flair.
“…this is weird.”
“So I thought,” Vennessa replies, dry as the Mare Jivari. “And though I’d hardly presume to intrude upon the personal correspondence of an Archon, as you say – it’s not addressed to Barbatos.”
“It isn’t,” he agrees, but he still has a very sneaking suspicion roiling deep in his abdomen. “Do you want to open it?”
Now both eyebrows rise high. “Are you sure that’s appropriate?”
“Since when have you or I ever really cared for such things?” But despite his airy words, he knows Vennessa well – because for all Mondstadt had first taken and then returned her freedom, she has found a deeper responsibility as its hero, and as the leader who will shepherd them to new era. It’s just one of the many reasons why he loves her so.
He takes the letter when she flaps it towards him, turns the envelope over in his hands. Biting his lower lip, he then sighs, and surrenders to the inevitable. “I suppose it falls to me, then, to see what mess I’ve made of things this time.”
Very carefully he does not look up to see Vennessa’s expression at those words, instead working to loosen the seal of the Qixing. He hasn’t dealt directly with them in centuries – if, indeed, he ever really had. Though he’s perfectly aware that in the years since the stranglehold of the Lawrence Clan over Mondstadt had been loosened, Vennessa has had numerous dealings and diplomatic exchanges with them, he has purposefully kept himself out of such matters. As he ever had.
The letter is from the general secretary, as he had suspected; though he sees Ganyu only slightly more often than he does the mortals who make up the Liyuen governing body, he’s familiar enough with her to have recognised her handwriting. Her opening is to the point, though hardly terse; what disturbs his heartrate instead is the singular message she had written solely to convey.
Send word as to where and when we might meet. I will be waiting for your swift reply.
He lets the letter fall, and then joins it in dramatic flop to the ground. “Well, I’m dead.”
“What do you mean?” And when he makes only an incoherent sound of misery, Vennessa snorts and plucks the letter from his unresisting hand. He doesn’t watch her read it, too busy with rolling over onto his back to stare at the sky, contemplating how much it will hurt when a meteor of some hideous shape or size comes hurtling down to remind him of what becomes of those who cross the Lord of Geo.
Vennessa is quiet for a long moment. And then she comes into view over him, shadowing the sun. Her hands rest akimbo upon her hips, expression somewhere between apprehensive and amused.
“Is the general secretary passing on the message of who I think she is?”
Venti moans pitifully again. “Would I be so fearful if it were not?”
One booted foot gives him a sharp poke. “I’m not seeing fear so much as probably deserved regret.” Tossing the braid of thick hair back behind her shoulder, she points out, “I did ask you what he would make of what you did.”
In answer he can only cover his face and wail. “I thought the Qixing had worked through this!”
“The Qixing and the Knights of Favonius, perhaps.” Vennessa shifts him again with her foot. He still doesn’t move of his own accord. “As far as any of us are concerned, Barbatos appealed to Morax to bait the aristocracy into revealing their true nefarious intent. And when they betrayed Mondstadt, Mondstadt in turn rejected them.”
He throws his arms out wide, as if seeking benediction from the wordless sky far above. “And that’s what needed to happen!”
“So we have accepted.” And she sighs, tucking the letter back into the satchel. “But for all the Qixing and the Knights have discussed these matters and come to their own understanding…that of the gods is beyond mortals. We cannot speak for what passes between them.”
All he can manage is another whimper, hands pressed tight over his face once more.
“Venti.” Somehow she manages to be both accusatory and gentle. “Did Barbatos ever speak to Morax about his plans?”
He parts his fingers to meet her deep golden eyes. “Does it look like he did?”
And he wonders if he’s ever told her how those eyes remind him of someone else’s. Especially when they look this unconvinced. “Had you been hoping he would forget about it?”
“He’s a stone! He forgets nothing!”
There’s a long moment of silence as she crosses her arms, expression darkly thoughtful with gaze turned to the far distance. He lets her consider her options even as he stays on his back in the dirt, contemplating exactly how much trouble he’s likely to be facing in the terribly near future.
“Is Mondstadt in danger?”
That actually makes him sit up. “From Morax?” he says, unable to mask his surprise. And then he shakes his head. “No. Not Mondstadt.”
She tilts him a sideways look. “Is Barbatos not also Mondstadt?”
And the smile he offers in return is lopsided, maybe just a little too small. “Mondstadt will continue even without Barbatos,” he says, seriously. Before she can protest, he then he dips back down again in anguished despair. “And that’s as well, for she very well may have to!”
“Venti.”
He turns his head, tries to look small and helpless as possible. “Vennessa.”
She just sighs, drops down at his side. “What are you going to do?”
“Beg for forgiveness?” He pops up again, this time shifting forward to close his hands over hers. She allows it, for which he is grateful; he is, after all, perfectly sincere when he says, “I swear to you, no harm will come to this land.”
“It’s not only this land I am concerned for.”
He smiles at that. Then it disappears a moment later. “Well, I don’t suppose he’ll actually try to kill me.” One hand shifts in the dirt where he sits, curling in the dust. “But he is the God of Contracts,” he adds with gloomy finality. “And I did forge a contract in his name.”
The sympathetic look she gives him says all he needs to know: she might feel for him, going to meet his fate. But she’s not going to let him back down from it, either. “Good luck.”
And he sighs. “I suppose I better give you my reply to send back to Ganyu,” he mutters, and dusts his clothing off as he pushes back to his feet. “You know, I almost wish he’d sent Alatus instead.”
“Alatus?”
He extends a hand, for all she doesn’t need his help to rise. “Conqueror of Demons,” he explains as Vennessa straightens her own attire. “Slayer of Gods, even.” And at the almost-alarmed look this earns him, he flaps the concern away with one hand. “But he never leaves Liyue, so if I never leave Mondstadt…”
And she can only shake her head. “Tell me where and when you will meet Morax.” There’s a hint of that mischief he so treasures when she adds, “And I’ll make sure no-one else comes close enough to see your well-deserved humiliation.”
“You’re the best friend I ever had!” he announces as he beams wide, clutches onto her arm. She even allows it, even as she rolls her eyes one more time.
“Hardly.” And she pats his hands, begins to pull him along and back to their home. “Come on, then, O Wandering Bard of Mondstadt. Time to face the music you made, hmm?”
*****
He asks for Morax to come to Stone Gate; it’s the traditional crossing-over between their countries, and such meetings have many a precedent both past and present. Therefore he can claim it’s not just because it’s the theoretical closest he could come to the jurisdiction of one so-named General Alatus without causing a diplomatic incident. Though he’d not been entirely serious when he’d brought it up to Vennessa days ago, and Anemo-attuned though the adeptus may be, Venti isn’t truly certain of the reception he might have earned from Morax’s last remaining yaksha. And he certainly hasn’t crossed that border himself since his latest awakening in order to try and find out.
But he misses Liyue. Much as his heart belongs always and only to Mondstadt, he has…more than a passing affection for the land of stone and contracts. Even if he calls its master a blockhead and undermines every contract he lays his own hands upon.
Venti can’t stop the nervous swing of toe to heel, hands bunched up at the small of his back. In the end he’s rather glad he hasn’t an audience for this, for all he’d likely be able to pass it off as the occupational hazards of being a bard. But he’d requested Morax sidestep the markets and merchants at the border itself, instead coming through the gorge and closer to the lake that lies between their lands. And there he waits, the imposing cliffs above him a rising wall before water. It does at least help him to ignore the path nearby that leads towards Old Mondstadt.
He doesn’t hear him approach. He does not need to. Morax, stepping closer, is as inevitable as the mountains high. His throat turns dry – and not only for the presence of him, which is as overwhelming as it has always been. It’s not only his age, nor his strength, nor the unflappable dignity he wears about him as impenetrable cloak: he simply is, and that is almost too much entire for a world such as Teyvat.
But the simplest truth is also absolutely undeniable: he looks good. The long lean lines of the high-collared robe emphasise his height, and the armoured shoulders give him a width and weight he doesn’t particularly need to demonstrate strength. But his attire is both majestic and that of a warrior, and Venti has ever had a particular eye for beauty of all kinds.
And Morax himself need say nothing at all as he closes the last remaining distance between them. His steady amber gaze asks all the question Venti requires before he simply blurts out his true thoughts instead of something far more well-considered.
“Your clothing,” he says. And then, because he’s never been good at walking back an initial blunder, “I’m just trying to decide what it makes me feel.”
A dark eyebrow rises high, and then his voice shifts through the air like earthshock: that sure low drawl, careful as it is about the vowels of the common tongue. “Awe and respect is the general intent, though I will not be particularly surprised if I receive neither from you.”
“Hey!”
Morax is, as always, unmoved by his antics. “We are fellow Archons, are we not?”
It’s not as though Venti entirely feels like one right now, attired as he is in the whimsical garb of a wandering bard. But then, he feels more…himself, this way. Though he purposefully does not contemplate that any deeper, considering he is not the first one to wear this face.
Venti instead focuses instead upon Morax himself. He supposes that he ought to be glad the god had not chosen his more draconic form, nor one of those which he wears to war. But even in the form of a handsome mortal man, he’s hardly approachable; the power that meanders beneath even this vessel is undeniable, magnetic as lodestone. Venti has always been drawn towards it. Has never truly tried to deny it.
“You’re cross with me,” he ventures, at last. Morax inclines his head.
“That would be one way in which to describe it,” he agrees, peaceful in his equanimity. Venti is not reassured, even as Morax adds with that same easy serenity, “Come, walk with me.”
Obedient in a way he rarely is with any other – even himself – Venti falls into slow step along the shore. It’s quiet, here in the early afternoon. Most citizens will be enjoying a long luncheon, planning to rest an hour or two here in the hottest hours of the day. Their Archon instead sweats beneath his many layers in the company of perhaps the oldest known living being in Teyvat. The things he does for those he loves.
Morax sets a meandering pace, which is somewhat alarming in itself; when they had first met, Venti had not understood him to be the sort to take his time about such matters. But it has been centuries since then, and they are hardly strangers for all it has been decades since last they saw one another. He also does not believe Morax, of all creatures, capable of changing overmuch in such a short period of time. It’s yet to be seen if that is to his advantage or not.
“Should we just get this over with?” The words come sudden, slightly too high-pitched. Morax only turns his head with slow interest, stately as he ever is.
“Are you in some distress then, Barbatos?”
“Venti.” At Morax’s curious blink, he blows out a long breath he hadn’t been aware of holding, and passes a hand over his clothing. “You can call me Venti, when I’m like this.”
He just blinks, again. “But you are still Barbatos.”
“For all intents and purposes.” When Morax continues to watch him with that infuriatingly blank brick wall of an expression, he sighs, looks down. And then kicks a stray stone down the path before him. “I mean, look. I’d start with an apology, if I even thought you’d want it.”
“I suppose the real question would be – do you even intend to tender one? A genuine expression of regret, I mean.” He hasn’t missed a step at all, even as Venti all but trips over his own two feet. “Because I rather suspect you regret nothing,” Morax adds while Venti struggles to catch up.
“Well, no, I don’t.” The honesty comes easy as the slip of a hangman’s noose about the neck of one condemned. “I did it for Mondstadt. You understand that.”
“I do.” His hands remain folded at the small of his back, eyes fixed ever ahead. “Even if I cannot condone it.”
“But it hasn’t done anything. Anything bad, I mean.” Venti finds he cannot quite look at Morax himself, but when he lets his gaze wander, it finds only some of the ruins that still lay scattered about the landscape of new Mondstadt. But this is old, the inscribed seal of their former ruler still clear upon the stone. Venti must look away.
“…Mondstadt is thriving again, as it should. And it’s taken nothing away from Liyue.”
“Which is hardly the point.” Morax still moves forward in the same easy pace he’d set at the beginning, eyes fixed ahead. “Rash actions may be taken with scant regard to true consequence, particularly in the heat of the moment, but that does not mean such consequences will never eventuate.”
With sagging shoulders, Venti lets himself fall another step behind. “I know, I know.”
He then must take several skipping steps to catch up with Morax. The silence that falls between them is hardly that; there’s the distant hum of beehives, birdsong and the rustle of leaves as a soft breeze pushes through. The dappled path stretches on before them, and Venti casts a look to the tall trees themselves, heart twisted by strange pang. They had likely not even been seeds, the last he had been here.
“Surely you can understand my reticence,” Morax says at last, still in relentless motion. “After all, it is somewhat…disconcerting, to hear that there are those in Mondstadt who are now wary of the intentions of Liyue.”
“That really wasn’t what I was trying to do!” And he’s genuinely shamefaced when he admits, “…but I have heard a few mothers scolding their children, telling them that if they don’t behave the Geo Archon will come and spirit them away to toil in his endless mines.”
“As if I would do such a thing.” He’s not quite scoffing – oh, he’s too reserved and too regal for that. And he’s staring straight ahead when he says, “There’s but one naughty child in Mondstadt who would warrant such punishment, and unfortunately it is not my place to pass such a sentence upon him.”
“Who do you mean – hey, wait.” Venti squints up at him: not quite suspicious, but startled all the same. “You’d really make me work in the Chasm?”
His reply is airy in a fashion far more suited to Venti than Morax himself. “Of course not,” he says with serene grace. “Firstly, there are infinitely more qualified Liyuen citizens to do the work required there. Secondly, it’s not as though I myself am in charge of hiring such personnel.”
Venti continues eyeing him, as if trying to take the measure of a sleeping serpent. “…it’s just so weird when you try to be funny,” he eventually complains. “Have I ever told you that?”
“Numerous times.” Now he stops, sudden and commanding. Venti reluctantly does so too, but only after having taken another few steps ahead of him. In makes no difference. When he turns back Morax stands before him still, beautiful and relentless as he always will be.
The words are nothing but true when he speaks them. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry.” Venti opens his hands, lets them fall. “I didn’t mean to betray your trust.”
A sigh, but he does not look away. “I realise that.”
“But I did it anyway.”
“Because you valued Mondstadt’s freedom over our friendship?” At Venti’s stricken look, something akin to regret crosses his features. “That was unfair of me.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it.” A bleak note creeps into his words, smile utterly at odds to the shackle closed tight about his heart. “I am Mondstadt’s Archon. I will always prioritise them over all else.” When he looks down to his hands, he finds them empty; clenching them to fists does nothing but remind him of how very much. “But then, how I can claim that? When the only reason I found myself – found them – in such a situation was entirely my own doing?”
“Barbatos.”
“If I hadn’t slept so long…” He doesn’t dare look at Morax, not now. Instead he casts upward, lips pressed tight. One cannot truly see Celestia from here, but its presence lurks behind the sky all the same, as it ever has.
“…it’s no-one’s fault but my own. I know that.”
“Your people have indeed been waiting for you,” Morax says, as easily as it is factual. “Though they have not been the only ones.”
There’s nothing particularly gentle about how he says it, but Venti’s eyes sting all the same. Then he sniffs, unable to look him at all. “Go on, then. Keep laying on the guilt, then.” His gaze falls downwards. “You really do know how to punish me, after all.”
“You’ve always been one to punish yourself,” he agrees. “Even when it has not been warranted.”
“Oh, it’s warranted, all right.” Faint bitterness taints his words now when he moves to meet Morax’s even gaze, all semblance of light-heartedness quite vanished. “You know that I’ve never wanted to rule. But I’ve never wanted to be entirely absent, either. Not like this.”
Morax keeps his silence at this. There are both things they may not, cannot speak of to one another. Venti lets that sit between them a long moment, allows himself another sniff. At least he hasn’t actually started crying yet.
“…you know, I’d ask if you’ve forgiven me then, if I was sure that that’s even what this is all about.”
“Liyue and Mondstadt remain allies. So too do their Archons.” That ought to have been the end of it, though Morax goes ever onwards, always one to lay out all the facts as they fall. “But in truth I did not come for that,” he says, and the honesty of it burns deep even before he adds, “I came because I have missed you.”
Venti covers his eyes. “Oh. Oh no.”
“Oh no?”
“You are actually going to make me cry after all!” he wails. “This just isn’t how I expected any of this to go! I almost wish you had just sent Alatus here to deal with me instead!”
Of course it’s that which draws a low chuckle from him at last. “Xiao has his own duties to attend to – but I must admit it is always a pleasure to surprise the very master of such.” At Venti’s furrowed brow, he adds, “I’ve never been able to predict you, Barbatos. I don’t believe I ever will.”
“But do you see that as a good thing or a bad thing?”
“I see it merely as what you are.” His words are the simplest statement of fact when he says, “Barbatos, Venti, any other name you choose. It does not matter to me.”
He can’t quite help the mutinous tone when he mutters, “As well it shouldn’t, considering you have so many names that even one who records history such as I do could never keep them all straight.”
The fondness in his tone almost hurts. “Though you do try.”
“I am very trying.” And it’s Venti’s turn to now arch an ironic eyebrow his way. “Or so I am told. By one who is something of an authority on the subject, even.”
Morax lets the bait hang untaken, instead only nods; he then takes a breath, releases it on a sigh. “I will admit that when I first heard of your ploy I was indeed very irritated with you. But in your defence, your previous less…political uses of such skills should have indicated to me to be more cautious about such matters.” But his eyes are the golden heart of stone when he looks to Venti now, says simply, “I do not give my word lightly. You know this.”
Only honesty will save him now. “That was really why it worked as well as it did.”
Despite the shake of his head, Venti senses no real disagreement from him. Morax says only, “The Qixing and the Knights of Favonius have come to an understanding of the matter on their own accord. I am certain we ourselves can come to one of our own.”
“Is it mostly that I should never ever do anything like that ever again?”
There’s almost a quirk of lips, if but for fleeting instant. “Mostly,” he agrees. “But in truth it’s more that Liyue and Mondstadt are allies of old. Even if we had not spoken in many a year, you could have come to me directly.”
In his heart, Venti knows that. In his mind, he knows exactly why he did not. With eyes downcast, he admits in low voice, “It was my fault. I had to sort it out myself.”
“But you still brought my name into it.” And when he does not look up, Morax says, with all his sure stoic grace, “Barbatos.”
“Venti.”
“Venti.” He’s oddly patient as he goes on. “Do you understand what I am saying to you?”
“I guess so?” Without quite thinking, Venti has wrapped his hands about his upper arms, pulling them tight in some strange echo of an embrace. It does nothing to hold back the shiver that rolls through him. “I just…hate it, sometimes. The way the world changes so fast.”
Morax remains close by his side, not quite gentle when he reminds him, “I am something more constant than most.”
Venti can but close his eyes, only to force them open a moment later as he meets his gaze directly. “That you are.” And all Venti can offer now is watery smile. “You old blockhead.”
A blink, and then a roll of eyes. “You lush drunkard.” An arm extends, indicates a space to their left. “I suppose it is no coincidence, then, that you have brought me to such a place.”
Venti frowns, then actually follows his movement. Somehow he’s actually surprised by what he sees, though he oughtn’t be. Their wanderings have brought them onto the outskirts of one the great sprawling wineries of the region; rows of grapes extend in orderly line as far as the eye might observe, richly scented beneath the warmth of the afternoon sun.
“Oops?”
“Hmm.” Morax walks closer, leaving the path behind. As Venti trails him, the elder god strips his gloves off, vanishing them into some pocket Venti can’t quite work out the position of in those long slim robes. But then his attention is drawn instead to the weight of the ripe fruit between long fingers of umber and gold, though Morax does not take it from the vine.
“I mean, you like it, don’t you?” When Morax merely looks at him, he coughs. “Wine, I mean.”
“You know that I do. I just find that while I take it as an opportunity to delve deep into the memory of those I have shared it with, you rather use it to find total oblivion.”
Stretching out one finger, Venti pokes the grape Morax holds so delicately between two of his own. “Well, they do always say we’ve been cardinal opposites since the very beginning,” he says, very quiet. “And it doesn’t really obliterate anything.”
“And yet still you try.”
“And yet still I try,” he echoes. And he steps back, takes in again the endless rows of fruit waiting now for harvest. There will be songs and laughter, the rising chatter of workers about their task – then will come the long-honed process of wine-making. Venti remains familiar with it, for all the passage of years spent in slumber. Traditions always persist, primarily because of their long-proven effectiveness since yesteryear.
When he faces Morax again, he struck once more by how very beautiful he is. Sometimes Venti wonders how he’d had the courage, in those early days. To simply stroll into Liyue and demand the friendship of a god who had slaughtered countless others of his kind to take the place he now held. But Venti hadn’t thought about it then. Hadn’t thought about much at all, really.
All he’d known in that moment was one simple thing: how much he’d wanted – needed – a friend. One beyond Mondstadt’s beloved borders. One who knew him only as this.
Morax extends one hand again. With furrowed brow Venti follows its progress to see what he’s pointing out this time – then it plucks his beret free.
“Hey!” Far smaller hands move to grab it back, but it’s fruitless endeavour; even had Morax not been doing it intentionally, their height disparity puts it well out of reach. “Gimme that back!”
“I just wanted to see you again.”
The raw honesty of it gives him pause. He knows it’s probably not attractive, just standing there with his mouth wide open. But his muddled thoughts mean it’s far too long before he manages to splutter out, “I’m not that different like this!”
“Yes, it’s rather a wonder that the general populace hasn’t made more of a connection between their beloved bard and the giant statue that stands at the very heart of their city,” Morax says drily, and for all the truth of it, for all the tease of it, Venti only hums, and remains strangely solemn.
“People see what they want to see.”
“Indeed they do.”
Morax has ever been the blunt type – but that does not mean he cannot be subtle when he wishes it. And Venti knows him better than most. Beneath his wordless searching gaze now, he feels heat rising to his cheeks. This is not what he had expected, from this meeting. But he accepts readily the realisation that he had wanted it. Because he’s always wanted it. From the very first moment he had seen Morax, Lord of Geo and God over Stone and Contract, something deeply intrinsic to his very being had yearned to reach out and touch. To know.
And he reaches out between them now; a whisper of breeze and they stand eye to eye. Morax still says nothing even as his eyes give everything away, and Venti gives him a little grin of his own.
“Hello.”
His head inclines. “Hello.”
And before Venti can smartass a word more – he is pulled into deep, sudden embrace. Lips seek out his own, as demanding as they are certain of their welcome. Because Venti cannot help but welcome them. Cannot help but wind himself around the other, as though he climbs into the lap of one of those ridiculous statues found throughout Liyue. And he’s done that, more than once. Perched in a lap of hard rock just so he might trace fingers over beloved features, over the carved simulacrum of skin and stone.
But this is no mere statue before him now, for all there’s a dearth of bare skin between them yet. Much as Venti appreciates his current outfit for the wonder it is, he cannot help the rising tide of resentment now over that which it hides from him. No doubt Morax takes his futile scrabbling for what it is; it is he who bears them both away from the orderly vines, and to the shadow of a great oak tree beyond the farmland.
There are still houses nearby, of course: the great manor house at the heart of the compound, and those of the workers in disordered orbit about it. But in this space it still feels to be no-one but them alone. The peak of Vindagnyr rises over the harsh-cut cliffs of Liyue, the lake sparkling and blue where it holds the two lands ever separated. But Venti is now laid down upon the warm earth, cape between him and the dirt, Morax looming over him with giddying intent gleaming in that deep molten gaze.
But he does not immediately close the distance between them again, for all Venti wishes for little else but his touch. Instead he sits back. Before Venti might complain, large hands come to encircle one thigh. Startled, he looks down, then grins to see it: Morax’s open curiosity, as he slowly inches up the hem of his lederhosen.
“Ah,” he says soon enough, rich rumble of satisfaction. “I see.”
Venti keeps watching, though the touch of his fingers explains his delight; Morax has found the skin between the shorts and his stockings. The touch of him is deliciously warm he strokes one fingertip there, dark against the smooth white. Still, Venti decides Morax currently appears entirely too self-satisfied indeed.
“Are you going to do anything with this information?” He says this tartly – that’s a mistake, perhaps, given the unimpressed way Morax holds his gaze. But his clever fingers remain hard at work, carefully undoing the ribbon that holds stocking up around his thigh. Venti cannot help but shiver at the pull of it across his skin, as Morax works it free of the woven holes, and then he’s rolling it down slender calf. He pauses long enough only to remove his shoe, but when he pulls the stocking free he presses a surprisingly tender kiss to the arch of one foot.
“Morax! That tickles!”
With lips still pressed there, he replies with but an unamused rise of both eyebrows. And then of course the stubborn bastard does it again, eyes never once moving from Venti’s own. He tries to yank his foot back, and strong fingers close tighter about the slim ankle. But it’s not as though he hurts him. In truth, he never has.
“Morax,” Venti chides, all the same. There’s an actual roll of his eyes now, then he’s setting his leg down. It’s no real surrender, given Morax immediately proceeds to do the same to the other. It drives him mad, how easy Morax makes this look; there’s a flush rising high on Venti’s cheeks already, heart racing in his chest like whirlwind unleashed, and he’s not even been stripped of any truly important piece of clothing yet.
As if plucking the thought from his mind, Morax hums lightly against his foot, then sits back on his heels. “You are wrapped up very well indeed,” he murmurs, hand splaying across the width of the corset about his waist. Even as Venti struggles to catch a breath under his touch, he still manages a haughty retort.
“As if you might talk!” He reaches out, snags one of the hanging embellishments of his robes. “Where do I even start, when it comes to you?”
“We’ll come to that, in time.” His patience is a great and terrible thing, especially as he leans further down, pressing them chest to chest. With his lips resting against the curve of one ear, Morax’s words resonate through him with painfully perfect pitch. “Right now? I feel it’s my prerogative to take my turn first.” And he chuckles, even as Venti shivers with the potential of it. “…unless you have any objection?”
“I…no particular objection. I don’t think. No.”
There’s something like a light snort, but Morax presses soft kiss to his cheek as he draws back. And he’s always a swift learner, Morax. In time he will come to forget more than any other living being can ever possible know in the first place. But that is for the ephemeral future. In the present, Morax undoes the buttons of the unfamiliar corset, drawing it away from his waist once opened. Venti takes a deeper breath, one that catches when Morax so casually encircles his waist with both hands.
“Does that tickle too, perhaps?”
“Yes.” It’s barely whispered. “Do it again.”
That soft laughter is as a song, and then Morax pulls his shirt from the waistband beneath, undoing each pearled button with easy speed. Venti can feel his pulse beating rabbit-quick as Morax at last spreads it open, before leaning forward with dark promise painted across his features.
And he keeps said promise with the flick of his tongue over bared skin. It’s not quite human. It’s too long, too mobile for that. Venti’s startled gaze meets only the lazily innocent blink of those gold gold eyes.
“That’s cheating,” Venti says, faintly, and Morax laughs outright.
“I didn’t realise we were playing a game.”
“Aren’t we always?” One trembling hand rises, only to tuck a lock of fallen hair behind one ear with tender care. “But I think I’ll let you win this time. Just because I like you, you know.”
“Just who, exactly, do you believe is winning here?” Morax murmurs, but he leans down again without waiting for any answer. Venti doesn’t care, far too taken up by the press of lips to his bared throat, and beneath them the faintest scrape of teeth too pointed to be that of a mortal man. But it’s those hands that drive desire deeper into his trembling being, their darkened skin burning too with golden light as they move to press the shirt down shoulders, and then off completely.
Again Venti shivers, though not from the cold. The flare of those eyes only ensures more to come. Sure hands move down his sides, taking what remains with them down his thighs and away. Venti arches his back as all of him lies now exposed, brands of bright Anemo glimmering against snow-pale skin.
A finger traces the sharp lines of the band that wraps around one thigh. When Venti draws a hissing breath, Morax almost frowns. “Does that hurt?”
“You know it doesn’t.” But the ache of his cock only increases by the moment, hardening and already leaking against the feather-light pulse of his abdomen. “Don’t tease me!”
“You don’t believe you deserve it?” But before Venti can complain, Morax bends his head to chosen task. His mouth is glorious and almost too much, warm and opened; he chooses only to press his lips just beneath the head, where it lays twitching against Venti’s belly. When he shifts but lightly, the rasp of that remarkable tongue has Venti choking on even his own air. There’s almost a cruel knowing in those beloved eyes as Morax at last gentles the head into his mouth.
Venti feels as though he is coming apart already. But those eyes command him to remain here, in this moment, intent as they are upon his own. They are relentless even as one hand closes around the base – though his mouth never goes over more than the head, even when Venti begins to roll his hips to beg more of him. He’d almost think him just to be doing this for the sake of teasing him, if not for the purposefulness of it. Morax knows what game he plays here, and Venti will happily cede the win to him every time if this is his penalty for losing.
His other arm shifts, bracing beneath one thigh. Venti barely realises he’s moved in return until he feels how tightly their fingers have closed together. Morax continues his work between his thighs, and Venti clings to his hand as though for dear life. Through it all, Morax’s gaze has never once left his – until now, this moment where he closes his eyes, savouring him even as his pleasure rolls like thunder in his chest. Venti gasps, trembling beneath him, gripping his hand all the harder. Already it is too much. It has been too long.
And then Morax moves to take his cock right down to the hilt. For a moment Venti’s vision whitens, then goes entirely black; he thinks with giddy despair that he has already lost all control. But the closing of strong fingers, tight about the base of him, draws Venti back from dizzying precipice. He can’t even protest, barely able even to catch air enough to breathe as he wordlessly takes in Morax’s small satisfied smile.
“Such a lovely little thing you have always been,” he murmurs. Venti can barely form a moan, but it doesn’t matter because Morax has already moved on, is moving further down; releasing Venti’s grasping fingers, Morax uses both hands to press his thighs up to his chest as lips find deeper target.
A low broken keen is all Venti can manage at first, quite destroyed as he is by the press of that inhuman tongue against his most delicate centre. He doesn’t know quite how much time passes in pleasured haze before he manages to find his voice again.
“Morax…this…”
He pauses, looks upward. “You don’t like it?”
“You.” When Morax purses his lips, he shudders in a deeper breath, tries again. “I want…” One hand shifts, gropes blindly for the rich heavy fabric over his chest. “I want to see you.”
“Always so greedy,” he hums, but still draws back. Boneless before him, Venti does not even try to rise in turn. For all he should be the one doing this, he can only watch – and so he does, openly and very greedily indeed, as the great Lord of Geo disrobes before him. But Morax gives him no time to admire the sight as he slithers forward to rest again between his thighs. Venti groans deep in his own throat to feel the press of something hard and hot between them. He’d glimpsed it but briefly only moments ago, but that had been enough to know this much: it is no more mortal than his tongue, his gleaming hands, the glitter of teeth between the curve of his lips.
And Venti would have it no other way.
“Be patient,” Morax chides, and there’s a sudden flash of gold, hot and bright upon heavy heated air. Reflexively Venti closes his eyes against it as he feels the press of fingers to his opening; they slide inside so easily, as though he has been waiting all along for only this. Venti keens again, the crook of those long clever fingers finding what it seems they have not forgotten.
When he opens his eyes, it hits him that the golden pulse about them both is actually a variation of Morax’s jade shields. He’s not entirely surprised, even though he’s barely thinking straight enough to remember any of his own names. But that, perhaps, is why he suddenly goes very still, instinct unavoidable and swift.
Morax senses the shift, pauses immediately. “What is it?” he asks, and Venti shakes his head, just a little. He can’t quite say it, but he also can’t stop looking up.
“I…” And he sighs, heavy with the weight of long-passed years. “…the sky.”
A frown – and then Venti can see it dawn upon him. Morax had never seen the stormwalls of Decarabian, built in tight encasing dome about his high tower. Venti has not even really spoken to him of those days, nor of the lives once held behind its unyielding presence. But Morax knows enough of it to let his own shield fall, broad fingers moving over the rich curve of Venti’s lips.
“Ah, but how else shall we remain…unseen, to the eyes and ears of those unfortunate enough to pass us by?” And his other fingers, still curved deep within his body, move deeper still. “…I suppose the master of wind and skies could create a little breeze, to distract those who might otherwise have their attention drawn in this direction.”
He actually manages a laugh, breathy and broken though it is. “Such task requires a little more…delicacy, than I’m perhaps really capable of, right this moment.”
Morax now wears that strange little smile of his, the one that makes it look like he’s forgotten how such things work. Venti has always loved that one best. “Then perhaps said master will be required to learn the ability of silence instead.”
Even as Morax withdraws his fingers, leaving his head spinning and his cock aching, Venti still manages a sharp reply. “I resent that!” he says. “You say it like any true musician does not know the place and power of a well-placed moment of quiet.”
“We shall see.”
Venti opens his mouth to proclaim otherwise – but that is precisely when Morax drives into him with one well-timed thrust, deep and aching and true. His eyes fly wide open, spine arching almost to breaking; a cry builds in his throat like swelling fermata, and all thought again is lost.
And still one wide hand presses over his mouth, muffling it all. Venti cannot even be angry. All he knows now is pleasure, lost and found both in the driving welcome heat of Morax, held close in the sanctuary of his own body. The sky stretches high over his shoulder, blue and endless above. For a moment all hangs in impossible stillness – and Venti is soaring, even while still held close in the arms of the earth.
Then he subsides, Morax heavy upon him as his back returns to where his cape spreads over the grass beneath. His eyes now lock with the serene amber of the god whose body brackets his own, the burnished umber of strong arms limned with the carved path of brilliant gold Geo.
Yes, Morax really has won this particular battle. It does not stop Venti from first delicately pressing his tongue against those warm fingers – and then biting down. Hard. One would not suspect Geo to have a taste, perhaps. But Morax does: he tastes of earth and stone and crystal, cold and molten-hot both. But Morax merely smiles, again, and still does not remove his hand from where it so effectively gags the wind.
And yet, though the opening thrusts of his hips set the tempo first, it is Venti who moves to bring it to true rhythm. With a knowing shift of his own hips, Venti rolls them forward to invite him further inward, to tease him to greater pleasures. The answering growl growing in Morax’s chest, the fierce glitter of his eyes: any other might think themselves prey under such, but Venti is as much the hunter here as he has ever been the one hunted. His own nails tease over the skin of strong thighs as he pulls them up, digging them then into the clenching muscle above. If Morax wishes to be deep, Venti will only ever invite him deeper still.
But then, Venti himself is now slaved to the drag of his cockhead over that place of fire deep within his own body. It is matched not even by the hard press of his own cock between their bellies. Venti clenches down hard over the ridges of the swollen length inside him, his mouth silenced only by the way he buries his teeth into the glittering muscle between neck and collarbone. It’s not blood he tastes there now, but: godhood. Stone and silver and iron and gold alike, and Morax spills into him even as Venti bites harder still. His own nails dug into Venti’s back just where his wings should be.
It's a slow return to reality. Wrapped around one another, Venti drowsily believes neither of them would have it any other way. Still, he is the first to draw back, to press both hands in tender curve about Morax’s face. A long blink, serpentine and slow, is all he offers in return – and Venti trembles over the sheer unspoken power of him, for all similar shivers through and under his own skin. It is pure insanity, that he had ever thought to come before him all those years ago. To so glibly ask this of an endless being such as Rex Lapis himself. But then, for Venti, it had been the same from the very beginning: as when a formless elemental wisp had caught sight of a simple human bard, had first heard his song and voice, and had known in that moment just one simple unavoidable truth: he is mine.
Venti now strokes his fingers down one still cheek, before coming to rest gentle as adagio upon his lips. “I’m taking it that I’m forgiven, then?” he whispers, and though Morax does not smile, Venti knows him well enough to hear it there all the same as his words rumble free.
“I thought we had moved beyond that.”
And he shrugs, slim shoulders bare and limned in gold. “Because, I mean, I’m just saying,” he says, airy and light as the wind, “If you want another apology from me, I’m perfectly willing—”
A ravenous mouth closes over his own before another word might escape – and the sounds he makes next are quite different to those he’d originally intended, for all they are all still a song of love and desire and content.
*****
“So.” Steepling her fingers, Vennessa fixes him with a look that he’s afraid will see right through him. “I take it Barbatos has brokered peace with the Lord of Geo?”
“I…” Venti fidgets before her great desk, like a child called before a parent for chastisement. This is the first time he’s been in the Knight of Favonius building in years, and he can’t even enjoy it. “…well…”
“He didn’t drop a rock on you, then.”
His wince echoes the low twinge in his back. “Not…exactly?”
And Venessa leans back in her chair, shaking her head so her hair moves like lion’s mane about her shoulders. “Why do I suspect I don’t want to know,” she mutters, and the guilt is enough to drive him to find her something resembling actual words.
“I mean, we had a long…talk.” Shameless as Venti can be when the occasion calls for it, he’s horrified to realise that right now he really can’t quite keep down the flush creeping up behind his high collar. “I mean, it’s fine! He’s not angry.” He pauses, fingers tangling too tight together at the memory. “…anymore. I think.”
She eyeballs him for a long moment, that piercing golden gaze no less sharp than it had been the first day they’d met. He’s on the verge of blurting out something quite terrible and true when she just shakes her head, then waves a hand at the door. “Go on, then. To the taverns.” At his startled look, she almost smiles. “Venti has a few songs to sing of his latest travels, no doubt.” And now the smile does appear, small and lovely and genuine enough to quite take his breath away. “They’ve missed you, you know.”
His mouth hangs open. “I was barely gone at all!”
“They always miss you.” Her eyes have always been so very wise, for one so very young. “Go. Play them the song of the wind. Remind them of the freedom we all find here, and all across Mondstadt entire.”
Venti can never say no to her. And so he does go, light both of step and of heart. He always does have a song to sing – and there will always be those who inspire them. And he will always be open to writing another, and another, and another.