Work Text:
serendipitous [ˌsɛr(ə)nˈdɪpɪtəs]
adjective
occurring or discovered by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
In those rare moment where no demons or vengeful spirits plague Liyue, Xiao likes to climb.
The mountains in Liyue are something familiar and unchanging, massive stone pillars that rise above the clouds and watch over the rest of the nation through the centuries. They’re peaceful, too – very few have the determination or skill to scale several hundred metres of bare rock. So, when he has a moment to breathe, Xiao likes to climb.
He could theoretically teleport right to the top, but there’s something soothing about the repetitive motion of springing up the side of the mountain. The texture of the rock can be felt even through his gloves, and he can perch on ledges and scan the land around him. His mask bumps against his hip with each movement, and if he closes his eyes he’s reminded of simpler days where he would race the other yaksha to the top. Xiao always won, but sometimes Indarius would come a close second.
As he climbs, the wind swirls more freely around him. It sometimes feels as though it’s pushing him up, forming currents and aiding him on his journey to the top, but Xiao isn’t silly enough to think that the wind has time to waste on helping him climb a mountain. Nonetheless, it brings him some small comfort and guides him higher, higher, until he finally hauls himself over the final ledge onto the peak of the mountain. His chest heaves ever so slightly, and with each breath the wind rushes into his lungs and curls through his body.
Xiao sits, one leg dangling over the edge and the other tucked close to his chest. A lone qingxin sways next to him. He watches it dance in the breeze, petals fluttering, and thinks it must be nice to be so free, so close to the sky. The qingxin bobs slightly, as if nodding in agreement, and Xiao turns away to look up at the sky it turns its face towards. There are a few wisps of cloud that sit above the peak, but Xiao passed through the main cloud layer a couple hundred metres ago, so for the most part the sky is beautifully clear and blue. Xiao looks up into the vast azure expanse and imagines soaring through it, buoyed by the wind under his wings and the lightness of his heart. A phantom ache between his shoulder blades brings him back to reality, back down to the cliff edge he currently occupies.
As of late, Xiao has been practicing music. Since the arrival of the blonde traveller in Liyue, his workload has been significantly reduced. This leaves him with a lot of spare time that he hadn’t quite known what to do with before Morax (“Zhongli,” the mortal man in front of him corrects with a smile) had suggested picking up a hobby.
“It might be good for you to know something other than violence,” he had said, sounding oddly sad. Xiao had looked around for the source of his sorrow but found nothing.
No human hobbies particularly call to Xiao. He contemplated making lanterns, but his hands have always been better suited for wielding a spear than a craftsman’s tools, and he’s never enjoyed the Lantern Rite festivities anyway. Cooking is useless to him when he doesn’t have to eat. In all his millennia defending Liyue, Xiao has never stumbled across a leisure activity that appeals to him. Even now that he has the time to “indulge”, as some would put it – though Xiao dislikes the idea of indulgence, because it brings to mind a lack of discipline – nothing seems worth investing time that could be spent training into. The only thing that brings him the kind of peace that others describe experiencing when they practice their hobbies is climbing up, up, up until he can almost touch the sky. But when he finally reaches the top, he always feels a little hollow, so he concludes that this is not the type of hobby that Morax – Zhongli – intends for him.
A few weeks ago, though, Xiao passed a busker near Wangshu Inn and remembered the sweet melody of a flute, and wondered if perhaps music would be a useful hobby. Something that could potentially be used to alleviate the burden of his karmic debt in moments where it might interfere with his duties, and something that is suitably leisurely enough to earn Zhongli’s approval. His decision proves to be a good one when he announces it to Zhongli one day, who smiles and offers to help him purchase a suitable dízi.
So now when Xiao climbs to the top of Liyue’s mountains and feels as though something is missing, he practices the flute.
He’s relatively proficient, but his technique doesn’t even begin to compare to the technique exhibited in that song from centuries ago. As such, he cannot be certain that he’d be any use in relieving his karmic debt yet, and so he keeps practicing.
In the first week, it had taken him an embarrassing amount of time to match his fingerings to the notes that were engraved on his heart, but he thinks that the movement of his fingers along the dízi comes relatively naturally now. He closes his eyes and plays through the familiar melody, feeling a little tension leave his body. Perhaps there’s some merit to this idea of leisure.
“Hi!”
Xiao startles and just barely avoids dropping his dízi over the cliff and down a thousand metres. He carefully schools his expression and turns to his left.
“Hello, Lord Barbatos.”
He’s never spoken to Barbatos before. In fact, the closest he’s ever been to Barbatos was that night. But he’s seen him from afar, and heard a little of his travels and long, long naps, and sometimes watched from a distance on the increasingly rare occasions that Barbatos passed through Liyue. The blonde traveller had mentioned that the Anemo Archon had recently awoken from his slumber, so Xiao isn’t particularly surprised to see him in Liyue. He is surprised to see him on this mountaintop at the precise moment that Xiao is there.
The archon sighs and flops down ungracefully, sprawled over the grass. “Ugh, you’re so formal! Just Venti is fine.”
Xiao purses his lips and chooses not to comment. Venti doesn’t seem to mind too much, because he leans over into Xiao’s space with wide eyes.
“Aha! I knew I heard music!”
Xiao flushes and folds his hands over his dízi, ashamed to have been caught practicing a poor imitation of a beautiful tune by the original composer and performer – ashamed to be so inadequate and in the presence of the god of wine and freedom and song. “I apologise for the racket. I only began to play recently.”
“Ooh, only recently?” Venti asks with interest. “You’re quite good!”
“You’re much better, Lord Barbatos,” Xiao says, bowing his head. He can feel an odd burning in his cheeks that he’s entirely unaccustomed to.
“Venti,” he protests plaintively. “And anyway, I mostly play the lyre! Where on earth did you get the idea that I’m some kind of professional flautist?”
Xiao thinks about a moonlit light and the rushing of blood in his ears, but stills his tongue. “Are you not talented with all instruments?”
“Is that what they’re saying about me?” Venti says, aghast. “I didn’t realise they were making me out to be so intimidating!”
Xiao isn’t sure what part of playing a musical instrument is intimidating, unless you’re an inferior musician sitting next to Barbatos himself. He chooses not to voice this thought, and instead remains silent. A gust of wind blows past and ruffles Venti’s braids.
“Anyway,” Venti says after a moment. “Don’t let me stop you from practicing!”
The thought of stumbling through Venti’s own song right in front of him is positively mortifying, and Xiao refuses to endure such a humiliation ritual. Outwardly, he politely says, “Thank you, but I’ve completed my practice for the day.”
Venti pouts and swings his legs. “Aww. I wanted to hear it.”
“Lord Bar– Venti,” he corrects, at Venti’s glare. “What brings you to Liyue?” What brings you to this mountain? is his real question, but he worries it would come across standoffish.
Venti hums consideringly. “It’s been a while! I wanted to see what had changed.”
“You won’t see much from up here,” Xiao says, gazing across the blanket of fluffy clouds to the unending blue sky in the distance.
“There’s beauty in the clouds, too,” says Venti, “and besides! I could say the same to you. Why are you up here, if you don’t like the view?”
“I like the view.” Xiao shifts his gaze back to the qingxin that sways gently next to him. It, too, seems perplexed by Venti’s presence, tilting curiously in his direction.
“What flower is that?” Venti asks, right next to his ear, and Xiao jumps at the sudden proximity.
“A qingxin,” he says after a moment.
“Tell me about them?”
Xiao looks at Venti, eyes wide and inquisitive. He doesn’t look particularly archon-like right now, Xiao notices, with his casual demeanour and mortal clothing. He almost wonders if this is the same Anemo Archon that defeated Decarabian and protected Mondstadt for the entire Archon War, but if he looks a little deeper into Venti’s eyes he can see an ancient wisdom, hidden deep in the pools of teal.
“They grow on mountaintops,” he explains haltingly. “They like the wind and the sky. They’re usually solitary.”
Venti nods along and doesn’t comment on the length (or lack thereof) of his explanation. “They remind me a bit of a Mondstadt flower,” he says, leaning back on his hands and giving Xiao a bit of room to breathe, much to his relief. “It’s called a cecilia. I have one in my hat!” He points at the white flower pinned in his hat. “They also like the wind. So of course, I like them too!” He laughs and leans closer to Xiao again. “Do you like qingxins?”
“I suppose,” Xiao answers. Venti’s constant intrusion into his space is disconcerting and uncomfortable, but Xiao doesn’t find that he’s irritated by it. Just unused to it.
Venti makes a pleased noise and they lapse into silence. Xiao finds himself studying Venti, looking for more traces of the archon that saved his life all those centuries ago. He thinks he finds them, in the tilt of Venti’s head as he gazes thoughtfully at the horizon, in the way he absently hums an unfamiliar lilting melody, in the way he carries himself so surely despite his youthful appearance and carefree attitude. Xiao admires his ability to balance friendliness and approachability with the bearing befitting an archon, but then remembers Barbatos’s fabled propensity to extended slumber and binge drinking, and thinks – for a single, blasphemous moment – that maybe Venti is just as flawed as he is, that Venti might also still be determining the best way to fulfil his role in this world.
He quickly amends this train of thought and reminds himself that, no matter how he seems in this instant, Venti is still an archon. He alone reshaped Mondstadt and carved its landscape, whereas all Xiao can do is fight demons and watch those around him die. They are nowhere near the same level, and Venti is doing Xiao a kindness by allowing him to exist so casually in his presence.
Zhongli has recently been behaving unusually informally around Xiao, and he wonders if it’s a new trend amongst the archons or if Zhongli had learned such strange behaviour from Venti.
“You never answered my question,” Venti says after a while. “Why are you up here?”
Xiao considers deflecting the question, but decides that he’s already been disrespectful enough today and owes at least the truth to Venti. “It’s near the sky.”
“Have you always liked the sky?” Venti asks, and Xiao doesn’t hesitate before answering.
“Yes.”
He used to spend hours doing loops and dipping down to brush the tops of the clouds with his fingers, flying up to try and reach Celestia before giving up halfway and swooping all the way to the ground to skim the water of the river. There were violent gods around back then, but none of them ever bothered to bring their territorial disputes to the open air. They never saw any value in that infinite stretch of blue, but Xiao has never felt more free and happy than those days.
That was a long time ago, thousands and thousands of years, before he was drawn into the Archon War and lost his wings. Xiao knows it’s silly to hold onto something so unattainable and distant, but he has always found his inability to truly stop dwelling on the past to be a weakness of his. He’s never been able to overcome it, which speaks to his inadequacy as a protector of Liyue and of his fellow yaksha.
In his peripheral vision, he can see Venti watching him with an unreadable expression. “What do you like about it?”
Xiao takes a moment to gather his composure before carefully saying, “I used to have wings. Flying was a favourite pastime of mine.”
He doesn’t offer more detail, and Venti doesn’t ask for it. Instead, he stands, and Xiao berates himself for bringing down the mood so much that Venti feels he has to leave.
“Would you like to fly again?”
Xiao looks up, startled. Venti beams down at him, eyes sparkling.
“I no longer have wings,” he says, stilted. “I can’t fly.”
“Maybe not.” Venti shrugs. “But, in case you forgot, I’m the Anemo Archon! I can arrange a wind current or two. And I have wings of my own.”
Xiao had once heard that Barbatos only unfurled his wings for important occasions, and quickly decides to pay no heed to that kind of gossip any longer – this isn’t important at all, and yet Venti is offering to fly him around like some kind of personal travel service.
“I didn’t intend to complain,” he says carefully. “You needn’t feel obligated to... I haven’t flown in a long time, anyway.”
Venti ignores him and crowds into his space once again. “I’m going to have to carry you, if that’s okay,” he chirps, stepping behind Xiao and wrapping his arms around Xiao’s waist. Xiao lets out an undignified squeak most unbecoming of the Conqueror of Demons, and Venti giggles. “Just relax.”
Xiao thinks that anyone would find it difficult to relax with a god pressed up against them, arms wound tightly around their midriff, but does his best to suppress any further embarrassing noises. There’s a faint rustling from behind him, and Xiao feels the still-familiar brush of air that comes from wings unfolding.
“Ready?” Venti asks, and Xiao barely has time to nod before they’re airborne.
He’d thought that being carried like this would result in him dangling in an unseemly fashion from Venti’s arms, but a series of wind currents too well-timed to be coincidental keep him pleasantly but awkwardly pressed close to Venti. At first, he’s a little too preoccupied by the heartbeat against his back and the arms snugly resting below his ribcage to fully appreciate being back in the air again, but after a couple of minutes he manages to push his awareness of his proximity to Venti to the back of his mind.
For millennia now, Xiao has sustained himself on the memory of flight. He thought he remembered it well, that he could recall every tiny detail of the way the wind buffeted his face and the swoops in his stomach. He discovers that his memory is far from perfect, and that reality is incomparably wonderful compared to the past experiences that he’s been thriving off until now.
He is delighted to find that the wind gently tousles his hair and curls against his cheek like a loving hand cradling his face. His stomach flips when they descend too suddenly, but in a way that’s exciting and thrilling rather than uncomfortable or distressing. When Venti’s wings dip into his field of view he admires the glossy white feathers and thinks fondly back on his own wings.
“Do you have anywhere you’d like to go?” Venti asks, and he doesn’t have to raise his voice over the rushing wind at all. A benefit of being the Anemo Archon, Xiao supposes.
He hesitates before speaking, not wanting to ask more of Venti when even this much is more than he could have dreamed of. “Could we touch the clouds?” he says nervously, and fights back an elated smile when they descend a little towards the white puffs of condensation.
When they get close enough, Xiao drops a hand down to trail through the very tops of them. They’re cold and wet, and Xiao shivers a little as they dip low enough that his whole forearm is immersed in the clouds. They stay there for a moment before Venti flies back upwards, doing a loop that gets Xiao to let out a breathless laugh.
It feels like an impossibly long and short time before they’re back on solid ground, Xiao’s cheeks flushed from the wind and happiness. He can’t seem to wipe the pleased smile off his face, even once Venti turns to him with a cheerful but studying expression.
“Did you have fun?” he asks, tilting his head at Xiao.
“Yes,” Xiao breathes, before remembering his manners and bowing. “Thank you for your kindness, Lord Barbatos.”
“Oh, I told you to stop that,” Venti says, making a tsk sound and shaking his head at Xiao. “I haven’t flown in a while either, so it was nice to fly again with someone who loves it so dearly!”
Xiao blushes, unsure what to say. He can’t even begin to imagine how he might repay Venti for a favour like this, for something that made him so deliriously happy.
“Still,” he begins, choosing his words carefully. “I’m truly grateful. I had never expected to experience flight again. If there’s any way I can repay you–”
“Don’t be silly,” Venti interrupts, waving him off. He plops down on the cliff’s edge once more and pats the spot next to him until Xiao cautiously sits next to him. “Your delightful company is more than enough for me.”
Xiao feels his cheeks go pink and determinedly does not look at Venti.
“Although,” Venti muses, “if you really want to make it up to me...”
“Yes?” Xiao asks, eager to know how he might assist Venti.
“You could play me the song you were playing earlier!” Venti says sunnily. He smiles brightly at Xiao.
Xiao feels his heart sink. That might be the one thing he’s unwilling to give Venti, at the moment. “Ah... I can’t.”
Venti pouts and leans against Xiao’s shoulder, much to his surprise. “Awww, why not? Come on, I’m sure you’ll be great!”
Xiao presses his lips together and swallows, looking away. “No, I really can’t.”
Venti goes quiet and then pulls away from Xiao, leaving his shoulder bare to the suddenly chilly breeze. This is it, Xiao thinks. I’ve put him off and now he’s going to leave. Xiao finds that he’s startlingly upset by the idea.
Then Venti pops into view in front of Xiao, blocking his view of the clouds. His brows are set in determination. “Please, Xiao. I really don’t know why you’re so nervous, I swear I’m not that good at flute!”
That’s only part of why Xiao is concerned, but he still shakes his head. Venti sighs and flops backwards onto the ground, kicking his feet idly where they dangle over the edge.
“Can you at least tell me why?” he asks quietly, and Xiao is strangely compelled to tell him – he sounds downcast, and Xiao feels terribly guilty for making Venti take him for a flight and then immediately putting him in a bad mood, all because Xiao is too ungrateful to fulfil a simple request.
Xiao wets his lips. “Well,” he starts, and Venti sits up abruptly. His eyes are wide and fixed on Xiao’s, and Xiao has to look away before the heat creeping up his neck shows on his face. “It’s just that – it’s your song. So it would be awkward.”
“One of mine?” Venti asks. Xiao nods. Venti’s eyes take on a mischievous sparkle. “I don’t know which one you mean,” he laments, and Xiao feels a sense of foreboding. “I guess you have no choice but to play it for me.”
Until now, Xiao had thought of Venti’s smile as kind and benevolent and cheerful, but he realises now that it can take on an almost wicked quality if he looks at it from the right angle.
This is a terribly cruel tactic on Venti’s part, but Xiao reminds himself how irreverent he’s been today and decides that this one request is nothing compared to what Venti has done for him by allowing him both to continue living and experience flight once more. He picks up his dízi and clears his throat a couple of times before stumbling through a particularly poor rendition of the song. There are multiple wrong notes and once it’s over, he winces. Venti applauds and kindly ignores the many mistakes in Xiao’s abysmal performance.
“Didn’t you say you were a beginner, Xiao? That was great!”
Xiao politely disagrees, cheeks aflame, and looks anywhere but Venti’s face until Venti addresses him again.
“I only ever played that song once,” Venti says, watching Xiao curiously. “In Dihua Marsh in the middle of the night. Why do you know it?”
“I happened to also be in Dihua Marsh that night,” Xiao answers, which is true. Venti raises an eyebrow at him, though, apparently unconvinced.
“But why do you remember it?” he presses. It strikes Xiao that Venti can be annoyingly pushy. Even so, he caves to Venti’s interrogation.
“I was having some trouble with my karmic debt that night,” he says matter-of-factly. “Your music was helpful in...” Xiao pauses to figure out the best way to word it. “...in bringing me back to myself.”
Venti considers him for a moment before speaking again. “I’m glad my music reached someone in need, then.” He seems oddly serious, so Xiao only nods in reply. There’s no way for him to verbally express how that tune bolstered him and kept him going for such a long time without stumbling over his words. And even if he, by some miracle, was able to get all his thoughts out without issue, he isn’t sure that they would be enough to encapsulate his gratitude. So he remains silent, and hopes that Venti is able to gather some of that from his lack of words.
“You know,” Venti says, shuffling so that he’s pressed uncomfortably close to Xiao, who has to take several deep breaths to hide any visible reaction to all the points where they make contact. “It’s nice to know it wasn’t just me!”
“What wasn’t just you?” Xiao gazes at Venti’s profile as his eyelids flutter before he glances at Xiao. If Xiao were a more insolent person, he might say that Venti looks nervous, but as it is he would never dare to make such an insulting assessment of an archon.
“That was paying attention!” Venti says. His throat bobs, and then he turns to face Xiao fully, a smile on his face. “Wow, and here I thought I was weird for keeping an eye out for you all this time.”
Xiao flushes a deep red. “You’ve been watching me?” he says in a strangled voice.
Venti’s laugh is like chiming bells. “Of course! I never spoke to you, though, because you always seemed so busy. I was quite irritated with that old blockhead for keeping you working all the time, so I really gave him a piece of my mind recently.”
“Why?” Xiao asks. His heart beats rapidly, as if he’s just finished a particularly gruelling fight. It puts him on edge, but he can’t look away from Venti.
“I heard stories about you on the wind,” Venti says, pulling out his lyre and plucking a few strings delicately with his slender fingers. “And perhaps it’s silly, but I always thought we had a lot in common. Especially once I found out you had an Anemo vision! I was really proud to be connected to someone so brave.”
“I’m not brave,” Xiao demurs, “and I don’t see how I could have anything in common with someone like you.”
Venti pouts. “Gosh! So rude.”
Xiao straightens and rushes to correct himself. “I didn’t mean it like – I only meant that you’re Barbatos, god of freedom, and I’m only a soldier.”
Venti hums disapprovingly, brows furrowed, and Xiao looks down at his hands. He doesn’t think that was the kind of answer Venti was looking for, but he isn’t sure what other answer there is to give.
After a beat, Venti takes a breath in and Xiao looks back up at him.
“I had a friend once,” Venti says quietly, the quietest he’s spoken in the short time that Xiao has known him. “And a life, before I was an archon and I had to worry about Mondstadt all the time – though I do love all my children,” he says hurriedly, a small smile on his face. “And I’m honoured to be able to look after them. But sometimes I miss the freedom I had before, and the people I lost along the way.” When he looks at Xiao, the smile on his face has turned sad. “You feel the same, right?”
Xiao nods slowly. Venti smiles a little more and rests his head on Xiao’s shoulder.
“I thought so.” He exhales slowly, and Xiao tries to breathe in sync with him so that he doesn’t jostle Venti from where he’s supported by Xiao. “So even though we haven’t spoken for very long, I feel as though I already know you quite well.” He takes Xiao’s hands in his and laces their fingers together, smiling up at Xiao. Xiao looks at Venti’s face and sees an archon, a bard, and a wisp of wind all hidden in the depth of his eyes, and he squeezes their interlocked fingers a little. Venti giggles, a bright sound that warms Xiao’s heart and rings in the wind. For unrelated reasons, Xiao decides the altitude must finally be getting to him and causing his shortness of breath.
Across Liyue, Xiao’s name echoes from somewhere far below. His so-called leisure time is over – duty calls, as usual. Xiao doesn’t immediately teleport away, though, lingering with his hands entwined with Venti’s. He opens his mouth to stammer out an apology and an explanation, but Venti sighs. “You have to go, huh?” he whines, squeezing Xiao’s hands almost painfully tightly.
“Sorry,” Xiao says, and truly means it. Venti sighs dramatically again but relinquishes his bruising grip on Xiao’s hands, standing and brushing off his clothes.
“Really, that old man should give you a proper holiday,” he grouses, but there’s no true disgruntlement in his voice. Xiao swallows a few times before speaking.
“I liked talking to you,” he says, stumbling over his words, and Venti blinks at him a few times before breaking into a wide smile.
“I liked talking to you too,” he says sweetly, and Xiao blushes. Venti springs closer and presses a soft kiss to his cheek before stepping away, the tips of his ears a faint red. “Let’s do this again sometime, hm?”
Xiao nods slowly, feeling like he hasn’t properly processed a lot of the last few minutes and Venti beams at him, earnest and lovely, before stepping off the edge of the cliff and disappearing in a gust of wind. Xiao looks over the edge and sees nothing.
Time catches up to him and he presses a shaky hand to his cheek, heart racing. He has work to do, he can’t afford to be so disoriented by a simple kiss. Don’t think about it, Xiao tells himself sternly as he teleports to the source of distress, but even as he fights the vengeful remnants of dead gods he finds a tremulous smile on his face that alarms any bystanders who catch a glimpse under his mask.