I imagine being a god as old as Venti means being pent up for quite a while so I just had this idea and had to write it down ehe.
Imagine Venti who hasn’t been worshipped for a long time. Prayed to, sure, put on a pedestal, of course, but to just be seen, spoken to, and maybe, just maybe, held. And he sees all the Mondstadt citizens as his own children so he couldn’t even think of asking such a thing of them.
Imagine Venti who sees you, a new face among his citizens, kneeling in the church, no prayers heard but a strange sense of comfort filling his veins.
Looking at you, a stranger, like this made him want to be seen by you, to be worshipped by you. He didn’t need your comfort, he wanted your devotion.
But wanting, needing this felt wrong. For someone who was respected as a God to want to be worshipped in this way felt like taboo. Was he really so desperate that just seeing someone whom he had never known, made him so hungry.
So he brought himself to discard all these thoughts, curled up by the giant oak tree in hopes that it would absorb it all.
But it seemed that fate had other plans. Everyday for the next few weeks you made your way into the church, as the clock struck midnight, getting on your knees to simply sit in silence, head lowered and hands clasped on your things.
And everyday he came to look for you, like clockwork. His desperation was only worsening, looking at you, so oblivious to it all yet still so beautiful.
And so, on a particular night of wallowing in confusion, with a lot of drinks in him, Venti decided he would do what he’d promised himself he’d never do.
You walked into the church again, as the clock struck midnight. You were a traveler and hence had been all over Teyvat, and seen all kinds of temples and churches. But this particular one had caught your attention, for its peaceful and unrestricted atmosphere and since your circumstances had called for you to stay in Mondstadt for half a year, you decided to make the most of your time here.
Reaching the centre, you dropped to your knees, mind drifting back to the past few days, which were, in all honesty, pretty uneventful. Your bones were starting to itch with the amount of inaction. If only something good would come your way to keep you busy for the next few weeks.
The soft thump of footsteps from behind you caught your attention. In your few weeks of being here you’d only encountered a person here this late twice or thrice. But it was always of people leaving from the inner rooms. Your curiosity peaked when the footsteps stopped right beside you.
You turned your head to look at the person and were quite surprised to find a bard standing there. You’d seen this man a few times in town and your neighbour had told you his name was Venti, a pretty famous bard around town. Which only confused even more because most bards would be playing at the bar at a time like this, trying their luck at making a mora or two. What would a bard want in a church at 12 in the night?
You felt an uneasy feeling creep up your spine as Venti stared right at you, or atleast tried to. His eyes were unfocused, like he was drunk to the bone.
Did you do something that now had even bards coming for your head? He opened his mouth to speak but took a few seconds to clear his throat as if physically preparing himself to ask something.
“I’ve.. noticed you coming here every so often. You are not a person from Mondstadt. And yet you kneel here every night. Why?” He questioned. For a second you wondered if he was trying to interrogate you, but the genuine curiosity in his eyes made you try and think of a meaningful answer.
“I’m a traveler” You replied. “And there is nothing more precious to a traveler than freedom. The freedom to explore and satisfy their curiosity.” His brows rose slightly, as if not expecting an actual answer, and then furrowed in thought.
“If you had one wish,” he started, “what would you ask the gods for?” You were utterly confused. Why did this cute bard want your answer to such weird questions all of a sudden. Whatever happened to ‘hello’ and ‘my name is’?
He could probably see the wild confusion on your face, because flapped his hands around and said “Apologies. I’m really drunk right now and I was really curious about a new face in this town. I didn’t mean to freak you out! I swear! I just felt that-“
You felt that if you didn’t stop him now, he would probably come up with three other excuses to justify the presence of a bard in the church at midnight. “If it was anything, I’d probably ask for a great adventure that would be written down in history. But realistically, I’d probably ask for a lot of mora so I could travelling wherever I wanted.” You answered, ignoring his still running mouth.
His rambling came to an abrupt halt, and his eyebrows shot up again in surprise. His expressive reactions were quite adorable, if you were being honest. “Oh.” He replied, mind still catching up with your answer.
“Then..” he began, now seating himself of the floor next to you, cross-legged like he was at home. “What do you think a god wishes for?”.
With the confidence from the extreme amount of alcohol in his system, Venti dared himself to finally go to the church and atleast speak to you today. He had no prior plans for this, and convinced himself that he presented himself best when he was improvising.
With all the grace of a 8 year old, he walked into the church, and right up to you, ready to woo you with his charm and charisma, only to utter a completely foolish question. He half expected you to just get freaked out excuse yourself away from him, but he was quite surprised and happy at your honest answer.
Before he could stop himself, he’d asked you another out of context question. When he saw the suspicion on your face, he felt all the blood flowing to his brain to form a plausible excuse, his mouth rambling word after word, until you again surprised him by answering his question.
He wished he could swirl himself off to the deep ocean, when the alcohol spoke on his behalf again. “What do you think a god wishes for?”. But he truly wished to know your answer for this. He was sure you would surprise him again.
He was surprised alright, because he didn’t expect your answer to be “I don’t know and I don’t think I should ever be involved in gods and their dealings”. He could feel a pout rise on his face. You had all but unknowingly shot down his wish.
He really wanted to change your mind. “What if the god wishes to have you involved in their dealings? What if the god doesn’t want to just be prayed to or put on a pedestal? What if they wish to be worshipped in a way that they know is too much to ask for and yet they wish for it anyway?” He could feel the heat rising to his face as he spoke.
Everything that came out of his mouth felt wrong to him. You were right. He shouldn’t rope you into doing something that could have consequences.
One look at your face told him you were as astonished as he was at what was being said. With a forceful swallow, he threw out a hasty apology before getting up and trying to speed walk to the door. If only Lady Luck were on his side today.
With the alcohol in his system and the increased embarrassment, Venti could barely walk a few feet before he bumped into a table and almost tripped face first. It was going to be a long walk to the door.
Your flabbers were gasted. You were absolutely not expecting a rant from a drunk bard on a Saturday night, but here you were. And you did not expect that drunk now staggering bard to be Barbatos.
Of course you realised it was him. Well, yes there was the striking resemblance to the giant statue in the middle of the city. But there was also the desperation in his eyes when he spoke of his wishes. No man could talk about another person’s wishes and say it from the heart.
Which left you with more questions. Why in the world would a god approach a stranger like you? Why would he ever want to talk about such weirdly deep things with you? Why, on your sweet granny’s soul, would he speak of his deepest wish to you?
Well you were, thankfully or not, smart enough to answer the third question. Which left you even more conflicted. You knew what he had asked for. And the fact that he approached you and spoke of it meant he was asking it of you.
But what if you were just misunderstanding the cues. What if he just wanted somebody to vent to?
The devil on your shoulder groaned in frustration while the angel on the other side pulled at your ear to go after him. Whether or not you were reading the cues right, you had to have the courtesy to at least make sure the god wasn’t found passed out on some bench in the middle of nowhere.
So you pushed yourself up to go after him. He was now barely conscious, as if he was letting himself just fall over and not exist so he wouldn’t have to face the embarrassment of dealing with you.
You grabbed him by his hips. Your hands could almost wrap around them completely. It was pretty easy to manhandle him until he rested over your shoulder. You hoped you didn’t look too suspicious walking down to street at midnight with an unconscious man thrown over your shoulder. Luckily for you, there were barely any people around.
You took him to your room, because you were only staying there temporarily and didn’t need a big house, and laid him on the bed. You took off his shoes and accessories because you didn’t want any of that poking you while you were sleeping. You noticed that he was also sweating like a polar bear in natlan and after much contemplation, pulled his shirt off. It’s not like it was uncommon for men to sleep with their shirt off anyways, right?
Venti woke up with a nasty hangover. He could swear he’d done something or someone last night. He looked around trying to figure out where he was until he noticed you. Curled up in the sheets beside him. That was also when he noticed he had barely any clothes on.
He had no idea what he’d done last night. Whatever he had done, should not have ended up like this. Why the hell did he think it was a good idea to drink heavily and approach you. Now he’d done something that made him seem like a drunk bard who only thought about getting laid. Shit. How could he ever have the courage to see you again.
He had to get out of here before you woke up. The least he could do was to make you think he was just fling so that he wouldn’t worsen your impression of him by trying and failing to explain himself to you when you woke up.
With haste, he pulled on his clothes. Before he could wear his accessories he heard you stirring in your sleep. Grabbing anything and everything of his that he could see on the table where you’d arranged his stuff, he dashed out of the window.
Waking up to the sound of fabric and metal, you rubbed your eyes. Looks like the bard was awake. It was courtesy to ask if he wanted to stay for breakfast, wasn’t it? You pushed yourself off the bed and looked around for him. Oh. Looks like the bard had run off. Oh well.
If you didn’t notice, this got really really really long and it never actually got to the part I was actually writing it for 🥲. I didn’t wanna make it too long so I decided to post it in 2 parts. The next part will be posted soon, trust.
Also, before you point out in your head that Venti didn’t realise that he didn’t have any marks on him or that his pants were still on, you can’t tell me that if you ever woke up next to that one hot person, almost naked, in their bed, you wouldn’t freak out and think like him too. I know I’d freak and run away too. No? Just me?
Again, it was midnight as always, so I ask of your forgiveness if I have made any mistakes 🫠.
