Chapter Text
In Dahlia’s experience, there were a few non-godlike places wherein one might find Mondstadt’s patron deity, provided, of course, that one knew whom and what to look for.
The Angel’s Share, for one. Granted, Dahlia reckoned there were a few forward-thinking acolytes who could’ve guessed that one— their patron deity, God of Wine and Song, found in a bar? Go figure!— but much of the church liked to ignore their deity’s predilection towards drink.
Another one was the tree at Windrise, though, admittedly, that one was easier to guess. Dahlia always claimed that the only reason Venti hadn’t been found out with that one was because nobody expected Barbatos to be passed out drunk beneath the branches.
Which… Dahlia supposed that one was fair, actually. He too had expected Barbatos to have more of a tolerance when he’d first met him, though perhaps that could be put down to Venti purposefully going beyond his body’s limits. Archons knew the man could drink more than his fair share of liquor and be no worse the wear for it, but there was a tipping point. Dahlia had seen it, firsthand.
But, the one place he’d never expected to see the Anemo Archon was Mondstadt’s very own jail cell.
“… Well, alright,” he said, after a solid 15 seconds of silence, because he genuinely hadn’t known what else to say. This was uncharted territory for him, and while normally he'd be eager to get into a new drama, it left him off-kilter when the person at the center of it was his friend. “This one’s… This one’s certainly new.”
“Drunk and disorderly,” Huffman explained, tone kind enough, but with an undercurrent of worry that Dahlia couldn’t miss. He knew full why, of course. ‘Drunk and disorderly’ wasn’t exactly Venti’s thing. “Can’t say we see you in here too often for things like that, eh, Venti?”
Venti didn’t respond. They’d taken his cloak and hat from him, Dahlia noted, and he just seemed so much smaller without them. Venti wasn’t exactly a large man to begin with; Dahlia had seen him literally be blown away by a particularly energetic gust of wind, before, but like this he seemed almost vulnerable.
The sight unsettled him.
“He didn’t actually do anything too ‘wrong,’” Huffman explained in an undertone, because Venti wasn’t reacting to them, staring a hole into the wrought stonework in front of him. If Dahlia didn’t know any better, he’d go as far as to say that he and Huffman were actively being ignored by the bard. “Honestly, he’s only in here because some folks were worried about him making his own way home, you know? Also…” he trailed off, and a grimace crossed his face. “Some of the brothers and sisters of the church were getting a bit… antsy about some of his performances, I suppose you could say. They started making a fuss, and— well— forgive me, Deacon, but you know what happens past that.”
Ah. Yes, Dahlia did know what usually happened past that.
“I’m familiar,” he muttered, then leaned forward, trying to catch Venti’s attention. God bless him, though, because he seemed to be doing his level best to pretend Dahlia wasn’t there— “Venti? Venti, come on.”
Huffman watched the entire exchange far too closely, and Dahlia tried not to feel like his skin was being pulled back. He knew full why, of course; Venti was beloved by the entire population of Mondstadt, for his ability to turn the mundane into the fantastical, accompanied by naught but an old lyre and a voice that never seemed to tire, or break. Some of it might’ve been a byproduct of his divinity, but Dahlia had always considered a greater component to just be Venti himself. Seeing him like this was… worrying, to put it mildly.
“He’s been… quiet,” Huffman said at length, and there was absolutely no disguising the concern in his voice. Dahlia was inclined to agree with him. A quiet Venti meant that something was wrong. “Most of us had reckoned a hangover, but…” he trailed off, then bit his lip. “I’ve… never known Bard Venti to be hungover.”
Dahlia had, but then again, he’d also seen Venti down enough spirits to give a heart attack to a water buffalo. The circumstances were slightly different.
“I’ll keep an eye on him,” he volunteered, which he would have done regardless— Venti was his friend, first and foremost, and friends looked after each other—but then Venti flinched from within the cell, and he realized that something was truly wrong.
Huffman didn’t seem to notice, though. “Thank you, Deacon,” he said, and Dahlia inclined his head, mind whirling with thoughts of Venti. Church, drink, fuck, that could mean anything— “He’s free to go.”
Well, yes. I’d rather hoped so, he thought, then waved goodbye to Huffman, turned to face Venti in the cell and was immediately met with the full force of Barbatos’ attention for his efforts.
He jumped, of course. It wasn’t every day when one found themselves fixed with the all-knowing, all-seeing stare of a god, an eldritch being that defied human comprehension, but Venti tamped down the glare almost instantly, and Dahlia was left with nothing but an over-quickened heartrate and unsteady breathing as a reminder.
“Sorry,” Venti muttered, the first words he’d said all morning. “I was… not paying attention.”
“You’re fine,” Dahlia choked out, even though it felt like his heart was about to vacate his ribcage with increasing efficacy. “Give me like— 25 seconds. I wasn’t prepared for that.”
Venti’s lips twitched into a feeble smile. “Do mine ears deceive me? Is it that Barbatos’ most truest devotee cannot bear to look upon him with human eyes?”
Dahlia rolled his eyes. “Barbatos’ most truest devotee just wasn’t ready to lock eyes with a god at 6 in the morning, cut him some slack,” he deadpanned, then unlocked the cell door with the key Huffman had left for him, and walked inside.
Venti smelled like apples and crisp morning air, of course, the sleepy sort that only showed up before 8am, and Dahlia tried not to inhale too obviously as he looped one of Venti’s arms around his shoulders.
“You’re warm,” he said, surprised, then asked, disbelieving: “Are you drunk? Still?”
“There’s no need to take that tone, Deacon,” Venti mumbled. “I'll have you know that the alcohol wore off long before you arrived here. Besides, stones from glass houses, hmm? I seem to remember supporting your weight on quite a few occasions after late-night visits to the Angel’s Share.”
True, but— “Normally, my stints don’t land me in jail,” Dahlia replied, only slightly exasperated, and Venti turned his head to give him the stink eye.
“No, they just land you on stall-mucking duty for a week and a half,” he replied, and Dahlia paused.
“Touché,” he replied after a moment, then shook his head. “What happened, anyways?”
Venti shrugged one shoulder. “Oh, you know. A bit of this, a bit of that,” he said idly, watching carefully as Dahlia retrieved his cape and hat for him. He accepted them with a small, ‘danke schön,’ and continued talking: “Turns out, priests don’t much like to hear about the time when Barbatos accidentally gambled away Morax’s Vortex Vanquisher, then had to disguise himself as a giant’s bride to win it back! Who knew, eh?”
Dahlia choked. “Is that— Is that a true story?”
“Does it really matter?” Venti asked as they stumbled out of the jailcell, squinting against the early morning light. “I’m not allowed to talk about it, regardless. Who cares if it’s true or not?”
That didn’t actually answer Dahlia’s question, but something about Venti’s dismissiveness rubbed him the wrong way. “I care,” he said, and Venti snorted— a derisive, mocking sound. Dahlia had never heard him sound like that before in his life, and decided very quickly that he never wanted to hear it again.
“High praise, Deacon,” he said. “You’d be the only one, though.” He sighed, wistful. “Oh, the misadventures I could sing about… you know, Barbatos and Morax used to chuck mountains at each other for birthday presents? ‘Course, the church shouldn’t mind that one as much— that one speaks to strength, a clever rhetoric that of course their God of Song would be able to engage in. Nevermind the time he pulled roots from a rock, or found the footfall of a cat, no, no. We’re only interested in the high and mighty stuff he did, regardless of whether we made half of it up.”
Dahlia paused, in the middle of the street, with Venti half-hanging off of him. “I didn’t think you paid much attention to church doctrine,” he said slowly, and Venti scoffed.
“I try not to,” he admitted. “Doesn’t mean I’m always successful. Heh. Wonder what your church would think of Barbatos’ lack of infallibility.”
The possessive pronoun bothered Dahlia, more than he was willing to admit. “Venti,” he said, half warning, half pleading, and the bard sighed before hanging his head.
“Entschuldigung, Dahlia, ignore me,” he muttered, which didn’t do anything but skyrocket Dahlia’s worry. Venti, asking to be ignored? Dahlia was almost tempted to take him to a healer, propriety be damned. “I’m… not myself right now.”
Hesitantly, Dahlia began walking again. “Did you… want to talk about it?” he asked after a moment, and cringed, kicking himself for his obvious ineptitude. Quite literally, this was his thing, helping folks with their problems, but God help him, he had no idea what to do for Venti. He'd cracked wise about his supposed 'infallibility' just a moment ago, but Dahlia wondered if he knew exactly how on-the-nose he'd been: Dahlia had never seen him so obviously put-out, and it was leaving him off-kilter.
And it wasn't even that he didn't know what the problem was. He knew full-well Venti’s hang-ups with the church, as much as he tried to hide it--God bless him, but he had a rather obvious tell: never did he ever refer to it with a possessive pronoun. The obvious avoidance said rather a lot, at least from Dahlia’s perspective, but he didn't know how to talk to him about it.
How did you discuss the fact that a church set up to worship a god had become the very thing that same god hated?
“That depends,” Venti replied, after too long a silence, “did you want to listen?”
“Of course,” Dahlia answered instantly, but worryingly, Venti went silent.
He reckoned a solid thirty seconds passed before his companion said anything.
“Alright,” Barbatos said, because that sure as shit wasn’t Venti speaking, and Dahlia nearly tripped over his own two feet. “Riddle me this, then, mine dearest herald: do you ask out of obligation, or something nearer and dearer to your own heart?”
“I’m not exactly asking Barbatos his thoughts and feelings, am I?” Dahlia replied without thinking. It was difficult to mediate his thoughts when he felt like he was being stared down by a very old, very ancient eldritch force that hadn’t yet decided what it wanted to do with him. The cons of speaking with the divine, he supposed, though usually Venti didn’t pull out the godly abilities without giving him a head’s up beforehand. “Last I checked, I was still talking with Venti.”
The glow died down. “You don’t think we’re the same person?”
“Yes and no,” Dahlia answered. “I think Barbatos is Venti, but I doubt sometimes whether Venti is Barbatos.”
There was a long, long beat of silence. “Once upon a time they would’ve cut out your tongue for saying something like that about your patron deity,” Venti muttered.
“Then I guess I’m lucky you have to preface that with ‘once upon a time,’” Dahlia replied, even as a part of him itched to know more. He knew the stories, of course; every child of Mondstadt did— Decarabian and his fortress of oppression, the rebellion that had been led and their Archon’s role in all of it. Sometimes, though, he got the impression that there were things their history had missed, things which their Archon kept close to his heart. At the same time, though, he got the impression that it would take a lot more than a nice bottle of wine to get Venti to spill those secrets.
(He was still searching for what might be an appropriate offering, though he supposed that half his issue was that he kept considering it an ‘offering’ at all.)
“Come on,” he said as he turned the corner, walking towards his house. Venti hadn’t exactly given him a straight answer about his sobriety, or lack thereof, but regardless he thought some time on a proper bed would do him some good. At the very least, he thought the god deserved a nice cup of tea for his troubles. Something with apples, he reckoned... “You’re acting oddly; what’s happened? You’re worrying me.”
Venti sighed very heavily.
“Did you know,” he said tiredly, “that you have to show up for confession, every Sunday? It’s not optional. Also, you have to attend mass, or else you’ll lose Barbatos’ favour and earn his disapproval. That’s how he’s supposed to be worshipped, after all, because that’s what the church decided.”
His voice grew louder, and more agitated. “There are songs, ballads that record true stories that I can’t sing, that have been buried and destroyed because they don’t paint Mondstadt’s dearest fucking Archon in a favourable light,” Venti snarled, and Dahlia balked before frantically checking left and right to make sure no one overheard. “Say your prayers, say the ones that the church fucking wrote and demands that you recite or God fucking help you, you will earn Barbatos’ wrath and he will abandon you to your own lonesome. Do it right—” Venti’s voice broke. “Or you can forget about the kindness and forgiveness of a gentle god.”
The words rang hollow in the wake of Venti’s rant, and for the life of him, Dahlia didn’t know what to say.
“Venti,” he said, begged. “What happened?”
For a long while, Venti didn’t say anything. Then, he sighed.
“There was a little girl,” he said flatly, “Elodie. She’s seven years old, and I found her sobbing yesterday, after I’d finished my set. She was terrified that Barbatos had abandoned her mother. When I asked her why, she said it was because she’d been too sick to go to mass, too sick to go to confession, and she’d lapsed in her prayers. Dahlia—” Venti grabbed ahold of him, grip tight enough to hurt, but Dahlia couldn’t bring himself to pull free. “Nothing I said could convince her otherwise. She just stood there, convinced that her poor mother was— was going to Hell, all because she’d failed to follow some bullshit rules that the church had created. When— When did I ever give the impression that that was what he’d wanted?”
“You didn’t,” Dahlia said immediately. “God, Venti, you didn’t.”
Venti scrubbed harshly at his eyes. “You didn’t hear her cry, Dahlia,” he hiccuped. “She— She asked me if there was a way she could trade places with her mother, said that she’d been well, and that it wasn’t fair that her mother had to suffer for something she couldn’t control—”
The winds began to pick up around him, swirling dangerously in a tight cyclone— whirlwind, wirbelwind and Windsbraut, for which Venti was named— and Dahlia inhaled sharply.
“Venti,” he said urgently. “Barbatos. Windes.” Of course, the Old Mondstadtisch word was what got Venti’s attention, and he received a strangled gasp of air for his efforts, followed shortly by Venti grabbing ahold of him like he was afraid Dahlia would vanish if he let go, and he immediately hugged the other man back.
“I’ll go see her later, alright?” he said. “Herald of Barbatos, surely she’ll believe the same words if I tell her whence they came, right?”
Venti inhaled shakily, breathing still too uneven for Dahlia’s liking. “This wasn’t what he’d wanted,” he sniffled, and Dahlia bit his lip. Who? he wanted to ask, but held his tongue. “Do you know what he’d said to me, about worship and belief and divinity? ‘You either believe like a small child, or you don’t believe at all.’ That’s what he had all his hopes pinned on, Dahlia, he wanted a world where worship and belief didn’t have to be synonymous with fear, and I— I couldn’t even give that to him—”
The rest of his sentence dissolved into gibberish, a dialect of Mondstadtisch so old that Dahlia couldn’t understand it, and he muttered curses under his breath before hurrying Venti forward, fishing for a house key in his pockets as he unlocked his own front door and headed inside.
Venti refused to let go of him as he staggered into the kitchen— for a personification of the wind, untethered and unbound, he was oddly clingy at times… though, Dahlia supposed that being one part of one thousand might explain a few things— and even held tight as Dahlia put the kettle on and began gathering the fixings for tea.
“… you remind me of him,” Venti mumbled in his ear, and Dahlia jumped. “He was free-spirited, too.”
He carefully measured out dried tea leaves into two mugs.
“Who?” he asked.
“You wouldn’t know his name,” Venti replied, voice still a little watery. “It didn’t get recorded.” A pause. “I think he’d have liked you, though. You’re very much the sort of religious-official I think he would have hoped for.”
Questions, questions. Dahlia didn’t think he’d get an answer even if he asked. “I don’t know if I’d use the term ‘religious-official’ to refer to myself,” he said. “Sounds a bit too… regimented.”
Venti snorted. “You’re just confirming my thoughts,” he said, a sad sort of amusement in his voice, and he finally detached from Dahlia’s shoulder to collapse into a seat at his kitchen table, staring forlornly out the window.
Dahlia came over holding two mugs of tea, and received a disapproving stare from Venti for his efforts. “I’m not called the God of Tea and Song, you know,” he grumbled, even as he took the offering and cautiously sipped at it. “You’d be better giving something like this to Morax.”
Dahlia stared at him oddly. “Didn’t Morax die during the rite of descension four years ago?”
Venti paused, then very deliberately took a long sip of his tea.
Dahlia took that with extreme grace, and resolutely put it in a box to be dealt with later.
“… Alright,” he said, and sat down in the seat opposite Venti. Despite the bard’s earlier words, that mug of tea was nearly empty, and Dahlia took that to mean he'd been right with his assumption to give the god something apple-related. For all his bluster about spirits, apples were also an incredible weakness of his. It was a mystery Dahlia was still working on, though, honestly, it might've just been that Venti genuinely liked the taste-- “Are you not burning your tongue?”
Venti blinked at him, then looked down at his tea. “Oh, right.” He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s easy to control the ambient air temperature around me, Dahlia, don’t look too closely at it.”
Dahlia raised an eyebrow at him. A second later, Venti rolled his eyes, and when Dahlia took a cautious sip, his tea was the perfect temperature.
“The little girl,” he said, and any and all mirth faded from Venti’s expression. “Where did you say she lived?”
Venti looked away. “Over in Springvale,” he muttered, curling his fingers protectively around his mug. From his vantage point Dahlia could see calluses on his fingertips, hard-won rewards that came from mastery over a lyre, and older scars, too, from years of trial and error with a bow and arrow. Why he’d given up on a catayst Dahlia would never know, but— “I had— planned to head by there later today,” Venti said, “with some provisions and whatnot, but then I went and pissed off the wrong priests, and spent a night in Mondstadt’s jailcell for my efforts, and my plans took a bit of a nosedive from there.”
Well, it summed up what Dahlia had already suspected, at least. Venti tended towards a gentle nature, like a warm spring breeze, but there was a reason one of his preferred attacks was the summoning of a windstorm, and it wasn’t because there was no relation there to begin with. “Then we’ll go over together,” he decided, and drained his tea. Venti watched him, wide-eyed. “We’ll bring provisions, some medicines, and then Barbatos’ Herald can refute whatever lies she’s been told.”
Venti stared down at his mug. “Church won’t like that.”
“The church is just going to have to deal, I'm afraid,” Dahlia replied, and Venti startled. “Besides, I'm your herald before the church's deacon. Come on. Finish your tea, then we’ll see what we can do.”