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archived-kin · 3 years

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ten steps behind

note from kin: kind of a greek mythology au? this is based on the story of orpheus and eurydice, feat. venti as orpheus, you as eurydice, kaeya as apollo, zhongli and ei as hades and persephone (+ diona, razor and gorou as cerberus, and xiao as charon the ferryman)

in hindsight maybe putting guizhong as persephone would’ve worked better in terms of adhering to canon… but i wouldn’t have any idea how to write her and also eizhong is a rare pair close to my heart

fandom: genshin impact

character(s): gn! reader, venti, zhongli, ei ,kaeya, xiao, diona, gorou, razor

pairing(s): venti/reader, zhongli/ei

warning(s): death, violence (not descriptive), greek mythology spoilers if that kind of thing matters to you (though i’m pretty sure most people already have an idea of how this story goes)

genre: angst but the narrator’s voice is pretty light-hearted so it’s not that bad

The curtain opens on a small house situated on the outskirts of a quiet farming town. Its door is half-ajar, and the windows are grey with dust. It seems to be nothing more than a monument, a derelict memorial left for the life that once occupied its space.

But what is this? A shadow, standing on the porch - though no footsteps have been heard for hours, and the dry leaves littering the nearby paths are undisturbed. A hand places itself softly on the rusted knob of the door; with a quiet click, it swings open, and the shadow silently steps over the threshold.

A figure is sat by the fireplace, rocking back and forth, as if trying to shake something from their body. There are no flames in the grate; the figure sits in lightless isolation, staring hard at the half-charred log as if gaze alone might ignite it. The shadow watches them in silence.

“You’re going to have to stop moping eventually, you know,” They say finally. The figure by the fireplace looks up at them with eyes of an age far beyond their years.

“Go away.”

Of course, the shadow is none other than the deity of (among other things) the sun, poetry, archery and music. His true name is unknown, but I believe that he is currently taking the form of a man called Kaeya who, rather confusingly, wields a sword rather than a bow. The figure by the fireplace, meanwhile, is a bard named Venti, and he is perhaps the man most sympathetic to the things that Kaeya represents.

Indeed, he enjoys warming himself in patches of sunlight, frequently spends time writing increasingly imaginative (and flowery) prose, makes use of a magnificent bow that he likes to call the Stringless despite it clearly having a string because otherwise it wouldn’t fire, and is possibly the greatest musician in the entire country - nay, the world. Both the mortal one, and, as we will find out, the unliving one.

I wish I could say that that is an exaggeration, but it is not. Indeed, it has been said that his music is so pure, so sweet, so pleasing to the ear, that he could be playing to you as you were torn to death by wild animals, and you would still die in peace.

Venti’s preferred instrument is the lyre, though he dabbles in other mediums too. He sings, as well, of course, but unlike other performances of similar nature, the highlight isn’t his voice. It is, indisputably, the golden shower of notes that rain across the audience the moment his fingers meet his instrument’s strings.

They say he must be a son of the deity of music himself. Kaeya doesn’t bother remembering enough of his long past to know whether or not it is true that one of his old faces fathered the boy, but he does know that it was probably Venti’s doing that his beloved lyre has become such a popular instrument again. True, it wasn’t Kaeya who invented it - it was, in fact, the deity of messengers who did that, and it’s always been a bit of a sore spot to him that he wasn’t - but it was Kaeya who improved it to what it became by the time Venti had taken it up.

He’d be lying if he didn’t have a personal interest in the boy - his fault for making a bet with the deity of wine, really, but he hadn’t exactly been clear-minded at the time - but he does also really feel quite bad for him. Less than six months ago, this derelict little shack that Venti spends all his hours moping around in had been quite the little haven of happiness.

For, though Venti had long since declared that he needed nothing but his music, there had always been one piece missing from his life. It was neither glory nor adventure - it was, in fact, every poet’s best friend: love.

Which is where you come into the story.

The two of you had met, quite by accident, by some little creek in a forest. You, a seasoned warrior back from a crusade under the local ruler, still dressed in full armour and wielding a heavy axe; him, delicately paddling his feet in the water and teasing a bubbling melody from the strings of his lyre.

You had paid him little attention but a salute of greeting and a stern half-smile from beneath your helmet. Venti took one look at that smile and fell in love.

He came to find you the very next day; you’d opened your front door to find practically dancing on his toes in front of it, lyre in hand, with a ballad he’d written overnight at the ready. Of course, you listened to him play for a while - it would only be polite. He had a talent for music, that was sure, but you didn’t find yourself particularly enamoured. You appreciated the thought, though.

You’d gently rejected him, but thanked him for the effort, and then been on your way. But, of course, that wasn’t the end of Venti’s pursuit. Affairs of the heart are not so easily dismissed; as it turned out, this particular love of his wouldn’t be halted even by the barrier between life and death.

For several long weeks Venti had set about establishing himself a place by your side. You welcomed him as a friend, and though he thought at first that he would be content simply to have any place in your affections, it soon became clear that it would never be enough. Nevertheless, he could only still his aching heart, and hold you at arm’s length - always afraid that, if you came closer, he would lose his self-control entirely.

He continued to play you songs, but they were all carefully void of any romantic meaning - simple ditties about the morning dew, or a rabbit disappearing into its burrow. As you smiled more and more to his music, Venti finally dared to play that ballad again. You didn’t say anything as the song came to a finish, but you placed a war-hardened hand on his for a moment, and that was enough.

Some time later, when you taught him how to handle his bow without being snapped in the face by the recoil, you did not reject the hesitant hands he embraced you with at the end of the day. You did not reject him when he asked for a kiss, either.

The two of you had married on a mid-spring eve, when the air was reasonably cool but the flowers flourishing, and for a while all had been well. You earnt a fair wage for your services to the kingdom, and Venti was in no shortage of the loose change that enthusiastic audiences would throw to him for his more public performances.

Venti played his best when it was just the two of you, though. You would sit in your armchair by the fire, free of your usual clanking armour, and a smile would play on your face as Venti’s fingers capered back and forth on his lyre; his songs would climb the reaches of the sky to the heavens above, and even the deities residing there found themselves moved by his simple, pure love.

But Fate would strike when all was warm and light and deliriously happy. Its wizened hands would only begin to creep over the edge when the world seemed at its most beautiful, and it would tease that golden string of life with a single, shadow-veiled finger. Then it would begin to pull - first, slowly, slowly, moving a fraction of an inch with each passing week… until finally, it would tug it free in one sharp yank.

A call to arms was delivered to the cottage that the two of you called home. It came at an odd time, in the midst of a period of peace, but you knew better than anyone that war was unpredictable, and so you weren’t suspicious.

The note said that a meeting was to be held in the nearby forest, and the siege would take place two days after that. Nothing strange. Plans of attack were usually made in advance.

You reassured Venti that you’d be back before sunset and left. He watched your figure disappear down the road, sighing to himself about how truly ethereal you looked, even when not clothed in shining armour like a celestial being. Perhaps he’d write a song about that.

He busied himself with his music, as per usual. Hours passed, and sunset came. You didn’t.

It had not been a call to arms, after all - merely a plot hatched against you by a jealous former comrade. You arrived at the meeting place to find it empty; just as it hit you what you might have walked into, a spear was thrust through your chest. If only you had worn your armour on the expedition - but you had been expecting a planning session, not a true battle.

A passing farmer discovered your body unceremoniously thrown into a ditch. A crowd soon gathered, and more than half of them recognised your face. Two or three left to fetch your partner.

They say that Venti’s cry echoed to all four corners of the Earth when he recognised your broken form in the dirt. It skewered a sharp horror deep in the hearts of all who listened - including the deities high in the heavens.

Kaeya had been among those deities who developed a fondness not only for Venti’s music, but for the blissful domesticity of his life with you. Indeed, among them, perhaps it was he who was most deeply affected by the loss of that homespun warmth - affected enough that, even if he hadn’t made that foolish bet, he’d probably still be here right now.

“I won’t go away,” He says sternly. “Not until you pick that lyre back up.”

“I will never play again,” Venti replies mournfully. “Not until I have my [Name] by my side once more.”

“Come on,” Kaeya tries, gently pushing at his shoulder. “You’re wasting away like this. Is this what your fine warrior lover would want for you?”

Venti curls in on himself and continues staring gloomily into the empty fire grate. “...my lyre’s gone. I threw it into the river weeks ago.”

The melodramatics of these mortals! Kaeya fights back a sigh. “Would you play again if I got you a new one?”

“No.”

“Even if it was a divine lyre? One that only you could bring the true potential out of? That true potential being the ability to move the hearts of even the rulers of the Underworld?”

Venti turns to look at him. His face is weary, so very weary, weighed down as it is by grief - but he manages to speak with some semblance of excitement. “...what do you mean?”

“I mean that, if anyone could charm Master Zhongli and Mistress Ei into giving up one of their dead, it would be you,” Kaeya replies. “And the ferryman and guards would be easy by comparison.”

A flicker of hope dances through a heart he had thought to be dead. Venti gets to his feet. “And this lyre?”

“Right here,” Kaeya replies, and draws a magnificent golden one from beneath his cloak. Slowly, reverently, Venti reaches out and takes it.

He raises a shaking hand, then strums a single, singing chord. It soars through the room like and flits out into the night, limpid notes dancing a perfect waltz on the cool breeze. In its wake, the room suddenly seems to be filled with warmth.

Kaeya smiles. Even he himself could not produce such a sound from this most empyrean of instruments.

“I will escort you to the entrance to the Underworld,” He says. “From then on, you’re on your own.”

Venti presses his hands against the lyre’s strings, muting their vibration, then turns to look up at him. The flicker of hope has burnt into a white-hot flame; he nods determinedly.

Kaeya accompanies him on a long journey all the way to the southernmost part of the land - a journey that should have taken weeks upon weeks, but somehow only seems to take a single day. When they arrive, he gently pushes Venti towards the entrance, then steps back and melts into the shadows. His role in this story is complete; he can only observe from this point forwards.

Venti stands there for a long minute, staring deep into that gaping maw. He can see no path, no staircase - no easy route down. Of course, he’d known from the moment he set out that this quest would not be a simple one… but there is a substantial difference between contemplating the void and standing directly before it.

He thinks of the first smile you gave him. He thinks of the way you had looked at him as you were wed. He thinks of the cold body that the farmers had had to drag him kicking and screaming away from.

He thinks of you, and he plunges forward.

The darkness is cold and unwelcoming; he does not belong here, and it knows it. It gathers against him in damp, bubbling clumps, trying to eject him from the realm that they live and breathe. Any other mortal would have given up and left, but Venti does not. He tucks the lyre more securely in his cloak and stalks onwards.

What feels like an eternity later, he comes to the main gate. Shadows lap at his ankles, and the fog threatens to squeeze the breath from him with every step, but he has arrived. As he advances, three sets of eyes open from within the darkness ahead.

Venti pauses, breath misting in the cold air in front of him. Three not-quite-human, not-quite-animal silhouettes melt out of the murk, eyes fixed on him. He knows well enough who they are - the three guardians of the Underworld’s gates.

“A mortal!” hisses Razor. He rises on his hackles, dark energy seeping from his every pore. “A living mortal!”

“What is it doing here?!” Gorou’s ears fall back; he snarls, showing off sharp canines that seem to elongate through the mist. “Presumptuous thing!”

“Kill it, kill it!” chimes Diona, tail lashing about with animosity.

Venti stands his ground as the three prowl in circles around him. The fog draws over them like a curtain; what little he could make of their shadowy figures blurs and almost disappears. He can still see their eyes, though - barely blinking, fixed on him like little pin-pricks of light through the darkness - and he can hear their low, growling voices as well.

“Make red your claws with blood… torch its limbs like wood…”

“Kill it quick, or kill it slow?”

“To Asphodel, or to damnation?”

“No matter! No mortal passes alive!”

The thick mist makes it hard to breathe. No matter. He will play well enough not to need a voice - so long as his hands stop trembling so much.

The first strains of his song are as bold and bright as ever, so strong in their brilliance that they seem to cut through the fog altogether. The three pairs of eyes fixed on his trembling form soften.

Slowly, slowly, Venti advances forwards. He moves from the jaunty melody to a soothing lullaby, sweeping so smoothly from one to the other that the three guardians barely even realise it before they’re halfway to the floor.

The main gates, unobstructed, open before him. Venti walks backwards through it, eyes fixed on the three as they droop and slowly settle in a heap together. Diona is the first to fall asleep; Gorou and Razor follow soon after.

Venti lets the song play itself out and keeps moving all the while. The three guardians stay huddled together in their little group, caught firmly in the reaches of peaceful sleep. Even as the melody shivers and fades away, they do not stir; they only wriggle closer to each other, and sigh, dreaming of things unknown in a deep and happy slumber.

“Sleep well, my friends,” Venti whispers to himself as Gorou begins to snore loudly. “Sleep well, and sleep long. I fear you may not look upon me as kindly when you wake up.”

He is light-footed when he needs to be; he turns and runs forth from the gate without so much as a backward glance, each step muted and almost soundless. The path dips and rises, then narrows to little more than a treacherous tightrope, leading him across distances unknown. He clutches his lyre all the while, casting his eyes in every which direction for oncoming foes and obstacles.

None come until the path widens once more and comes to a stop upon the shores of a seemingly endless river. This, too, is cloaked in thick mist, so much so that the other side of the water is scarcely visible. The water itself is grey and opaque, and every now and then a limp light darts across its surface - yet another soul being swept along in its current.

Venti comes to a stop by the river, feet sinking into the mud as if the earth below him is trying to consume him. He listens carefully; sure enough, he can hear the faint splash-splash-splash of the ferryman’s pole. Before long, the boat arrives at the shore.

Xiao stretches out a hand for payment, then quickly draws it back as if he has been burned. His eyes, eerily bright against the pallid complexion of his face, are wide with alarm.

“Alive!” He whispers, clutching his pole as if for support. “This boy is alive!”

His hand inches towards a talisman at his belt, as if to call for his masters to smite this insolent creature on the spot. Venti’s breath stutters, but he lifts his lyre nevertheless. With a deft sweep of his hand, he plucks out seven, simple notes.

They ring out across the water, glancing from the jagged walls of the cavern and echoing themselves into nothingness. Xiao hesitates, and his hand falters. It is a small opening, but Venti dives for it like a drowning man; a full, laughing chord bounces along the surface of the river, and Venti takes in a deep breath. Then he begins to sing.

He sings of Xiao himself, the ferryman so vital to the never-ending cycle of life and death. He sings of diligence, modesty and hard work - and, most importantly, of loyalty. All who know Xiao the ferryman know of his deep dedication to his masters.

Xiao’s face remains static, but his tense fingers slowly loosen on his pole. He knows better than to be moved by flowery but meaningless words, but somehow this mortal’s music creeps under his skin in a way that nothing has been able to before. He almost smiles, but stops himself just in time. His masters are, and always will be, the only ones allowed to see any visible joy on his face.

Silently, he steps a little to the side. Venti inclines his head in gratitude, and steps forward into the boat.

They set off quickly. The boat cuts through the rapid currents easily, and Xiao poles along with ferocious efficiency. If he is exercising more care and urgency than usual, that is between him and the mist batting at his face.

They’re halfway across the river when Xiao finally speaks. “Your objective?”

Venti gazes down into the water. His reflection stares back at him, but it is warped - gaunt and hollowed-out in a way that cannot be of the living world. “...to plead at the feet of your masters, and bring my love home.”

“The Mistress and Master will not give up a spirit easily,” Xiao warns. “Do you have gifts? Or do you plan to rest your case on promises alone?”

“I have my voice and my lyre,” Venti replies. He strums it as if to prove the point; Xiao shivers imperceptibly at the sound.

“Then let us hope they are enough,” He says, and continues poling forth in silence.

He does not bother with seeing Venti off when they reach the other shore. Almost as soon as he has stepped off the boat, it’s turning and sailing away again.

Venti watches Xiao go, then turns around. He must follow the path onwards - to the Palace.

The air is thick and almost oppressive in its heaviness. An overwhelming sense of dread washes over him, rising and falling like the waves across the river behind him.

Movement from ahead. Two tall silhouettes, seeming to call power from the very ground they walk on. His heart rate spikes.

Zhongli and Ei emerge from the mist and come to a stop before him. Venti sets his lyre aside, then drops to his knees and kowtows, eyes squeezed shut as he presses his forehead to the ground. For a long while there is nothing but silence, and the sound of his own heavy breathing.

Then Zhongli speaks. “What is the meaning of this?”

Venti bites hard on his lip as a terrified whimper threatens to burst from his mouth. The rulers of the Underworld’s mere presence seems to sink shadow deep into his very bones, like congealed blood dripping into water. “My lord. This… this humble servant begs for your favour.”

“You are living,” says Ei calmly. In her hand, her spear glints dangerously, though the light is not strong enough to reflect so intensely. “It is forbidden for those of your ilk to trespass on our land. You’re lucky we haven’t struck you down already.”

“This one is grateful,” Venti whispers into the ground. “But I… I must ask something more of you.”

A subtle but dangerous shift in the air. Zhongli’s reply is one short word, deep and unimpressed. “Impudence.”

His arm begins to lift, a sharp golden glow piercing from his jade-like irises, but Ei sets a hand on his back, and he pauses. She murmurs, “A-Xiao allowed him to cross the river. He must have had a good reason to.”

“A-Xiao is young,” Zhongli counters softly. He allows her to link her hand with his, nevertheless, and the glow disappears. “He is romantically given, even if he does not act it. His favour is easily tipped by the right person…”

He turns his eyes to the boy still bent to the ground, and a frown tugs at his brows. “...but you are right. We should hear him out. Rise, mortal.”

Venti hurriedly gets to his feet. Half-bent in a bow, he picks up his lyre and says, “This one is… deeply, deeply grateful.”

“You have said that already,” Ei says, sounding almost a little amused. “Go on, then. Say your piece.”

Venti nods, still staring at the ground. It’s almost impossible to meet either of these deity’s eyes. “My… my [Name]. You have them.”

“If we have them,” Zhongli says, “Then they have died, and so they are rightfully ours. We do not give up our dead.”

“This one is aware,” He murmurs, voice nearly breaking at the memory. “But… please allow me to attempt to change your mind.”

“There is no force that can shift an immovable will,” Zhongli replies, “But you are welcome to try. We will give you two minutes.”

He casts an arm out, and a pair of shimmering, silver-lined chairs seem to coalesce from the very fog. As one, he and Ei sit down, and look at Venti expectantly.

He has no time to waste. Venti lifts his lyre and opens his mouth. It all comes to this - never before had he asked so much of his fingers, of his voice.

The song comes like the gushing grey water of the river he had crossed not so long ago. The words come to him so quickly that he scarcely has to think before he sings, and each anguished strike at the lyre’s strings bring forth sobbing notes that linge long after they are played. They seem to fly about like birds, and they settle into the listening deities’ skin like ink.

Almost involuntarily, Zhongli reaches for Ei’s hand. Its solidity in his is what reminds him that he is still here in this moment, and not back on that clouded night on which they had first met. Like pure magic curling through the air, the music seems to take him far away from this familiar but painfully grey kingdom. All worldly difficulties disappear; all that is left is love.

Venti sees in his mind’s eye the last moment he had seen you alive, and he cries out his song for the world to hear. He sings of joy, he sings of parting, he sings of sorrow. He sings of a star gone before he could truly bathe in its light. He sings of you.

Two minutes he had been given, and two minutes are all he needs. He rests his every hope on one final cry, one final note. Though his heart feels, and has felt, weak without your presence, his voice is strong.

Venti lowers his lyre. He knows he has won.

Zhongli and Ei look at each other briefly; they seem to say a thousand words with a single glance. Then Ei looks to Venti and says, suddenly stern, “You are aware of the nature of such a request?”

“I am,” Venti says softly, forgetting in the moment to speak with the correct formality. Neither Zhongli nor Ei comment on it, however. “But it… is inarguable. I can’t go on without them.”

A long silence. Zhongli sighs. “Kaeya put this up to you, I presume? It wouldn’t be the first time he has disrupted a cycle of grief.”

“Your words do your love credit,” Ei says, “But you will recover in time.”

“I might have begun to,” Venti replies, voice barely above a whisper. “Before. But now that hope has touched me… it would be my destruction to let it go. Truly.”

“You would rather die than leave without your [Name],” Zhongli muses. “In that case… a wager.”

Venti catches his eye. Somehow the Lord’s gaze isn’t as piercing as he’d thought it may be.

“You will have an opportunity to bring your [Name] back to the living world,” Zhongli says impassively. “But you must trust in us. If you fail, you will receive punishment.”

Venti nods. He had been expecting this. “And… what will it be?”

“Your [Name] will return to our custody, just as they would have been if you had never come in the first place” Ei says, then pauses, as if she knows how her next words will be taken. “...and you will be forbidden to die for a century afterwards. Each attempt you take will be met with refusal; the Guardians will not let you past the gate, and Xiao will not take you across the river, no matter how many songs you play. You will not be allowed to simply forget your grief on the tip of a sword or the edge of a cliff.”

“Even once you die, you will not be conscious enough to be aware of a reunion should your souls meet each other in the afterlife,” Zhongli states. “This is your only chance. Do not waste it.”

Venti looks up at the two deities. In the end, any debate is fruitless. He knows what his answer will be.

“Thank you, my Lord and Lady,” He replies, bowing deeply in gratitude. “This one accepts your proposal.”

The chairs dissipate into nothingness as Zhongli stand up once again. Ei sweeps out an arm, and a door seems to open right there in the mist.

“Leave us,” She tells Venti. “This door will lead you back to the surface.”

As Venti’s face twists in half-confusion and half-betrayal, Zhongli says, “Your [Name] will follow you - ten steps behind. Once you are both out in the light, they will live once more.”

“But,” Ei continues seamlessly, “You must not look at them. Keep your gaze fixed forward; if you cast even the smallest glance back in their direction, so long as they remain in the Underworld’s darkness, they will return to us, and then they will be ours forever.”

“Steady steps,” Zhongli advises, a small smile playing on his lips. Though it feels naive to think it, Venti can’t help but believe that he truly wants him to succeed. “Take them carefully and at a regular pace. Do not turn around until you are twenty steps out into the light - just in case.”

“Good luck,” Ei says, and with a wave of her hand, the door opens.

An unearthly wind whips back Venti’s hair. As he stares up at the spot of light, so far above, he imagines he feels a hand brushing against his own - and whose voice could it be but yours, whispering an almost-there encouragement to him?

“Trust in me.”

“Trust,” Venti repeats softly, resolutely.

He begins to walk.

The corridor is long, almost endless. Its walls are narrow, so close that he can hold out both arms and trail his hands along them, and the air is stale, as if nothing has breathed within this passageway for years. Of course, no being has breathed here - nothing that resides in the Underworld has any breath left in its lungs.

He counts his steps as he walks, keeping a silent beat in his mind, clutching the lyre to him as if to provide security. As the light grows ever closer, he imagines he can feel your presence growing stronge.

It had been silence surrounding him at first, but now he thinks he can hear a set of footsteps in almost perfect sync with his own. They are faint and fleeting, like a butterfly’s wings brushing against a leaf, but they are there. With each passing moment, as he moves further onwards, he thinks he can hear them grow clearer and stronger.

So close now - so close to the living day!

He imagines that he can already feel your arms around him now, that he can already see the smile on your face - small, often transient, but oh, so beautiful. There will be so much to do, so much to say… oh, the cottage! He’d left it in such disrepair and untidiness. But no matter - soon enough, the two of you will have all the time in the world to restore it to its former glory.

You will scold him, he’s sure, for letting himself fall to this extent. But that is alright, quite alright - you’ll be there, and he’ll be able to hear your voice again after what has felt like an eternity.

Only so many steps left. His breathing quickens, skin prickling with anticipation. He crosses the threshold and takes in a deep breath of the cool air, feels the sun on his face.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten!

He is ten steps out into the sun now, and everything around him is lively and radiant. He’s done it, he’s in the light - finally, after so long—!

...you can stop reading here, if you like. It’s nice to just imagine that this is the moment where Venti turns to see you standing before him in all your living glory, and the two of you will embrace to an overture of calling birds and rustling leaves. It is nice to just… leave it here, and pretend this is a happy ending.

But it is not, and so I will continue telling it the way it is. And you are just as welcome to continue as you are to stop.

For - and this is precisely what Zhongli had warned against - Venti had quickened his pace. In his excitement, in his anticipation to be out in the living world and see you again, his steps had become hurried.

He had been told that you’d be ten steps behind him - what this meant was that you would begin following after he had taken ten steps into the corridor. If he sped up, the distance between the two of you would increase, for your still-incorporeal shade would be incapable of matching his speed.

And so, when Venti turns around, you are still in the Underworld’s shadow.

Twenty steps, Zhongli had said. Do not turn around until you are twenty steps out into the light. Knowing of mortal folly as he was, he had given the advice in the knowledge that Venti would not be able to keep a steady, calm pace for long.

You’re so close when Venti sees you. Ten steps back in the shadows.

Your eyes meet his for a fraction of a moment, for a single beat of a hummingbird’s wings. There is light in those irises, light that had flared into life as you followed him to the surface.

Light that dies as quickly as it had come. The darkness grows, consuming you with greedy relish, seeming to gloat - I knew it, I knew it!

Living consciousness had returned to you for such a brief moment, and yet it is already disappearing. The last thing you hear before the doorway closes is Venti’s scream, and then you are standing before the Underworld’s rulers again.

Ei looks at you and sighs. “...I had hopes.”

“Mortals will always make mistakes,” Zhongli murmurs. “I suppose we won’t see that one for another hundred years.”

A hundred years - even a hundred years will not be enough, it seems, to quell Venti’s desperate anguish.

He had thrown himself forward as soon as the doorway closed, but even the most quick-footed of people would never be able to out-pace the Underworld itself. There was no door, there was no darkness, there was no you. There had been nothing but cold, unforgiving stone.

His scream is raw and raging, so harsh that it seems to tear his throat out. He can taste something metallic on his tongue, feel tears running down his face. The wind teases innocently at his hair; all the strength leaves him, and he collapses forwards onto the grass.

His mouth opens and closes silently, blood trickling from the corner of his lips. His voice fails him, and the pain that comes from even trying seems to dig deep into his flesh, aching and aching and aching.

If he had only taken Zhongli’s advice, if he had even just taken five more steps, waited only a few blinks of an eye, you would be by his side now. The two of you would be free again, free to return home, free to go north, south, east, or west. You might have asked for adventure, and Venti would have willingly gone anywhere in the world with you.

Ten more steps. Ten more heartbeats.

So little time between this world and the next.

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