#did I use some of his voiceslines?

[it-happened-one-fic]

What the Wind Gave You - Venti

Author Notes: My first fanfic post! Yay! This actually started out as practice for writing a gender-neutral reader but I liked the way it turned out. Enjoy!

type: platonic or romantic/ fluff/ slight angst/ comfort

Word count: 879

I sighed as I started to cross the border, looking across the windswept plains of Mondstadt. Home to my Favonian family and close friends who had been with me since almost the very start of my journey. 

Nostalgia swept through me as dandelion blossoms fluttered past me. This land of nostalgia, love, warmth, and sadness. I was always coming back here. It was my home here in the glorious land of Teyvat. Liyue and Inazuma may have taught me much but….

Well, Mondstadt would forever be a place close to my heart. The land of freedom. Fitting for a traveler that only ever passed through. 

I looked up at the gentle looking statue of Barbatos as I rested my hand against it. Instantaneously, wind whirled around me. Not in a rough manner, but gently. Almost as if it were trying to caress me and soothe out all the wrinkles that I gained in my soul during my journeys. 

I shut my eyes and smiled at the oddly comforting feeling, like I was being welcomed home, only to feel warmth on my cheek. I opened my eyes to see large, bright turquoise eyes gazing down at me. 

Venti’s face was oddly solemn as he hovered just above me, leaning down like an angel from heaven to cup my cheek with his hand, “Traveler….” I smiled up at him and watched as his somber expression melted into a smile, the dark clouds in his eyes blown away by the light of his joy, “We meet again!”

I cupped his hand against my cheek with my own hand, leaning my face into his palm as he touched down in front of me, “It’s good to see you again Venti.”

He rocked back on his heels with a smile so bright that his eyes had to shut as his hand slipped away from me. But Venti was always like this. Appearing everytime I crossed the border and greeting me. Always with an oddly somber expression that told me he knew everything that had happened to me while I was gone before he blew the darkness away from me with a bright smile.

“I wrote another song about you,” He grinned at me cheekily and I shook my head slightly at his antics. 

“What’s this one called?” I tilted my head, indulging the ‘Singer of Skyward Sonnets’, Monstadt’s most talented bard.

His smile was gentle now as he took one of my hands and toyed with my fingers, “The Wind of the Traveler. I think it’s my best piece yet.” 

I looked down at my hand in his, evading his soft smile and warm gaze. Strange how such a gentle soul had such rough hands. Objectively, I knew it was from playing the lyre and using his bow. But it still struck me as odd. “Can I hear it?”

I looked back up at him, masking my nostalgic sadness and overwhelming joy at seeing him with a small smile and a question. But Venti was understanding in the way he indulged in small talk with me. He knew how turbulent my emotions could be sometimes, how something like returning to the closest thing I had to home in this world could push me over the edge.

“Sure,” He tugged me towards the statue that depicted his archon form, guiding me to sit next to him at the base and lean against the cool stone.

He hummed to himself as he began to  pluck at the strings and I let my gaze shift till I was watching the windwheel asters spin lazily in the breeze. I sighed despite myself and felt myself relax the longer he played. It wasn’t long till I was absorbed by the calm of my surroundings and smiling idly to myself.

“Looks like you liked it,”  I nodded, smiling over at Venti who looked ever-so-slightly smug. “Well that’s always a good thing, when the person you wrote about likes the song it's a guaranteed hit.”

I tilted my head, leaning it back against the statue’s stone as I looked at him, “It didn’t have much in the way of words… Why?”

He smiled slightly but it was one of those moments that Venti wasn’t just Venti. No, he was suddenly giving off an air of wisdom that befit an archon. But instead of laying down intensive wisdom or reverting back to his usually whimsical nature he merely tilted his head, “Because sometimes there are no words.”

I nodded, understanding what he meant while also feeling oddly mystified. So much so that I barely noticed when he reached out, brushing a strand of hair from my face, “What is your greatest wish?”

His curious tone disguised the weightiness of his question. Once I would have simply said to find my sibling but now…. Now everything was too muddled. Discovering the truth of this world, reuniting with my sibling, going home, staying here peacefully, reaching the end of my journey… What did I really want?

“I don’t know….” He nodded at my quiet, whispered answer. 

“And that’s fine, just so long as you stay yourself and remember you are free. That’s fine. Because I’ll always be here, no matter where you go. I’ll think of you and the wind will be with you.”