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thecinderninja · 9 days ago

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Wind and Stone [pt 2/2]

Part 1 On Ao3 as The_Cinderninja As time stretches on, Albedo notices Venti withdrawing further into himself, dimming with each passing moment. Albedo feels a growing conviction that they are running out of time. It’s an off thought, one without much reason or logic behind it. He knows he could remain here fairly indefinitely, and he has reason to believe Venti is the same.

But…

It would be, apparently, incorrect to assume that his only concern was their physical health. Venti might survive down here with him long enough for Albedo to think of a practical solution, but…

"Venti," Albedo says softly, breaking the suffocating silence again. “Talk to me.”

Venti's response is a hollow laugh. "We're stuck under a mountain, Albedo. There's nothing to talk about."

"Sing," Albedo suggests, grasping at straws. "Sing something, anything. It doesn't matter. Just... distract yourself for a moment."

"I don't think I can, right now." Venti admits, his voice barely a whisper.

"Then tell me a story.”

Venti hesitates, but eventually he speaks. His voice trembles against Albedo’s collarbone as he tries to weave his thoughts together into something coherent. He falters halfway through his story. “I can’t move.”

“I know.”

"Have you thought of anything yet?" Less than useless , he thinks to himself again. An archon of all things. He’d levelled mountains before. But it was one thing to do from above, and another from below .

Without his gnosis, without a single errant breeze, without any connection to his element, and with no idea how far the stone stretched in any direction. He feels like he’s drowning in tar. He feels like his hands, wings, eyes, have all been removed. He feels small and afraid and powerless in a way he hasn’t for five centuries.

"Not yet. But I will. I promise."

The bard swallows hard. "Albedo... do you need to eat?"

Albedo hesitates at the suddenness of the question. He frowns in the darkness. "No, I don't. But if I go long enough without food, I will eventually lose the energy to remain conscious."

Venti's voice hitches. "So we're on a time limit."

"No,” Albedo amends quickly. “It's not like that. It would take a significant amount of time before I reach that point. We have time, Venti."

Venti's voice is barely a whisper. "I don't need it. I'll exist indefinitely. I could disembody, but…” he doesn’t want to. He would still be trapped. As a human, at least he can feel Albedo’s heartbeat. At least he can grip his jacket. At least he has something tangible to hold onto. At least he can speak . Disembodying wouldn’t free him.

It would leave an empty space for the mountain to collapse a second time, crushing Albedo further. Filling in every last inch of empty air. He didn’t know what would happen to him as a wind spirit under a thousand tonnes of stone with no way out and no way left to interact with the world.

It would also leave Albedo effectively alone.

The thought clearly terrifies him. They're trapped under a mountain, two immortal beings who don't need to eat or breathe, who can't move an inch, buried under tons of rock. Eventually, Albedo will lose enough energy to become unresponsive, and Venti will be entirely alone. Or Venti will lose his mind and become unresponsive, and Albedo will be alone. Alone and trapped and unable to so much as wriggle, for a possible eternity.

"Venti," Albedo calls softly, seeing the panic overtaking his friend's face again. "Give me time. I can solve this.”

Days pass. Days without moving. Albedo has a perfect sense of time. Venti should , but he chooses not to. Not right now. He alternates between out-of-body experience and far too in-body , grounded and trapped and tethered and entirely physical in a way that he's never hated before now. He alternates between turning his mind off and letting time slip past him, not wanting to track it’s passage, and forcing himself to speak.

At first, he thinks, it was distracting to Albedo. Now he thinks it’s reassuring. Albedo doesn’t want to be alone any more than he does, so he tries to lose himself less. That means talking more, singing rarely, when he can, and crying often.

It’s difficult and awkward and entirely involuntary. His chest can’t heave, he isn’t breathing anyway, and what feels like they want to be sobs turn into wet tears and dry noises.

"I don't know how much longer I can do this," Venti rasps, voice raw.

Albedo's response is a quiet murmur. "I can feel the mountain settling."

Venti's heart sinks even further. The mountain presses in on them, filling every crevice, every empty space, until there is nothing left in between. Venti shudders, the weight of the rocks pressing in on him. Something in his chest creaks as the weight grows.

“I have an idea.” Albedo says, unexpectedly. “But I have to wait for the mountain to stop shifting. I need you to wait a little longer.”

Venti’s voice cracks painfully against Albedo’s chest. "Okay."

More days pass. The silence between them is punctuated only by Venti’s occasional whimpers of distress and Albedo’s quiet reassurances that he has a plan.

"Venti," Albedo speaks, breaking the suffocating silence. "I've been keeping track of the movement of the stones this whole time. I think I've gotten a feel for how they want to settle."

Venti shifts slightly, the most movement he’s been able to manage. "What do you mean?"

"I believe I can safely clear us some space now. But I can't make any guarantees. Any attempt to move could make our situation worse. I want you to know that before I try anything."

Venti's response is immediate and fervent. "Do it, Albedo. Please. It can't get worse than this. If you think you can do anything, then you should do it."

“Very well. I'm going to use my Vision. Stay still and try to remain calm."

With a determined expression, Albedo closes his eyes and focuses on the ambient Geo energy surrounding them. It has been a long time since he fine tuned his Solar Isotoma, and he rarely channels Geo without it. There’s no space to form one here, and his goals are more ambitious than that anyway.

He begins to channel it, feeling the stones around them with an acute sensitivity. Slowly, carefully, he starts to manipulate the rock, reshaping it and molding it together into a small dome around them. The process is slow and painstaking, every movement measured. It’s a level of control few Vision wielders ever actually achieve, and one that even Albedo has rarely needed to use.

After what feels like an eternity, the space around them begins to open up. It's not much, but it's enough for them to sit up. Venti feels the pressure around him lessen and, with a groan of effort, he pushes himself off of Albedo and rolls onto his back. He tries to take a deep breath out of instinct, but ends up choking on the heavy, dusty carbon dioxide. He doesn’t need oxygen, but he’s definitely gotten used to it.

Albedo sits up slowly, wincing as he checks himself over for injuries. "Most of my bones are broken," he observes. "But since no material was lost, I can fix that easily enough with alchemy."

Venti nods weakly, taking stock of his own crush injuries. “Yup… me too, but I won't be able to heal myself down here."

For a moment, the newfound space is filled with nothing but the sounds of his laboured breaths. Albedo isn’t bothering to breathe at all, but Venti needs to feel the familiar comfort of it, even if all he’s doing is circulating stale air through his body.

Venti leans back against the wall, tears streaming down his face. This time, they are tears of relief, the simple act of being able to move bringing an overwhelming sense of gratitude. "Albedo... can you do that again? Can you get us out?"

Albedo is already nodding. This was ultimately the only solution he could come up with. It would be time consuming, painstaking, and possibly take more energy than he was sure he had to give. "It should be possible. But it will take time. I need to move small pieces at a time to make sure nothing more will collapse. But yes, we should be able to get out this way."

Venti's relief is thick and as cloying as the air. He sags, completely unashamed as he cycles between crying, scrubbing at his face, and tipping his head against the wall and giggling. "Thank you, Albedo. Thank you, thank you. And... I'm sorry for being totally useless."

Albedo shakes his head, brushing off the apology. "It's not your fault, Venti. Underground is one of the worst places for an Anemo user to be, yet you came anyway. You don't need to be useful at all times."

Venti smiles and manages to stop crying for long enough to sit up and start wiping away at the tears on his face. His skin and clothing are both covered in dust and grit. Combined with the wetness on his face, it just results in muddy smears across his cheeks and sleeves.

His clothes are probably never going to recover from this. The white shirt, at least, is never going to be white again. “Thank you, Albedo. I know I’ve said it a dozen times but, thank you . I would not be okay right now if I was alone…”

Albedo isn’t sure how to respond to that. He’s pretty sure ‘I know’ would come across as rude, so he simply nods.

His injuries are painful and inconvenient, and easily fixable. But Albedo has no idea how long it’s going to take him to get them out of here, and he doubts he’ll have the energy to spare, so he opts to ignore them for now. They can be dealt with easily enough once they’re above ground again. For now, he simply leans against the wall and closes his eyes. Beside him, Venti does the same.

After the brief rest, Albedo begins the painstaking process of manipulating the stone around them, inch by inch, carefully creating a path to freedom. It’s time consuming, taxing, and there isn’t much progress to show for it.

Hours pass in a monotonous rhythm, punctuated by the sound of shifting stone. Albedo has to move slowly, with precision, moving small pieces of Geo at a time. Any rush could result in a misstep, and any misstep could bring the ceiling back down on them again. In between each effort, he takes a short rest, feeling the mountain, ensuring that the cavern's stability isn't compromised.

The sheer scale of the task is immense. Albedo is reshaping a mountain, a Herculean feat that requires precision and an enormous amount of Geo manipulation. Despite doing it in intervals, he's using a massive amount of power.

To Venti, Albedo appears no different now than he does at any other time – composed, focused, unwavering. But then, without warning, Albedo swoons, catching himself on the wall, his vision narrowing and darkening.

"Albedo!" Venti exclaims, his voice tinged with alarm.

Albedo's voice is steady but strained. "I can't keep going like this," he murmurs, his voice betraying his exhaustion. "I need to rest for a bit. Just a short rest..."

Venti eyes him with concern. "You've been pushing yourself too hard for my sake, haven't you?" he asks softly, guilt washing over him.

Albedo, never quite understanding the point of lying about trivial interpersonal matters, nods weakly as Venti tuts at him. He lays down on his side, his body almost immediately succumbing to the fatigue. He falls asleep instantly, leaving Venti alone in the dark tunnel. The faint glow of their Visions provides the only illumination, casting eerie shadows on the stone walls. Even fainter is the soft light emanating from Venti's braids, always there, and only barely visible because of the absolute darkness surrounding them.

Venti sits back against the wall, staring into the oppressive blackness around them. He can't help but feel a bit responsible for Albedo's condition. The alchemist had been pushing himself beyond his limits, all for the sake of getting them out of this nightmare.

A nightmare which, also, come to think of it, is entirely Venti’s fault. Albedo told him not to use Anemo, had explicitly said that the tunnel was unstable.

But what was Venti supposed to do? Let Albedo get - come to think of it, yes. Albedo was durable. Albedo probably could have taken a few more hits, even unconscious. Venti could have just finished off the hilichurl with a regular old arrow, and then waited for Albedo to wake up, and then the two of them could have walked back out together.

This whole thing would have been resolved days ago, with a lot less crying from Venti, and a lot less effort from Albedo.

Albedo had probably already figured that out.

Venti buries his face in his hands. If the situation wasn’t so horrible , he’d already be laughing at his own stupidity and how he panicked for no good reason.

Time stretches endlessly, each second feeling longer than the last. Venti shifts uncomfortably, once again reminded of his many, many broken bones. He glances, grimacing, at the still sleeping Albedo.

He’s lucky. Lucky it was him and Albedo. If he’d knocked a mountain on top of anyone else, he would have killed them. That still hasn’t fully settled in his mind. He knocked a mountain on top of Albedo. Well, and himself. They were trapped, crushed, for days. They were still trapped, and only making any progress because of Albedo.

When Venti called himself ‘less than useless’, he hadn’t meant it literally, but he shudders now, recalling those words. He wasn’t just useless in solving this problem. He caused this problem.

At least most of the problems he caused were usually on purpose. This one… not so much.

He cannot believe he dropped a mountain on someone.

Hours pass in this manner, Venti's mind wandering this way and that. He’s still uncomfortable, anxious, desperate to get out of here and into the fresh air and sun again, to throw himself into the first patch of grass he sees and never take the wind for granted again, but it’s calmed down significantly since Albedo started carving his way through the mountain.

There’s hope now, and that’s enough to keep Venti from anymore crying.

Eventually, Albedo stirs, his eyes fluttering open.

"Albedo," Venti says, relief flooding his voice. "How are you feeling?"

Albedo pushes himself up slowly, wincing slightly. "Better," he replies, though his voice is still tinged with exhaustion. "I can continue now."

Venti creeps closer, placing a gentle hand on Albedo's shoulder. "Don't push yourself too hard. We need you to be okay. I need you to be okay-” He cuts himself off, frowning at how selfish that sounds. “I don’t mean, not because I need you to get out, I do, but- that’s not why I want you to be okay. I just don’t want you to hurt yourself. It’s okay if we take a little longer to get out.”

Albedo watches Venti ramble, not interrupting. Venti is so distracted that he doesn’t even realize he’s earned one of Albedo’s rare smiles, though it seems to be because the alchemist is laughing internally at his expense. "I'll be careful," he promises.

He resumes his work, but this time at a slower pace, taking more frequent breaks. The progress is slow, but they are moving forward, inch by painstaking inch.

The tunnel around them gradually widens. Albedo rests a hand on the wall, and stands still for a brief moment, which stretches into a much longer moment. He sags slightly, his head tipping forward until his forehead rests on the wall as well.

Venti follows behind him, as unhelpful as always, and reaches forward when he sees Albedo sag. A hand on his shoulder, worry in his eyes. “Are you okay?” He doesn’t want to see Albedo faint again.

To his surprise, Albedo stands straighter and turns to look at the bard, a satisfied smile on his face. “I’m fine. We are about to reconnect with the original tunnels. They never collapsed all the way. From here, it should be a short walk back to the surface.”

Venti stares at his face for a moment, actually needing a minute to process his words. He hears them, he understands them, but he can’t make sense of them. They’ve been underground for so long now - days, days upon days. More than a week has passed, and Venti can’t quite believe that freedom is just on the other side of this wall.

He finds the world spinning, and hands catch him as his knees buckle. It seems it’s his turn to swoon, dizzy from the headrush. He quickly rights himself, though. There’s no time for fainting when the way out is right there!

The next time Albedo’s Vision lights up, the wall in front of them collapses outwards, spilling into a tunnel. There’s light again. Light from the quartz, from the moss, and most tellingly, the warm glow of sunlight spilling in from not too far away.

More important than any of that, Venti can breathe . His whole body comes alive. He can feel the air, real air. The breeze from outside beckons and his feet are moving before he can spare a single thought towards what he’s doing. He pushes past Albedo and runs for the exit.

Albedo follows. Not quite as fast, staggering slightly. Now that the urgency is gone, the need to keep up, stay awake, keep moving, the knowledge that he was the only one who could get them out, his exhaustion catches up to him.

He reaches the exit of the tunnel, in time to see Venti hurl himself face first into a snow drift. Giggling, giddy, arms outstretched above him.

Leaning heavily on the entrance, a hand braced against the stone, Albedo sees for the first time in full (fading, golden orange) sunlight just how terrible they both look. Venti is covered in a fine layer of dust, his face and clothing streaked with the coppery browns and reds of mud and so much blood.

Albedo probably only looks slightly better, and even then, only because he doesn’t bleed the same way Venti does.

They both look like corpses.

If they’d been anyone else, they would be corpses.

The fatigue hits him slowly as he stumbles outside towards Venti. His legs fold beneath him, dropping him cross legged in a move that looks at least mostly intentional, beside the bard.

He tilts his head back and closes his eyes, relishing the wind on his face.

#genshin impact #albedo #venti #albeven #fanfiction #thecinderninja #original post #original post date june 10 2024

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thecinderninja · 10 days ago

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Wind and Stone [pt 1/2]

On Ao3 as The_Cinderninja

Wind whips and howls and snow falls in vicious sheets and the peak of Dragonspine is buried under the weight of snow and storm and ancient permafrost. Ice lashes at Venti’s cheeks, snow heavy on his eyelashes, as he stands on a ridge. In his hands a lyre, played by hands that should, by all accounts, be numb and frostbitten. The sound shouldn’t carry through the broken howling of the wind, but somehow, it does.

Despite the air screaming between the strings, the simple melody stands out.

He does not - has never - loved the cold, but there’s more than just ice up on Dragonspine which makes the trip worth it:

Albedo stands a short distance away, brush in hand, capturing the shades of the storm on his canvas. He and his easel are grounded in a way that escapes explanation, sturdy despite the storm trying with all of its might to lift them up or throw them down.

His expression is softened, his focus solely on his painting. As the last rays of sunlight fade, the temperature plummets even further, and Albedo sets down his brush, the painting nearly complete, but still unfinished.

Venti side eyes the alchemist as Albedo folds his easel and gathers his supplies, shivering unabashedly. "Ah, the chill bites deeper than a Frostarm Lawachurl! My poor, delicate fingers!"

Albedo glances at him. "You didn't bring any cold weather gear." His tone pitches up just enough to leave his words sitting on the precarious thread between question and statement.

Venti wraps his arms around himself, hopping from foot to foot. "Gear? Who needs gear?”

“You, apparently.” Albedo responds. He stares, wondering what Venti’s plan was. Did he really come up here with no regard for the weather? His gaze shifts to the rapidly darkening sky and the snow beginning to fall more heavily. The descent back down the mountain would be treacherous at this hour, and he doubts Venti’s ability to manage the long walk back down.

Venti looks at Albedo with wide, pleading eyes. He looks like a bedraggled little animal, entirely pathetic. "This mountain really doesn't agree with me... So cold... so very, very cold..."

Albedo studies him for a moment longer, then nods to himself. He understands now; Venti has no plan beyond relying on Albedo’s hospitality. "It’s getting rather cold," he says, his voice measured. "Would you care to join me in my lab? I have some hot food, and it’s more sheltered than out here."

Venti’s eyes light up immediately, a wide grin spreading across his face. "I thought you’d never ask! Lead the way, my friend."

Albedo’s steps falter momentarily, his brow furrowing.

My friend.

The word lingers, fitting strangely in Albedo’s mental lexicon. He maintains very few friendships. Most of them are the results of prolonged time spent alongside coworkers, such as Sucrose or the Knights of Favonius. These are bonds formed more out of necessity than choice - not that he begrudges a single one of them. Relationships in which he merely exists, and those who are forced to share space with him are occasionally kind. His other close relationship is with Klee—a child, unconditionally welcoming to everyone she meets, and also his sister.

There’s the Traveller, too, who he occasionally bothers, and who seems inclined to tolerate him when they are around, but they are rarely in Mondstadt and never stay for long.

He does not seek people out, and people do not seek him out. This is how it has always been. A fact. Reliable, easy, unchanging.

He understands that Venti wants to keep an eye on him, but there isn't really anything to explain why Venti goes out of his way to "spend time" with him, or call him a friend. They have almost nothing in common. They don't share similar social circles... the bard has to go out of his way to hang around on this barren, freezing cold mountain, and Albedo doesn't really get it.

Albedo glances at Venti, who is shivering dramatically, his eyes still twinkling despite the cold. The bard seems genuinely pleased, excited, about the prospect of spending more time together. It’s a level of enthusiasm that baffles Albedo.

“Are you alright?” Venti catches him staring.

"My lab isn’t the warmest or the most comfortable place.” Albedo responds flatly, looking back to the path. He doesn’t look at the bard again as he leads the way through the snow. Neither one of them is particularly tall, which results in a lot of trudging through snow that comes nearly to their knees.

"Anything is better than staying out here," Venti assures him, rubbing his hands together in anticipation. "And I’m looking forward to that hot food you mentioned."

Albedo shakes his head, nonplussed. "Stay close. The path can be tricky in the dark, especially with the snow."

Venti bounces on his toes, falling into step beside Albedo. "You’re a lifesaver, you know that?" he chatters, his usual cheerfulness returning now that warmth and shelter are in sight. "I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t invited me."

"You would’ve frozen," Albedo replies blandly.

Venti’s lack of sleeping gear - or any gear, for that matter - is remedied easily enough by Albedo drawing him a bedroll, and that in itself is a curiosity novel enough to steal the bard’s attention for most of the evening.

He hovers over Albedo as he draws, as he cooks, and as he does just about anything else, asking a constant stream of questions. The questions are genuine enough, and Albedo has plenty of patience for heartfelt curiosity, so he spends his breath answering Venti’s questions to the best of his ability.

It is obvious that most of what he is saying goes completely over the bard’s head. He has absolutely zero understanding of even the most basic concepts of alchemy, which are somewhat necessary in order to understand any of what Albedo does. Cornerstones of knowledge, if you will.

Even so, his interest is more than polite inquiry. His eyes don’t glaze over when Albedo loses himself in a complex explanation of an even more complex theory. "...and so, by applying the principles of transmutation, one can alter the molecular structure of cryo crystals. This process involves the use of alchemical reactions, in place of elemental. Normally, it would be done with a cryo vision, but seeing as I lack one, I had to get creative. As a result, I discovered that my alchemical method actually results in a far more stable end product. The key lies in the differential resonance frequencies of ley lines, which..."

Venti nods along, his eyes fixed on Albedo.

"By understanding the resonance frequencies, we can manipulate the atomic lattice of the crystals. Ley lines play a crucial role in this, acting as conduits of elemental energy. It isn’t much right now… just a minor cryo reaction. But in theory, I could use the same method to manipulate any elemental energies.”

A speech that none save Sucrose would have let him finish. He trails off, an apology prepared, only to find Venti watching him, hanging off of every misunderstood word.

“... You have no idea what I am talking about.” He observes.

Venti shakes his head, grinning. “Nope!” He pops the p. “Sorry.”

“You could have stopped me.”

“Hehe… but you get so animated when you get really into something.”

Albedo pauses. Animated is not a word anyone has used to describe him before. And especially when compared to Venti, Albedo feels about as animated as a stone. “Ah… if you say so.”

Morning arrives with stiff muscles, aching from the cold and the hard stone floor. Venti rolls over on his bedroll and stretches like a cat, whining to himself as he tries to massage some feeling back into his arms.

"Ugh, how do you do it, Albedo?" he groans, voice bleary and slurred from sleep.

Albedo, already awake, put together, and methodically preparing for the day, glances over. "How do I do what?" he asks.

"Spend so much time up here alone, in the cold," Venti elaborates, sitting up and rubbing his arms vigorously. "I feel like I’m going to turn into an icicle.”

Albedo shrugs lightly. "The cold doesn’t really concern me. I’m accustomed to it."

Venti gives him a dubious look, eyebrows raised. "What about being so alone all the time? It’s so… cut off. I think I’d go completely crazy if I didn’t have anyone to talk to."

A small smile plays on Albedo’s lips, amusement flickering in his eyes. "I can imagine you wouldn’t take well to solitude, no. But it’s not a problem for me. I’m used to it. Often, I lose myself in my experiments to the extent that when I am around people, they find me to be rude and off putting. So it's better to work alone. I can focus more on my work, and I don’t run the risk of offending others."

Venti looks sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck. "Ehe… I hope I haven’t been bothering you too much. It never occurred to me that someone might actually want to be alone."

Albedo is mildly amused by Venti’s concern. "You haven’t been a bother, Venti. I don't mind company. It is just rare that I have it, especially here.” He finishes packing his supplies and stands up. "Shall I walk you back down to basecamp? I have some time."

Venti is about to accept before he pauses, tilting his head. "Time, huh? What are your other plans for the day, anyway?"

"I plan to gather some rare ores from within the deeper caverns of Dragonspine," Albedo replies.

Venti’s eyes light up with interest. "Sounds exciting! Mind if I tag along?"

Albedo raises an eyebrow, clearly dubious. "It isn’t particularly exciting, no. Don’t you have better things to do?"

Venti shrugs, grinning. "I spend most of my time harassing my friends. Now that you are one, harassing you is a perfectly valid way to spend my time. Besides, it'll be just like doing a commission!"

"Except you won’t get paid," Albedo points out blandly.

Venti laughs, waving off the comment. "The joy of your company is payment enough!"

Albedo halts abruptly, an aborted laugh caught in his throat. It comes out as a vaguely confused wheeze. He stares at the bard in complete silence for just long enough to make the other start to worry, before shaking his head slightly. “If you insist. Just try to keep up."

The cave system beneath Dragonspine is a labyrinth of cold, dark tunnels, the air thick with the scent of damp stone and ancient minerals. They are - thankfully for both parties - nowhere near Durin’s remains.

The tunnel they’re currently walking through is not painfully narrow, but not particularly spacious, either. They have enough room to stand to their full height, to walk without hitting their shoulders or knees into the walls, but not enough to walk side by side. Albedo takes the lead, knowing what it is he is looking for.

Venti, behind him, hums a quiet tune under his breath. Something nostalgic and lighthearted. He can’t help but feel a twist of unease about how deep they’ve ventured. He doesn’t regret following Albedo, but he very, very rarely spends any significant amount of time underground.

He doesn’t love the weight of the mountain surrounding him. It feels antithetical, even threatening, in its own way.

Albedo moves with focus, his attention wholly on the task at hand. His eyes wander the walls and floors of the cave, looking for any obvious protrusions or deposits.

"Albedo," Venti speaks up, needing something to break the silence. "Why do you always seem so serious? I bet you have a great smile hidden away somewhere."

Albedo pauses, his expression momentarily blank as he processes the question. "I smile, sometimes," he replies, though his tone suggests he’s not entirely sure about that. He frowns slightly. "It's just the way I am."

Venti, realizing he might have touched a nerve, quickly backpedals. "Oh no, I didn't mean anything by it. It isn't a bad thing."

Albedo shrugs, apparently unbothered but still thoughtful. "You’re not the first to ask that. I know I don’t always show my feelings in the ways people would expect. And I am quite serious. I tend to misunderstand humour and am poor at reading tone. It isn’t uncommon for people to assume I lack the appropriate range of emotion, or that I am unsympathetic."

Venti shakes his head quickly, trying to clarify. "No, no, that's not what I meant at all! I know you’re not like that! I just thought there might be some reason you were so… like that. I mean… I thought, maybe you were imposing it on yourself."

Albedo looks at him oddly, tilting his head. "No, there’s no specific reason. This is just my natural affect. I have tried to be more expressive, but I was told that was worse. Kaeya said it was uncanny and disturbing. The others were a bit more polite about it, but the sentiment was the same."

Venti lets out a soft giggle, relieved that Albedo isn't offended. “He said that?”

“Mhm.”

"Well, for what it’s worth, I think you’re just fine the way you are. But I’ll still be on the lookout for that elusive smile."

Albedo’s lips twitch, almost forming a smile. He turns his head away to hide it. "Noted."

Their conversation is cut short by the sound of movement up ahead.

The tunnel they’ve been making their way through opens up ahead of them into a larger cavern. It’s only dimly lit by pale, glowing quartz and a soft luminescent moss.

Hilichurls, a small group, are hunched over something in the centre of the small cavern. Venti and Albedo exchange glances.

"What are they doing here?" Venti whispers. "There's nothing in this cave worth their trouble."

Albedo shrugs. "The same could be said of us. Perhaps they're as out of place as we are."

Rolling his eyes, Venti sighs. "Fair point.” He slides one foot backwards, back the way he came, and begins a silent retreat. “Let's head back before they notice us. I'm not in the mood for a fight today." He murmurs.

Not in such a tight space. Between his element - Anemo - and his weapon - a bow - he would be less than useless, and would really prefer to avoid conflict altogether.

Albedo nods in agreement, following carefully after Venti. Neither one is sure what did it - did they knock a stray pebble? Did a hilichurl catch sight of their movement? They won’t know. All they do know, is that a guttural cry echoes through the cave, and the creatures charge.

Venti reaches for his bow with a grimace. Now they need to push back into the open cavern, or he’ll be stuck trying to shoot over Albedo’s shoulder. Actually… scratch that. He struggles to draw the bowstring, his elbow knocking the wall. The top and bottom of his bow scrape and catch on the walls when he attempts to aim. The passage is too narrow to manoeuvre it.

Less than useless.

Albedo places a hand on the wall, pushing off to launch himself forward, out into the open space. He pushes through the hilichurls, but doesn’t quite come close to ‘cleaving a path.’ Neither one of them was built for this kind of fighting.

It’s chaotic, the narrow space limiting their movements. Albedo moves with precision, but he’s still taking more hits than he’s landing. It’s sheer numbers. He throws out a hand and his vision glows, but it stutters and fades at the last moment as his eyes go wide.

“The walls here are unstable.” He hisses in way of explanation. He can’t use his vision - not without risking bringing the entire tunnel down on their heads.

Venti yelps as a club gets hum under the ribs, sending him into the far wall. His head spins as he fumbles with his bow, getting off as many shots as he can in the darkness. They are making progress… it’s just frustratingly slow. They’re chipping away at the hilichurls, it’s a fight they will win, but not without -

A crack against the side of Venti’s head, and he’s down again.

He swipes out with his bow, knocking the feet out from under the one who hit him. He scrambled back up, swaying. Ugh, not good. At least they’re almost finished here. It’s embarrassing how badly he and Albedo let a random group of hilichurls, of all things, get the jump on them this badly. He definitely won’t be telling anybody about this.

Only two left though, and then they can-

Across the cavern, Albedo drops like dead weight. Unconscious already? And with a hilichurl looming over him, raising its club for a hell of a downswing. With Anemo at his heels, Venti darts forward. He knows he won’t be fast enough to intercept, so he…

He knows its a bad idea, but there’s no time for anything else. An arrow is in his hand before he has time to second guess himself, Anemo building, swelling, and releasing. The last hilichurl is knocked backwards with concussive force. The air pressure in the tight space twists, condenses. There’s no sound outside the ringing in his ears as his feet keep carrying him forward.

The silence breaks with a terrible tremor of the earth. Venti barely has time to throw himself over Albedo’s unmoving form, shielding him as the ceiling comes down.

It isn’t a shower of rock and debris, it isn’t a cascade of stone. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment. It’s the earth moving beneath them and groaning around them, and then the sudden crushing force of a mountain being dropped on his back, and then nothing.

Venti doesn’t know how long he was unconscious for, because there is very little to differentiate between that and consciousness at the moment. His body aches, the kind of ache where he’s broken in too many places to process them all, so it fades into something less tangible. His mind wanders in a vague facsimile of thought, closer to delirium. Never staying on one thought long enough to make sense of it.

His body is pinned so completely in place he might as well not have one - but this is so quintessentially opposed to his previous unembodied experiences. He isn’t light, floating, or untethered. He’s trapped utterly and completely, in every sense of the word. He can’t twitch a finger or inhale a breath.

There’s nothing but blackness whether his eyes are open or shut.

There is no airflow. Forget wind, there is no air at all. He cannot see, cannot hear, cannot feel anything but earth, he strains to turn his head, to shift his shoulder, to get out , to get free, to- to- to-

“Venti.”

To-

“Venti.”

To-

“Venti.” The voice is calm, insistent, cutting through the haze. Albedo's voice.

"Bwuuhh?" Venti manages, his tongue thick and uncooperative. His vision clears just enough to see Albedo's face, partially illuminated by the faint glow of his vision at his throat.

"Are you okay?" Albedo's tone is steady, but there's an obvious undercurrent of concern. It’s funny - why should Albedo be so concerned for Venti?

"I'm fine," Venti responds automatically, though the words feel foreign and detached from reality. He’s never heard his voice so contained before. There is no room for it to travel, to space for it to breath. It’s muffled by thousands of tonnes of stone, and the chest that his face is buried against.

"Can you move?" Albedo asks, his own position still and tense, pinned beneath Venti.

Venti tries again to shift, but he remains utterly immobile. "No... I can't move. I'm stuck." Panic edges into his voice. "I can't breathe. There’s not enough space for my chest to expand - and there’s no air down here. If we were human, we’d be dead. I can't—"

"It's fortunate neither of us need to breathe," Albedo interjects smoothly, trying to maintain a semblance of calm. "Can you feel any airflow at all? Any indication of an exit?"

Venti closes his eyes, straining to sense even the slightest breeze, but there is nothing. Just cold, heavy silence. "No... I can't feel anything. There's nothing. We're trapped. Albedo, we're trapped."

"Stay calm," Albedo urges, though the pressure of their situation is pressing heavily on his own mind. If he was alone, he may be taking this worse. Venti’s anxiety is giving him something to ground himself to. "Panicking won't help us."

Venti's mouth snaps shut, and he forces himself into silence. Inside, his thoughts are spiralling. He can feel his heart pounding against the crushing weight, but he tries to focus on the stillness, to keep from falling apart. Albedo wants him calm? Venti is far from calm. Venti knows if he opens his mouth, a stream of nonsense will come spilling forth again. He can’t help it - he talks when he’s anxious.

(He talks when he’s happy, when he’s angry, when he’s scared. He can’t help it.)

Minutes stretch into an eternity. Venti's eyes are closed, his face pressed into Albedo's chest. His hands, clutching at Albedo's coat, twitch occasionally. His breaths come in shallow, uneven gasps. There's nothing to breath, but he keeps trying anyway. He tries to drown out his increasingly intrusive thoughts by focusing on the faint, rhythmic beat of Albedo's heart beneath him. It feels heavier than a human heart, and beats slower.

"Albedo," Venti finally murmurs, voice strained, "Do you know how deep we are? Can you... move the stone at all? Can you do anything? "

Albedo hesitates, and Venti knows the answer before he speaks.

"We're deep," Albedo admits. "And I don't think I can manipulate the Geo without making our situation worse."

"Okay," Venti replies, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Okay." He falls silent again, retreating into himself, trying not to think. Trying not to wonder how can it get worse? Anything would be better than this. We’re trapped, buried, crushed.

Albedo remains still beneath him, his mind working, considering their limited options. Venti whimpers occasionally, a sound so quiet and uncharacteristic that he’s fairly certain the bard is unaware he’s making it. It sounds more animal than human, and more like a trick of the wind than an animal. If it weren’t for the close quarters and otherwise absolute silence, Albedo doesn’t think even he would have heard it.

In fact… perhaps he feels it in his chest, more than hears any sound at all. A distressed little tremor, only detectable where their chests are pressed together, and in the way his hands grip tighter at moments.

"Venti," Albedo says softly, breaking the silence. "I need you to stay with me."

Venti doesn't respond immediately. Finally, he manages a weak nod - not a nod, so much as pressing his face harder into Albedo's chest. The only thing around him with enough give to allow him any movement at all. "Okay.”

. Part 2

#genshin impact #albedo #venti #albeven #fanfiction #thecinderninja #original post #original post date june 7 2024

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thecinderninja · 2 months ago

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Skip Google for Research

As Google has worked to overtake the internet, its search algorithm has not just gotten worse. It has been designed to prioritize advertisers and popular pages often times excluding pages and content that better matches your search terms

As a writer in need of information for my stories, I find this unacceptable. As a proponent of availability of information so the populace can actually educate itself, it is unforgivable.

Below is a concise list of useful research sites compiled by Edward Clark over on Facebook. I was familiar with some, but not all of these.

⁂

Google is so powerful that it “hides” other search systems from us. We just don’t know the existence of most of them. Meanwhile, there are still a huge number of excellent searchers in the world who specialize in books, science, other smart information. Keep a list of sites you never heard of.

www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.

www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.

https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.

www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.

http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.

www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.

www.pdfdrive.com is the largest website for free download of books in PDF format. Claiming over 225 million names.

www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free

#ref

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thecinderninja · 2 months ago

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was thinking about how venti and albedo know each others identities from that quest… parallelisms, even…

#venti #albedo #genshin

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thecinderninja · 2 months ago

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i had a dream where tornadoes were made illegal or something i just remember like a dozen police cars driving directly toward a tornado with their sirens on and all getting sucked into the tornado

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thecinderninja · 2 months ago

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dahlia art i did a bit ago :)

#genshin #dahlia

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thecinderninja · 2 months ago

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I finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in my life. With all of *vague gesture at everything* this going on.

I Am Not Okay

#lotr

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thecinderninja · 2 months ago

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TIL The chances of us eating even one spider in our sleep throughout our lifetime is close to 0%

via reddit.com

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thecinderninja · 2 months ago

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The Walk Before the Run

On Ao3 as The_Cinderninja

Furina stands at the gates of Mondstadt. Warm sun kisses her skin, a light breeze in her short hair. She clutches a letter between her hands, her tight grip creasing and crumpling the paper the only evidence of the tension coiling in her chest.

An invitation, one she accepted on impulse without entirely thinking it through. She has been riding the high of new experiences lately. So long as she is busy, busy, busy, she cannot be stressed, anxious, scared.

She finds humanity has itself been hitting her like somewhat of a flood. An unstoppable tide of emotions, highs and lows, fear and freedom and unsurety and exhilaration that come one after another. Her chosen method to survive the deluge has been to sail headlong into the waves to avoid capsizing.

That, at least, is the long and short of how she has ended up standing here, at the gates of a city in full bloom at the advent of a foreign festival, clutching an invitation from a highly suspicious stranger, caught in the liminal space between intention and action.

The city sprawling beyond the threshold is nothing like home. It is quaint and rustic, the air thick with the scent of cider and fresh bread. Banners of soft blues and greens sway in the breeze, which stirs up an endless ribbon of flower petals to dust the streets. She is familiar with the phrase ‘spring is in the air’, but here it is quite literal.

It is a welcome sight.

A welcome sight that she has been standing and staring at for a good fifteen or so minutes now.

Neuvillette stands silently by her side, his hands resting neatly in front of him. She can feel his eyes on her. And besides that, she can feel the Knights’ by the gates eyes on both of them.

She huffs. They can stare as much as they like, she will go inside when she is good and ready.

“...So, this friend of yours.” Neuvillette begins slowly. It isn’t an accusation, per say , nor an interrogation. Just�� “Was he meant to meet you at the port? Or perhaps the city gate?”

“He- he didn’t say, exactly.” Furina grumbles, resting her hands on her hips. Of course, he didn’t say. And she hadn’t thought to ask. And now she realizes she doesn’t even know what he looks like.

“You’ve been rather evasive about him.” He pauses, frowning slightly. “Remind me, how exactly did you meet?”

Furina’s grip on the letter tightens. “I- well, we haven’t met.” She says, defensively. “But I haven’t exactly had much of a chance to yet, have I? We’ve been exchanging letters, that’s all. But, the Traveller did say he was trustworthy.”

“Hm.” Neuvillette doesn’t say more on the matter, but she can tell he’s already judging her supposed friend. Still, he does not press her. “It is inconsiderate to invite someone to your home only to leave them searching.”

On one hand, she can breathe a sigh of relief that he isn’t more demanding of answers about her mysterious foreign friend. On the other hand, there is a sting that comes with knowing why he has been more mindful of such things lately. Allowing her space where he once would have pressed for answers.

Well. This is going splendidly so far. Her already low hopes of making them get along are disappearing slowly down the drain. “Look, I never even told him what day I would arrive, so it's hardly his fault for not meeting me! Let’s just go inside! The two of us can get a head start on the festivities.” She insists, grabbing Neuvillette’s hand. She straightens her back and drags him through the gates, pausing only to enthusiastically shake the Knights’ hands on her way past.

Furina and Neuvillette have a lovely first day of Windblume.

They check in to their hotel, whereupon they are greeted by a Knight and asked if this is their first Windblume, and offered a guide.

And while Furina’s stomach twists and her eyes burn as she tours the godless city, realizing that this was all, of course, a joke, a mean, cruel-hearted prank at her expense, because what else should she have expected? She still finds herself grateful that she did not ignore that ridiculous invitation.

Because the letter had said Mondstadt was lovely this time of year. It had said she could use the change of pace, that she would love the pastoral fields and the clear glacial waters of Cider Lake. And… all of this is true.

Mondstadt is lovely, and she is glad she came.

And there is nobody laughing at her for believing the supposed Anemo Archon wanted to meet her, so perhaps the prank wasn’t so cruel-hearted after all. In fact, the Traveller had vouched for him, so perhaps this was… another plot of theirs. Maybe an attempt to make up for the previous one.

She still resents the deception, but supposes, in some resigned way, it was warranted. She had deceived everyone for so long, after all, despite her good intentions. So perhaps she can accept being on the receiving end of some ‘well-intentioned’ deception.

She lets herself relax, she stops trying to spot a stranger in the crowd of strangers, and delights in the realization that Neuvillette buys her any pretty things she points at.

Mondstadt feels safe. Quiet, quaint. Which perhaps lends itself to her vigilant Iudex, arms filled with the spoils of war (read; her shopping trip) break line of sight. In the four seconds his vision is filled with floral prints and lace trim -

A hand grabs her wrist.

Her heart leaps into her throat as she jerks, tries to yank away, but the grip is firm, dragging her away. Panic surges through her chest. Is she being abducted? Here? In broad daylight? Well, far be it from her to scream like a hapless maiden, she is half a second away from whipping out a lead pipe to beat the fiend with when she finally, actually, looks at him.

And okay, he’s awfully strong for his size, but she’s still fairly sure that’s a child. (Or child adjacent? Furina is by her own admission, downright terrible at telling age from look alone. But still, he may be an inch shorter than she is in heels, his face is round with baby fat, and he’s certainly dressed like a child). She supposes she probably shouldn’t beat a child with a lead pipe.

He laughs as if he can read her thoughts, turning back to look at her, and his eyes are burning a green so bright it makes her skin crawl as he calls her name. “Furina!”

She digs her heels into the cobbles, staring.

“... Venti?” She ventures, guessing this must, surely, be her elusive penpal.

His grin stretches wider. "The one and only!"

She scowls as he pulls her further and further away, weaving through bodies like water. “Where have you been!” She demands. “I think Neuvillete believes I have been catfished!”

“Ehe! Well, I would have come to find you sooner, but he was practically glued to your side!”

She narrows her eyes at the implication that he has been intentionally avoiding him. “You know this isn’t going to end well for you when he catches up with us. I think introducing yourself would have made a far better impression than showing us up, and abducting me.”

Venti shrugs, unconcerned. “That’s future Venti’s problem. Besides, he’ll have to find us first. I’ll send a Knight to let him know you’re safe, don’t worry about it!”

She does feel inexplicably safe around him, but more than that, she knows that if anything untoward does happen, he will be the one in danger.

She takes the opportunity to size him up as he leads her.

She isn’t sure what she has been expecting, honestly, but certainly something a bit… grander, surely. Someone a touch more impressive. Not some tiny, baby-faced bard who looks more human than she does.

Although, she knows full well that her idea of what an Archon must be is meaningless. For in her mind, it had all come down to spectacle, hadn’t it? And while she does not know the Anemo Archon by his looks, she is very well aware that he is not as absent as Mondstadt believes him to be. Between the knowledge left to her by Focalors and the Traveller’s own confirmations, she truly has no choice but to believe this small human is, in fact, what a real Archon looks like.

The irony that only in becoming human does she finally resemble an Archon is not lost on her.

"Come on, let me show you Mondstadt!"

She exhales sharply, stealing one last glance over her shoulder. Then, reluctantly, she lets him pull her along.

The festival is in full swing around them, and Furina is tired. Not exhausted, just... pleasantly spent. The kind of tired that comes after a long, enjoyable day. She isn’t used to the warm feeling settling comfortably in her chest. She stretches her legs out, heels clicking against the brick wall where she sits, and looks out over the crowd.

Children weave between people’s legs, laughing, unsupervised. No one seems to mind. They run free, small and quick, darting through the city like little silver fish upstream.

Young couples sit together in every available space, cheeks red in the lantern light. Some hold hands. Some kiss. The restaurants spill into the streets, tables full, families eating together. The smell of roasted meat and fresh bread drifts through the air, mixing with cider and something sweet she can’t place.

She glances to her side.

Venti is sprawled beside her. Shoulders hunched, back rounded, legs stretched out. He certainly slouches like a teenager. His seventeenth - or eighteenth? - bottle of wine dangles loosely in one hand. With the other, he gestures wildly at every passing Mondstadter, grinning.

"That’s Marthe," he says, pointing to a woman balancing a basket on her hip. "She bakes the best apple tarts in the city, but only for her grandchildren. And that’s Edric - he’s trying to grow grapes but keeps forgetting to water them. And Bernard over there? He tells everyone he’s a traveling merchant, but he hasn’t left Mondstadt in twenty years."

He does this for every person who walks by. A name, a story, a small piece of their life. Furina listens, half skeptical, half amused. His face is flushed a soft red, his voice warm and easy. He waves at each person as if greeting an old friend, and they - mostly - wave back.

Furina watches him take another long sip of wine.

"Should you be drinking like that in public?" she asks, frowning. "Isn't public intoxication illegal?"

Venti turns to her, scandalized. "First of all, of course it’s not illegal! Imagine drinking being illegal. What kind of city would Mondstadt be? A sad one, that’s what."

Furina opens her mouth to argue, but he steamrolls ahead.

"And second of all... so what if it is? Who’s going to stop me?"

She blinks at him "The... police?"

Venti bursts out laughing, tipping his head back, kicking his heels against the brick. "Furina. Darling. Dearest. Furina."

A flick of his fingers, a touch of Anemo, and the nearest vendor’s hat lifts straight off his head, caught in a sudden gust of wind. It sails ten feet up, then lands perfectly on the head of a passing dog. The vendor startles. The dog stands very still, as if deeply considering its new role in society.

Furina chokes on a laugh, covering her mouth with both hands.

The vendor scowls, looking around suspiciously. Venti is already looking away, all exaggerated innocence, sipping his wine.

Venti turns to her, grinning. "Now, using your Vision within city walls on religious holidays, that is illegal. Though, technically, I don’t have a Vision." He winks, tapping the gemstone on his hip.

Furina shakes her head, biting her lip.

Mondstadt is nothing like Fontaine.

Venti waves a hand dismissively, still grinning. "It's fine, really. Mondstadt doesn't even have prisons. It's not like anything bad will happen to me as long as I don't do anything bad to anyone else."

Furina twitches. "No. Prisons? But - what about all the criminals?"

Venti turns to her sharply, sensing the spike in her tension. He holds his hands up, palms forward, in a placating gesture. "Ah - no, no, not like that! I just mean there aren't really consequences for harmless things. Like feeding the pigeons inside the city!"

Furina pauses, eyes narrowing in thought. "Feeding pigeons is... illegal inside the city?"

"Yeah!" Venti laughs, as if it's the funniest thing in the world. "Can you believe that?"

She nods firmly. "A perfectly sensible law."

Venti stares at her, face frozen in mild disbelief. "You can't be serious..."

"Why yes, of course!" Furina crosses her arms, smirking. "Too many pigeons can quickly become a nuisance. And just look at that magnificent statue of the Anemo Archon! I can only imagine how difficult and dangerous it must be for someone to have to climb up and clean it if some ridiculous, foolish citizen decided to start attracting pigeons to perch all over it!"

Venti blinks at her, processing her words. Then very slowly, very intentionally, reaches into his pocket, rummaging around for something. When he doesn't find it immediately, he pushes his hand deeper, until he's bent over, nearly up to his elbow in a pocket that shouldn't possibly be that deep. After a moment, he pulls out a handful of birdseed and tosses it to the ground at the feet of the statue.

"Venti!"

He laughs, watching the pigeons immediately flutter in to peck at the seeds. "What? If it does cause a problem, they'll just make me clean the statue myself."

Furina stares at him. She falls into thought, her brow furrowed as he casually scatters more seed. Before she can say anything, a Knight finally notices the commotion and calls out, exasperated.

"Hey! Venti! Stop that!"

The bard straightens, looking over his shoulder as the Knight stomps toward him. They don’t look angry, just... tired, like they've dealt with this too many times before. "Get out of here, kid! And, at least try not to cause problems during the festival... One week, Venti, is that too much to ask?"

Venti grins, tossing the last of the birdseed over his shoulder as he turns to leave. "Alright, alright, I’m going!"

Mondstadt is nothing like Fontaine.

Furina turns that thought over in her mind for the rest of the day.

Her and Venti have done an awful lot of wandering, and - she wonders what kind of message the bard must have sent with the Knights to have possibly assuaged Neuvillete, but she does spot him at one across the plaza with a young lady in a Knights uniform. The two pairs stare at each other for a moment. Venti gives a cheeky wave, the woman looks exhausted, Neuvillette twitches. But in the end, he simply narrows his eyes at the bard before turning to Furina, giving her a look, a short nod, and turning away.

And oh, oh, it seems it has nothing to do with the bard at all, and everything to do with her. He is choosing to trust her.

She feels a touch bad for running away from him, though she will have no trouble blaming that entirely on Venti later, seeing as it was entirely his fault.

They’ve been walking together for most of the day, and the sky is shifting to pink and orange now. She is missing Neuvillette, and knows she’ll want to get back to him before much longer, but she is not regretting her day spent with the strange little bard. His enthusiasm to show her his city has been… nice. It’s very obvious how much he loves it, and each person in it. He truly knows each and every one of them by name.

Furina reminds herself that she was never truly a god, and that Fontaine is much, much larger, and it isn’t her fault for not having the emotional energy left over to… care about people so personally.

Because she did care! Truly! On the whole.

But… maybe she is a touch jealous, a touch sad, and a touch bitter.

She doesn’t love her home as much as Venti loves his. She can’t look at Fontaine with the same adoration and pride, when it has hurt her so much. And what kind of Archon does that make her?

Well. She isn’t one, so it shouldn’t matter. But she’s spent so long asking herself that question, it’s a difficult habit to kick.

Across the street, a flower shop displays lavender, cecilias, windwheel asters. A child tugs at their mother’s sleeve, pointing at the bouquets. The mother laughs, kneeling down to listen.

Beside her, Venti leans back with a lazy sprawl, one knee propped up on the planter they have chosen as their seat, the other leg dangling freely. Between them, a small pile of birdseed sits on the wood, and he tosses a handful into the street. Pigeons flutter down, weaving between hurried footsteps to peck at the scattered seeds. He doesn’t even look, just tosses another pinch with the air of a man doing something instinctive.

Furina watches the birds for a moment, then exhales. “Mondstadt is so backwards.”

Venti hums, amused. “Oh?”

“It’s so - so rural. And ridiculous. And silly. And yet…”

He tilts his head, waiting. “And yet?”

She watches a pair of boys leaning against a shopfront, shoulders bumping, laughing together. A little girl clutches a too-large loaf of bread, running ahead of her father with a bright grin. There are no Gardes - or Knights- patrolling. The few she has seen stationed around the city don’t seem to be taking their jobs very seriously. No one is watchful for danger. Just people, alive and unafraid.

“It’s so happy here,” she murmurs.

Venti doesn’t reply right away. He rolls a sunflower seed absently between his fingers. “I like to think so.”

“Parents let their children wander wherever they please. There’s no fear… Bards don’t need thirteen separate permits to sing in the streets.” She sighs, shaking her head. “Somehow, despite all logic, your lack of strict law enforcement hasn’t left the city drowning in crime.”

Venti grins, flicking the seed into the crowd. A pigeon snatches it up. “Well, now, I wouldn’t say lack of law enforcement. The Knights do enforce the law. Sometimes. When it’s necessary.”

Furina eyes him. “Sometimes?"

Venti waggles his hand in a ‘so-so’ motion. “Mondstadt isn’t lawless. There are rules. But…” He glances at her sidelong, his expression shifting. “I also wouldn’t say Mondstadt is perfectly safe, or that bad things never happen here.” He doesn’t elaborate, but he does fall silent, looking off into the distance for a long moment. “I do my best,” he says softly, tossing another handful of seed. “But I can’t always hold their hands. I aim them. I nudge. I hope they build a society that takes care of each other, so I don’t have to. But there will always be people willing to do bad things for selfish reasons."

Furina stares at him, something twisting deep in her chest. “Your best,” she murmurs. “Your best is still better than mine.”

Venti’s head snaps around, “Furina.”

She forces a wry smile. “No, it’s true.”

“Furina, we are very different people, with very different Nations. It’s best not to compare ourselves. But please understand, you had a much bigger task. I can’t imagine having to do what you did. Really, it… I can’t imagine it.”

She scoffs, looking away. “I played a role for a few hundred years, that’s all. I didn’t do anything to improve Fontaine in all that time. Just… turned people’s suffering into entertainment.”

Venti frowns. “That’s not all. You managed to fool-” he shakes his head like a dog clearing water from its ears. “You had to think about their survival, Furina. Your entire nation was at risk, every day, and you were the only one who even knew. You were completely alone, and so afraid. But you never slipped once. The resolve that takes…” He trails off, looking truly awed. Him, a real Archon, with his own Church and monument and prospering Nation, looking awed.

She exhales slowly, fingers tightening in her lap. “I was meant to be the Archon of Justice. But I was so preoccupied with maintaining that lie, I never actually was what Fontaine needed. I let so much fester beneath my rule. So much harm. So much cruelty.” Her voice drops. “How am I supposed to live with that?”

Venti is quiet for a long moment. Then, softly, he says, “I’m the Archon of Freedom. And Mondstadt… isn’t free.”

She looks at him, startled.

“I don’t keep them free,” he speaks softly, voice thoughtful, distant. “I keep them blind. I shape their freedom into something that won’t put them in danger. I make choices for them, decide what’s best. And I know… I know it's the wrong choice. I know…” I know he would never approve of what’s become of this Nation. He lets out a quiet laugh, equal parts bitter and fond. “But I choose to do it anyway. I choose their safety over their freedom. Because I’m their Archon, and I have to. Freedom… it has to be secondary.” He grimaces, looking away.

Furina stares down at her hands. “I kept my people safe. But at what cost?”

He studies her for a moment, then nudges her shoulder lightly. “But you’re not an Archon anymore.”

She blinks at him.

“You’re free from all that pressure now, right?” His voice is warm. The longing in his voice is not disguised.

“Furina, you’re human now. You aren’t bound by an ideal, or by any Principles but your own. You saved them. And now you’re free to live as one of them. You can love Fontaine, or you can hate it. You can stay or leave. You can choose what you want to be. You don’t have to be the God of Justice anymore.” He leans in slightly. “You don’t have to be anything you don’t choose for yourself.”

She stares at him, breath caught in her throat.

His gaze flicks to the little pile of birdseed between them. “Speaking of choices…” He grins, eyes glowing with mischief. “Care to commit a crime with me?”

Furina snorts. “I beg your pardon?”

Venti wiggles his fingers at the seed. “Go on. Break a law.”

She hesitates. Then, slowly, she pinches a few seeds between her fingers. “It is a… rather silly law, I suppose.”

Venti watches, grinning.

Furina purses her lips. She lifts her hand. And then, carefully, deliberately-

She flicks the seeds toward the pigeons.

They flutter down, pecking at the street.

There is no great change in the world, but her heart feels just a touch lighter.

. Come join us in the Genshin Creatives Discord Server

#genshin impact #furina #venti #thecinderninja #original post #original post date feb 7 2025 #background neuvifuri if you're looking for it #furiven if you choose #hoyohearts gift exchange #venti not so subtly longs to be human

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thecinderninja · 3 months ago

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jorts! jorts! jorts!!!!

Venti and Jeeeeaan 🥺🙏

jorts! jorts! jorts!!!!

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thecinderninja · 3 months ago

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So I heard you like wisps? So excited to be participating in the @heart-teyvat charity zine for HEART Tokushima. Y'all don't even know how excited I am about this zine... trust me, it's CUTE.

#genshin impact #genshin #venti #wind wisp #heart teyvat

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thecinderninja · 3 months ago

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One and Three Hundred Days

On Ao3 as The_Cinderninja

Albedo wakes to a tight hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake with a grip hard enough to bruise.

This is unusual for a great many reasons. For one, he is sleeping outside of Mondstadt, in his lab in the mountains. He should be very much alone out here.

The touch is unfamiliar. No one ever wakes him like this.

His eyes slide open smoothly.

The cold of Dragonspine, the smell of dying embers. His warm breath ghosting in the air. The scent of wax and paper.

The cold eyes of Rosaria staring down at him.

“Get up.” Her voice is hard-edged and colder than the mountain air. Something about it rings dull, like the edge of a dagger dulled by too much use.

Her presence is an anomaly. He sits up slowly, eyeing her as he does so. Her hands are empty, she does not hold a weapon, but her eyes burn into him with intensity. “You are going to destroy Mondstadt.”

This wakes him fully.

He does not move. His mind catalogues every possible reason for this accusation. She should not know the thing that slumbers in his bones, or the instability of his creation.

He swings his legs off the cot, tilting his head in measured inquiry. “I have no intention of harming Mondstadt,” he speaks carefully.

“I know.” The thin morning light carves hollows into her face. She looks exhausted. And… something else. Something he cannot place, though it sets him on edge. “I know. It’s the last thing you want. But you bring the gods down upon us anyway.”

He frowns. The certainty in her voice leaves no room for contradiction. “Explain.”

“You are a homunculus. An artificial being created by the alchemist Gold. Her creations have a long history of destroying things. Today, you open the gateway to Celestia, and everything ends. I know because I have seen it happen. It keeps happening. Now get out of bed and help me.”

There is no disbelief in him, only the slow crawl of ice up his spine.

He stares at her. He swallows dryly. His brows furrow slightly. “If that is true, then the solution is simple. Kill me.” If what she says is true, she should not have compunctions about killing him. He knows this about her.

“I have. You won’t stay dead.” She is rummaging through journals on his desk, looking for something specific. He stares at her. She is going through his things, back turned to him. Somehow, it is the least guarded he has ever seen her around him. “We’ve burned you, drowned you, used every possible elemental reaction. Impaled your heart, your head. The Traveller tried to unmake you. Your body pulls itself back together faster than we can tear it apart.”

He presses a palm to his forehead, feeling faintly sick. "Solutions," he murmurs. "If death is not an option, then containment-"

"No," Rosaria says. "We've tried it."

"Binding sigils, cryostasis-"

"No."

He glances up at her. She has seen all of these failures before.

He exhales slowly. He pushes himself to his feet and joins her at his desk. He does not stop her from looking through his notes. He finds himself believing her, which places him in the uncomfortable position of playing catch up. She holds an immense amount of knowledge and experience that he does not, and he is left rapidly trying to piece everything he knows together into a clearer picture.

"What… of Venti?” he asks carefully.

Rosaria’s face hardly shifts, only darkens by minute shades while she pulls all of his journals from his shelf, discarding books to the side as useless without even opening them. “He is controlled as surely as you are.” Voice grim. “When it begins, he kneels. He does not move again.”

Albedo’s hands tighten on the edge of his desk.

“Okay. What are you looking for?” He asks. He supposes she would not be looking for something she had already tried. She is not stupid. If she is here, telling him all of this, it must be because she has another plan, an idea. He would like to believe he can help.

“Your mother.”

He frowns. “You won’t find an answer in any of my notes. I don’t know where she is.”

“I know that.” Rosaria snaps, before rearranging her face back into something collected. “I know. We’ve tried to find her before. You… I don’t know why, but you’re convinced she isn’t behind this. And I believe you. You’ve told me she might have a way to stop you though, if we can find her. We only started looking a few cycles ago, so I don’t have many leads. We start here.” She jabs a finger into one of his journals.

“We can spend this entire cycle reading through these, or if you have letters? Anything. We look for anything that stands out. We pursue it. We follow this lead to its completion. Until we find her and she saves you or destroys you, until we find her and she makes things a million times worse. I don’t know. We haven’t found her yet. But this is our only lead, and we only have so much time. One day. So please, tell me anything you know. I can only carry what I remember into the next cycle. The more I know, the faster I convince you, and the more time we have to work.”

It is at this point that Albedo realizes there is very little she does not already know about him. He went to sleep last night unknown. And he has woken up to a Rosaria who knows him far too well. He might as well assume he has no secrets left. It is jarring. And yet she is telling him all of this, not lurching to violence. She is trying to work with him, not against him. So for now, he must cling to that. By the sounds of things, he will be exposed by the end of the day, regardless.

“You’re right. I do believe you,” he murmurs, opening a false bottom in the drawer of his desk, and pulling out a stack of papers. “We can start with these. This is… my journal from when I was travelling with her. I have not shown this to anyone else. It is very old. Please be careful with it. I also have some correspondence between her and Aunt Alice. Alice let me keep them, presumably because she thought they would hold some sentimental value to me. But perhaps something in there may hold a clue as to where she is.” He hums at that thought. “In fact, Alice herself may know. I could write to her.”

“There’s no need.” Rosaria murmurs as she takes the journal and opens it with utmost care. “She will arrive later today. When the winds rise and the sky breaks open, she’ll be here. I can ask her then.”

“... Won’t it already be too late?”

“For this cycle, yes. But everything I learn here will hold value in the next.”

Albedo frowns. “That is—that seems a dangerous way of thinking. What if there is no next cycle?”

“There will be.”

He watches her face. “... How many times have you lived this day?”

“Hm, I stopped counting after three hundred.”

He has no reply for that as he stares down at scattered pages. His own careful handwriting, his mother’s pristine cursive, and the nearly illegible scrawl of Alice. For a long time, there is only silence. The sound of wind howling through the mountain spires of his brother’s bones, the dusty scrape of old curling paper, and the quiet sound of Rosaria breathing. She is incredibly calm for someone who knows the world will end today, though he supposes she has had a great deal of time to come to terms with this.

What he doesn’t understand at all is why the woman who has always distrusted him the most is suddenly so unguarded around him. All of her misgivings have been proven true, there is a foundation for her distrust, and he should be, by all counts, her enemy.

So why is she sitting across from him, eyes glued to the page, without a single sideways glance to keep track of him?

Softly, he asks, "Why are you telling me all of this?"

A simpler question might have been - why are you trusting me?

Silence. He cannot tell if she is ignoring him, or if she is so focused she has not heard him. She flips a page in the journal, her brows furrow lower on her face. Reminiscent of a scowl, but not quite. She frowns.

Her voice breaks the silence, grim. “I could never distrust you again.” Her eyes are shadowed and she does not look up. “For a year, I have watched you fight. To the bitter end, you do not give up. I have seen you kill those I love, and I have seen your face while you do it. I have seen you killed by them as well. I have lost count of the ways I’ve seen you die. Mondstadt is the nation of the free, and you are not free when you bring the end down on us.

“I’ve seen you choose Mondstadt over yourself a hundred times. I’ve watched you tear yourself apart for the smallest chance to change things.” Her expression, for a single moment, flickers to something haunted. “I promised you that I would find a way to save you, too.”

A promise made that he himself did not remember, and would never have held her to.

Silence is a heart beating between them, and Albedo thinks to himself, what a lonely existence this must be for her.

“I am glad you don’t remember,” she says softly.

Every time, they have lost.

Every time, the city has burned.

Every time, he has been the one to light the match.

Albedo feels something stirring beneath his skin.

Outside, the wind rises.

#albedo #rosaria #genshinrng #genshinrngzine #genshin impact #genshin #tempest #original post #original post date may 9 2025

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