Chapter Text
The first time Venti noticed something was wrong, he'd felt a pulse along his body, akin to a full-body shiver.
He hadn't bothered looking into it at the time. It had been a nice day, after all, with him busied with downing a bottle of cider and letting the wind flow through his hair while he sat in the trunk of a tree. He appreciated such mundane days, for they allowed him to unwind, unplagued by the sense of duty that tended to follow any other archon. He could admire the sense of peace that had spread over Mond due to the efforts of him and countless others, and he could say that for all he'd messed up along the way, at least something had come out right.
...Though, that didn't mean that there wasn't a day where he didn't feel guilty about having abandoned his duties. That didn't mean there'd never been a day where, having downed just the slightest bit too much wine, he didn't recount the events of his godship and go over what he could have done better.
He knew it must have been uncharacteristic for him, a god of freedom, to be plagued by such regret.
He knew that it must not have been normal, for him to look into a mirror and seldom see anything but a young man, with a small smile adorning his face in spite of the arrows poking from his bloodied chest.
And so, letting his feet dangle from the tree branch that day, he'd been pondering – yet again – how he'd spent thousands of years living with another's face, when a gust of wind coiled around him from the inside. It was as if he was being born anew, or reawakened with a white-hot passion, sparks spreading throughout his body in a way that had him jolting with their intensity.
But the feeling came and went far too soon for him to think anything of it.
So he sat there, only mildly questioning what in his name had just happened, before tilting his head back with a soft sigh, suddenly comforted by the way the breeze felt against his skin.
(If he'd investigated the origins of the feeling then, he wondered now, would that have changed anything?)
The Winds shared secrets with him after that.
There is a girl, they said. A traveler.
He could only wonder what the hell that had to do with him, prior to that feeling enveloping him again. This time, however, it was stronger, and a warmth spread from his head to his toes and had his chest heaving once, twice, three times. It was a brutal embrace – tender and loving but just too intense and crushing for his smaller frame.
Lumine, the Winds said. Lumine Lumine Lumine. Go to Windrise.
He couldn't bring himself to object. Not when he knew for certain that their words would lead him to the source of these out of body experiences. He didn't know who this Lumine was, but surely she had something to do with this. After all, the Winds didn't focus on just any individual.
He found her (and a small, floating fairy… pixie thing) standing under his beloved Vennessa's tree, hands clasped in front of her chest in a silent prayer to his statue. Venti watched her silently from the trunk of the tree, peering through branches and just being able to make out the glow of an anemoculus between her palms. His statue sucked in the object greedily, and the girl – Lumine – unclasped her hands with a small smile, seemingly satisfied with her offering.
Meanwhile, Venti just about melted where he sat.
The shivers he'd gotten as soon as his statue accepted the anemoculus were unmistakable. Those were where the feelings had been coming from. And it didn't make it any better that this girl he'd never seen before, this girl who looked like she could very well not be of Teyvat –
(He pressed a hand to his chest as if it'd calm his racing heart, vaguely aware of the pull in his chest that'd been triggered as soon as he saw her.)
– It didn't… it didn't make it any better that there was a pleasant scent coming from her, like the apples that he loved so much had been baked into a pie, and that pie now sat on a windowsill, its smell wafting through the air as it cooled.
Lumine, said the Winds again, and Venti knew he was in trouble.
Lumine, Lumine, Lumine.
He could almost snort out a laugh – and he would have, if not for the risk of the girl looking up and spotting him.
Him, the god of freedom, being bound to someone? The brutal irony left a bitter taste in his mouth, and as the girl walked away from his statue, he ignored the calls of the Winds telling him to get her back, and wondered just how he was going to get himself out of this one.
As it turned out, he didn't think he'd be "getting out of this one" any time soon. Especially not since he'd met the girl now.
Well, met her formally, he should say. He'd spent many a time watching her from the shadows, just in case she'd prove to be a threat to Mondstadt, of course. Nothing else.
She'd stumbled upon him trying to console Dvalin, accidentally scaring the already frightened dragon away in the process. Venti knew that she hadn’t had any ill intent, but he’d have been lying if he told himself it didn’t make him the slightest bit annoyed. By the archons, his entire situation with her annoyed him. It wasn’t fair. He knew what the anemoculi were for: they made him the slightest bit less weak each time she offered one to his statues. But if this was the price for that…
If the warmth, the full-body shivers, the all-encompassing pressure that spread along his body – even to places where he didn't care to admit – was the price for the slightest modicum of strength, then did he really want it?
But he couldn’t just tell Lumine about his predicament yet. She seemed to have no idea of her effect on him at all, and he’d just officially met the girl for crying out loud. So… he would wait, and he would endure. Endure the tug in his chest each time she came around (and by the Four Winds, had she been coming approaching him a lot now that Dvalin had spiraled out of control). Endure the pleasant scent that followed her everywhere she went. Endure the fact that each time she interacted with one of his monuments, his body immediately stopped being his.
He would wait until…
At least until she found out he was Barbatos, he told himself. And maybe a while after that, so she could have a better chance of trusting him.
It was foolproof.
(In actuality, it hadn’t been.)
For all his complaints about his ties to her, he had to admit that Lumine was a nice, noble girl. She greeted even those who were rude to her regularly with a smile, and she exercised patience around even the Cavalry Captain – and even around him – that he hadn’t known was possible. She had that look in her eyes, kind but wise and distant, that told him all he needed to know.
She was polite and civil, but she wasn’t here to stay.
Though she looked young just as he did, she’d seen more than he could know and had traveled to places he couldn’t even hope of imagining.
That was all she was, after all. A traveler, here to do what she needed to do and then leave.
That made him wonder idly, if she accomplished her goals and then left Mondstadt, or Teyvat entirely, what would that mean for him? Would their bond sever, or would he snap right back to her, like a rubber band? He could only hope for the former, and he didn’t even know if he’d be able to handle the latter.
Both outcomes were most likely far away, however, as they had other matters to worry about right now. For instance, purifying “Stormterror” (he cringed at the crude nickname his citizens had given not just his friend, but one of their former protectors) and retrieving the Holy Lyre. Lumine and her floating companion, Paimon, would meet him at the cathedral at any moment.
“Venti!” A voice called out to him, a bit too loud for the sanctity of a cathedral.
Speak of the Devil.
He turned to Lumine and greeted her with the same smile he always did, definitely not getting lost in her eyes that were like pools of honey, and definitely not distracting himself with thoughts of braiding her hair like his just so they could match.
Master Diluc was the most successful bachelor in Mondstadt. Not only that, but his physical attractiveness and intelligence were nothing to scoff at.
So, when he got involved in their little mission after they stole the Holy Lyre, it was no surprise that even Lumine would feel a sense of attraction to him. Venti prided himself on his people-reading skills gained over millennia, and there was no mistaking her bashfulness in his presence, or the way she glanced away shyly whenever he got too close.
Which was fine. Mondstadt was known for being a city of romance, after all, for romance was a part of freedom.
It didn’t bother him. It didn’t bother him one bit.
...Okay, it bothered him a lot.
The way Master Diluc’s scent mingled with hers made his nose curl. It wasn’t that the bartender smelled unpleasant – far from it, actually. Venti just didn’t like the fact that Lumine smelled not like the apples he loved, but like expensive cologne, after each of their conversations. And if she liked Master Diluc so much, why not just go worship one of his statues and be bonded to him instead? It sure would save them both a lot of trouble!
Maybe he was just annoyed at the fact that his bond to Lumine seemed to be so one-sided. Maybe he was upset that she didn’t have to go through any of the struggles that he did. Maybe, just maybe, he was petty because she didn’t have to feel a sense of arousal each time she gave him an offering.
Was he wrong for keeping up his childish mindset that things weren’t fair? They weren’t!
But of course, he thought with a huff, he couldn’t do anything about that now. After all, they had far more important matters to attend to. Dvalin, of course.
The thought of saving his friend made him calm a bit, and he tried not to focus on the way Lumine and Diluc kept brushing against one another as they walked.
He couldn't bring himself to stay mad at Lumine for long. After all, not only did she not know of his condition, and not only had he made the conscious decision to not tell her about it yet, but she was also just far too nice ( and cute, he thought idly) to be upset with for more than necessary. That, and he couldn't fault her for his predicament either, because as far as she knew, she was doing him a favor.
It wasn't even "as far as she knew," for that matter.
She literally was helping him out, and that help just came with a side effect or twenty, with the most prominent being the random urges he would get each time they were together – alone or otherwise.
The urge to kiss her, or to mark her so that men like Master Diluc or Captain Kaeya would know to stay away. The urge to tell her everything about him and their link, and then hold her and never let go. And perhaps the most troublesome, the urge to pin her against one of Mondstadt's trees (perhaps Vennessa's, where he'd first spotted her; he doubted that the bird would mind), press his body to hers, whisper everything he wanted to do to her in her ear, and–
"Venti, the food's ready!"
Right.
The voice – sweeter than perhaps any melody he'd ever strummed – cut through his thought process like a hot knife through butter, reminding him where he was (and that his thoughts weren't proper. Being claimed by an archon wasn't freedom).
It was the dead of night. They were scheduled to confront Dvalin when the sun rose, and for now, Master Diluc and the Acting Grand Master had retired for the night to prepare, leaving him alone with Lumine.
"Tone-Deaf Baaard…!"
...And her traveling companion.
Of course.
"Ah, sorry, I couldn't help but space out for a moment, ehe." The innocent giggle had Paimon shaking her head, and Lumine came over with the plate of fried eggs she'd prepared.
"Sorry it isn't much," the girl said sheepishly. "I'm still learning new recipes from here."
He wondered, briefly, if she meant Mondstadt, or Teyvat in general, but he didn't voice his question and instead accepted the plate with a smile. "Oh, it's no problem. Most people don't offer me any sort of food willingly, so this is a nice change."
He was pretty sure fried eggs alone weren't supposed to smell this nice, and he was also pretty sure that eating Lumine's cooking would only make their bond grow stronger.
Nonetheless, he was starving, and they had a big day ahead of them…
"Oh, and you also like apples, right?" She gestured to a smaller plate of apple slices that sat on a worn barrel to her side. "I cut them myself. Sorry if they don't look the neatest or anything."
"Oh, no, this is wonderful!" His eyes flitted up from where they'd been staring at her lips, and he made the exclamation with a grateful smile in spite of being aware that he was digging his own grave.
The food had been delicious, he thought, palming his erection through his shorts.
There was no one outside now, except for him, the crickets, and perhaps the odd slime or hilichurl too many meters away for him to see. Lumine had made the innocent mistake of setting up a tent near his statue in Starfell Lake. Right before she and Paimon had retired for the night, she offered a whole five anemoculi to his statue with a prayer and a smile, and Venti could barely keep himself together.
The effects hit him like a truck, one by one, harder than ever before. Warmth spread from his head to his chest to his cock–
And he had to ask to stay out a while, because Lumine, in all her naivety, had offered him to sleep next to her at first.
By the archons – he thought, bucking into his palm – what had been her thought process behind that? That he, the anemo archon Barbatos, wouldn't ever give into mortal temptation? Or perhaps that Venti, the innocent Tone-Deaf Bard, could never be interested in anything but a good bottle of wine and a few apples?
"Haaah, haha…"
His chuckle mixed with a pant to form something breathless, and he reminded himself that if it had been a few weeks ago, that would have been a valid thought process. Gods, Lumine really didn't know anything. Even now, she didn't know he was right outside their tent, desecrating his own, blasted statue as he leaned on it and gave into his perverse thoughts.
He pulled his shorts down, finally, letting his cock into the open air with thoughts of just how far he could take that innocence of hers. As his deft fingers danced over his hardness, he pondered the idea of telling her to worship him properly in exchange for utilizing his wind power. Instead of making offerings to his stupid and gaudy statues, she could get on her knees, put her lips around him, and suck him off to completion.
Or maybe she could whisper praise to him in that gorgeous voice of hers, her scent enveloping him as she ran her hand up and down his length, letting her thumb run over his weeping tip –
(He shivered, acting out the thought .)
– and they could do it by one of his statues, just like he was now, so the effects of their bond would be as strong as possible. He'd have teased her, given her a little taste of how he felt every day, until her seemingly endless patience ran out and she finally got fed up with his act. And then she'd make him come undone underneath her, rendering him to a sobbing, helpless mess.
(His hand sped up, shudders running through his shoulders that made him curl into himself, panting as he lost himself to lust.)
His mind wandered further, to perhaps the most enticing scenario of them all. He'd start with kisses along her neck, letting his hands run up her sides and to her breasts. He'd thoroughly rid her of the scents of Diluc, Kaeya, Lisa, and even Grand Master Jean and the Outrider he'd often seen her with. He'd pretend, if only for a moment, that his actions weren't going against his entire way of life and that she could be his and his alone.
(He slapped his free hand over his mouth to stifle the whine that followed the thought.)
Then he'd start to take her slowly as punishment for teasing the archon she worshipped for so long, until he lost his patience and decided to speed up, taking in the beautiful chorus of moans that followed his actions.
He'd keep going and going until he was satisfied, until he was brought to the precipice, until he released inside of her and relished the way her walls tightened around his length–
(He wondered what she'd look like as she came around his twitching cock – if her eyes would roll back as she let out a soundless cry, if she'd call out his name for all to hear, if she'd shut her eyes and scratch his back to give him a most delightful pain – and he let himself be pushed over the edge.)
Venti's hips snapped into his hand, sobs wracking his frame as his thoughts brought about his climax. The hand over his mouth did little to hide his whines, and so he forfeit covering his mouth entirely, letting his low cries of Lumine's name drift into the night air.
Why? Why was an outlander that he barely knew affecting him in such a way? This wasn't him. This wasn't him at all.
The mixture of arousal and confusion (and the fact that his body was becoming less and less his with the more time he spent around this girl) brought tears to his eyes. But he bucked his hips once, twice, more in spite of himself before letting out a shaky breath, shame spilling over his hand in the form of hot cum.
His knees buckled from his orgasm's intensity, and as tears dried on his face, he cursed himself and cursed his godhood – but he just couldn't curse Lumine – before falling into a heap on the grass.