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It started slow and silent. Monsters slithering, flowing into the crevices of Mondstadt, but the wind hears everything.
"____, Once we're free, I'll sing you a true song!"
Resting upon the hands of a statue lies a troubled individual, the wind pushing against him relentlessly with harsh messages of danger.
He listened, if not saw what it had for him to hear.
Growling, lost voices that spoke in a language few could decipher.
Somewhere near but far, the sky darkened, the land becoming shrouded in a hazy purple, splotches and veins of an oozey substance contaminating the forest.
Sitting up, the boyish figure, began to glow, illuminating the previously night drenched city below. Among the glow, his shape changed, wings sprouting, a hood, unique accessories, bright shining cyan markings. Once the glow faded, all that got left behind were the slight illuminating wind of his braid tips, eyes, markings, and chest plate.
By the morning, the bard was nowhere to be found, not a whisper of the wind speaking of where he went.
By the time evening approached, the haze had nearly breached the city's walls. Monsters swarming, organized and vicious.
"I hope that one day, instead of pushing it away, the wind will carry my song, my words, my melody, far and wide."
In the middle of it all, stood two figures. One tired and wide eyed, the other shifting between being afraid prey and scheming predator.
He looked like him, sounded like him, or what Venti had told himself he sounded like.
But he shouldn't be here, not now, not when he died fighting for freedom he never got to experience.
But he felt real, he wanted to believe it was truly him, to indulge in selfish fantasies.
Maybe he could allow himself just that much.
It approached Venti Barbatos, in a stupid daze he stepped forward aswell, wings falling beside him, dragging on the ground.
"Let all else blur away, worries drowned and carried far. Join me, we can share music together like back then, please? I've missed you.."
"FOR FREEDOM!!"
That's...not him? No, no that can't be right, he looks like him, it sounds like him, but he'd never.. he'd never talk like that.
He was snapped out of his stupor, wings instinctively tensing up and guarding, the wind picking up.
He drew his bow, aimed, and with tears in his eyes, he shot.
Killed not once, but twice by arrows. Once beside him, the other by his own.