What was in the Past, a genshin impact fanfic

This story happened the other way.

Venti had enough times in life he could lament and regret. At first, he did. Of course. How could he not? A little wind spirit had once hovered over the dying body of its best friend, watching the life slowly drip away from his eyes, but both unable to weep.

"Don't be sad." Even when death had been approaching, the nameless bard had lifted his hand and craddled the wind spirit with a smile. "The winds are finally blowing in Mondstadt's favours."

This death had hurt as much as the arrows that had taken this life, to a point where Venti, when he assumed his form to remember him forever, thought he could still feel the arrows' entrance points in his chest even if it was not the same body as the one in his arms.

Even now, he was not blessed with tears. Sitting at a friend's corpse, staring empty-eyed at the lifeless body, identical hands holding each other, he could not cry. Could not give voice to the pain that came as new emotion, similar to the passing raging storms.

That day, no songs of victory were sung among the survivors. They had won, but they had lost much more. And so the warriors walked around in silence among the fallen. The Ragnvindr spotted the two and understood quite well when he approached them. He put a heavy hand on the former wind spirit's shoulder.

"Let's go", he said with raspy voice. His fingers tightened around the small shoulder for a second before he retracted his hand and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "Never let them forget this sacrifice", he said. And the wind spirit in form of his best friend put his head back and looked up to the Ragnvindr, whose eyes were firmly fixated at the new horizon, where soon dawn would grace the night.

-o-

It was the first. Barbatos became an archon, one of later seven archons that emerged from the Archon War tearing the country apart. He had seen enough bloodshed in this fight of freedom, did not wish to interfere with his memories of a wind spirit, whose only wish was to carry the idea of sacrifice and freedom into a new era. Yes, where things were destroyed new ones could arise from ashes. So these hands, not the ones who had been holding him for many months, picked up instruments instead of weapons and started learning how to voice the sounds that lived in Venti's mind.

Of course he was singing with his mouth, song pouring from his lips, but just as much was his hurting heart asking to express itself.

The melodies were unbroken but brittle, their expression raw like Barbatos' fingers after having plucked at the lyre's strings relentlessly for too long. He played them from top of newly built houses in Mondstadt and from the ledges of cliffs, singing and weaving them into the wind and sharing them with the stars. The lament attracted another kind of being, following and feasting on the memory it brought.

"You want something to be eternal", the God of Time said, swinging her legs back and forth as she sat on a thick tree's branch. Venti stilled in his rhyme, put down the lyre and tilted his head. With the four winds at Mondstadt, the Archon War was not brought past Dragonspine and up to the North. And yet here she was, the God of Time, and endless being that would end soon enough.

"Why are you here?", Venti asked. He could feel no ill intent coming from her.

"I listened to the wind. Your voice is ... weak but it still penetrates to the bone." She jumped from the tree branch, arms extended left and right to keep her balance upon landing. "Time goes by and flows but you want to stop and turn it back. Your eyes are on the past while your feet urge you to walk on and so you're hovering in nowhere, caught between the past and present."

It was her who taught Venti the lessons about eternity. He could not force the memories to stay like they were because what was in the past was past. What he could do, however, was adopting the past into the present to sing for the future and thus carry time on instead of trying to pin it down.

Venti and her were always seen together in and around Mondstadt then, sharing their thoughts and playing the lyre and perfectioning the art of moving on.

But time was a fickle thing and nobody should grow used to it.

"Barbatos", the God of Time once said, sitting at the cliff's ledge together with Venti, who had now exchanged the lyre for a flute. His instruments sounded different now, pleasant, less like the cry of his soul and more like someone who had come to terms with things. Peaceful. "I taught you how not to forget. But some things are meant to be forgotten."

"What do you mean?" He put down the flute, stilling the song he had begun.

"You can sing and you can talk and you can create. But in the end, time will tell if your efforts will be remembered." Time fiddled with grass around her, picked one blade of grass and brought it to her lips, blowing a strange melody on the blade of grass. "The cecilias are truly beautiful today", she added once the odd sound died.

Why she left, Venti would not know. Like she had said, he couldn't remember when she disappeared from the wind's territory and the peoples' minds. The only things that stayed behind were the things she had taught him, the cliff covered in cecilias, the eternal tune of the Dihua flute that he had played instead of the lyre, and two inscriptions that talked about Wind and Time.

She was not in his mind but she was in his heart.

-o-

"I haven't seen you for a while, bard. Don't you plan on staying with Mondstadt?", was the first thing the Ragnvindr said when he saw a familiar figure stand on the premises of Dawn Winery, the rising sun's first beams warming the surroundings. It was true - the lost wind spirit he had once seen on the battlefield was no longer. This was the face of someone who had made up his mind. The Ragnvindr had seen it once before and while the face was the same, the soul inside was not.

"When will you come back?", he asked instead.

"Time will tell", Barbatos answered, not wondering about why he phrased it like that. "I'll leave Mond in your and the Knights of Favonius' capable hands. Watch over it for me, will you?"

-o-

Not fighting in the Archon War had been a subconscious decision. Fighting there after all had been a conscious one. And because of that and the powers of wind, Venti's presence started making a difference.

The people of Mondstadt knew that the winds could be vengeful, strong and destructive or subtle, gentle or not blowing at all, and soon the other archons came to know as well. For some reason it was the God of War that Barbatos got attached to even though the mountain does not bow no matter how strong the winds blow.

"Someone like you has no place in the fight", Morax said, mighty spears of stone in hands where Barbatos carried a flute, a lyre and a bow. "You're a bird, and not a hunting one at that. If one arrow pierces you, you'll be dead. Stay away from things that do not concern you, fleeting one."

A bird pierced with an arrow ... this was hardly a comment made out of concern because Morax did not understand human emotion yet and would not yield without the presence of soothing Guizhong by his side.

Barbatos did not listen to Morax, but he also didn't cross paths with him during slaughter to not wake his wrath against him during the peaks of rage. Instead, he soared the skies high above and shot arrows at the ones threatning to descend into madness. He didn't use his bow to kill because of eternal memories and because of those he also descended into the beautiful scenery untouched by war and played the Dihua flute and lyre to leave a lasting impression on nature.

And from the heavens he saw him.

He was a dancer with a deadly weapon, his spear and his body one as they moved with the intent to kill. He was raging against chains, aching for freedom of bloodshed, every strike and every death adding to these chains to bind him down and drag him further from the goal he was wishing for. It was cruel beauty in a cruel scenery and it made Barbatos think of a weak voice that still penetrated to the bone, a cry for help that he now could hear clearly. And thus, he granted the future adeptus an Anemo vision so that he too could benefit from the taste of wind and learn to carry on eternity.

A promise of salvation.

Then he returned to the marsh, sat on the stone emerging from the water and played the flute as part of his daily routine - and this time, his flute and the newly found emotion was heard by someone else as well, besides the raging bloodshed in his head and mind.

-o-

"You have given someone a Vision." Rarely Morax talked to Barbatos from his own volition, preferred not to engage with this trouble maker. Still, the fighter who slew demons and his ferocious fighting style had drawn his attention as well and he too had considered mingling with his fate and reaching out for him. Not that he could anymore.

Barbatos poured himself more dandelion wine (a gift from the Ragnvindr before his departure) and smiled, saying: "He doesn't seem too grateful about this one."

"What made you want to help him?"

Venti tilted his head and looked around if there was another bottle somewhere hidden as if he didn't know exactly that he had finished the last one already. Morax squinted.

"He will never know freedom if I bind him by a contract."

"Why not?" Barbatos lifted his eyes and their expression almost made the God of War flinch. There was a reason why this person had been chosen to become an archon of the Seven after all. "Would you be willing to try?"

"What are you implying?"

"A contract, Morax." Venti focused on the wine and when he looked up again, that expression was gone and replaced by a joyful laugh instead.

That day, Morax sought out the future Bane of all Evil's master, gave them death and extended his hand to offer a contract to the yaksha left behind, naming him Xiao. He said: "I will not yield my pride to Wind, but I offer you a contract to fight by my side, demon slayer" and Alatus accepted.

He too would have troubles to leave the past behind and face toward the future, but this is a story to be told another time, in the present.

-o-

At the same time, the God of Wind fell asleep to be sleeping for a long time.

At some point, Barbatos became Venti, the bard. Maybe it happened when he perfectioned theories in his mind that taught him about eternity and facing forward while keeping the past an essential part but not the sole purpose of existence. Maybe it happened when he understood that freedom did not mean being free of contracts but was a personal standpoint, so that everybody could be free if they willed so. Maybe it happened way later, when he woke up again and met Diluc Ragnvindr, the Traveler who could purify Dvalin's tears or Sister Barbara, which only allowed herself to be depressed for five minutes, something she said she had learned from Lord Barbatos himself.

All of it didn't mean that Venti was any different from before.

It only meant the rise of a new dawn.