Windrise...

"Time for takeoff." Venti shoots an arrow from her bow that creates a gigantic wind vortex that swallows up everything nearby. Wind's Grand Ode was one of the best crowd control powers out of all those who possessed a vision. With Venti's help, a bunch of slimes were put into a single position and hit with massive Swirl damage.

"Was that good Aether?" Venti looked back at Aether as all the slimes exploded in the sky. Aether looks upwards as a bunch of slime comes down on himself and Venti and drenches them both in a thick slimy fluid. "Hehehe… Well, guess I messed up." Venti says with a cheeky smile.

Aether was glaring at her a bit frustratingly, but he calmly took a breath and turned away. "We can clean up by the river." Aether couldn't be mad at that face Venti was making, it was so cheeky and cute that Aether couldn't fault Venti over a simple mistake like that.

By the river, Venti takes off her primary clothing, blouse, cape, skirt, thigh highs, shoes and hat. She steps into the water and swims around a bit, letting the slime wash off as her clothes lightly soaked in the water nearby. "Come on traveler, the water's nice." Venti invited him into the water, but Aether was a bit hesitant.

'No, no.' Aether throws away any perverted or embarrassing thoughts about the situation, it was just Venti, just Venti. "Yeah, yeah, I'm…" They had been through life or death situations together, they were close friends, it would be disrespectful to become distant to him because of this situation. Aether jumps in too and bobs in the water as Venti does backstrokes around him. It looked like Venti could just conjure up a one piece swimsuit because that seemed to just be under her clothes when she took them off. Aether chooses not to dive into those specifics.

Paimon looks at the entire situation with a weirded out expression. 'Tone-Deaf Bard really is taking this lightly. I wonder if Aether is okay…' Paimon could clearly see her traveling companion was a bit uncomfortable with this, even if it was just Venti underneath that cute as hell exterior.

Mondstadt City, Afternoon…

Aether and Venti walked through the city once again as Aether was about to cash in his daily quests to Katheryne at the Adventurer's Guild. "Aether!" They're interrupted by the bubbly and enthusiastic tone of Amber, who comes up in front of them. "Hey, eh, who's this?" She was immediately bewildered by Venti. They never really interacted during the Stormterror incident, so Amber didn't recognize right away that Venti was the same bard from a few days ago.

"Hey Miss Amber, it's me, Venti." Venti says with a curtsy, kneeling a little and holding up the sides of her skirt. She had learned that gesture from a few people in the olden days of Mondstadt, though she never really used it before because it was a generally feminine gesture.

Amber's eyes widen as she looks at Venti and then circles the newfound girl to take a look at everything Venti now was. "You're joking… right?" Amber says in disbelief because she had no clue that Venti could even do this. Venti scratches the top of her head. "Uh… yeah, it just kinda happened one night. There was this weird green light that appeared and uh… here we are." Venti knew that Amber didn't know she was actually Barbatos, and it would be better to keep her identity as the Anemo Archon to the minimum.

"Yeah…" Amber was still in disbelief, but she supposed there wasn't anything she could do at the moment. "Well Aether, I hear there's a huge amount of hilichurls near Springvale halting all the deliveries, could you help out?" Amber proclaimed.

"Oh uh… sorry, I already made plans to spend the afternoon with Venti." Aether says as he glanced back at Venti who happened to be clinging onto his arm like a leech.

Amber raises a brow as she looks at Venti hanging onto Aether as if she was meant to belong on his arm. Aether chuckles weakly as he looks back at Amber. "Sorry, I'm sure someone else can help you." Aether adds, as maybe Amber could ask another knight other than Jean, who was constantly working.

"Yeah, sure." Amber was clearly annoyed, but she wasn't that annoyed that Aether was busy, but solely for the fact that Aether was busy because of another girl. A girl who Amber was jealous of, and Amber hardly ever got jealous. Venti wasn't even a real girl, so what did that say about Amber? Did that mean Aether would rather be with someone who wasn't even a real girl rather than Amber? The thought itself could drive Amber insane, but she tries to put that aside to not cause any trouble. She didn't want Aether to see her in a state of jealousy. Amber walks off to try and find someone else to help her with the hilichurls, a bitter taste in her mouth.

Venti looked at Amber leave and wondered what exactly she was so uncomfortable with, she wondered if she did something wrong to upset her, if so she wanted to make it up to Amber later on. Aether guides Venti along as they meet up with Katheryne at her usual spot and get rewarded with the daily rewards.

Knights of Favonius Headquarters - Alchemist Division

"Sucrose, did you get me what I asked for?" Albedo says as he had just sent Sucrose out to collect a few things for him. Something involving his latest experiment, the theory of how someone can gender swap. Albedo was a man of discovery and creation, such a phenomenon couldn't be passed on by him, if someone could change their gender, imagine what a power could do for biological experiments? Potentially it could heal limbs, regenerate organs, if it's possible to create new tissue in one's body to the point that it's fully usable, so much more could be possible.

"Yes sir." Sucrose replied in her gentle and soft-toned voice. She hands Albedo a bag of Windwheel Asters collected from Windrise nearby the big tree.

"Thank you." Albedo took the bag promptly and set the flowers down on his lab table. He started to tinker with his beakers, dropping one flower inside a beaker of strange purple liquid.

"Um… so, what is it you're doing?" Sucrose curiously leaned over and observed what Albedo was doing in his lab. It felt like he was keeping her in the dark a bit when it came to this experiment. It was the same thing when he conducted experiments on Dragonspine.

"Not now Sucrose. I need to focus and for that, I need silence." Albedo says unhappy that Sucrose was poking around. Sucrose understood that her chief was sometimes like this, always keeping his experiments to himself until he produced results. It was almost like Albedo didn't want to reveal his plans until he was sure of what he was doing, but whether he had doubts in the first place or not was questionable. Sucrose just nods to Albedo and leaves his laboratory to give him the silence he wanted.

"Pure Anemo Energy." Albedo muttered to himself as his beaker showed pure Anemo energy in the Windwheel Aster that he had Sucrose pick from Windrise. This wasn't a characteristic of Windwheel Asters, it definitely had to have happened recently.

Starsnatch Cliff… Evening…

The sun was beginning to set after a long day spending time together with Venti. Aether and Venti get to the edge of the cliff and sit down in the soft grass as they view the nice sunset. Aether turns to his side and picks a Cecilia for Venti, he knew they were her favorite flower. "Oh." Venti takes the flower into her hands and holds it close to her. "Thanks." Venti didn't really know what to say to that, it was just really kind of Aether to pick her favorite flower without even Venti asking or suggesting to do it.

"You know, Traveler? You really saved me and Dvalin back then. I know I thanked you before, but I can't really express just how thankful I am. I never would have been able to do it without you." Venti says with a genuine smile, looking at Aether.

"Y-yeah…" Aether was able to look Venti in the eye when he thanked him all those other times, but a girl's smile like that, Aether couldn't meet it head-on. "It was no problem." Aether says simply as he glanced away. He felt warm, and not just because of the bright sun.

"But, I do want to pay you back, which is why I've been contacting everyone I know to find your sister." Venti admits as he, being an Archon, did have connections all over the place, people he's met on his travels. He was tapping into them to help find Lumine, who was still missing. Venti felt like that was the least he could do to repay Aether for doing him the favor of a lifetime.

"Oh uh, thanks." A lot had been going on as of recent, so finding Lumine has been put on the backburner for Aether. Everything that went down in Liyue and the preparation for traveling to Inazuma made everything busy and even then the only clue of where Lumine could be was suspicions of a newcomer named Dainsleif. Aether's face was reddening just like the sunset and he stared at Venti, boy or girl, Venti's eyes glistened with a beautiful shade of turquoise, you can't often find eyes as pretty as hers.

"AHHH!" Their little moment is uprooted by a scream of someone in the distance. Venti and Aether make their way to the edge of the cliff, where far lower, they see Jack the Adventurer, being swarmed by Hilichurls. Venti takes action immediately and jumps off the cliff, activating her wind glider to soar downwards. Aether follows suit right away, activating his gilder as well. Venti conjures a huge wind gust below the hilichurls catapulting all of them upwards into the air and she then makes accurate arrow shots using her bow, The Stringless, which Aether helped her obtain some time ago. Aether soars in as well, cutting up the hilichurls in mid-air and soon they dropped to the ground down for the count.

"You okay fella?" Jack had covered his eyes when he got swarmed by the hilichurls, but when he opened his eyes, he saw what must have been the most beautiful woman he's ever laid eyes upon. Her eyes, matching clothes, silky black hair, and everything being reflected in the sunlight, it made Jack's heart beat like crazy.

"Uh! Uh! I am, thanks to you! Oh my! You! You must be an angel! Sent to protect me! Please I must!" Jack clinged onto Venti right away, grasping her shoulders like he couldn't let his angel fly away. He was a little too grabby with Venti who really didn't understand what Jack was doing.

"Hey! Hey!" Aether immediately butts in and splits the two up. Aether looks at Jack as if he had just made a real mistake and his glare was sharp and threatening without a single word needed to be said. If Jack tried to object, Aether looked like he was ready to fight for real.

"Uh. Eh-em! I'm sorry." Jack says as he straightens up his posture and bows in apology to the two. "What I meant to say was… thanks for saving me. I should be going, I'm on a commission." Jack then walks off with a feeling of disgust with himself for getting so attached to someone that he didn't even know. He didn't even stop to consider how the girl he just witnessed was clearly resembling the Venti he was already acquainted with.

"You okay?" Aether asked as he looked back at Venti. Venti looked like she was in deep thought.

"It's okay. I just never have someone jump onto me like that. When I do, it's when they want to strangle me. Hahaha…" Venti says weakly as generally, he gets in a bit of trouble with civilians when he wants a few more apples or causes trouble in the bar because he looks too young to drink.

Aether's eyes widen a bit, "Oh..." It was here that Aether realized something about Venti. Aether may know Venti was the great Anemo Archon, Barbatos, but no one else except for a select few did. Even if Venti wanted to tell everyone, it's not like they'd believe him anyways. No one would want to think Barbatos was actually a simple bard who wandered with the common folk, getting drunk and playing songs only for the rewards of food and tips. It wouldn't be good for Mondstadt to know their god walks amongst them, it would raise uncontrollable tensions and Venti would have to go into hiding if his secret got out.

However, it meant something, Venti didn't have many close friends, not many who appreciated him for who he actually was. Since Venti generally had to keep his identity secret, he can't let just anyone in on his personal life and secrets. Venti likely can't even remember the last time someone showered him with affection, he must spend a lot of time alone with no one, but the winds to keep him company. It led to another thought, was this why Venti turned into a girl, because he craved attention? It made Aether feel bad that he hasn't been doing that already. Archons live for centuries, how lonely must those centuries be? Aether can't relate to that, he's always had Lumine by his side, but Venti didn't seem to have close allies that lived for just as long as he did like Zhongli did.

"Is something wrong Traveler?" Venti asked as Aether snapped out of his trance and looked at her with a feeling of sorrow.

"Ah no…" Aether says as he sees that the sun had almost completely set. "Let's head back to Mondstadt for the night. You can sleep at my place." Aether says without hesitation.

Note: I swap between male and female pronouns when referring to Venti. Generally it's to fit the situation or context. For instance, when I use male pronouns, it's to describe things that occurred in the past or to indicate things about Venti that are the same regardless of gender.