"Why have you summoned me here? Astrologers don't have time to simply traverse the nations on foot all day." Mona asked as she came up to a particular point on the path towards Liyue Harbor, next to the large Statue of the Seven located at the foot of a rocky formation. Keqing was waiting for her there and she had her eyes narrowed and focused, stern as ever and her arms and thighs crossed while leaning her back on the statue itself.
"Because I need your help." Keqing says very simply and she made sure Mona understood she was completely serious about this. "Let me preface this by saying I'll give you 500,000 Mora if you help me." Keqing knew Mona was a smart person and a very talented astrologer based on the rumors of what she could do according to the Adventurer's Guild, and they even met a few times like during the Lantern Rite Festival. Were they friends, not exactly, but Keqing was willing to form a temporary alliance for this particular endeavor.
"That much?!" Mona said with surprise and almost stepped back from the shock. "Eh-hem!, what is this task you require?" Mona was pretty surprised Keqing was offering such a huge sum of mora for whatever this favor was, so Mona expected something pretty difficult in exchange. She may have to call upon all her skill as an astrologist to do what Keqing has in mind.
"Here's what you do…" Keqing began to tell Mona what she wanted her to do.
In the streets of Liyue Harbor, another busy morning was getting everyone right to work right away. Aether and Venti had left Keqing's residence early so that they didn't bother her any further than what happened last night. Aether felt a bit awkward talking to Venti about it, so he just kept quiet as they wandered throughout the streets. Venti had a similar air of awkward silence as they went around, and thus became the state the two were in for a good few minutes until something came to break the silence.
"You!" In the distance, there were a series of Millelith gathered together that had just come from around the corner. There were a good dozen or so of them and the shouting had gotten both Aether and Venti's attention. While normally, such a shout would be at a thief or criminal, but the millelith that was standing at the front of the group was pointing directly in their direction.
"The millelith? What could they want?" Venti asked as she didn't think either of them did anything against the law. As the millelith approached Aether and Venti, the head man stood in front of Aether and narrowed his eyes.
"So people call you the Hero of Liyue? Don't make me laugh." The other millelith surround Aether and Venti and point their spears at them. "You are coming with us." Aether recoils, putting his hands above his torso showing that he had no intention of fighting them here, at least not yet. Venti on the other hand, leaned in towards Aether, letting their shoulders touch a little as they were surrounded, of course with their combined strength it wouldn't be very difficult to take out a few millelith, but that would certainly incriminate them.
Three of the millelith close in on Aether and one pulls him away from Venti by the shoulder. "Hey!" Venti reached out for Aether immediately as he was pulled away, but another millelith grabs Venti and throws her in the opposite direction, almost making her fall over. "Mind your business… beautiful lady… ahem! This is Millelith's business." The milleth says with a stern look before turning away from Venti, thinking she would give up and respect the authority of Liyue's military.
"Admit it! You were in on the plan to destroy Liyue, were you not?! There's no way Rex Lapis' death was a coincidence with the Overlord of the Vortex's appearance and all of that just happened to occur after you arrived in Liyue." The head millelith stared Aether in the face angrily and he was met with an equally stubborn face.
"Hey! We're innocent! Paimon thinks you shouldn't be so quick to assume!" Paimon appears and says with her arms crossed while she is floating to the side of Aether. "Silence!" Paimon is immediately met with a smack to the face, sending her tumbling downwards, although since she could float she didn't actually hit anything in the process. "Do not think your deception of the Qixing means you've gotten away with your crimes." The head millelith says with another stern talking while Aether contemplated the right course of action because clearly whatever he said wasn't going to convince them as he didn't really have any escape plan or proof he could show right away, hopefully he could get it sorted out with the Qixing later since he knew they were on his side.
"Get away from my friend!" Venti shouted out with a very vocal tone, although with her already-feminine voice, it didn't sound very intimidating.
"I said mind your business." The millelith that told Venti to get lost repeated, barely turning a face to Venti to even consider what Venti could do to break up the situation.
"Come with us." Two of them millelith grab Aether by the upper arms and then try to drag him off, making Venti's eyes raise and then getting to narrow once again. She lowers her head, making her eyes get covered in the shadows of her bangs, a terrible thing to see because it meant disaster was right around the corner.
"You better let him go…" Venti says softly, but it was enough to get the millelith to glance once again in Venti's direction. "Or else…" There was poison in Venti's tone, the sign that she no longer wanted to give the millelith the benefit of negotiating this situation. "Or else you'll feel the wrath of a thousand winds that obliterates forests and ravages mountainscapes…!" As Venti said that a wind started blowing that started from a distance, but was invisible.
"Huh?" The millelith, Aether and Paimon all feel this wind start to kick up, making their hair and clothes blow in the opposite direction it was coming from. Initially it was just a gentle breeze, but it quickly began to accelerate, turning into a harsh wind that almost blew the people standing up, off their feet. The citizens of Liyue all felt this wind as their belongings were sent tumbling over and signposts were knocked down. The sky suddenly started to turn cloudy and the wind was getting even harsher, the sun got blocked out and the wind started to spiral around the millelith's location.
"Urgh…! GAH!" The millelith were all knocked off their feet and sent tumbling down to the ground. They all laid on the ground afterwards, it was only a minor injury, but the winds seemed to force them to be unable to stand back up. In the midst of those winds, Aether was somehow unaffected. Aether looked back at Venti with widened eyes, Venti had her eyes narrowed on the milleith as if she was about to kill them, this was a look that Aether had never seen Venti have. Venti never looked like he was about to kill his enemies, even the Abyss were more like annoyances, not true enemies that needed to be erased from the world.
Aether tries to go over to Venti to try and calm her down, but the moment he left his position, he felt how strong the winds that spiralled around him were, he couldn't see the wind, but it was like he was stuck at the center of a hurricane. Aether recoils and grunts from the intense force, he couldn't leave his position until Venti stopped those winds. "Venti!" Aether called out to her, but it seemed like the harsh winds were muffling his voice from getting through. "Tone-Deaf Bardress!" The same was occurring for Paimon, so there was no way to communicate with her.
Suddenly a large boulder comes in from the distance and crashes into the ground nearby Aether and Venti, creating a large explosion that knocks them both off their feet. The surprise from the attack caused the winds Venti conjured to slowly die down and eventually stop once the dust from the explosion dispelled.
"Urgh…" Aether rubs the back of his head after sitting up from being knocked down. He dusts off the dust from his clothes and looks over to see if Venti is okay from that entire sequence. As Venti also sits up, Aether notices a rather interesting change. Venti's hat had been blown off her head, but her hair had grown even longer than before. It was a drastic change from the short hair that Venti usually had, even in her new female form, to an entire back's length of hair, going down to almost her waist, similar to someone like Amber. In addition, Venti's blouse had changed into a similar sleeveless one that even further revealed her skin, her shoes had changed to small heels too. Aether shakes his head at the new beauty that Venti had gotten from such a change, he would wonder how or why exactly that happened or keep staring at the jaw-dropping picture, but he needed to remember the task at hand. Aether stands up and walks over, reaching out his hand to help Venti back to her feet, in which Venti gladly takes and the two look over to see who they already had predicted summoned that boulder.
"Mr. Zhongli?" Paimon says what they all knew at this point. Zhongli walked over slowly and with a stern look on his face as all the millelith began to stand back up. "Mr. Zhongli?" The millelith all knew who Zhongli was, one of the best consultants in Liyue for basically anything related to history or antiques, he had come to assist many people in many instances. "I had heard of a rogue faction of the millelith attempting to overstep their authority despite the Qixing's orders. If you leave now, perhaps I'll withhold telling them about this incident." Zhongli makes his stance clear with his arms crossed and a solid tone.
"Ugh…" The head millelith knew it was probably a bad move to mess with Zhongli, so he swallows any doubts and turns around. "You heard him, back to your duties." He says with a bold swallow of breath. With that, the millelith made their way begrudgingly back to their daily routines, acting as if this incident never happened, hopefully no one would further investigate the case if the onlookers would just remain bystanders.
"Now then." Zhongli looks at Aether and Venti with a raised brow as he sees his old friend in a rather visually appealing outfit and body in general. "Ugh…" Zhongli puts a hand to his forehead and shakes his head, as he knew this may be a problem. "We'll talk about this over a drink. I know a place." Zhongli then leads Aether and Venti to another, more private location, where they could talk about what just happened and what was going on in general. Aether glances over at Venti again before they start to walk and Venti rubs the back of her head sheepishly as if to say, 'sorry' before she says it verbally. Aether doesn't have much to respond to that other than a light chuckle, was it him or did Venti get even more beautiful? Venti leans down to pick up her hat before the two follow Zhongli.
A bit later, Zhongli, Venti and Aether had sat down in one of Liyue's pavilions, overlooking the harbor's docking area. Zhongli brings over two bottles of wine, one for himself and one for Venti, as despite Aether also technically being older than his appearance, Zhongli was too aware or inclined to believe just how old he was. "Osmanthus Wine." Venti takes a bottle of the wine and winks at Zhongli before popping the bottle open and downing the wine right away. Aether was glancing at Venti from out of the corner of his eye as he looked back at Zhongli who was taking more slow slips of said wine from a glass that he brought.
"These are from my personal stock." Zhongli mutters as he didn't seem to be even a little bit fazed from the wine. As an archon, he had quite a lot of tolerance to said wine as did Venti, as she could take more than thirty bottles without even flinching. Aether was at least glad that he wouldn't have to foot the bill, unlike that which Zhongli was so inclined to make him pay for during their first time meeting in Liyue. Zhongli didn't really know what to say to his archon friend, even though he knew Barbatos was a bit of a jokester and light-hearted person, he didn't know what to make of his friend's new form. "Your stunt earlier wasn't a very wise decision." He first decides to address what actually happened with the millelith, as using archon powers against mere mortals could result in some catastrophic damage.
"HAhaha… yeah." Venti says with a cheeky smile and rubbing the back of her head with her palm, her flushed expression and her higher-toned voice wreaked of innocence and purity. Zhongli wasn't sure if that was intentional or not, but either way it made him mildly uncomfortable. His eyes narrow a bit on Venti, but he clears his throat and manages to keep his composure.
"We're sorry Mr. Zhongli, Tone-Deaf Bardress was just trying to help Aether." Paimon knew the fact that Venti had good intentions at heart, after all Paimon did want to step in herself, if she actually had the power to help out more than ordinarily could other than being a guide and helping manage the Traveler's inventory. Venti continued her smiling, not really disagreeing with anything Paimon was saying. The nickname had gotten to be second nature at this point, so she had no things to add.
"You're as much of an annoyance as you always are." Zhongli says so with a smile on his face, not giving Venti any stern or oppressive tones, unlike that when he fought other enemies. Aether wasn't exactly sure as to whether Zhongli was annoyed at Venti's antics or amused. Perhaps the years of dealing with Venti has made Zhongli consider him more of an endearing annoyance rather than a pest.
"You're as sturdy as you always are, you old blockhead." Venti says with a softer and more friendly speech, it was that of an old friend who has known someone for a really long time. The voices these two archons used with one another made Aether feel as though he was being third-wheeled amongst them. It was to be expected as Venti and Zhongli were the only two remaining archons of the original seven, so they knew each other for the longest time. For a bit, Venti and Zhongli just sat in silence as the two enjoyed the taste of the wine, nothing more than a smile and warm feeling amongst them, but there was nothing but awkwardness for Aether and Paimon. This scenario continued with the occasional word, all the way until Zhongli decided the part away from the group, all without actually addressing Venti's new appearance.
Walking away from Liyue Harbor as the sun was setting, Aether glanced at Venti's smug face as she walked next to him. "Uh, Tone-Deaf Bardress, what's so funny?" Paimon flies around said bardress who held her arms behind her head in a carefree manner. Aether didn't really know what Venti was so smug about, so Paimon took the words out of his mouth this time.
"Oh, it's because I got that old blockhead to flinch! That hasn't happened in decades!" Venti says with complete pride and accomplishment with what she just said. Paimon and Aether were dumbfounded by what kind of achievement that was supposed to be, but Venti went on to elaborate. "Not a lot surprises Morax you know? He's not the Lord of Unmoving Rocks for nothing. With how long I've known him, getting even a laugh out of him is a once in a century occurrence." Aether could imagine that out of Zhongli during his prime years as the Lord of Geo. Someone who everyone revered, feared and worshipped as a god, but also seen as a figure who leads others. No one would be able to imagine such a person acting like a regular person and being unamused by the fact that one of his friends was essentially crossdressing. "I know he wanted to ask about my new form, but he was too embarrassed to do it. A win in my book." Venti added with continuous smugness in her voice.
"Uhhh… Paimon doesn't know what to say…" Paimon didn't exactly have anything in particular to respond. On one hand, she was amused by the fact that Zhongli of all people was too uncomfortable to ask Venti about her new female appearance, but on the other hand, it was awkward to think about as a whole. Aether takes a deep breath and looks at Venti with a light smile, he was honestly happy that Venti was happy. He never really saw Venti acting so comfortably around someone he knew for so long, someone who could appreciate Venti for who he was, even if Zhongli wasn't amazing at expressing it. That relationship is something Aether desired between Venti and him at some point.
'Cute.' Aether thinks as he and Venti head for Wangshu Inn to stay for the night.