I was so happy when in the trailer for Xiao Venti was the one who played the Dihua flute. If it were anyone else I would probably have deleted the game and gone to hide in a hole forever because this ship material is amazing. Although most people probably wouldn't think of it as ship material...


On that night the dark night sky was clear of any obscurities. An endless black, and endless horizon, the stars so clear, each a single pinprick of light against a dark, dark, dark sky. But though they were so bright, they shone no light upon the world below. It seemed as though they brought all attention, all the focus onto their tiny forms, as though they were the center of the universe.

It didn't matter where he looked, there was always sky, always points of light and birds that fly. The water perfectly reflected the dark painting above, so that there was no start nor end to the sky.

Xiao didn't know when it started, nor when he noticed it, but he was not alone. He didn't try to search for the other person amidst the dark shadows of lotus and lilypads, because he knew he wouldn't be able to see them.

Instead he closed his eyes, the pattern of stars engraved in his mind even with eyelids shut, and allowed himself to drown in the music of the night.

Though the tones were rapid, jumping from one note to another, that joyful enthusiasm was only a facade behind which, if you listened close enough, you could hear a heaviness which cannot stem from a mere few decades. It was a burden formed over millenia, an underlying strain, like a crystal, starting from a tiny pinprick, then growing ever so slowly over the centuries, its cold and bitter hardness growing dense, and heavy, until you are unable to ignore the presence of its ruthless existence.

Xiao knew that the music was a portrayal of someone's life. It held the essence at the core of his being, the life he lived of an unspeakable burden, and a pleasant exterior. And though the choices they made were different, their decisions were both ruled by the same load they had to carry, by the same karma they could not escape. So though he and the flute player were not similar, he listened.

Because it was not everyday someone trusted you with their very being.

The song was not beautiful, it was not ugly, it was what it was, reality.

When the notes slowly faded away, Xiao opened his eyes and thought of the countless battles he had won, of the daemons so numerous they rivaled the stars in the sky, of his fallen companions and the karma that he too could not escape, and finally of the youthful bard, who understood so well.

Because after all, the only one who could play the Dihua flute, was the shadowy figure sitting on a lonely rock amid lotus flowers and a sea of stars.