A lost friend's journey

Chaptre 10

Once, he was told to avoid the wrath of the gods at all cost, to never cross them because they were a force to be reckoned with, people he couldn't face alone and hope to come out victorious. He was told gods weren't to be trusted, that each one of them was worse than the other. As a young, newborn God himself who didn't know anything about the world surrounding him, and what awaited him in life, he didn't know better than to believe naively what was sprouted to him.

This was a long time ago. It was before he saw how cruel the world could be, before he discovered that everything was not as it seemed. The world of Teyvat was more than it let on. What the mortals saw was only the surface, the gentler part. One of Teyvat's faces. The misleading one. But for immortals... Teyvat's numerous mysteries slowly uncovered themselves, taboo subjects rising to the surface and scaring those who had the misfortune to find them. To immortals, Teyvat was a lie. The mere idea of the Heavenly Principles... even mentioning them was something not often seen, almost never. Venti always wondered, how come two simple words create so much fear in someone?

He had asked her about this world, back when she would still appear in his dreams. The first time she had ever appeared was a little after Decarabian's fall. He could still remember as if it was just a few days ago... She had called herself Kairos, and while Venti had dwelled on that strange name, he had never asked her about it. Perhaps it was out of respect for that strange being that had suddenly appeared to him and offered to guide him in this vast and unknown world.

She had always been gentle with him, albeit quite distant. The affection she showed him was admittedly different than the one Carmen used to give him. Kairos had oh so many times whispered sweet words in his ears while playing with his hair, or engulfed him in a warm hug that would last until he woke up, but it never felt the same as Carmen. For some reason he couldn't explain, she always seemed to be divided between caring for Venti and be distant, put limits to what she could and could not do. It was one thing Venti never understood.

She claimed she wanted to help him, wanted him to see the true nature of this world, and yet she never delved deeper into this, going silent the few times he would ask and not speaking for the rest of the dream while sitting alone and facing away from him. Even when she was teaching him about Teyvat, she was always careful with what she said. "I am just making sure you understand," she had explained when he asked. Venti saw a hidden message, one he wasn't sure was supposed to go across, perhaps a message she intended to be indirect. Venti felt as if in reality, she was telling him "I cannot reveal some secrets to you." He... never got the opportunity to ask her about it.

Kairos used to always tell him he was destined for greatness, that great things would happen to him, that he would become what no one dared to be. Once more, those were words he never understood. The meaning behind what she had said... It seemed as if she always spoke in riddles. The last night he saw her was a distant memory his brain kept occasionally repeating to him in some dreams. Kairos was telling him about Celestia. It was actually the first time he could ever recall her talking about who she called her superior, even... her colleagues. She had revealed some things Venti was sure shouldn't have been shared.

The dark secrets of the gods.

Thinking back, his mind couldn't help but connect what she had said with Durin's corruption, in some strange kind of way. After all, she had talked about corruption inside of the Celestial realm. However, she never developed this idea, never explained what she meant by it. Venti could only assume she meant that corruption had gotten to her colleagues, although he didn't quite understand what kind of corruption she had been talking about. The only thing he was sure of was that it was nowhere similar to Durin's, because his came from the art of Khemia, not from a Celestial force. He still wondered to this day what had happened to her, if she was punished for revealing things that should have been kept secret, if that was the reason she had suddenly left without leaving him any message.