Corrupted Love| XIAOVEN

Chapter 8: His tunes are... Forget it!

All of a sudden, Xiao was completely back in this present moment. He felt as if he had never experienced the suffering of his karma. His body felt light and free.

A few tears silently ran down his cheeks, but he quickly wiped them away. The starry sky now seemed to him like a beautiful painting and the white light of the moon was like a spotlight just for him.

The night was no longer so cold and was permeated with a lovely calm. The sound of the sea, the rustling of the sand, and the few seagulls made a nightly symphony that was beautifully tragic and lovely.

In love, Xiao followed the music of the flute. It was clear and tender, but also fast and controlled. No matter how, Xiao could have never put it into words.

No one could have. Not even the most adroit speakers could have described this enchanting music.

It would have been like describing colors to someone who had never seen anything before.

The melody led him further along the beach. Xiao did not hurry. He concentrated completely on the music of the flute. He did not want to miss a single second.

The flute music suddenly broke off, to Xiao's disappointment, as he was already so close. But now the previous music was followed by something even more beautiful.

The yaksha would not have thought that there could have been anything more beautiful than this flute, but he was wrong.

For an angelic voice was now singing on the shore.

It was as delicate as the wind, as pure as the starlight, and as breathtaking as nothing else in the world. Xiao's heart stopped and his breath was taken away.

He could still only hear the voice but he stopped in amazement and surprise. His head was empty. He had never heard anything more beautiful despite his long life.

The vocabulary of any language could not suffice to describe these sounds. To say the voice was clear would be a gross and ugly understatement. To claim the voice was delicate was an impertinent judgment and to say it was only beautiful was a pure insult.

Xiao would only keep this beauty in his heart but never be able to describe it. That was also what made it so unique though.

It was the moment before the artwork that could never be captured, that could never be put on paper.

That was this music.

In no way comparable to anything else. Xiao had heard early on about the rumors of the anemo archon and his voice.

When he spoke, it was quite normal, but no one who had heard him sing could have ever described it.

With the melody of the flute, Xiao had remembered the night he had been closest to his death and had been saved by an unknown person.

He only knew that person's name was Venti, but that was all. He had never seen him again and he had hardly remembered his appearance.

Only the beautiful music of the flute. Now he had learned that Venti and Barbatos were the same person.

Before, everyone had always called him Barbatos, and it was only the previous night that Zhongli had called him Venti for the first time.

However, Xiao hadn't realized it at the time, and only now did his eyes widen in surprise. At first, he had thought Barbatos was just an archon. A strangely nice boy.

He had had no connection with him though. Only to Venti, whom Xiao had kept in mind over the centuries and was infinitely grateful to. He had always sworn to offer his protection and loyalty to this young musician. However, with an Archon who also lived in another region, this was much more difficult.

With his mouth open, he stood in the sand and looked at the young bard sitting on a large rock in the moonlight. It was just as it had been then.

Shone on by the moonlight, in green robes surrounded by water and stars. Venti did not look at him. His skin shone white in the light of the moon. The water around him danced lightly as a gentle wind surrounded them.

Xiao fell to his knees.

In the presence of this Archon, he felt so... warm. His life had been a simple song. Always, for millennia, and at that moment it no longer felt that way to him. His heart beat faster.

Even Xiao forgot to breathe as he watched the Archon sing before him in the moonlight. And his simple song, the broken melody suddenly became a magnificent symphony.

Venti sang: *

"I sit under the stars and think
of all that I have seen
of meadow flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit under the stars and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall ever see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood in every spring
there is a different green.

I sit under the stars and think
of people long ago
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,"

Now Venti turned to Xiao and looked him straight in the eye.

"I listen for returning feet
from a yaksha at the shore."

* I sit beside the fire and think- JRR Tolkien (edited)