Corrupted Love| XIAOVEN

Chapter 22: Corrupted Love

Three days later...

All four Archons had come together by now. Nahida and the Shougun had both arrived in Mondstadt yesterday. 

Without question, the electro Archon and her companion had attracted a lot of attention when these two beautiful ladies, strong and confident had come through the gate. 

Raiden or rather Ei's long violet hair danced softly in the wind while Miko looked with interest at the many stalls scattered along the street.

 In a week, the biggest festival in all of Mondstadt would begin, Wind Bloom. 

Accordingly, the city was more crowded than often and decorated with beautiful flower garlands. Gentle summer breezes flitted through the streets, dragging along dandelions that small children ran after. 

The sky was blue and cloudless, while on the stone streets, people were busy decorating and shopping.

Ei was fascinated by the many impressions. Very rarely did she even get out of her temple, and for this particular mission, she wouldn't have wanted to send the Shougun. 

The two strode elegantly through a crowd of people, with half of the gazes turning to them. Miko winked apologetically and threw back her hair. 

With an elegant turn, she turned away from the people and followed Ei. Her shoes clicked on the stone floor and the sun shone in her violet eyes. With a confident stance, Yae kept close to her boss and watched the people of Mondstadt with fascination.

A young man suddenly stood in front of Ei and lowered his head respectfully. "Oh~ my beautiful foreign lady. May I be so rude as to take you for a drink?" Ei looked at him for a long moment.

 "No." She said sternly and was already walking on.

 Both Miko and the man looked after her. "Um?" the young man mumbled confused as he had expected a different answer. Miko looked at him with amusement and giggled,

 "Don't worry, she's never been very good with men." 

She winked at him and then put her finger on his mouth. She came close to the man and whispered, "She is an independent woman after all~, don't even try.", 

"Mikoooo? Are you coming?" called Ei from far away. Yae Miko elegantly turned on her heel and gracefully strode across the street, her hips gently swaying left and right. 

The young man and some bystanders watched her speechlessly. Spellbound by her nature and gorgeous appearance.

They arrived at a tavern, in front of which stood a sign which read: ANGELS SHARE. Here they had wanted to meet with the geo Archon. Miko was looking forward to it. She had last seen the old guy two hundred years ago.

 Suddenly a young man came walking around a corner of the house. He had long snow-white hair and sun-tanned skin. The young man was almost still a child, though his body was trained.

 In his left hand, he held a long spear. He had surprisingly little on and it seemed rather as if he had just come from a completely different climate. Uninterested, he looked around the street, his gaze serious, focused, and tense. 

On his head, he wore a fox-like headgear, which Miko could quickly connect to Sumeru. Next to him walked a little girl, who despite his rather small height was only half his size. 

 She had hair just as white, with the lower part of her braid being as moss green as her eyes. Her summer dress was just as elegantly sewn together from the same colors. 

She was beaming happily in the sun smiling at everyone she looked at. When the girl saw the other two women, she joyfully ran over to the table where they were sitting and climbed onto a chair with effort.

 Her apparent guard with the white hair walked after her in surprise and stood nearby. For a while, they sat together drinking and talking. 

Miko looked fascinated at Cyno's black headgear to check whether Cyno might have ears like hers. The latter at first rejected her attempts ashamedly, but then allowed it.

Zhongli, Venti, Xiao, and Ganyu additionally approached the table and it became quiet again. The newcomers all looked intently at Venti, who chuckled nervously.

 "Why is he here?" asked Ei quietly the question they were all wondering about. 

Zhongli was silent for a while and then murmured: "I know I asked you all to come here, but the circumstances have changed. We don't know why, but Barbatos seems to be back to normal. Baal, Kusunali forgives the long journeys, but it would not have been possible for me to give you any new information beforehand."

 Ei looked at Venti suspiciously and Xiao stepped behind him. "So, you are well again?" Nahida asked, addressing Venti in a friendly manner. He nodded slowly. 

"Hmmm...very interesting," Miko murmured. "What did you even get cured of in the first place, Barbatos?" Venti looked at her apologetically "Well, if I knew..."

Everyone was silent for a while and minutes passed. 

"I...I might have an idea...hmm...what could have caused it." Nahida slowly pondered. "As the goddess of wisdom, you always seem to impress with your knowledge." Nodded Zhongli in agreement. The girl giggled sheepishly and rubbed the back of her head.

"Well...I know of an old legend from Teyvat, which could explain things. Let me tell you." The goddess stayed silent for a while and then told the tale: 

"A lone warrior once wandered the vast lands of this continent. Again and again, he passed through small villages where he picked up new supplies, but he never stayed longer than a day and spoke to no one. 

This warrior was called Teykio. He continued this journey for almost thirty years before he slowly began to sink into severe loneliness. Already after the first three years, he felt a deep pain in his heart, though it was not physical. Almost thirty years later, the man had more or less lost his mind, and so he wandered the world as an empty shell, filled with the infinite loneliness he had collected for years. 

At some point in Fontaine, he collapsed. In the legend, people described him as a madman who could no longer distinguish fantasy from reality. In some of the people, he saw old friends, and in some women his deceased wife. However, when none of the inhabitants returned the same feeling towards him, the warrior took his sword and came back to the small village after two weeks. 

There he killed every inhabitant.

Similar cases occurred throughout Teyvat over time. It was decided to categorize this phenomenon as a special disease and give it the name Corrupted Love. The cause is often always the same..."

 Nahida fell silent and looked apologetically at Venti, "Every one of these people usually suffers from terrible loneliness, which at a certain point emerges into a real disease.

 For this reason, it is often very simple to heal...although not really.

 You see, the cure is to get to know people, to trust them, to establish contacts, simply put, everything that works against this loneliness."

 She looked sadly down at the table. Venti suddenly stood up and without a word walked off. Xiao ran after him and Nahida wanted to do the same, but Zhongli gently shook his head.

"Don't worry, he's in good hands."