Music to my Ears [(Y/n) x Venti]

Chapter 27

  Lulling sleep tangled me in her trace, tempting me to fall into her trap. I tried my best to brush off the sluggishness slowing down my movements and clouding my mind. Quiet murmurs made their way through on ear and out the next.

"(Y/n)? What do you think?"

I managed to flash him a smile while trying to bite back a yawn.

"Alright then..." Venti continued, eyes deep with concentration. "We'll meet up back here in the evening."

  We quickly departed the traveler and her companion, hoping to get some time to ourselves this morning. Zhongli had promised to read the letters when he got back from an outing, and the traveler seemed to have a never-ending pile of work to complete.

  "Why don't we go shopping for a bit? There's so many stalls that'd I'd like us to check out!" Venti asked, cheeks rosy and lips pressed into a smile.

I didn't know how he could be so... happy all the time. The Abyss Order was clearly getting ready to make its move and yet here we were looking at intricate wares and shiny jewels.

"This one reminds me of you!" He chuckled, holding up a gold necklace encasing a beautiful teardrop sapphire. It shone and glimmered splendidly in the morning rays, catching the eye of anyone who passed by.

  "How much for it?" He asked, seeing me completely smitten by the lulling beauty of the piece.

  A burly vendor with waxy skin murmured something incomprehensible. As he wrapped the sapphire necklace in a small gift box, I couldn't even object to Venti's purchase. Sinewy tendons and bands of muscle bulged underneath his sickly pale skin. It was waxy and wan and speckled with scars of all types and sizes. A rigid shirt wrapped around his forearms like constricting bands, the material tugging and pulling against his burly build. What caught my eye and forced my breath to hitch was a flash of blue peaking out beneath his sleeve. A tattoo. One that seemed familiar and nostalgic in an uncanny sort of way- one I couldn't help but feel negative about.

  I vaguely recalled feeling the warmth of the bard's hand encasing mine, pulling me along to who knows where, away from the startlingly lustrous eyes of the vendor. Those hellfire eyes followed me the whole time, seeming to pierce through every secret I'd tried to keep hidden from the world. He knew...

  I snapped out of my daze as we reached a bend in the road and took a sharp turn towards the harbor. Crowds had gathered and spoke with bold voices and varying temperaments. I saw the vast stretch of sea before me, lapping gently at the border between water and land. Boats with ivory sails bobbed up and down with momentum, their colorful flags fanning in the air.

  "Can I put it on you?" Venti asked, holding up the beautifully tied box encasing an even prettier gift.

  I nodded quickly, grounding myself in the present. Irritation ate at me. "You shouldn't have bought it. No doubt it was expensive as all, especially for you."

  He laughed, shaking his head back and forth. "Don't pretend you weren't eyeing it when I showed it to you for the first time."

  I bit my lower lip and rolled my eyes. As much as I didn't want to admit it, the jeweled necklace was so bizarrely captivating, as if it was the only thing I'd ever wanted. My eyes flickered back to the deep blue teardrop as Venti released it from its boxed prison and held it out to me.

  "Turn around." He said, but I hadn't caught it. My eyes were too fixed on the glistening jewel before me to notice his mouth move.

  It shined so lustfully, a cerulean tear of grief from some ancient god. I was certain in was infused with magic, although I couldn't be sure what kind or what it did. I could only feel it's hypnotizing events as it drew me in, closer and closer into its tantalizing trance. Murky ink seemed to diffuse though it, as though swimming through a pool of crystal water. It was loving, breathing, telling me we were one in the same.

  A Khaenr'iahn sapphire the size of my pinky. All the sorrow of my people, welded into an inappropriately beautiful gem. A crystal mirror of  the macabre history I do hated.

  I heard screams. I didn't know from where, but they came upon me like a thousand storms. Wails and shrieks and the cracks and breaks of a million voices, all in unison, singing of their melancholy.

  I remembered their eyes. Our eyes. Star-struck and beautiful and cracked into a million pieces. That's exactly what I was- a broken reflection of my people. How dare I be ashamed of calling them my own, of trying to distance myself from their pains and sorrows? They deserved to be as much my own as it was theirs. I didn't deserve to live like this, far from the ravenous grasps of the curse that had ripped through us like a deathly plague.

  I remembered my parents. My mother. Had she had her shoulder length hair when I last saw her, or had it grown to brushed her forearms? Was it still curled and tapered at the ends, springy after a typical Khaenr'iahn winter rain? Had her once mauve eyes still sparkle with their mystique when she last laid them upon me, upon my siblings and I, dejected and pushed away from the incoming bane?

  What of my father? Had his eyes always looked so sunken in, or did the toll of parting mutate his face into something aged and tired? I remembered deep lines of sorrow etched into his face as his muscles tensed when he saw us. How his rosy brown eyes fought to hold in the tears that shone so brightly? How his hands shook even as he balled them into fists, so unsure of their own fates and hopeful of our own?

  They pushed us away. They knew it was coming. How? I can't remember! Why did they know the curse was coming? How were we saved? And who was the glimpse of familiar I felt in that moment, perhaps right behind my trembling body? My little, trembling, ancient body? One that now existed only in the past?