So-called Fate

By the time everyone had finalized their plans, it was already midnight.

To repair the Skyward Harp as quickly as possible, they agreed to gather at the Knights of Favonius headquarters after sunrise and head into the outskirts of Mondstadt to search for the remaining dragon tear crystals. Then they went their separate ways.

However, just as Gabrielina was about to leave, Venti softly called her back.

"...So, what did you want to tell me, Lord Anemo Archon?" Gabrielina folded her arms and leaned lazily against the wall. "I've already spent the whole evening playing along with your act... Have some mercy and stop eating into my precious rest time."

Following the Angel's gaze, Venti also looked toward the other side of the nearby street.

The golden-haired girl stood in front of the inn, her lovely profile shrouded in gauzy, amber lamplight that made her outline hazy and unreal, like a fleeting dream.

Seemingly noticing their gazes, she hastily turned her face away, her fingertips unconsciously twisting the hem of her skirt. Yet she could not hold out for even two or three seconds before stealing another glance their way.

Little did she know, both of them had frighteningly sharp eyesight. Those little movements she thought were so discreet could not escape their notice at all, and only made her look rather cute.

Rather than answering Gabrielina's earlier question, Venti smiled and asked, "Do you... like her?"

"Huh!? I..."

No.

Gabrielina instinctively started to deny it, but when she caught sight of his mischievous expression, she forced the words back down.

"I do like her! So what!?"

"Oh? You actually admitted it?" Venti blinked in surprise.

"That's right... Don't you like her?" Gabrielina said proudly. "Isn't it only natural that everyone would love a girl who's so upright, kind, and strong? Just like me!"

"..."

Watching the girl suddenly begin radiating holy light, Venti found himself at a loss for words.

"So do you actually have anything important to say? Seriously, I'm getting sleepy."

"Well, something important... Of course I do." Venti looked straight at Gabrielina, his expression turning unusually serious. "There's something I'd like you to promise me."

Sensing his rare solemnity, along with that faint trace of divine might, Gabrielina froze for a moment, then found herself growing excited.

"Are we driving out every last one of those Fatui? Or... are we marching straight into Snezhnaya?"

"Oh, come on... You should've said so sooner. Getting all serious over this..." As she rambled on, the girl suddenly scrubbed the Bard's head vigorously with her wings, leaving him utterly bewildered.

"With how close we are, the Tsaritsa is mine, that big sister called [The Knave] is mine, and [Columbina] and [Sandrone] are for me... to save for Lumine... You can have all the rest! Shall we go tonight?"

Slaanesh? When did you get here?

Venti: What is she talking about?

"You, uh, certainly know quite a few people... But it's exactly the opposite. I hope you won't interfere with my deal with the Fatui."

Gabrielina stared straight at Venti and blinked blankly twice.

"That's it?"

"Yep." Venti nodded obediently.

"This is a contract I settled with the Cryo Archon long ago. No one forced me into it."

At Venti's answer, the girl's fighting spirit instantly wilted. She turned to leave. "Fine, I promise... Hope you have a nightmare tonight..."

"Wait! There's one more thing."

Gabrielina bit her lip, fighting the urge to give him a "God-cleaving Downward Chop." She turned back expressionlessly, her eyes telling him to spit it out.

"Do you... ever feel that we might have met even earlier?" Venti asked softly, looking at Gabrielina expectantly.

"...?"

"Do you remember when we ran into each other in the Whispering Woods a few days ago?"

The Bard lowered his eyes slightly, the confusion on his face seemingly genuine. "That was our 'first' meeting. It should have been... But I'm certain I sensed something familiar about you then."

"Could it have been your imagination?" Gabrielina asked uncertainly. "You've lived a long time, haven't you? You've met so many people... It wouldn't be strange to mix up a face or two, would it?"

"My imagination...?"

Gabrielina looked calm, but inwardly, she was already a bundle of nerves.

System, I'm scared.

Don't be afraid, child. What happened?

I'm scared you'll suddenly tell me I was actually from Teyvat all along. That all my memories of the real world are fake... That the old 'me' never existed!

You certainly have quite an imagination.

Isn't that how it goes in loads of novels I've read?

At this point, even the system was speechless.

If it called her smart, this girl was bluffing the Anemo Archon without batting an eyelid while dreaming up all sorts of things herself. She had even begun pondering philosophical questions like "Where did I come from?"

If it called her stupid... she was questioning her own existence because of those bizarre webnovels.

...That's you, all right.

Idiot, you're a genuine transmigrator, freshly arrived... As for his impression of you, all I can say is that it has to do with your 'character background'~

Okay, got it.

"Venti!" Gabrielina shouted, startling Venti so badly that he jolted.

"What is it?"

"Ahem... I figured out why." Gabrielina planted one hand on her hip and confidently swept her cherry-pink hair over her shoulder with the other. "Because my 'character' currently has amnesia! So maybe we really have met, but I forgot!"

"I... Is that so?" Venti blinked in confusion, feeling that something was not quite right.

How was that?

...Idiot.

"All right, anyway, I promised to do what you asked. Now I'm going back to rest." Gabrielina waved casually at Venti and brushed past him.

"Good night!"

The Bard watched the girl's figure fade in the moonlight, only to reappear across the street a moment later. She threw most of her body onto Lumine, half tugging and half dragging her through the inn's doorway.

Only after the soft sound of the wooden door closing had faded into the silence did Venti slowly exhale into the empty street.

"'Amnesia'? That really is... an all-purpose excuse. I wonder when I can get 'amnesia' too..."

Looking up at the pale blue moon overhead, he raised his right hand and slowly sank it into the left side of his chest.

In an instant, streams of intertwined cyan and white light gushed from his body. Howling winds swept down the street, making the shop signs sway violently. Even so, the boy's face remained expressionless.

A mere moment later, he withdrew his hand from his body. A translucent chess piece lay quietly in his palm.

A small, exquisite "queen," fashioned from the remains of a great being.

This was what the Fatui Harbingers coveted-the Gnosis.

Some saw it as authority, others as power. Ironically, most of its owners cared little for it themselves.

Venti pinched the Gnosis between two fingers and held it beneath the cold moonlight.

Deep blue moonlight passed straight through the chess piece, seeming to stir a swirling river of stars, breathtakingly beautiful.

The "gods" who ruled over a land and were revered by countless people held power as though they held the entire world in their hands. They stood above the mountains, breathed in heaven and earth, and all who defied them perished.

Tragically, even beings like these could not escape the cage of fate woven by the Heavenly Principles, which wore their lives away until death.

Indeed, fate was something that could not be changed. Yet there should still have been a chance for everything. There should still have been time. But, sadly... Venti had long since lost interest in staking everything on cutting off the head of the god of fate.

As a Bard, he would rather compose an epic for those warriors who dared to raise their swords, one that could be sung for a thousand years.

Whether or not they ultimately broke their shackles, those blazing figures would at least live forever in the strings of the Bards and Mondstadt's ceaseless winds.

He slowly smiled and curled his fingers inward, watching the Gnosis turn into specks of stardust that drifted out between them.

"...Good night."