Wherever The Wind Blows - Aether x Venti

Chapter 4: Bard In Green

Aether POV:

"Aether, please accept the title of Honorary Knight."

Jean and Lisa looked at me. We were in Jean's office and I had just shown them the crystal Paimon and I found in the forest a while back.

"I mean, that's really-"

"I insist, Aether." Jean said.

I thought about it for a little bit and gave her my answer.

"Well, as long as it doesn't get in the way of my journey, I accept."

Jean shook her head.

"Don't worry. You're not officially a Knight of Favonius, so we won't bore you with the usual stuff. But you'll be on the list of the knights that we call in when there's an emergency. That's all."

"And, you get to hang around the headquarters all you want." Lisa added.

I smiled gratefully at them and said goodbye before leaving the Favonius Headquarters. I walked off towards Good Hunter for lunch and Paimon followed me.

"You, know... There was one little detail you didn't tell them." Paimon said.

Yeah, I didn't tell them about Mr. Green back in the forest. I didn't know why, but it felt wrong to talk about him in that context. So, I just left him out. Surely that doesn't count as lying, right? I stopped and looked out over the plaza in the middle of the city. Paimon sat down on the railing and joined me. That's when I saw something. A green cape disappeared down the stairs.

Could it be...?

I jumped over the railing and landed on the ground below. Paimon quickly followed me as I ran through a crowd of people.

"What are we doing, traveler?" she asked confused as she avoided bumping into strangers.

"I think I saw the green dude from the forest." I replied as I ran down the stairs. I was so distracted by the chase that I didn't even care to correct her about my name.

I stopped and realized that he was gone.

"He's gone."

Paimon looked around.

"Can't you use elemental sight to see if we can track him?"

"Good idea."

I activated elemental sight and looked around. I immediately spotted anemo traces on the ground in the form of footprints.

"He went this way. Come on!"

We followed the footprints all over Mondstadt and not once did we see the green dude. The footprints eventually led us to the big statue in front of the cathedral. As I walked up the stairs, I heard soft music coming from a crowd near the statue. Me and Paimon found our way through the crowd and I spotted where the music was coming from. It was the green fellow, playing the lyre as he sang. I stopped to listen to him. The song was about a dragon and a bard. When he was done, I struggled to remember why I had searched for him, I could only hear the song replaying in my head.

As the crowd started to disappear, probably going back to work, the bard opened his green eyes and looked right at me. He seemed surprised to see me.

"Oh. It's you guys." His tone didn't suggest that he was mad at us for disturbing him in the forest, rather, he seemed curious about us. "You are the ones that scared Dvalin away."

"Dvalin?" Paimon asked.

I sighed.

"And once again, Paimon didn't listen to a word that Lisa said. That's Stormterror's real name." I said while rolling my eyes.