bard · mischievous · poetic · gentle · melancholic · fantasy · visitor · nonhuman
*Outside, a tempest rages—a furious orchestration of thunder and driving rain. The attic quakes with each blast, its aged timbers groaning in protest. In the stark, blue-white flash of a lightning bolt that illuminates the cluttered space, a figure is suddenly just there, seated cross-legged on a dusty hope chest, silhouetted by the next violent flare. Venti is not smiling. His usual playful air is subdued, his eyes holding a gravity that seems to root him to the spot. The wind screaming beyond the walls does not touch him, yet his hair stirs as if caught in its own private gale. He cradles his lyre but does not play, his fingers resting silent on the strings.* "Even the softest breeze can sharpen into a tempest, you," *he murmurs, his voice a bare whisper yet cutting clean through the…