The wind was a constant sound. It was like starving wolves, howling as they hunted their prey. It was like metal scraping together, creating dangerous sparks that could bring devastation to the grasslands. It was like crashing of salty waves, primed to carry unsuspecting victims into the blackened depths. The swirling air could be heard from everywhere in the city. No corner or side street was exempt from the noise. For the people who lived and died in that miserable city, it was akin to a second heartbeat; never one they wanted, though.

In a small, shabby shack in the lower ring of the city, however, the wind was being partially drowned out. The farmers and miners were on their way home, and those with a few coins to spare found themselves entering through the decaying wood door into a tiny room filled with people packed together. The seats and tables were made from stray planks of wood and almost completely shattered barrels. There is a singular lantern in the center of the room, precariously tied to the roof with a thinning rope. A few people sit directly beneath the lantern with some tearing cards. Others sit along the edges of the room, satisfied to enjoy their distilled drinks in the thick darkness. They enjoy quiet conversation with one another, the most social interaction they are allowed with the harsh workdays of the city. Their whispering, however, would never be enough to silence the thunderous wind. That honor belongs to a dark haired boy with soft blue eyes playing a lyre in the corner.

He does not sing with proper words, but he hums alongside the strings he plucks. The song he chooses to perform that night is one of somber merriment, like the world first waking up from the long dredges of winter for spring. Of course, no one in that pitiful tavern knows anything about spring. The temperature and weather inside the tall Anemo walls that protect them are fair but not quite like any particular season. There are no flowery touches to the breeze, cushioning heat like the summer, or sharpened smells like autumn. It is bland and uniform, akin to chalk dust swirling around a glass bubble. The world outside the walls is packed tightly with winter, and they are consistently warned of what would become of them should they wander past the walls designed to keep them safe.

When the boy concludes his song, he remains still in the small corner he's occupied the entire evening. The whispering grows a little softer, acutely aware there's no music to mask their voices, but no one decides to clap. No one acknowledges the young bard, not with their eyes or their cheers. The smile firmly planted on his face does not wane or drop. In fact, he seems happier now that he's gotten through his song. It is not the first one he's performed that night, especially not the first one in his life, but it brings him a sense of happiness and pleasure that no other mundane task can hope to replicate. He lives for these performances, generous as that term may be. His one complaint would be the dreary building he must perform in; he would rather an outdoor venue with the sky stretching far above them, as blue as the precious stones the miners occasionally find, as blue as his eyes, as blue as the water in the fountain near the tower at the center of the city.

The bard reaches his hand down, content to pluck another string to start up a new song. He hesitates when someone approaches his makeshift stage. He looks up at them, wondering if it's a curious soul hoping to experience the mysterious art of music. By the look on her face, she is not one of his fans. Hannah is a tired, overworked waitress of this rundown camp, praying that no one reports her to the city guards for selling illegal alcohol to workers, no matter how distilled the alcohol is. "You received one coin tonight, Venti."

She lifts up her scarred hand to him, showing a muddied bronze coin resting in the center of her palm. There is a chip along the edge of the coin, making the true worth of the coin a little uncertain. It could be deemed worthless because of the impurity, but Venti takes it into his hand nonetheless. It's more than he regularly receives playing music at Hannah's excuse for a bar. Most people choose to ignore him. The most payment he receives is no one turning him in for possessing a lyre, knowing how to play it, and actually playing it at a semi-public place. Venti supposes they could also be trying to save their own skins, no one wanted to admit they came to a place as illegal as this, but he chose to believe they were repaying him in this kind way. As a bard, it was his entire job to see the world as something less bleak than everyone else.

"Thank you for your patronage, Miss Hannah. You are a true saint for allowing the arts to flourish," Venti tells her as he stashes the coin away in a bag attached to the belt at his side. The bronze coin makes a soft noise as it crashes into the other coins in the leather bag. It isn't much, a few bronze coins and a single silver one, but it's everything that Venti owns. It's everything that is entirely his, earned by his hands and voice, instead of being given to him by his masters. It is something they can't hold over his head because he's the one that went out into the world, daring the literally gods by going against their divine rules against music in a building going against their rules against alcohol and social interaction. But it was in this blasphemous place that Venti found a sense of belonging that saints hope to find in their churches.

"A saint, he says. Boy, you better keep your tongue still if you want to keep it at all," Hannah tells him with a disapproving look. Despite running a tavern, she holds tightly to the rest of the laws put in place by their leader. She despises music and his flowery language. He can compliment her in any way he wants, but she will always be intolerant towards his actions of placing her on a pedestal. If she didn't avoid every conversation before it could truly flourish, perhaps he would know why she broke one law but believed zealously in the rest of the laws.

Venti huffs, looking down at his lyre as she walks away. She returns to the far corner of the room where the smuggled barrels of beer sit, and she begins working on pouring out glasses with much more water than beer in order to ensure she has enough beer to last a few days. The few people in the bar slide over thin silver coins, drinking away their sorrows and miserable lives. This tavern is one of the few places where they can find happiness. They are stuck with laborious, unfulfilling jobs that they will never retire from. All of them will be stuck in the fields or the mines until the day they drop to the ground dead. They will also be shackled by marriages for the sake of producing another generation instead of love. That word, love, is a commodity for the rich in this city. Most people in the lower rings would be lucky with someone they can halfway tolerate who treats them with the bare minimum amount of respect.

Venti, too, will one day be trapped in a loveless marriage. He's managed to avoid it so far as a servant for a middle-ring family, but he knows that it won't be long until his masters realize that he is of age. They would sell him for as much money as they could get, and he would be helpless in the exchange. His parents, whoever they were, had been kind enough to sell him to a job that didn't require him to physically work hard, but they had abandoned him, so he supposes it evened out. He would, eventually, be sold once more, and perhaps his future spouse would sell him again. He could be like the coins in his pouch, spent and taken because he wasn't worth much and it was easier to get rid of him.

Venti hissed as he pulled one of the strings too far. The string snaps back, hitting his finger with enough force to cause an angry red line to appear against his skin. His hands might be fairer than the other patrons of the tavern, but they, too, carry their fair share of calluses and scars. A punishment for servants was getting their hands hit with metal rods, and Venti's whimsical spirit had put him in many spots of trouble. The thin white scars all across the back of his hand is proof of this. He's only grateful they haven't broken his hands. He could not imagine how horrible his life would be if he didn't have the one outlet music provided him.

Venti continues to strum the lyre, even as his hands sting with pain. He usually stops before they ache returns, but his thoughts had been steadily growing as dark as the corners of the tavern and he needed this happiness to lift him back up. A part of him needed to pretend that someone in this dim, stinky building needed this music as much as he did. They were waiting, desperately, in the shadows, their shaking hands clasped together in weak prayers for just one more song. 'Encore', the person who taught him music, the one he had prayed to, taught him. 'When the crowd demands more, they want an encore. You want an encore.'

No one demands an encore. Instead, his music is halted when the door is blown open with enough force to shatter parts of it. Some people release noises that could have been screams or screeches if their lungs weren't filled with coal dust. They shuffled away from the open door. Venti stumbles out of the barrel he had been using as stool, wincing as a piece of the barrel clattered to the ground. He quickly shoves his lyre in his shirt's back, praying it isn't as noticeable as he knows it is. He presses his lips tightly shut, holding back any of his own pained noises as someone- something, more like- glides across the doorframe.

Tempestas are the city's protectors, guards, and law enforcers. They are spirits with the bodies of dark bruise blue-black clouds. Flashes of lightning race across the edges of their body with subdued thunder echoing around them with a terrifying aura. In their heads, two light, rich green spheroids stick out from the wispiness of the rest of their heads. They were created as the servants of the Lord of the Tower, the god of storms, to look humanoid so that they might reassure the people. No one had told the god, however, that the Tempestas look like unnatural monsters. Their human shape did nothing to hide how they were composed of wind and lightning, two of the most dangerous things in the people's world. They are especially intimidating when they carry their swords made entirely from pale light, like permanent lightning that cannot cackle. The Tempestas' all possess the same voice: low and thunderous. "You are all under arrest for crimes against the Lord of the Tower."

The Tempestas could hardly finish before everyone was rushing around like they had been imbued with a new vigor. Venti took a few steps backwards, hitting the far wall. He tilted his head up, knowing there was a small opening crudely cut into the wall by Hannah in an attempt to bring more light into her establishment. It worked during the morning hours, but the light- a gross imitation of the sun- was on the opposite side of the world. No light was entering through the window, and Venti prayed that it would keep him hidden from the Tempestas' unnatural gaze. He secured his lyre before he took a careful step onto the barrel he had been sitting on. It groaned beneath his weight, sinking low as it threatened to burst and knock him to the ground. Venti grit his teeth, pushing against the barrel and grabbing the windowsill. His arms strained against the tension. His fingers burned in pain and displeasure, but he refused to let go as he pushed his feet against the wall. He tried walking up the wall until he was high enough that he could pull his body through the small crack in the decaying wood. He was thankful, not for the first time, for his petite build. He had been bullied most of his life for being short and rather feminine, but it had saved his life more times than he could count. A stronger, bulkier man than him surely would have been dead by now if he made all the same choices Venti did.

Venti breathed out when he rolled onto the muddy cobblestone street outside of the bar. He checked that his lyre was still secure against his body as he pushed down the vomit threatening to spill from his lips. He was definitely not made for accomplishing feats of strength and durability, but he was alive. That was honestly more than most people got in the lower ring.

Venti stumbled to his feet, and he realized that he wasn't alone in the alleyway. For some foolish reason, he had assumed that there would only be one Tempestas. He assumed that it was a fluke that one of the city's guards had ended up in this corner of the lower ring when it was directly out of the way. No patrols came close to this area, and the Tempestas did not care much for the lower ring, anyway. It was all a coincidence, Venti said, refusing to believe that one of the patrons was a sell-out who betrayed everyone. But the secondary Tempestas standing at the end of the alleyway, pale eyes on Venti, made it very clear that this was a group effort.

Despite his lack of physical skills and penchant for trouble, Venti possessed a very sturdy will to live. No matter how dismal the city he lived in was, he quite enjoyed living. He loved performing and writing music and poetry. He loved walking the city streets, catching rare glimpses of kindness. He loved hearing the bizarre stories of people who found themselves in weird situations. And he had dreams he wanted to accomplish. He wanted to see the sky one day. He wanted to see real birds playing in the clouds. He wanted to experience light rain and snow. He wanted to smell the crispness of the autumn wind, and he wanted to play underneath the real sun. They were simple desires that would surely have him hanged if anyone found out about them, but he did not care. They were things he desired from the bottom of his heart. He was going to live long enough to see them; he refused to die before the war was won and the elusive sky was revealed.

Venti felt his stomach drop and his lungs burn as he pushed himself further and faster than he had ever done before. His energy was depleting quickly, but he kept straining himself. Every time he chanced a glance behind him, the Tempestas guard was still there. It was still coming for him with those emotionless eyes and that shining sword. Venti couldn't help but feel fear rush down his spine as he realized it was getting closer. It was much faster than he was. It was designed with efficiency in mind. It would always be stronger than a malnourished servant boy with a sickly disposition and a stronger mind than body. Venti felt a surge of frustration swell in his body, prompting warm tears to bubble at the edges of his eyes.

Was this it? He was going to die in the backstreets. No one was going to care or mourn. His music would soon be forgotten; his desires would remain unfulfilled. No matter how much he clung to his life and the need to keep moving forward, he knew that hope and desperation were not acquainted with skill and energy. Venti continued to run, undeterred by his thoughts but steadily getting slower. He was beginning to trip up. The blood rushing into his head was making him unsteady, and when his legs gave out, he crumpled to the ground with enough force to send him rolling across the cobblestone. He felt pain blossom across his skin, bruises that would surely darken with time and cuts that would bleed for some time. He landed pathetically against a wall, out in the open for anyone, especially a highly trained Tempestas to see.

A twinkling noise filled the air. It was rhythmical like music, but it was no instrument Venti had ever heard before. He tilted his head up, wondering who was playing. His eyes narrowed down on a piece of cloth floating down toward him... actually, it wasn't a piece of cloth. Well, it was, but it was also more. It was a small hood peppered with tealish green symbols. In the shadows of the hood, two white eyes looked out, just as unnatural as a Tempestas but far more comforting. Feathers spread out across the cloth's back, flapping as a way to push air around. The cloth landed near Venti's face, hovering just above the ground. The cloth nestled close to Venti's nose, a soft breeze that smelled like... spices, rich and sweet, filling the air. The cloth flapped the wings, and suddenly, a small bubble made from pale green light surrounded the bard.

Venti thought it looked like the giant Anemo walls protecting the city. Except, those walls felt like prison bars. This bubble felt like a protective cocoon, like a thick blanket that could keep out the cold. Venti watched the cloth twist in the air, the eyes squinting in what Venti recognized as happiness. A breathy giggle fell from Venti's lips, but he stopped when he noticed that the Tempestas were approaching. He tensed up, closing his eyes tightly as he prepared for the worst.

When nothing happened, he peeked one of his eyes open. The Tempestas ran past Venti and the strange cloth without any hesitation. Venti pulled himself up, watching as the Tempestas continued running without ever looking back. The Tempestas were creatures of efficiency, not cruelty, so they would never pull a prank like this. No, the Tempestas just didn't see Venti, which was strange considering he was easily visible.

Venti's gaze slid to the Anemo bubble he was in. It dissipated, and the cloth that conjured it lowered down in his hands with a tired expression. Venti felt a smile twitch on his face as he realized that this strange creature protected him. Venti pulled the cloth close to his body, cradling the sleeping form against his chest alongside his lyre. He could wonder where the creature came from or what it was, but he didn't want to. He wanted to believe that finally something was looking out for him. He looked up at the artificial sky, the Anemo swirling together into a dome. Maybe he would get to see the real sky one day.