Chapter Text
Aether was very nervous when he let the Raiden Shogun (who is currently Raiden Ei) into his teapot.
“How do I use this? I must admit I am not familiar with the adepti’s technology.”
Aether was about to explain, but the Raiden Shogun… uhh, how does he say this? She lifted the lid of the teapot and stuck her hand in it. The real awkward bit is the fact that it actually worked and she got sucked into the Realm. Right hand first. In front of a crowd. Aether heard the sound of the Shogun’s reputation dropping in real time, alright? Straight down.
“She’s not going to use the Muso no Hitotachi on me for this, right?”
So yes, he was very nervous. Luckily she did not seem to care (for now). She cuts a solitary figure even when people are next to her. She turned to him.
“Intriguing. Show me the inside of your mansion.”
… He recognised that tone of voice.
“Shogun?”
“State your query.”
“Did you and Ei switch?”
“Not voluntarily.”
Please, elaborate!
And then she just strode towards the mansion without any further comments. Because she must have gotten tired of waiting. Oh, never mind, she stopped at the door.
“I observe basic courtesy. One should be invited inside before entering a home.”
“It’s okay, you can come in, it’s fine. That Dispatch was for the both of you anyways, I guess.”
“Then I will oblige.”
The Shogun was wont to open doors and stay inside for a bit before coming out and repeating this process with the other rooms inside the mansion. And Aether needed to attend to his multiple fishtanks, because people (Tighnari, Kazuha, Freminet, Lauma) will berate him if he doesn’t perfectly maintain the ecosystem within the tank.
Apparently, putting Liyuean fish and Nod Krai fish together in the same tank will have disastrous consequences. Because… something about Liyue Harbour’s sea temperatures being warmer, and Nod Krai being in the poles… Freshwater, saltwater… Yeah, he got chewed out. Mostly by Lauma, who was telling him in a very disappointed tone about everything the fish were complaining about.
So Aether was testing water pH levels and temperature and ammonium concentration and everything else on the list that Lauma gave him. All thanks to the experimental equipment Sucrose let him borrow and no thanks to Dori who quoted him an astronomical amount of mora. And everything was going fine and everything was looking alright, except! Except for the fact he hadn’t seen the Shogun in a while. Which meant that as a good host he ought to go look for her and make sure she wasn’t stuck or lost. Though the latter was pretty hard to do when you’re in a teapot. But somehow people managed it.
He found the Shogun (luckily) in a room. She’s frantic, picking up random bits of metal, chanting ohno ohnononononono like she’d done something bad.
The Shogun (that’s probably Ei though) looked up at him and dropped everything in her arms. The pile of metal on the floor clanked as it fell. It looks distinctly familiar. It looks like… It looks like…
“Is that. My roomba?”
“Well… yes… and no.”
“What does that mean?” Aether looked at his roomba’s corpse, its Abattouy-certified eyes staring back at him like the dead fish Flins found in Aether’s tank a while ago. The fae ended up barbecuing the fish. It tasted good. And full of regret. Aether’s regret.
“Yes… as in, it was your… ‘roomba’. No, because it’s not a ‘roomba’ anymore.”
Aether fell to his knees.
“But don’t worry Traveller! I can rebuild your robot! I designed the Shogun! You don’t need to worry! I just need to remember what it looked like and what features it had…”
Please do not tell me she is going to end up granting my roomba sentience. Aether looked at Raiden Ei’s puppet body. His mind formed the image of Hat Guy.
Please do not give my roomba sentience. It would be sick, but I’m not looking for that kind of responsibility.
“But what happened to my roomba?” He is feeling very wronged. For the roomba. It was probably minding its own business. And then it died. For minding its own business. Nobody can live a good life anymore, is that how it is?
“The Shogun…” Ei, very carefully, did not reveal the cringe that was threatening to spread across her very elegant and dignified features.
“The Shogun saw that it was an automated existence, and sought to… test its mettle.”
Aether was going to faint from shock. He did not fight Fatui robots and giant duck robots just for his son to be seen as the ultimate electronic enemy.
“Just… go to sleep, and when you wake up, everything will be fine.”
That sounded perfect. Thank you, goodnight, good day, goodbye. Aether used his perfectly honed Adventurer’s Skill to fall asleep on command.
Goodbye, world! Wake me up when people stop treating my ordinary son like a main character!
~
Aether was woken from his induced sleep by… absolutely nothing at all? He was laid horizontally across a couch in the main hall, and Ei sat across from him, the entire kitchen storage’s worth of desserts spread out across the table in various half-eaten, fully-eaten, not-quite-there-yet states of eaten.
“I hope you don’t mind. I couldn’t resist, really.”
“That’s fine, but… where’s my roomba?”
Ei pointed to the kitchen.
“Making more deserts.”
Aether nodded. He was still drowsy, even after that sleep.
“Did you install another cooking module?”
“Yes. I designed it myself.”
…
Raiden Ei designed it herself…
The kitchen, in a very timely fashion, blew up.
~
Luckily it was just because the oven was faulty.