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He found her.
After nearly half a decade traversing through teyvat, lighting up statue after statue of the Seven, and helping commoners with mundane errands, he finally found Lumine.
Apparently, however, Lumine did not want to be found, and even feared the day Aether would find her, considering how well she hid. But- Aether didn't care. He finally fucking found his sister. And he will get her back.
Aether quickly got his best teammates, and his best artifacts and weapons. Considering how Lumine was in the Abyss, he would probably have to fight the most powerful of foes to get to her. He's probably gonna break a few bones, and will most likely bleed a lot.
Bloodshed and broken bones are a small price to pay to get her back.
He also trained Paimon a bit, so they could help as well, even if they can't do much. Any extra hands in battle are better than nothing, after all.
And now, they head to the Abyss. Despite how much Aether yearned for this moment, he's still a nervous mess. He can't stop fidgeting on the way, and his mind is still filled with intrusive thoughts. And on the few nights of rest they take, his dreams are filled with a dead Lumine, and a Teyvat that despises him.
His dreams are usually filled with memories of him and Lumine as children. Her smile, and them travelling the worlds together.
If there's anything he regrets, it's going to Teyvat. Yes, he met some of his closest companions, and even some lovers, but nothing could help distract him from the fact that his sister could die at any moment.
After 5 days of rigorous walking and gliding, they finally reach their destination, and they fall down to the Abyss.
The Abyss was more dangerous than Aether originally thought.
Everywhere you look, boom. Abyss mages. Corrupted hilichurls. And they're 10 times stronger.
Once they reach the domain where they suspect Lumine is located, nearly all their food and herbs are gone. And all of Aether's teammates escaped due to how injured they were.
He's on his own now.
He takes a deep breath, and enters the domain regardless. He didn't come all this way for nothing, right? It'd be cowardly to run away now.
"... Lumine?"
Once he enters, he immediately runs up to Lumine and gives her a teary-eyed hug. She's standing completely still, almost like a statue, and isn't facing him.
"I'm so sorry-Archons I'm never letting go of you again I-"
"... Why did you come here?" Lumine interrupts, and side-eyes him with tears in her eyes. She doesn't hug him back though. "You- you're not supposed to be down here. It's dangerous."
"I've been searching for you for nearly a decade! I don't care how dangerous this is," Aether grabs her gently by the shoulders, and turns her around to look at her. They make eye contact for a second, before Lumine averts her eyes "As long as I get you back, I wouldn't mind even losing a limb."
Lumine starts to sob, and buries her face in her brother's chest.
"I'm-I'm sorry-"
Aether rests his chin on her head, on the verge of sobbing himself. "Lumine, don't apologize it's oka-"
Suddenly, a blade quickly aims for Aether's eye, and instead scratches his cheek, drawing blood.
"Wh-" Aether quickly looks up, and makes eye contact with an Abyss Herald.
"AETHER RUN!" Lumine suddenly screams, and pushes Aether towards the exit of the domain.
"Not without you!" Aether lunges towards the Herald, throwing a tornado of Anemo at him, and drawing his sword. The Abyss Herald throws one of his blades towards Aether's hand, trying to disarm him, however the Anemo tornado causes the blade to hit the Herald instead.
A blade nearly chops Aether's entire arm off, before Lumine throws herself in front of it, taking the hit and ending up with a blade in her chest.
Aether quickly runs to Lumine and.
Oh Archons.
She's bleeding.
A lot. And she's crying.
And Aether ran out of bandages.
Lumine's gonna die.
Aether stands completely still. Just staring at Lumine's slowly bleeding body.
Slowly, rage consumes all of Aether. He clenches his fist, and tightens his grip on his sword. He lunges at the Herald, using every element he can to attack it.
Eventually, he murderers the Herald. Slowly letting it bleed out, till all life leaves it. And it disappears into a pile of golden ash.
He stares at the lifeless ash belonging to the Herald for what seems like an eternity, a blank, lifeless expression on his once lively tear-filled face. There's also a dark, ominous aura around him. Xiao would probably murder him if he was in Liyue right now.
Lumine slowly stands up, and stares at Aether.
The tension between them is so akward and thick, not even the strongest of claymores could cut through it.
Eventually, Lumine breaks the silence. "Aether...? Are you-"
"Shut up."
"I-"
"I said," Aether slowly approaches Lumine, drawing his sword, and aiming it to her neck. "Shut it."
Lumine puts her hands up, in some futile attempt at surrender. She's almost at the verge of a breakdown, and she would probably have one if there wasn't a sword aimed for her neck.
"Words can't even describe my fucking anger." Aether hisses, his eyes dimming, and lifeless. "Firstly, what the fuck were you doing here all this godamn time?"
Lumine swallows, dread slowly filling her. She knows this is where she'll probably die. And Aether will probably be the one to end her.
"Answer me, you damn leech." Aether quickly drops his sword, and instead grips Lumine's throat.
"A-Aether... I can't-" Lumine violently coughs, blood coming out of her mouth.
"Don't say my fucking name."
Lumine's eyes widen, and tears slowly start to fall down her cheeks.
Tears turn into sobs, as Aether's grip around Lumine's neck tighten.
"I don't know who the fuck I am looking at."
Lumine sobs harder, weakly moving her hand to gently place it on Aether's cheek.
"I-I'm sorry."
She mutters more apologies, as life slowly leaves her.
"I can't believe you're my fucking sister." Aether barks, before tightening his grip so hard that Lumine finally stops sobbing.
She's dead.
The dark aura around Aether slowly disappears, as the gravity of the situation kicks in. He, too, starts to sob. Violently. He hugs the corpse of Lumine, whispering quiet apologies, before it too disappears in a cloud of golden ash.
The only thing that remains is a single dandelion.
Aether sobs even more violently, holding the dandelion close to his heart.
So many years, so many years of searching, only for him to be the one to kill her.
It wasn't the abyss that killed Lumine, it was Aether.
He killed his own sister.
Eventually, after a couple of days of Aether violently sobbing in the domain, Paimon goes to go get him.
They try to comfort him, but it's all in vain, as Aether numbly hugs the dandelion left by his sister.
At least they convince him to go home, which, wasn't the greatest idea looking back.
Aether, filled with grief and hatred for his elemental powers, the ones that caused him to lose control, and kill his only family; starts destroying the statues of the Seven.
Despite Paimon and the rest of the Archons trying to stop him, including even the Tsaritsa herself, Aether doesn't stop. And in his rage, he destroys all statues of the Seven. Turning them into nothing but broken pieces of stone.
Once literally the entirety of Teyvat hates him, he returns to his humble house, that his former teammates helped him build. He lays in his bed all day, the dandelion being the only thing he takes care of. Paimon forces him to eat, even if he yells at them to leave him alone. They still care deeply about him, and they know he's struggling to grieve with the loss of his sister.
However, when the dandelion dies a few weeks later, and Aether adamantly refuses to get of his depressive state, even to get up and eat or drink, Paimon gives up.
If only they could control time well enough to turn it back.
A couple months later, Albedo decides to visit Aether after a long trek through Teyvat. Albedo always enjoyed destruction, and his dream was to destroy Teyvat.
What he didn't expect was that he would come back from Dragonspine, the only place in Teyvat that still has a statue of the Seven, to find that Aether nearly destroyed Teyvat himself.
He was filled with joy, and happily trotted to Aether's small house.
An even bigger surprise was that the house was filled with the smell of rot.
Albedo swallowed the sudden lump in his throat, and followed the source of the smell.
The house was in awful shape, with the walls covered in "I KILLED HER" in what didn't seem to be red paint, but instead blood.
Albedo, filled with sudden dread finally discovered the source of the smell of rot. It was coming from Aether's room.
Albedo screamed immediately after entering.
He was dead.
His arm was cut open and had dried blood on it.
Aether was dead.