Chapter Text
They start with questions.
Some are simple, others are not. For the first few days, he refuses to answer any of them. He just turns his head to the side and sets his jaw in place and stays decidedly silent.
Then they bring pain.
Some punishments are easy to bear. He grits his teeth and holds his breath and comes out on the other side just fine. But the more he resists, the harder it becomes to remain the solid and unmoving rock he promised he would be.
He cries out, voice dry and croaky as blood drips down his back, his chest, his arms. He can’t keep track of all the places they hurt him.
(He collects burns, and bruises, and cuts and scrapes and tears. He only cries when he is alone.)
So he begins to answer questions, and in return, they give him water, meat, and sleep.
For a few days, he has hope again. This is not so bad, he tells himself. If I can just gather my strength, I can escape here.
The questions run out quickly, and so does his hope.
“How are you capable of utilizing the elements without a Vision?” one of the mages asks, and he explains how he is from another world, and that he doesn’t fully understand how it works himself.
“Were you able to use elemental powers before you came to this world?”
“Where do you draw your power from, if not a Vision?”
“How many elements can you use at once?”
“What do you feel when you ‘resonate’ with a new element?”
He answers as well as he can. He doesn’t have a choice. His only goal since entering Teyvat has been to find Lumine, and he can’t do that if he dies here. So he will stay alive, for her sake.
For Lumine, he reminds himself as they beat answers out of him with a whip.
For Lumine, he reminds himself as they withhold sleep and water for days on end.
For Lumine, he reminds himself as he finally, finally spills his secrets, answers their questions, gives up what little leverage he had.
He realizes quickly that gathering his strength will not be possible. He is withering away, slowly but surely, in this cell.
Instead, he begins to hope that once he gives them all the information they ask for, that they will be done with him. He hopes, naively, in vain, that they will let him go.
(The night sky is a distant memory, and he longs to reunite with fresh air.)
“Let you go? But we still have so much to learn from you,” Signora laughs. She’s come to oversee the next stage personally, she says. “I really am sorry, traveller. This will not be pleasant for you.”
She doesn’t sound sorry at all.
Aether learns quickly that pain is subjective.
He’s scraped with death more times than he can count, both before and after arriving in Teyvat, and for a long time, he thought he knew what true pain felt like.
(Broken bones, skinned knees, even bullet wounds… he thought he knew it all.)
He was wrong. He was so, so wrong and he’s finding out in the worst way possible.
He loses track of everything so quickly. The days he’s been counting blur into each other, and every wound on his body converges over and over again. He wakes up from restless sleep only to find that he’s on the table again, being torn apart by every element at once.
He can feel his skin being peeled away, his muscles cut and catalogued.
“Please,” he begs, vision blinking out, voice cracking. There are hands on his skin and then metal, cold and sharp and horrible.
Maybe he screams. It's hard to tell. When he wakes up, he's in his cell again, chained to the wall and bleeding on his cot. His jaw hurts and there is a muzzle on his face, pinching into his skin.
La Signora comes to visit him every now and then. Then and only then does the muzzle come off, for she brings him food and feeds it to him, and updates him on their "progress."
"We're learning a lot from you," she says, spooning porridge into his mouth. He listens because he has nothing else to do. It is an escape from the pain, anyway.
(The pain, the pain, why is it so potent, so persistent?)
"You're very special, traveller," she says. "We're making great strides in our research into Delusions and Visions, all because of you."
Aether stays silent. He's not sure he can speak even if he tried; his voice is still raw from screaming.
"Once we're done, I'm sure the Tsaritsa herself will want to meet you. You're doing us a great service."
As if it's his choice. As if it is some charitable act, being tortured and experimented on.
As if he wants to help them in the first place.
He closes his eyes. Above him, she sighs, and he hears clinking as she gathers the dishes from his paltry meal.
"Until tomorrow, traveller."
She fastens the muzzle over his face as she leaves and he doesn't even blink.
He will be dead by tomorrow. He prays to the Seven that he will be dead by tomorrow.
He does not die.
The Fatui are very committed to keeping him alive, because to them, he is a well of knowledge. He is a mystery to be solved, a key piece in their quest for power.
They heal him enough to keep him alive and little more. They feed him enough to keep him alive and little more. They let him sleep enough to stay alive and little more.
If he dies, their research will never be completed.
So he lives. He lives and it is pain, and blood, and screaming until his voice is gone. He lives and it is sleepless nights, and long cruel days, and silent prayers on his lips.
He lives and it is torture.
"Why won't you kill me?" he asks Signora one day, finding strength he must have set aside a long time ago. "Please. Please."
His arm is draped off of his cot, numb and throbbing and cold. He stares up at the ceiling, eyes tracing over the cracks in the stone.
"Why would I do that?"
She sounds genuinely shocked. Surprised. Why would he ask such a thing?
He glances at her. She's sitting next to him, peering down at him, a small frown sitting on her lips.
He looks back at the ceiling.
"Aether-"
"No," he chokes, voice softer than a whisper. "Don't, don't call me that, please, please don't…"
"Traveller, then. Listen . I know you are in pain, and for that, I am sorry. But think of the good this will bring to the world-"
He cuts her off with a sob. She keeps talking but he closes his eyes and sobs without moving.
Good. How is this good?
What more is there to learn? What is left to gain from ripping him open, dissecting him, stealing bits of blood and bone and skin?
This is a mockery of good.
When he finally opens his eyes again, she's gone. The wooden stool has been pushed back into the corner and the lantern has been lit.
His muzzle is on again, too. She put it on and he didn't even notice.
He curls in on himself and cries until he is too exhausted to stay awake.
Aether dreams of a bed.
It is large, with many pillows and blankets. There is a large tulle canopy, red and glittering. He wants to reach towards it and unravel it but he can't seem to move.
His arm stays at his side, heavy and numb and useless.
"The stars," he gasps, voice echoing. "The stars, they're trapped in there…"
The fabric sways gently, and the stars without glitter, gleam, glow. The light swells with his breathing, and he keens loudly.
"Please," he breathes. "Let them go. Let them go!"
He must wail for hours, or perhaps seconds. The stars swim in his vision, swirling and blurring as tears leak from his eyes.
"No," he moans, And the light grows and grows and grows until it envelopes him.
The stars put their hands on him, feeling his chest and his neck and his forehead, cupping his face gently.
He wants to pull them closer but his arms still refuse to move.
"Warm," the stars sing, "too warm. Aether, please, you must relax…"
"Not until you're safe," he says. "Not until you're safe."
The stars chuckle, and he wakes to a new dream.