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It is his birthday. Aether's birthday. Or at least, what they considered it to be.
Xiao sits on the edge of the bridge, watching the water below him roar by and listening to the cars behind him rush past. It is nighttime, and the lights of the city glow dimly in the distance.
For a brief moment, he closes his eyes, and allows himself to believe that he is sitting on the roof of Wangshu Inn again.
He'd never fully remembered everything from before he came to Teyvat.
"This is just my birthday now, I guess." He shrugged. "I don't know when I was really born, or created, or whatever. But I woke up today two years ago and I think that's all that matters."
Xiao watched him, studied him, and faintly thought that the outlander looked especially peaceful today.
"By that logic I think Lumi has a different birthday now though." He had wrinkled his nose. "Hell, she's technically the older sibling now too, if what Dainsleif said was true. That's not gonna be fun when I see her again."
"If you so wish," Xiao responded. "I don't think she would mind moving her birthday to match yours again. Five hundred years ago was a horrible time."
He stared at Xiao, then let out a small pfft. "I forget sometimes," He spoke, softly, as if the breeze could have taken his words away. "That you're older than you look. Maybe older than me now too."
The honk of a horn jolts him out from his thoughts, and Xiao almost slips forward, off the railing of the bridge. He grabs onto the metal poles at the last second, claws digging into his palm, and watches the water rush by below.
"Sorry."
Xiao turned around to see him, sitting at the table beneath the stairs of Wangshu Inn.
"For what?"
"For what's going to happen soon. Sorry." His hands tighten around his teacup. "Can you promise me one thing, though?"
"Of course."
"Promise me you'll live. You don't have to wait. I don't want to ask you to wait. Just live." He raised his head to face Xiao, and his eyes shined with unshed tears.
He'd walked over at the time, pulled the traveler into a hug, and planted a kiss to his forehead. He let the traveler cry, and wondered what had caused such pain, what he had to destroy.
When had living and waiting become synonymous? Xiao wondered. He reached beside him, pulling open the box of almond tofu he had prepared. He pulls out the plastic container, and sets it on the cement outcrop on the side of the railing that faces the river.
The sky cracked. The stars fell. It was the calamity all over again, but so, so much worse.
He did his best to protect Liyue. They only barely scraped by. As soon the pieces fell and the real sky came to be, he ran.
He ran.
He found Lumine, sobbing over the body of her brother.
The stars and moon, the real ones, fell.
"I figured you'd be here."
Xiao flinches, then whips around to see a girl with short-cropped blond hair. She leans on the railing, her chin propped up on her hand.
"When did you get back?"
She shrugs. "Wangshu used to be here. He spoke of it, a lot, while we were wandering around in the abyss and messing with Celestia." She twirls her hand in a circle, a five-petaled flower appearing in her hand.
She kneels down, slipping her hand through the metal railing, and placing the flower on the plate next to the tofu. "He spoke a lot about you. Smitten. It'd been millenia since I'd seen him that happy. Not since our homeworld was destroyed."
Lumine looks tired, so tired. Like a god who has lived for far too long and seen far too much. And perhaps that isn't too far from the truth.
"Our story is a long one." She closes her eyes, and lets a tired breath out. Her hand bunches up in the blankets that pool around her legs. "A very long one." And she turns her gaze to the Yaksha, who stands in front of her, mask over his face as he struggles not to feel, not to cry.
"We're not mortal. But we're not gods either. Death is complicated, for us." She holds her hand up, summoning a small patch of stars (so, so familiar. Like what he used to do).
"He asked me not to wait." Xiao's voice is muffled by his mask. He hopes Lumine can't hear it crack.
She smiles, small and sad. "And I think we're both not going to listen to him."
"It's easy to forget. How long it's been." Lumine stands back up. "And I think we should be happy. For today. He always did love birthdays. Even though he died on his." She hums, then turns around and walks off.
"Sing for him." She calls over her shoulder. "He'd always tried to sing it too. But the idiot was tone-deaf. I think you know which song."
So on nights when he is lonely, on nights when he misses Aether, he sings. An old song, forgotten by all but him. Even as Liyue rises to its height, then falls and becomes a new city. Even as Wangshu grows, and breaks down, and a new bridge built in its place, he sings.
Barbatos had once told him he had a lovely voice. He had ignored the bard and stormed off.
It wasn't until that one time when the traveler had desperately tried to revitalize a patch of glaze lilies had Xiao sang, truly, for the first time in centuries.
They'd sing duets, sometimes, and though Xiao loved his voice, he had to agree with Lumine; the traveler was a slight bit tone deaf.
He sits on the cement ledge, legs dangling over the water below, and sings.
He cries. Archons. He misses him.
--
A lone soul soars in the night, searching and searching.
He stares. He can't help but stare. The boy looks so much like him. Same mannerisms, face, eyes, voice. Only his hair is different, cut short instead of the braid Xiao had grown so used too. He stands at the other side of the small office, chatting idly with the woman who shared Ningguang's name.
He finds a child of gold, sitting at the edge of all that is and was.
"Ah- nice to meet you." He notices Xiao, then turns and extends a hand, grinning. "My name's Aether."
And the sky pieces together again, the stars and moon are strung back into the sky.
"Xiao. It's a pleasure."