Archive of Our Own

It is the calamity again, but so, so much worse.

At the center of it all stand the twins.

Lumine has the abyss behind her back. She stares past her brother, glaring at the gods.

Xiao doesn't know what to do.

It is so much larger than him; nothing like Osial, or even the gods of the archon war. This is a fight that concerns Teyvat as a whole, even Celestia, the Abyss, Khaenri'ah. 

This is a fight that will determine whether or not, or when, the Travelers will leave.

And as selfish as Xiao can be, when it comes to Aether, he is not a fool. To interfere now is to damn Liyue, Morax, the adepti, and everything they have worked for.

So he stands at the sidelines of the protagonists' stories; he raises his spear and forces the monsters back into the abyss, just as Morax raises the earth against the stars.

When the dust settles (like that battle where Guizhong left), Celestia lies in ruins, and the twins are gone, the two taking the abyss with them.

It is perhaps a comfort, that Aether's last actions before being pulled away, had been to reach out to Xiao, and strip him of his karma.

The mortals rebuild; new defenses are erected, technologies advance without the gods dictating every move. Most, if not all, reach their hands out for magic. hilichurls return to peacefully roaming. It is a new era, and perhaps a better one.

The only thing Xiao can think, is how he never said goodbye.

---

Although he isn't the biggest fan of the (now former) eleventh Harbinger, Xiao does have to commend his achievements. The Snezhnayan had moved with his family to Liyue harbor not long after the destruction of Zapolyarny Palace (and as a result, the outbreak of a civil war in Snezhnaya). Most of the other surviving Harbingers had either returned to their homelands, or remained in Snezhnaya trying to grasp power in the unstable conditions.

So now, whenever Xiao drops by Liyue to visit Zhongli (Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli, no longer Morax, no longer Rex Lapis) he is usually faced with the incessant screaming of young human children. Because even though the former Archon has his own apartment, the majority of the time he is sitting in Childe's living room, telling children stories and calmly sipping a cup of tea.

Today is no different.

He only barely dodges Teucer, who has come barreling straight towards the door, and nearly knocks over the vase by the windowsill. 

It is only centuries of battle practice and adeptus reflexes that allow Xiao to catch the thing, and prevent the, likely ridiculously overpriced, knowing Childe and Zhongli, pottery from shattering on the floor.

He sighs, gently setting the vase back onto its stand, just as Teucer erupts in a flurry of Snezhnayan.

"Common, please." Xiao steps past the child. 

Teucer blinks, freezing in place, and Xiao can nearly see the gears turning in his head. 

"Right! Uh." Teucer scrunches up his nose. "Hi! Sorry about running into you. And almost breaking big brother's vase. Thanks for saving it."

Xiao hums, reaching down to gingerly ruffle the boy's hair. "It's fine. Just don't do it again." Teucer eagerly nods, then, like any child, promptly ignores everything Xiao had said, and dashes off into the house again.

Zhongli sits in the living room, a notebook spread out on the table in front of him.

"Ah," He looks up. "Xiao. Come. Take a seat."

Xiao does. "You might want to move the vase by the door." He reaches forward and pours himself a cup of tea. "Teucer knocked the thing over. It would've broken if I hadn't caught it."

"Ah." Zhongli blinks. "Yes. I'll be sure to tell Childe that."

Xiao hums, then takes a sip. Oolong. Not bad.

"How have you been.?"

Xiao shrugs. "I've been worse."

"But how are you now?"

"Perhaps the best I've ever been, in the long run." He shifts in place, crossing, then recrossing his legs. "It's weird though, not having all those demons following me around." Not have Aether follow me around.

"A lot has changed."

"Yeah."

They sit in comfortable silence for the next few minutes, calmly sipping tea. Oolong. Red. Green. Black. Chrysanthemum. Chamomile. It's easier now, drinking tea at least, for some reason. He's not entirely sure why. It's still difficult to eat human food sometimes, especially spicy food, but tea, pastries and cakes, and some of the more savory items the Aether, as well as the other Yaksha, long ago had mentioned. Those he can take. Some he finds himself enjoying. 

"If you want," Zhongli presses the notebook in front of him closed. "I can ask Childe to cook some Snezhnayan cuisine some time. I know Venti brought some pastries from Mondstadt the other day, but if you wish to try..."

Childe's Snezhnayan cuisine, Xiao has realized, usually tends to consist of seafood, even though Tonia swears up and down that her brother makes some of the best pancakes (? He doesn't think she translated it correctly, but he doesn't speak Snezhnayan, so who is he to judge) in their entire village.

"Maybe in the future."

Zhongli nods. Distant screaming breaks out- likely Anthon and Teucer- and Zhongli sighs, climbing to his feet.

Xiao watches the former Archon leave the room. He wonders how Morax has managed to move on.

Silently, bitterly, he thinks it may be because Zhongli still has Tartaglia, Childe, Ajax, whatever name that man goes by now.

He squashes the thought as quickly as it rises. There is no use in such feelings. After everything Zhongli has done for him, he should be grateful, that out of the two of them, at least Zhongli gets a truly happy ending.

Surprisingly, (or perhaps not, this is his apartment after all), Childe is the one who returns to the room. 

He takes one look at Xiao, then sighs, and plops down in Zhongli's seat. 

"You know." He leans forward, propping an arm up on the table. "You have that kicked puppy look Zhongli used to have before-" He vaguely waves his hand around in the air. 

Xiao stares at him. "You've changed."

Childe only shrugs. "Who hasn't? I lost my home and my goddess, almost lost myself to the abyss, and watched Zhongli almost die. It'd be a miracle if I hadn't changed after all that."

"Mortal." Xiao responds. "Mortals change. Adepti don't."

"Zhongli changed. He used to be a god."

"He has you." Xiao faintly whispers, eyes downcast. "You changed him." His grip tightens around the cup in his hand, and Childe has to reach forward and pry his fingers off from the ceramic before it cracks.

"Zhongli wished for change long before he met me." Childe withdraws his own hand. "I think even the Tsaritsa thought this; if you wish for change, work for it, and change surely will come."

"What is there left to change?"

"A lot of things. Sometimes we just don't notice it."

Xiao stares at Childe, then lets out a wheezing laugh. "I think you've changed too."

"Dying in the Abyss then being resurrected by twins from an entirely different world kind of does that to you." Ajax grins. 

Xiao manages a weak smile.

"Come on," Ajax stands up. "Zhongli promised Teucer and Anthon he'd take them out to Guili today and," he shrugs, "Well, you know what the place is like now."

"Yeah." Xiao swallows. "I'll come."

---

He doesn't sleep. He never sleeps. But sometimes, he finds himself dreaming, regardless.

He dreams of golden eyes and golden hair, of a boy both blessed and despised by the gods.

Sometimes they just sit on the roof of Wangshu Inn, the boy chatting away and laughing as he bites into a spoon of almond tofu. Sometimes they're out in the plains, exorcising demons and clearing hilichurl camps.

Sometimes, they lay awake in the dead of night, under a sky of stars, intertwined with one another, like two lovers with all the time in the world, yet none at all.

Perhaps there was truth in that.

And when he wakes, he drags himself forward, preparing for yet another day of protecting the mortals below him.

Preparing for yet another day waiting for change.

---

"Are you sure you don't want to go back?"

"If we tried, would we even be able to find it?"

"We could."

"There's an infinite number of worlds out there. What are the chances."

"We've visited Camelot more than three times now."

"Camelot is different. There's so many versions of Camelot they've melded together. Teyvat is just Teyvat."

Aether sits on the edge of the balcony railing. The city shines all colors of red and blue in the night below him.

"We've been here multiple times before too."

"There's a lot of versions of Shanghai and Earth as well though."

Lumine shrugs, then walks over and props her arms on the railing. "We've got time. We'll just keep looking."

Aether stares at her, then turns his gaze back towards the skyline. "I think he'd enjoy the pudding here. We should store some away for him."

Lumine laughs, then huffing, pulls back away from the railing. "Alright. I'll see if I can expand our inventory sometime too then."

"Thanks."

"No problem." She hums softly. "It's what a sister should do. We'll get you back to your man eventually."

He smiles weakly, then bows down his head, staring down into the streets below. "Yeah. Just- I hope only a decade has passed when we get there, at most."

Lumi shrugs. "Maybe. Time's weird." She pushes herself away from the railing, then slips back into the apartment, pulling the sliding door closed behind her.

Aether stands on the balcony, staring down into the city streets below.

And gods, does he miss Teyvat more than anything else, in that moment. He misses Paimon (even though she wouldn't be there, even if he managed to return). He misses Venti, the dumbass. Kaeya, Diluc, Jean, Amber. Zhongli, Ganyu, Keqing.

Xiao.

Aether sighs again, then raises his head to stare up at the starless sky.

Perhaps one day.