Chapter Text
The wind comes and goes as it pleases, the skies turn into many hues throughout the day, and the tides pull forward and back. Each day and night, something is different than the last, the signs that tell him that time still exists.
The moon is in a further position than the last time he saw it, its sister moons are nowhere to be seen. He remembers this beach used to be teeming with life, settlements builts all around it, a huge spot for tourism, even though he doesn’t remember the name.
Now, it is a nameless beach somewhere in the region of Teyvat.
It tells him that this world has moved forward without him. He has been put to sleep for too long. It’s not that he cares, but how can he not feel an inch of hate for the world that tore his life apart.
He eats barely enough to push through the rest of the day, not fully knowing why he’s still doing it, but a part of his brain had told him, he already came this far, there’s no reason to stop.
Plus, he’s not ready to leave this desolated beach, at least not yet. Leaving this foreign shore amidst a foreign country was just too much. Leaving here means taking a step away from what he was once familiar with and into the unknown alone.
He realizes how scary it was to leave without his family, without anyone actually. The sky he can once soar across like how natural walking was to him, the hands of the ones he loved by his side out of his grasp—plural? He must’ve hit his head as well because all he really remembers are a cluster of things, his sister and the events leading to their inevitable separation, just great.
He sees his own hands move on their own as he forages for food, sees his body stop to look up at the sky, to glare at it with a sort of hatred that’s long wrung dry, now only a shadow of what it once was before.
Somehow, in that now mad mind of his, he still thinks there’s meaning to living it out here for now, even if it meant he had to cope by glaring at the sky as if it's done him wrong (it did, in so many ways). What’s a year or two spent here when he had already lived for centuries? A millennia?
He laments the absence of his wings that had been ripped away, burrow the sorry head of his into his arms, and blames this world for everything that had gone wrong for him to end up here, on a foreign beach shore with the only one he considers family to be ripped away from him, all the way until he blacked out from exhaustion.
Often, he would then wake to a stomach so starved it no longer has the strength to rumble, his brain tearing itself apart because Aether, pick a damn choice. He’s a traveler, who traverses amongst the stars, sees the beginning and end of entities from stars to nations, and he is reduced to something like this. Travelers push forward in the face of an obstacle, but he’s in a standstill, wrought with a myriad of hopelessness coming from all corners of his mind.
In the night when the winds pick up speed, he would sometimes hear a voice. Sometimes it seems to beckon at him, leads his mind to wander towards a certain direction into the woods in the distance, away from the beach. Aether swears he may be hallucinating, but the singing voice came many times, and he thought it may be one of those spirits or forest nymphs that dwell within the loose confines of nature that he’s heard so much of.
Perhaps they also exist in this world? Shy, but kindred spirits born from the natural elements of the world through the wishes of the people. They sing for joy and sorrow, whatever the weather makes them feel; and for the ones who happen upon such a performance, it would be their lucky day.
He has had many lucky days.
He hears the gentle voice beckoning at him clearly, and he did come to depend on it dearly. The voice may be nearby, it may not even be for him, since the winds travel wherever it pleases and descend on whatever lucky soul nearby that can understand the joy of song.
It puts a sort of gauze to the wounds in his heart, but not a cure.
It opens his eyes a little, nudges him a little further, but his heart stays shut behind many locks so nothing can hurt him again.
.
His life flips upside down when he then meets Paimon, whom he fishes out of the open water, gurgling and coughing out water when she hits the shore. He thought that she was the nymph that was singing to him during some lucky nights, but it got quickly debunked when she vaguely implies she came from a distant land and was busy making herself stay afloat than sing him some song.
But it still gives him some hope. Paimon offers to be a good tour guide for him as if she has nowhere else to go, and Aether relates to her. Together, he might find himself stepping foot out of this place for once. Paimon’s presence gave him reason to go forward. The mysterious voice gave him reason to live.
She also displayed an impressive amount of knowledge of Teyvat, yet bears no recognition of the god that Aether described for her. Aether scrawls a few lines on the sand with a dead branch, detailing a basic outline of the god. Even on the sand, the way she stands is imposing, as if looking down on all the others below her. Aether stomps on the sand, burying the picture.
“Hmm,” Paimon mumbles, deep in thought after what he told her. “So when you tried to leave, some unknown god had blocked you and your sister’s path out?”
“Yes,” he says, strained, trying hard to not cuss the god out right then and there. “My memories about anything else may be a dud too, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.”
Paimon’s eyes widen and she rests a hand on her heart, sympathetic and understanding. It’s a nice feeling to be heard and not get questioned about it. “Well, I guess that makes the two of us. I don’t quite remember much either, but I do know enough to help you make your first move. If...you are willing.”
He takes a deep breath as he prepares to tell her, and he feels as if his lungs have finally cleared for the first time in forever.
This is a step forward.
“I’m willing,” Aether says. He omits the singing voice, selfishly keeping it for himself, despite wanting to ask about the existence of it.
.
When he comes face to face with the statue of the Seven, the statue pulses at, to which Paimon found herself surprised. The statue recognizes him for some reason.
He borrows the power of Anemo easily enough that he would feel bad about it if everything around him didn’t feel so muted.
Soon after some trekking along with dirt path to Mondstadt, Aether finds himself hiding behind a trunk in the thick forests in Whispering Woods, finding himself unexpectedly marveling at the large winged dragon he just saw fly over his head just moments before. The large dragon is many times the size of the small figure gently gesturing at him, a fellow clad in green garbs and twin braids trying to coax the tense dragon into ease.
He watches their interactions carefully, but his eyes wander more towards the figure daunted by the dragon instead. It must have triggered something buried in his mind, because parts of his clothing burst with the anemo power he borrowed and catches the dragon’s sharp attention, making it roar and fly into the skies once more.
Before he can catch up to the mysterious fellow whose eyes widened at the sight of him, the figure steps back and disappears into the wind, leaving behind trails of anemo particles and feathers. One of the feathers falls to Aether’s gloves, they crack and shatter and also go with the wind.
Paimon calls him to observe a corrupted tear drop soon after, leaving him no time to think of anything else.
.
(Later on, he’s reluctant to take the job to clean out the temples of the Four Winds, even more so when the Acting Grandmaster offers him a title.
There’s nothing honorary about him. He’s a shell of what he once was, moving where the events lead him to when he tries to find help to look for his sister, a little like how the wind tells travelers where to go.
But he does it anyway because that’s what he was used to--and another piece of him has come back. He has a strong natural inclination to help those in need, even if they are not going to benefit him, even if he himself is hurting. But as some people say, it’s about the journey and not the end goal, these detours won’t distract him from his goal to search for Lumine.)
.
Teyvat has a lot of mysteries. He knows that from the get-go when he and Lumine landed here many many years ago. Not long after he left the beach, a dragon had swarmed over his head, leaving a storm in its wake later that required some damage control. The elements converge naturally throughout each day, which intrigues him because inhabitants in many other worlds do not get such free reign of the elements.
Aether instantly learned to summon swirls of anemo energy in his palms earlier, it felt like second nature. Even Paimon stopped to take a look at it for a little too long so he blew it in her face.
Unlike all other countries, the country of Mondstadt, widely known to be the nation of freedom, wine, and song, is missing its archon.
The knights are surprisingly lenient and open to all foreigners, though they still keep an average amount of vigilance to them once the foreigners walk in.
There are many things happening around him, normal, everyday things. They don’t look like the catastrophe he’s seen hundreds of years ago, Aether thinks as he clutches his heart, where Teyvat is drowned in a sea of red and destruction. The memories overlap with the new ones he makes, and old ones where a spark of green in that backdrop of blood crosses his eyes and—
And it gets a little intense.
“Aether?” Paimon’s concerned voice calls him out of his mind. “Are you alright?”
Grinding his lips to collect himself, the traveler nods with all the mental strength he has.
Thanks to the Anemo Archon, this nation is peaceful. He can’t put the archon in the same category as the one who stripped him of his freedom.
Another mystery Aether cannot seem to solve was him, the enigma built upon layers of enigmas.
His gaze is soft, with an almost melancholic touch to it. It’s certainly a weird look to give to someone you meet for the first time but it is exactly what Aether sees given to him by the bard who was the center of attention just a few moments ago.
He can’t help but look away, his smile feels like the sun is burning him in his place, a smile he doesn’t deserve.
“So, you two were the ones who scared away Dvalin,” the bard acknowledges without much pause, confident hands on his hips, an easy smile that doesn’t reach the eyes.
His voice is worse. It feels familiar and warm, like an echo of something lighting up a muddled past, like a fog slightly lifting in his brain.
Aether remains silent, even though those teal eyes seem to be expecting something that will never come. He looks at the scene behind the bard, unable to look at him any further, those eyes that seem to drag him in further and never let go. The easygoing air around the bard, the way his words ease through with rhymes and song, it’s all captivating and so familiar. Aether can’t find it in him to take the extra step at the moment, because his chest feels so damningly hollow because he can’t remember.
So Paimon led the way, and the duo managed to jump through all the hoops set up in the conversation, where the bard diverts the topic elsewhere with a seamless transition or faking an amnesia act, all that good stuff that easily gets shut down by the grumpy fairy.
Dvalin is Stormterror’s real name, a dragon that the bard is very close to if the dragon’s sudden descent to greet him in his crazed state was anything to go by.
He heralded himself as the best bard of Mondstadt, though Aether wanted to add how the bard should also be named one of the dodgiest people when it comes to talking; just to put in some good balance to the universe, he justifies.
.
Aether goes through the motions of Paimon’s suggestions, bringing out the corrupted teardrop crystal that was now...purified?
Venti gapes at the purification process in awe, only to have his shoulder droop again when he brings out the other teardrop crystal he brought with him. The bard hands the tear to Aether but he keeps his distance from him. Still, that doesn’t mean he can ignore how anticipated he looks.
So he knew that he’s going to try his best, all to get rid of that somber worry on his face, even though he doesn’t know what’s making him feel this way.
The tear is placed on his palm, and to be fair, Aether has no idea how the remnants of his original power flowing within him still manages to purify anything in this state. However, it happened, so he's counting it as a win when he sees the bard flash a small smile.
Something stirs in him, a small cog turning on after a long slumber.
.
The mysterious bard hops off to the Symbol of Mondstadt’s hero, and somehow, Aether manages to envision a great oak tree and a falcon that watches over it before he even reaches there. The current memories that he inhabits show no sign that he’s ever visited Windrise.
It’s strange. It feels so natural to think of it like that.
The tree is humongous even looking at it from a distance, the largest one in the entirety of Windrise, it is certainly something that has had over a thousand years to cultivate along with the blessings of the Anemo Archon.
“Hey Aether,” Paimon says, tapping him on the shoulder. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” Aether admits honestly. “A lot better than when I was back at the beach. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been talking to anyone until you came along.”
Paimon beams, hands tucked behind her back as she flies a little slower. “Now you’ve got a lot of chances to talk. You won’t be alone like back then.”
For some reason, even though he knows those words are meant to be reassuring, he can’t help but dread that he’ll still be alone. Teyvat is a world strange to him, he’s on a bad streak with it already because one of the gods decided to toy with their fates. How is anything going to strike a balance on that tilted scale?
What if he remembers something else Teyvat had taken from him? How much worse would that be make him feel?
“Are some of your memories coming back?” Paimon hovers closer to him, concern written all over her face and arms that are starting to flail.
“I might have, but it's too early to tell. Nothing makes sense to me right now. Can you keep quiet about this for me?”
“You don’t look fine but well...alright,” Paimon nods, smiling sweetly. “Let me know if anything changes.” The fairy is a comfort to have when she’s not stuffed with food or drooling at treasure, he thinks, well, sometimes.
Paimon turns to face the path again. They’re getting closer to the tree, the area around it mostly empty of people. “Oh, look,” she points to a figure clad in green, standing before the trunk in the distance. “There’s the bard!”
The wind amongst the tree smells refreshing. The cool shade provided blocks them from the sun, making the area beneath the large canopy of leaves much like a getaway place from a hectic day.
“Being with you under this tree feels rejuvenating,” Venti sighs in content right as Aether thinks about it as if reading his mind. Or maybe he’s just on the same wavelength as him for some reason. “Just like when you purified the tear earlier.”
He doesn’t understand the ailments caused by the curse, but seeing how the tree’s powers are also able to siphon away what’s poisoning Venti’s body, he has no reason to ask anything else if he’s getting better.
.
Things take on a little spin when Venti suggests they steal from the church since they understandably wouldn’t just lend their precious treasures to some strangers. For some reason, Venti thought it would work. Well, it didn’t so now they’re stuck out on the side of the cathedral, rethinking their plans.
Unaware of the storm brewing inside of the traveler, Venti continues on his tangent to steal the Holy Lyre der Himmel with Paimon interjecting on his every word, as the flippant bard deserved.
Venti claps his hands in enthusiasm. “So, before we initiate my grand plan to save Dvalin, do you have any more pressing questions to ask of me?”
The Anemo Archon.
His heart swells and his vision clears for a second. Heartbeats pound fiercely in his eardrums the moment Venti pulls a stunt before the nun and admits he’s the archon, who obviously didn’t believe him.
For the first time, Aether stammers in front of him, he says something more than a few words of agreement and smart quips to return to sharp tongued individuals. “The Anemo Archon has been absent from Mondstadt for a long time, right?”
Paimon flies near Aether’s shoulder, her hand presses on him, a grounding comfort.
“Hm? That’s right.” Venti shifts his feet back a little. As if he didn’t realize he’s making a distance between them, the bard continues without a problem. He tilts his head, seeming eager to hear him say more despite staying back. “But I’m not going to answer if I’m him or not if that’s what you’re planning to ask.”
The words tumble out like little rocks down a steep slope, uneven and desperate to get to the bottom of something. “It’s nothing like that. I wonder if—if he knows that the world is moving on without him. There's a great event taking place, a somber one, but it feels like a story he would love to write a song about.”
Why was the Anemo Archon’s absence so upsetting, his brain won’t tell him. Instead, the curtains fall and shutters before him once more.
“Ah, I think it may be what he intended to do in the first place.” Venti scratches his cheek as if he’s almost embarrassed to admit it. However, Aether does not miss the way Venti’s eyes light up when he mentions Barbatos for the first time.
Venti then gives a shrug, but not to show he doesn’t care. “However, in his absence, bards like the lovely old me should be more than worthy enough to weave events into ballads. Or is it the Anemo Archon you want to write about your story?”
Aether shakes his head, wondering how he came to that conclusion. “I could care less about who writes about me and what’s written. I’ve never met the Anemo Archon.” The answer’s resolute and clear. He said it himself; he’s never met the Anemo Archon.
He’s new to Teyvat. He’s only getting started, but looking at Venti, an enigma whose song he carries are so alluring that if he blinks he’s afraid he might miss him, and it makes the resounding echo in his chest hurt so much more.
.
They almost get caught, but with Venti’s winds and his natural aptitude for gliding, they make it through the city unscathed and scramble to hide on the second floor of a tavern, to which the tavern owner generously lets them go without question.
The three hide in one of the tables in the corner furthest from the stairwell. Venti squishes himself onto the wall and silently gestures for Aether and Paimon to come. With the loud pump of adrenaline still high on his mind, he doesn’t think twice and also pushes against him.
Aether feels the jolt of a body before he hears the hitch of a breath. The beret miraculously falls over the bard’s face, hiding his flustered face. Something that is uncharacteristic of him to do, go red faced when they’re squished together.
To be honest, maybe that was for the best. His vision goes a little unfocused, and he’s unsure what his mind is making him do.
Venti’s clothes are softer than he expected, silk-like fabric that’s almost slippery, a blouse that is smooth to the touch—
Paimon, for all the sharpness she lacks sometimes, is still vigilant enough to shut them up with a harsh whisper, beyond aghast at their behavior. “You two, stop touching each other when we’re got a crisis on our hands!”
(When he thinks back, there was actually no need to squeeze together like sardines. No one would be able to look up to the second floor when they’re in the corner. He just wasn’t thinking.)
.
Venti doesn’t expect him to full on crash on him when he gestured for them to come. For the record, he thinks he’s doing a great job keeping a distance and keeping portions of the past he needs to be put away.
From the beginning to the current time, Aether has been wary and suspicious of everyone who interacts with him.
And he has the right to.
When things all clear out and they leave this corner space of the tavern, all he can hope is that they can stand next to each other again and carry out the plan to save Dvalin. What happens afterward is something he’ll deal with later.
Like the unchanging winds, he never changes in pushing his personal problems to the next day, preferably forever.
But when Aether begins to feel the sleeves of his blouse, whether he was aware of it or not, he may be a god but he’s—he also has a limit to these things.
Even Paimon of all people noticed.
He’s sure that he was the first one that Aether actively sought out since he woke up. But that was by pure chance, a coincidence that he would leave the beach that very day and stumble into the woods where he finally sees him in five hundred years.
It seems that the universe is still not done with them. They’re not over yet, but he doesn’t want him to remember, not yet, not until he’s ready--
(Like all archons, he is adept at lying, even to himself.)
.
The knights are, to the runaways’ fortune, blatantly blind to the unique features of two wanted persons and a pixie.
A literal fairy.
To the knights’ misfortune, however, even though he wasn’t planning on doing it from the start, Master Diluc found another good reason to not cooperate with them, misleading them with information of the runaways they were pursuing.
After an unexpected twist by getting Diluc in on the plan to recover the Holy Lyre from the Fatuis, they have an extra night. Until Diluc receives news of...wherever he can get his news and intel on, they’re free for a day.
After the entire tavern is swept and mopped from its routine cleaning, Aether moves some of the seats aside to make room for the night, spreading out the soft sheets Diluc offered to him to cushion the hard floor.
Paimon quickly fell fast asleep. As Aether slowly drifts to sleep as well, he feels a familiar presence lie down beside him, humming a tune that made him knock out almost instantly.
He slept well that night, dreaming of someone brushing through his hair and bringing some behind his ear. He dreams of fluttering amongst a crowd of crystal flies and an energetic wind spirit that he had an inkling of who it was, but he forgets about it completely when he wakes up.
Aether spends most of the next day gathering intel of the supposed thieves who tried to steal the Holy Lyre. As Venti is too conspicuous with his get up in general, he’s forced to stay at the tavern all day. He didn’t complain much, as taverns are generally his favorite place to stay when he has enough to afford a few drinks.
As he goes from place to place, he finds out Diluc’s right, the knights really have no clue about them. A small childish part of him is proud, even though he knew he was by no means slick when he snuck to steal the lyre anyways.
.
.
They’ve met for only a short period of time, and amongst the group that came together to recover Dvalin’s tears, Aether actually ends up enjoying the journey to each place a lot, even though the end goal is a grim mission to undertake.
He sees how Venti interacts with them, easygoing and serious when need be. With Aether, however, he still can’t get a firm grasp of his intentions. Venti looks at him a little longer, as if he’s seeing something in him that even he cannot see himself. Something about it is upsetting, because he can’t remember anything, and that he thinks Venti sees just about everything.
It has only been a short period of time, and he knew better than to rush, but it’s driving him mad with how he feels so interconnected with the winds in the sky, with the teal of the bard’s eyes that he’s drawn to every moment, but there’s a gap in his mind that he can’t close at all.
To recover the tears and bring back Dvalin, one of the Four Winds that used to protect Mondstadt and if that fails, they’d have to resort to something more forceful that might end in bloodshed.
But that’s something else to think about when they get to that point, and it’s only a slight possibility, so thinking about it will do nothing but invite unnecessary worry. For now, they've set up camp at the base of Starsnatch Cliff. That way, when the next sunrise hits, they can enter the Thousand Winds Temple at full strength to get the last tear.
By the time Aether enters his tent, Paimon is sound asleep on her side, tucked snugly in her little blanket, curling inwards as she mumbles a few words, something about honey roasted chicken.
He sleeps better that night when he hears the beckoning voice singing from nearby, and this time, he feels like he can finally put a face to it.
.
.
He’s conscious, but not awake yet. He feels his back touching damp wood. His mind feels at peace, a faint song reaching his ears, the power of Anemo coursing through his body relatively comfortably. The wind is very cool on his face as if someone had wiped his skin clean with a damp towel.
Groaning from the growing ache on his back, Aether rubs his eyes wearily with a hand and opens them. Before his eyes lay the entire field of Windrise in his periphery.
Aether jumps in alarm, the events suddenly flooding into his mind:
They were ambushed outside the grounds of the Cathedral.
Aether was caught off guard and held firm in his place by two agents, unable to break free to prevent the sight before him from happening.
Just literal moments ago, Venti was in his usual cheery and playful self after ‘repairing’ the lyre, everything seemed to have signed off to a good end.
Then came the ambush. La Signora’s palm glows bright, gouges deep into Venti’s chest as if looking for his heart. Venti shakes and spasms at the impact, her hand pulling something that belonged to him out.
A gnosis, the name echoes loudly in his mind. He had a feeling he wasn’t supposed to know about it, but he does.
Venti’s on the ground, grunting as he clutches at his chest in visible pain before the Harbinger decided his taunts deserved to get an extra kick to the stomach.
He remembers shouting his name with all the emotions buried within him suddenly bursting to the forefront of his mind, all of it began to gather and scourge underneath the brimming walls of his eyes that never had the chance to fall with tears before he gets knocked out as well.
“Ah, traveler.” The cheer in his voice is much more subdued, his character shifted to a side he hasn’t seen before. The moonlight is bright at this hour, especially at such a height, illuminating the features of his face brilliantly. The face of melancholy and longing. “You’re awake.”
With the cape covering most of him and that indescribable look on his face, he looks even smaller than before. His fingers twitch as if it has memories of its own, wanting to reach to him, but he can’t, he doesn’t remember.
He never calls Aether by his name, nor does he really address anyone he’s interacted with in a way that indicates closeness, but he assumes that’s the nature of a traveling bard; knowledgeable yet unattached to the common language, obsessed with the works of their craft, letting the wind lead them to wherever it goes.
Aether stands before the bard, who is sitting on one of the tree’s huge roots that sprouted from the ground.
“So, you carried us here?”
Venti flails his arms before him like they’re limp slabs of meat, laughing. “You think these can carry you? No, I had the wind give me an extra hand.”
They’re silent on what happened earlier. Unfortunately, Paimon was always the one asking Venti about things, and Aether mostly let her do the talking. With things getting awkward when Paimon is still out cold beside them, Aether realizes he’s on his own for the first time.
“I do not know who took your sister,” Venti finally says to break the silence. It doesn’t look like he’s lying, but he’s not elaborating on it either. Maybe he truly does not know. “But your best bet is to make it for the nation next to Mond.”
“Liyue, was it?” Aether muses.
“Yep,” Venti nods slightly. “It has much more activity compared to Mond, a trading hub that hosts visitors from all over Teyvat and beyond. Perhaps you may be able to find some promising leads there.”
Aether’s breath is caught in his throat when he finally looks at him. Most of the time, the bard is unreadable, reading him is unreliable. But now, Aether can truly say that these are one of those moments where he thinks it’s dumb to assume that the bard would be faking it, faking the wavering of his pupils as he gazes at him, intense longing for something that is no longer there--
Being with him burns. It’s scalding.