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Decay is a constant wherever Aether goes.
It happens in him – stars decay until they burn out, and all that’s left is a core with its own pull and weight. It happens to gods – Zhongli calls it erosion, Ei calls it the antithesis of eternity. Decay is a constant thing, destruction that paves the way for creation. Wipe away the excess and let new buds bloom in their place.
Nuclear decay is Aether, the radiation that makes Geiger Counters click.
Decomposition however – that’s a different thing entirely.
---
Teppei dies when Aether fights Ei, he finds out.
His body couldn’t keep up – rapid aging and rapid bodily changes put his organs into shock, and then his brain stopped working. The body decays faster than it could recover, and it doesn’t take long at all for organs to start breaking down, for the heart to start failing and for the brain to begin breaking down.
His heart flatlines. Brain activity goes silent. Aether only finds this out afterwards, when he stumbles out of Ei’s Plane of Euthymia and passes out on the steps of Tenshukaku. When he wakes and is cleared for adventuring again, he passes by the house that Teppei stayed in to train his squad.
A squad that lost its captain, it seems.
Aether leaves a pot of dendrobium flowers on the veranda, and stares silently at the door.
---
Signora’s death is different. More visceral. More real. Maybe it’s because Aether was there when it happened. Was there to witness the last few embers of her life die out, and witness her final moments with his own eyes.
Maybe it’s because he feels responsible for it. He challenged her to a duel before the throne, knowing the consequences of what would happen if he won or lost.
And he won. He beats Signora as electro runs across his fingers and she screeches and screams but the Raiden Shogun’s blade knows no mercy. Signora dies and the flames die and fade away, leaving only long scorch marks on the tatami mats. There is no body to bury, only a funerary mask lying innocently on the floor.
Like it hadn’t just adorned a dead woman’s face moments before.
The rest…was a blur for Aether really. He’s killed before – that much is true. His hands aren’t spotless, he’s had blood that didn’t belong to him splattered across his face. But Signora’s death felt different.
Felt more real. Maybe it’s because Aether was responsible. Maybe because this wasn’t a warzone and this wasn’t a requirement.
A duel before the throne. The loser would face divine punishment whilst the victor gains a second chance.
Divine punishment. A second chance.
Aether thinks on the events, on the decisions he’s made and the actions he had taken and wonders if the story could have gone differently.
---
He accompanies Kazuha’s to his friend’s grave, a short ritual where Kazuha feeds his friend’s cat, make sure she’s okay, and Aether, needing a distraction and needing a reprieve, asks to come along.
“Sure,” says Kazuha, smiling softly. “I’ve always wanted to introduce the two of you anyways.”
The sword that stands as a grave marker is filled with notches, speaking to years upon years of swordsmanship. At its base, where the blade had been plunged into the earth sits a Vision, grey and cold, with no elements to its name.
On a nearby rock, dozes a white cat, content in its rest. It’s ear flicks a bit, and Kazuha takes easy steps towards it, locating the small plate it fed from and placing a few small bits of meat in the dish.
“Her name is Tama,” Kazuha says, not rising from his crouched position, instead reaching out a bandaged hand to gently run his fingers through Tama’s fur. “It’s not the most creative of names, but to be fair I wasn’t the one to name her.”
“Who did then?” Aether asks, crouching down beside him.
Kazuha smiles, just a bit. “My friend. Tomo was his name. He thought it would be cute.”
“Oh,” Aether replies quietly. “I see.”
Kazuha smiles, and then turns to face the sword. “Hello Tomo. I’m here again, and this time I brought a friend. His name is Aether, and he a traveller looking for is sister. He’s travelled a long way to come to Inazuma.”
Kazuha steps to the side, and gestures wordlessly. A silent invitation for Aether to say his own piece to the sword, to Tomo.
“Hello,” Aether begins, because that’s the easiest part – the greeting. What comes next is a little trickier, a little more complicated. “It’s nice to meet you.”
---
When they leave Tomo’s grave, with a whisper to Tama to “be good” they take their journey back to find the path up the cliff, is when Aether asks “We’re you ever worried that people would forget about your friend?”
Kazuha laughs a little at that. “Not really no. Because the wind still blow his name across nations and the nature of the world still speak of his feats. I don’t think anyone would forget, not really.”
Aether smiles, and points up to what is now a star filled sky. “And the stars shall always remember him too. His constellation, which ever one it is, they all still sing for him. The universe won’t forget him for a long time.”
Kazuha smiles, and pulls Aether into a hug, resting his head on Aether’s shoulder. “Thank you,” he says, voice thick with relief but still there. “Thank you for telling me that his legacy is still there. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” he chants, and he squeezes tighter, as if it would convey everything he’s trying to say.
Aether laughs, and hugs him back, and whispers, “Kazuha, the universe will always have a place for you and Tomo. I can promise you that much.”
Kazuha clings tighter. Two lonely boys aren’t ready to let go yet. Give them time – they deserve it, after all they have been through.
---
When he returns to Liyue for a visit, it’s with new bandages lining his back and across his arms – hiding burns from both flame and lightning under white gauze. Xingqiu and Chongyun chance upon him first, and their gaze lingers on the bandages, the obvious question left hanging in the air.
It’s Chongyun who asks first – never one to leave loose strings untied – and he asks “Aether? What happened?”
Aether sucks in a breath. “A fight.” He answers, but it barely scratches the surface of what happened in Inazuma, does not summarise the events that led up to him standing in Liyue Harbour, covered in bandages and eyes distant. But Chongyun and Xingqiu aren’t the kind of people to pry when it’s serious – Xingqiu has his own methods of getting information, and he’ll end up sharing it with Chongyun anyways.
So instead, the two boys grab Aether by the arms and drag him towards Wanmin Restaurant, filling him in on what had happened in the harbour – Zhongli was sighted chasing a green-clad bard down the streets, Childe hasn’t left Liyue but has started taking commissions from the Adventurers Guild, Xiangling has come up with a new recipe, Hu Tao is still advertising and the Liyue Qixing are still overseeing affairs.
Inazuma had been an adventure from start to finish – and there are still places Aether hasn’t explored yet – but despite that, it’s it good for him to return once in a while.
---
When Aether seeks out Childe at the Northland Bank, he holds Signora’s Funerary Mask in his shaking, trembling hands, and when Childe catches sight of it, he sighs, taking the mask off the side of his head and pressing it to his chest, a mockery of a salute.
“So, the message wasn’t a lie then,” Childe says quietly after a beat of silence had passed. “She’s actually dead.”
Aether fidgets. “I’m sorry.”
Childe huffs, a neutral sound for the tension that hangs in the air. “What are you sorry for? It’s not like you were the one to kill her.”
Aether fidgets more. His hands tremble and shake. The burns under bandages – epically the one that was caused from a direct strike of Signora’s flaming whip striking his upper arm – begins to itch, and Aether sucks in a breath and silently counts to ten.
“I challenged her to a duel, knowing the consequences,” Aether whispers into dead, thick air, and Childe puts his mask back on the side of his face and take quick steps to guide Aether to sit in a chair instead of collapsing on the floor.
Has his breathing gotten quicker? Aether can’t tell. He can’t stop the words coming out of his mouth.
“I basically killed her – it’s my fault, really,” Aether continues, the words picking up speed. “I didn’t need to challenge her – The Shogun didn’t even leave a body so there’s no one to bury and I shouldn’t feel guilty but I do and archons above why does this hurt?”
Childe kneels in front of Aether, gently taking Signora’s mask away and setting it on the chair beside Aether, taking the obvious measure to keep it out of the star-born boy’s sight.
“Did you mean for her to die?” Childe asks, voice low and even, and Aether is reminded that despite everything, Childe, Tartaglia, Ajax is an older brother first. “Aether, did you mean to kill Signora?”
Aether shakes his head, the words getting caught in his throat, refusing to come out. Ajax places his hands on Aether shoulders, grounding him to the present. “Did you want to kill Signora?”
Aether manages to choke out a quiet “No,” whispered into the space between them. He can vaguely hear someone saying they’ll go get a glass of water and Ajax thanking them, footsteps moving away from them.
Then a glass of cold water is pressed into Aether’s hands, and a gentle “You need to drink this Aether,” from Ajax, and Aether takes slow sips, and his breaths come slower and easier now, the rush of panic from earlier fading away.
Ajax has one hand on his shoulder, still kneeling on the ground before Aether, keeping his gaze on Aether’s face, watching for any signs of lingering panic. “It’s not your fault,” Ajax says, and Aether’s hand tighten around the cup. “She accepted that duel knowing the risks. It’s not your fault.”
“But it is,” Aether whispers quietly, “isn’t it?”
Ajax gently takes the glass from Aether, setting it next to the mask in the chair over, and slowly pulls Aether into a hug, one that the boy could easily escape but instead Aether finds himself burying himself into it, grabbing the back of Ajax’s jacket – seeking the grounding presence of someone who is alive, alive, alive.
“It’s not,” Ajax reassures, petting the back of Aether’s head with gentle strokes as Aether feels tears well up behind his eyelids. “I can promise you that much. And I don’t break promises.”
---
Teppei’s body had been cremated and the ashes scattered to the seas of Watatsumi Island – returning to the oceans where all living beings come from. To return to swim within the ocean much how his ancestors did once upon a time. A ghost returning to a more primordial time. Aether knows that much at least – returning to the ocean, returning to star dust. Those things come easy.
Signora however, with no body to bury and no ashes to scatter – who had turned herself into liquid flame that was only contained by the manufactured chill of a Delusion, and therefore there is nothing for the universe to claim as it’s own. She’ll never return to the earth and sea her ancestors once roamed – forever lost to the material world.
But she’s still there – the ghost of a human now inlaid within the energy of the universe, shifting and changing to meet with the rest of the world. Ashes and cinders mean naught when she has become the energy that thrums through out the universe.
Signora, whose true name is lost to the sands of time and history itself, returns to the universe as something else, and whilst Aether doesn’t know if she was a tragic figure or not, he at least hopes that the universe welcomes her home all the same. It is not cruel, after all – it cares for all it’s children the same.
---
Erosion. Decomposition. Nuclear decay.
All terms for things breaking down – for things to slowly fall apart, each applied to a different living being, immortals included. Nuclear Decay happens with Aether, the radiation that makes the Geiger Counters tick. Erosion is for gods and other such immortals, for minds to break and for old memories to fester in the dark.
Decomposition then, as it stands, is for mortals. Those who won’t live to see entropy cause the eventual collapse of the universe, but they do move onwards, un-hurried by such things. No one is truly immortal in the grand scheme of things – no one can live forever, that’s not a thing that allowed. No machine is designed to last, and nothing is designed to live forever.
Even stars burn out and die. That’s the constant Aether has grappled with for years. But radiation is an old concept, and the universe is an older being still.
And the universe takes those who have finally broken down back into the matter of the universe – whether it be the atoms that make up the world or the energy that powers it – and welcomes them home. Death is not an end after all.
All it does is pave the way for something greater, something more.
But for now, Aether is content in his existence. He still has questions that need answers – what happened 500 years ago, where is his sister, what the truth of this world could be – but for now, he lives and breathes just like everyone else.
Decay is a constant. Change is too.