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In the lull of the last night of the festival, everyone else, even Paimon had fallen asleep, Aether was staring at the dying fire.
Seeing the Kamisato siblings interact as well as Klee and Albedo throw in stark relief of something Aether had been trying to ignore.
Aether had at some point stopped looking.
They had once been twins, Aether thought melancholy, but now we were just strangers that shared a similar face.
He would keep going forward, it was the only thing he could do, keep looking for answers. Even if the questions and answers were something that he feared.
There was so much he didn’t know, didn’t understand, but he knew he would choose people over ideology every time, and the gods counted as people. They were just flawed as the rest of the mortals and immortals. Just as deserving to try again like the rest.
Aether watched as a spark floated in the air and turned to ash.
Knowing that this was his truth, did not make the fact that Lumine and he would likely come to head, likely on the opposite side of this all any easier to face.
So he had stopped looking because he hadn’t been ready to face the future.
Face the reality that the Lumine that was his sister, his twin was but a ghost in his memory.
Just as he was probably a ghost in hers’.
Aether stood and smothered the last of the burning of the ashes. He was dancing in circles with his thoughts. He should sleep.
Aether worshiped no gods in this world and next, but as he lay on his sleep roll closing his eyes, he wished.