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The moment he realised the platform starts to shatter Xiao wasn't afraid. He knew this day would come eventually and he didn't mind to die for someone he cherished. He found the truth about Bosacius and his companions were safe now, he didn't need much to rest in peace.
He hoped Aether will remember him as he remembered fellow yakshas.
With his eyes closed, Xiao felt a light and then his fall slowed. I must have died already, he thought. However, when he opened his eyes, he found the opposite. The same darkness surrounded him and gloomy silhouettes hovered at some distance, watching at him like a pack of hungry dogs.
No... They weren't watching at him. Xiao looked up.
"Aether?.."
He looked the same as usual, except that his hair was not in a braid and seemed to glow against the darkness that surrounded it. And behind his back there were six wings.
"Hold on tight," Aether said and pulled him close.
Xiao hugged him back, his gaze fixed on the wings. They were small and not bird-like at all, more like crystalflies. "How can you fly with them?" flashed through his head. At that moment Aether flaped his wings and they turned into light flashes, sending them up on high speed.
At some point that was even scarier than just falling. For a moment it seemed to Xiao that surrounding turned into blurred lines. He snuggled up closer to Aether, hiding his face in crook of his neck.
On the surface while others slowly came to their senses, Yelan looked around searching for the lost members of their group.
Suddenly she heard a sound ramble and her legs shake for a moment.
The lightning broke out of the ground and raised to the clouds. It looked like a small star.
Then the star became a meteor - it started to fall and its glowing faded in a moment.
Yelan breathed out and rushed in the direction where star falled. Luckily it wasn't so far.
When they broke out from Chasm, Aether's wings returned to their original form and shattered into sparks. By inertia they flew over the Chasm and then started to fall again. Aether opened his glider but it was designed for one person and therefore it was strongly heeled to the side.
Approaching the ground, Aether realized: even if they don't crash, a soft landing won't shine for them. At the very ground he folded the glider and turned around in the air so as not to fall on Xiao.
He felt the meeting with the earth very distinctly, when something broke in his chest and he felt unbearable pain. From surprise Aether screamed, tears came to his eyes. He loosened his arms and Xiao rolled to the side not far away from him.
Coming back to senses Xiao slowly got to his knees and tried to catch his breath, he felt dizzy. The fall didn't hurt him much, a few more bruises meant nothing.
All of a sudden goosebumps ran down his back, something touched his sence. He turned around but couldn't see anything unusual, dizziness still assailed him.Then he turned towards Ather and crawled up to him.
Aether looked no better than Xiao himself. His loose hair lay on the ground in a mess, streaked with dust, lost all its brightness. A large abrasion was visible on his shoulder under a torn sleeve, his face turned pale and with each breath it was distorted by a grimace of pain.
Xiao gently called him by name, Aether opened his eyes. His gaze seemed a little bit strange.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
Aether took another breath and said hoarsely, "Guess I broke a rib or two."
Xiao felt anger rising from his stomach. He suppressed his voice so as not to shout at Aether when he was in this state and hissed, "The hell you took such a risk? What use of you dying with me?"
Aether pressed his lips, eyes narrowed, he said very calmly, "We'll get back to this conversation later."
"Hey! Conquer of Demons!"
Xiao looked up to the calling. That was Yelan. She ran towards them with all her might. As she approached, Xiao said, "We need to transport Aether in a safe place and find a healer. It seems he can't move by himself."
Yelan looked at Aether and noded.
"And you?" she asked.
"I'm fine."
Others rushed in too. Itto immediately started yelling and asking questions, which made Xiao annoyed so he decided to completely ignore him.
Shinobu gave Aether an appraising look. Then she turned to Itto and ordered to take the patient to the Bubu Pharmasy. When Itto approached, Xiao glared at him with no good intent.
"Little dude, I'm trying to help. Please, don't eat me alive, okay? Besides you too need to see a doctor." Itto said.
Xiao hummed, stood up and walked few steps away, without taking his eyes off them. Yelan used her vision to ease Aether's pain a little so the journey wouldn't be a torture for him. Xiao followed them to the city gates. He didn't dare to step in, afraid without Aether's subduing aura his karma would hurt mortals.
"Where's Xiao?" Yan Fei asked all of a sudden. It seemed no one noticed the moment he left.
***
Aether slept for two days and one night. Bai Zhu gave him some medicine and said that because Aether exhausted both body and spirit it's better to stay in bed and let himself to focus on restoring vitality. So he followed Bai Zhu's advice.
On the second night Aether woke up without the reason. He was lying in bed, not moving and listening to surrounding sounds. Then his sence was touched, someone aproached his room. He could guess without mistake who was this person. He wanted to say his name out loud but at the last moment changed his mind and tightly pursed his lips.
Xiao appeared on window frame from thin air but for some reason he didn't stepped into the room. He sat on the frame, his eyes met Aether's in the dark.
"What? Don't look at me like that." he said after they watched each other for some time.
“If you hadn’t been wounded and exhausted, I would've hit you." Aether said very seriously. His face seemed frozen like a mask, only eyes betrayed his true emotions - burning anger with something very very familiar to Xiao. He had seen it in his eyes before.
"You're the only one who is wounded and exhausted here. Keep your anger for better times." Xiao said. He jumped from the window frame inside the room and went to Aether's bed. Sitting on the edge, he took out a qingxin flower from his sleeve and placed it at the head of the bed.
"Are you feeling better?" He asked.
"Don't do this again. Ever."
Xiao looked him in the eyes and felt uneasy. He didn't doubt the rightness of his act but for some reason he also felt guilty. "I won't do that again" would've sounded stupid from him, so he sighed and said nothing.
"The one person I cared about left me alone. And when I found her she left me once more. Now you..." Aether's breath fastened a bit. He frowned in pain and became silent for a few seconds. Then he continued, his voice quiet.
"Now you too wanted to leave me forever. I hate you... I hate both of you."
In the dark Xiao could see his eyes glittered.
He moved closer and softly touched Aether's cheek. Xiao wished he could brush away all sorrows from Aether's heart but how could a creature like him bring something good in life of another.
"I told you yaksha's life is a turmoil. But you still insisted to get closer to me. And where has it lead you?"
"I did. And I have no regrets." Aether said adamantly.
"I'm gonna prevent all your attempts of self-sacrifice and reprimand you after. As you said a bond can't be severed."
Xiao's heart was bitter. He said, "At that moment I couldn't come up with anything better. Pushing you to the verge of death with me would've been a selfish decision. I don't want you to die."
"Don't even think of dying without me!"
Aether angrily folded his arms and turned his face away. Does he find a pleasure in acting like a disobedient child, Xiao thought.
"By the way," Xiao looked at him with a soft smile.
"Didn't you said you can't fly anymore?"
"I can't fly away from this world." Aether corrected him. "But I still has wings. A total of six, it's just I can't use them."
"Why so many? Two is enough for birds to fly."
Aether chuckled, "I'm a traveler after all, not a bird. Two - for gliding, four - for flying, six - for traveling. I can summon only two but it's a waste of strength since I has a glider. With all six I can fly at speed of light."
"Speed... of light?" Xiao looked at him confused.
"Yes, it's about three hundred thousand kilometers per second. This is the speed of light." Seemingly Aether forgot that he was offended just now. "You see the distance between worlds is so big that you can travel between them only at speed of light. But because I lacked of powers we moved far slowler..."
Xiao couldn't find what to say. Sometimes he couldn't understand Aether at all. He had no idea about huge amount of things traveler mentioned in random conversations. Seemed that in his world all this information was some all known facts. No wonder Aether so well versed in ancient mechanisms.
Xiao decided to use this opportunity to take the conversation the other way.
"If you're lacking of powers how could you summon all six?" he asked.
"Zhongli extended me a helping hand. It was enough for a few seconds to catch you and run away. I can't imagine what we would be doing without him."
Xiao remember the moment when his sense was touched. So it wasn't a mistake. The Lord of Geo really was there.
"After so many years I still give him trouble." Xiao muttered.
Aether moved to the side, inviting Xiao to lie down next to him. Xiao did as he wanted and carefully hugged him, trying not to distorb his wound.
It seemed someone washed and combed Aether's hair because it smelled like medical herbs. Xiao took a curl in his hand and ran his finger over it. He couldn't forget the glow he saw in the Chasm.
"I suspect it's not a trouble for him," Aether said. He couldn't stay awake for long and felt sleepy again. In the dark he found Xiao's hand and moved it to his face for a small kiss. After that he closed his eyes and stoped moving, his breath started to slow down.
Xiao watched at his face for some time, inwardly thanking Morax and fate for sending him that person.
"Sweet dreams." He whispered and a little smile played on his lips.