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Aether’s built things before, even before a teapot was placed in his hands. He’s sat in research labs and workshops and he’s built trains and telescopes and carved little birds that he still keeps in a pocket.
He’s built things before. He doesn’t get many chances to do that now – Teyvat lacks things like lithium batteries and integrated circuit boards, but Aether makes do. It’s something he and his sister has done, over and over again.
Adapt to the situation. Let their nuclear forges burn away until their own supernova consumes them whole.
---
Aether hates the bottom the Chasm. The sky that he loves is not visible to him, so he instead listens to the slow trickle of water that worms it’s way into the little space that they have. Paimon is in his lap, fast asleep, and he’s remained there, not willing to wake his companion up.
There’s a body that drops itself next to him, and only a slight turn of his head reveals it to be Xiao, cross-legged as he leans his polearm against his shoulder, looking rather put-out by the situation. “The situation isn’t getting any better,” Xiao mumbles, dropping his head on Aether’s shoulder. He’s gotten better with touch, Aether notes, and Xiao sighs and gives the opposing wall a glare. “If sacrificing me isn’t an option, then what’s left?”
Aether does a half-shrug, careful not to jostle Xiao too much. “Yanfei has some theories in regards to the Fantastic Compass she’s trying to find, but beyond that, no idea.”
Xiao sighs again, and closes his eyes. There’s no point keeping vigilance in a pocket of suspended time. “Tell me a fact.” He finally voices, and Aether blinks.
“What kind of fact?” Aether asks, and Xiao shrugs.
“I don’t really care. Just something interesting.”
Aether thinks, and then he speaks. “Well, some planets are made of layers – and I wouldn’t be surprised if Teyvat is one of them. We’re currently in the crust of the planet – and that’s only around 5 to 70 kilometres in depth. In comparison to the other layers, the crust is quite young – younger than me, but definitely older then you or Zhongli…”
---
When Xiao attempts to sacrifice himself, Aether feels the tug of gravity, and he grabs Xiao by the arm and pulls.
In the grand scheme of the universe, planets will always orbit stars. Aether’s always had a bit of an odd gravity about him.
---
After a year, Aether returns to the islands of the Golden Apple Archipelago. The sand is still white, and his boots leave little indents in the sand. Fischl and Mona both run off to swim, and Xinyan busies herself with cooking lunch, Paimon floating around her to help.
Aether, with a lack of anything better to do, trails after Kazuha. They find the remains of a Fatui camp, and a Fatuus that panics over a lost hat until Aether gently takes it from Kazuha’s hands and presents it to the Fatuus.
“This is yours, isn’t it?” Aether asks, slow and careful. “Do you wish for it back?”
The Fatuus claims the hat with shaky fingers, and Aether smiles before a researcher makes himself known, and shoos both him and Kazuha away.
They note the encounter down for later, and Aether makes a second note to check about what has changed about the Islands.
---
And then the mirages appear, and Kazuha faces his past with a sort of deep-seated grief running through his bones. A genetic memory spanning of centuries.
Generational trauma is so often learned. But Kazuha pulls away from his past, and all Aether can do is watch from the sidelines, his old, old eyes watching the scene in front of him.
“Do you feel guilty for what had happened?” Aether asks, once there’s a lull and Kazuha’s finished picking apart his fish.
“Not really,” Kazuha replies, frowning. “Is that bad? I don’t…I don’t really feel anything, about all my…dirty laundry being aired out, for a lack of a better term.”
Aether shakes his head. “No,” Aether says, returning to his half drawn schematic of an observatory in the sand. “It’s fine. Sorry for asking.”
---
Xinyan’s mirage is loud. Fischl’s is dramatic. Both girls have their own demons, and Fischl nearly shoots her mirror image in the eye. Neither of these things are extra-ordinary, so Aether just spends his time talking to the raven statues scattered around the island.
“I must say, Traveler,” one of the raven’s remark, as Aether crouches next to him after having sought out another secret for a chest. ‘You spend a lot of time among us.”
Aether hums, and picks up an enhancement ore from the chest. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Of course not!” the raven says, the statue turning to face him. “It’s just…well, you do have your friends to speak to, don’t you?”
Aether tilts his head, and shrugs. “They don’t really get it though.”
The raven makes a questioning noise, so Aether explains.
“Being…immortal, I guess. Being aware of the eventual heat-death of the universe. I’ve been alive for around 13 billion years. They don’t get that. No one here in Teyvat really does.”
---
Mona’s mirage brings him closer to the stars then he ever could. The first time he sees them, the swirl of galaxies and stars mixing above him, he falls backwards onto the floor, and just stares.
It’s a painting. It’s the Starry Night, the painting he’s seen in a world long ago, and he can hear the others concerned for him having just basically fallen over, but Aether can’t help it.
He laughs, and it’s not the pretty nor pleasant sounding – it doesn’t sound like ringing bells or chimes or the stars that sing to him. No, but it sounds like the kind of laughter a boy would make, and Aether just laughs as he stares up at the sky, and stares at the stars like he’s seeing them for the first time.
In Mona’s mirage, where the sky meets the sea, Aether turns to it owner and proudly says “Mona! Your mirage is amazing!”
---
“We’ve seen everyone else’s mirages, but we haven’t seen yours!” Paimon says after they resolve the Fatui issue. Aether blinks at the statement, and smiles a bit lopsided, head bowed.
“I don’t think it’ll be anything interesting.” He ends up saying, and Paimon pouts, clearly not pleased with the answer.
“Everyone else got one! So why don’t you?”
Aether shrugs, and his unsteady hands still write out chemical formulas for basalt and granite. ‘I wouldn’t know,” Aether says quietly, stick still drawing in the sand. “Maybe it’s for the best.”
---
They do find something, eventually. Kazuha calls it a strange machine. Xinyan figures it’s not an instrument, and Mona quietly considers it to be an astrolabe, maybe? Fischl doesn’t know what it is, but Aether knows.
It’s a microscope. Not plugged into anything, but the setting are already there and there’s a box of microscope slides sitting next to it. It’s kind of funny, seeing lab equipment on a rock, but it doesn’t stop Aether from pulling the slide containing a blade of grass and sliding it under the scope.
And then – the world changes. The mirage bleeds into their sight and it reveals –
-an endless field of grass, easily rising up to their waist, ruffled by some unknown wind. An endless sky, filled with stars – not stylised like Mona’s, but a real night sky, filled with constellations that only Aether will recognise.
Orion. Leo. The Southern Cross. Aquarius.
They’re hardly in the right spots, and Aether knows it’s not real, but he stares up at the sky and yells:
“Hello! Did you miss me?”
And the stars – whilst not singing back, give their star-borne child a warm welcome back.
---
Aether loves the sky. He loves to build things with his hands, he loves the stars and has always wished to return there someday.
But for now – he settles for this. An endless grassy field, open to an endless sky of stars. His friends, finding new nooks and crannies to stick their hands into. New secrets to uncover, new stories to be made.
Soon, Aether will make his way to Sumeru, the land of the God of Wisdom, where Dendro reigns supreme.
But for now? Aether cups starlight in his hands, and watches the sky run past.