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Lets make a deal, the voice near the archon statue spoke.
Your life, for the protection of your sister's.
Okay, Aether whispered, dull-eyed and out of time.
Okay.
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Aether had nothing, since he came to this world.
His powers, his prince status, his very being had gone, leaving him as just a simple traveler with an extremely decorative sword.
A useless person in a useless place.
He had stared down at his own two hands, devoid of any abyssal markings. devoid of the myriad of scars, inflicted by himself and his enemies.
His eyed strayed to his arms next, pitifully lean and lacking all the muscle Aether had acquired from working for well over a millennia.
Even his face--glimpsed from an oddly still river--is changed, different. Gone was the gaunt, thin structure that Aether was used to staring listlessly at in mirrors, replaced by a stranger. Youthful and innocent in appearance, an air of curiosity around him, Aether looked nothing like how he used to.
The only remotely similar thing was his eyes--previously gold, now the deep purple of the abyss. Aether's reflection stared hollowly back at him from the water.
It felt--wrong.
It wasn't him.
it wasn't him.
Aether staggered away from the water and didn't look back.
(If he avoided any and all clear surfaces after that, there was no one to find out.)
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His next instinct was to walk.
Aether isn't sure where his legs take him, stumbling over the slightest of bumps in the grass, aching at distances he would have never flinched at before.
Aether pauses in front of a town, surrounded by familiar walls.
(If he concentrates, he can picture a girl with bright blonde hair running across the stone steps. She smiles, opening her hand to show him a bug she caught, and he--
A flutter of wings and the mirage is gone.)
Aether's hands shake for a brief moment, before he turns and walks away from that too.
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A thought flickers to him in the middle of the night, staring over the grassy hills at the flickering light of a lone torch.
Lumine.
His breath catches and Aether turns his gaze to the sky.
(It seems, maybe he has something left after all.)
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The irony isn't lost on Aether when he starts looking for Lumine.
Their roles are switched now--completely twisted from his original world.
(Does Lumine even exist in this one?)
His feet carry him past familiar yet strange lands, lands once seen in a distant world, so long ago.
Aether wonders how long it will take to find Lumine. She'd walked and walked for years before he even spared her a glance, too caught up in the abyss and affairs to even notice the person he used to call precious had awoken.
He remembers her clear as day--even after over a millennia.
Aether would replay memories in his mind every day, back when he had something to call his own. Every night, he dreamt of her golden eyes and bright smile, of her little mannerisms, clinging and memorizing every small things.
So he wouldn't forget.
So Aether could cling to the semblance of warmth he used to have.
He wondered if Lumine did the same.
He wondered if she would recognize the person he's become.
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He found her.
In a field of flowers Aether never bothered to learn the name of, Lumine knelt.
Her back was turned to him, and Aether tentatively stepped forward, closer and closer.
Aether tries to say her name but the words don't come.
Lumine.
Her eyes widen, flickering to him as she turns.
"I'm sorry," she says, flowers bunched in her hands.
"Do i know you?"
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Aether isn't sure when he started walking again. His legs move, but can't feel them. He can barely feel himself breathe, and wonders if he had died.
Aether wants to stop--to slow down, to turn back, but his body keeps moving forward, walking, walking.
The sun is bright against his eyes, nearly blinding.
It reminds him of Lumine.
Lumine, and the way she looked through him.
Lumine, content and happy.
His back hits something rough and solid and Aether lets himself slump against it.
His head rings, buzzing with static as he stares.
How could she forget him?
The grass was green, a pale, dull color.
How could Lumine forget?
His hands are trembling, shaking ever so slightly as Aether watches them.
How could Lumine forget when he remembered?
There's a bird on a faraway branch. It's feeding its chicks. It's bright blue.
He had remembered every single memory, every single mannerism, he had remembered her--
Aether wonders why he can't seem to see properly, everything blurred into colors and shapes.
He remembered, he remembered, why--
Something warm drips onto his palm and Aether watches the teardrop roll down his hand.
It hurts, it hurts,--
Aether tries to breathe and finds he can't.
His hands shake as he chokes through gasps of air.
Why does he always have to carry the burden?
Somehow, his hands wind up in his hair. Aether curls into himself as he sinks his nails into his skin.
Even when he was younger, even when they were still a family, Aether had taken the weight of being unloved, of being the dimmest star, had worked until he couldn't stand to make her smile--
He can't breathe. He can't. He can't.
Fingers tighten around his throat(when had they gotten there), and he lets the feeling of dying overtake him.
(Surely, he had to be dying? Surely, he couldn't live like this.)
Aether had done everything for her, so why can't she--
His vision swims with splotches of black, dim and gentle. A small, shaky whimper tears itself from his throat and aether can feel his conciousness dim.
(He doesn't fight it. He welcomes it.)
(Enough, please. He's had enough.)
His lower half gives out and Aether's sprawled on the grass, flat on his side.
(He can feel himself slipping.)
Everything fades into a soft black.
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Aether's eyes open to the light of the moon. Something inside of him prickles with disappointment before it, too, is snuffed out, leaving him hollow.
...
Aether's head spins as he pushes himself up.
It turns out he didn't have anything, after all.
(He was stupid for ever hoping he did.
First Khaenri'ah, now Lumine.
Everything he cared for was wrenched from him and gone.)
His leg almost gives out as he stands. Aether catches himself against the tree he slept against and the scratches on his back ache.
He staggers forward and begins to walk, stumbling, heavy steps.
He walks in the direction he'd seen Lumine.
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Aether followed her.
Through the adventures and her laughter, through conversations with her companions and occasional bickering.
Aether watched, her bright voice echoing hollowly in his ears.
You used to speak to me like that, he thinks blearily, after another night of restlessness.
He wants to speak. to himself, to her.
To say the words aloud and give them meaning.
His mouth refuses to open and any meaning he's had vanished long ago.
Aether fights the desperate urge to scream.
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He can't sleep.
Every dream he has is about Lumine.
About her voice, her face, the way she would wrinkle her nose in displeasure if Aether brought her a toy she didn't like.
Of her first drawings that she had shown to him, of her introducing her first girlfriend to him.
Of their laughter, of memories he could never share.
Aether walks in a haze, every movement slow and jerky.
He has to remind himself to breathe, has to snap himself awake, has to stop himself from collapsing.
He walks, and walks, and walks until he crumples to the ground, and can't force himself to move more.
(And even then, he can't sleep. His body weighs heavy as lead. lifting it is a struggle, a fight to keep himself standing.
But if he falls, he'll lose the only thing he has. He can't lose Lumine. He's already lost her.)
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It's like he's in a trance. He's walking aimlessly, breathing aimlessly, starving aimlessly, staring aimlessly, living aimlessly.
If when he eats, the food is tasteless and dry against his tongue. Sometimes, it fills with mouth with the flavor of ash.
His only thought is Lumine. He can only feel a resemblance of something other than aching when he watches her. A brief comfort, until she turns away from him and he loses sight of her face.
He's lost weight, he thinks, when his clothes sag off him and he shivers in the heat of the sun.
(Does it really matter? No one is there to care.)
Aether keeps walking, dragging himself after his sister.
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If Aether was still an abyss prince, he would scoff at himself.
The gaunt, haggard look of his past had returned, turning the youthful, soft appearance of his body into one of the beggars Aether used to see.
Haunted, dark eyes and a body that constantly shook in summer heat. Skin that clung to him too tightly.
He supposes it fits.
He'd been begging for Lumine to spare him a glance for months now, after all.
She hasn't even noticed he was there.
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It happens one day, when Lumine is exploring some ruins.
Aether managed to push himself past the various traps, almost staggering into every single one of them.
Sweating from the exertion, Aether pressed himself into an empty space between two walls, letting himself slump against the cold stone.
It offered no comfort to him, but at the very least Aether could see Lumine without being spotted.
If she ever found him, ever told him to leave....
Aether doesn't know what he would do, without the only person he had.
Without the only person who had ever looked for him. even if that was worlds away.
(Something inside of him knows what he was doing was wrong. Something inside him told him to leave. But how was Aether supposed to survive without her? He didn't want to forget.)
It happened when Lumine was turned.
The ruin hunter she had thought was disabled flickered to life, and Aether tensed.
Lumine wouldn't notice if it swung--
Aether forgot himself made a decision and moved.
He couldn't even blink before he was crushed flat against the wall, tumbling through it and crashing into marble.
The world flashed colors and he struggles to scramble back from the protruding metal of the ruin hunter.
His arms give out before Aether could put weight on them, and his head drops against the marble again, a soft crack echoing throughout the room.
His vision blurs as he lays flat against the stone, dazed and unable to move.
Aether could hear someone make a strangled noise, could hear ragged breaths.
Something warm seeped through his clothes, pooling around his waist.
He squints, trying to see through the dark spots in his vision, trying to hear through the ringing in his ears.
Lumine...? He thinks groggily, his vision dulling to a familiar black.
(Is this where he dies?)
I have to... find Lumine... Aether tries to push himself back up, collapsing back again.
Is she hurt...?
He manages to push himself back a slight bit, his back now fully pressed against the marble.
His blood drips onto the stone.
(Something stirs, dark and hungry.
She's hurt, it whispers to him.
What? Aether makes the mistake of whispering back.)
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Aether wasn't noticed by Lumine as she left.
His bloodied body was left to rot.
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A week later, the figure of a thin man emerged from the ruins. His hair and clothes were stained with blood, his unfocused eyes glowing a dull purple.
I have to find Lumine, he thought.
_________________________________________________________
The Aether of old would have thought twice.
The Aether of old would have been able to dismantle the ruin hunter without breaking a sweat.
The Aether of now can't even speak without his throat closing in.
"Would you like to protect your sister, or watch her die?"
"You're so pitiful. you can't even defeat one ruin guard--how are you going to protect her like this?"
Aether had accepted without a second thought.
"I need sacrifices--I need blood. Once per week is enough."
Once a week. It was doable.
He would do it for Lumine.
He had to.
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Blood stains his hands.
He's gasping, short, panicked breaths.
Aether watches it drip into the bucket at he's kneeled over--his hands clinging to the rim so tightly he can see the bone.
His head spins and he has to catch himself against the floor before he collapses against it.
He's doing it for Lumine.
Aether fights to keep his eyes open.
He's doing it for Lumine.
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"You're going to be unable to move if you keep this up."
The voice of the abandoned statue speaks to him.
It doesn't matter.
Aether keeps walking.
"Eat something."
(He can't.)
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His legs give out in the middle of the night, sending him stumbling down a hill into a tree.
"I told you," The statue says disapprovingly as Aether gasped for breath, clutching his head and willing the world to stop spinning.
Thorns form around Aether's limp body, lifting him upward.
Where are you taking me?! Aether thinks, a little too panicked, a little too shrill as the thorns sink into his flesh.
He flinches at the feeling of liquid (blood?) being drawn out of his body.
(He hates that feeling more than anything else he can remember.
But he's all too used to it now.)
"Your resting place." the statue responds.
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He can't see.
He can't move his body.
He can't find Lumine.
Where is she?
Aether struggles feebly, clutching at the thorns binding him, drawing droplets of blood.
He needs to find Lumine--
He needs to make sure she's safe.
He needs to see her, please, he needs to find her--
Let me see Lumine, Aether cries out, thrashing with everything he had.
(It was barely anything.)
"You can't see her." The statue responds.
Aether pulls against the thorns winding tighter around his body, sinking needle-sharp points into his flesh.
He had to be able to see her.
He had to.
Let me see Lumine!
His ears ring, barely registering the blood dripping from his hands, the thorns sinking into his throat.
"No."
Why-
"I can't."
No.
No, no, no--
"NO!" Aether screams, doubling over and coughing, and coughing and coughing until he couldn't breathe, blood-stained hands covering his mouth as he struggled to control his ragged breaths, his entire body shaking with the movement.
(He had to be able to see her.)
The thorns dug into his stomach, tearing skin open, crimson dripping from the thousands of little wounds littering his body.
They ached and stung and Aether still couldn't breathe-
(She was the only thing he had.)
Please, he thinks deliriously, kicking at the thorns and only getting scratches in return.
Please... please...
"Go to sleep Aether," the statue's dull voice broke through the frenzy of Aether's mind.
I NEED TO SEE--
"Go to sleep."
Everything went black.
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Aether isn't sure how long has passed.
Everything blurs together, in the dark. where he can't see his own hand in front of him.
Where nothing speaks to him but the dull voice of the statue.
Where his body is held aloft only by thorns, stabbing his body awake every time Aether wanted rest.
If death was a permanent emotion, Aether thinks this is what it would feel like, a never-ending cycle of suffocating emptiness and overwhelming darkness.
"Why are you still alive?"
Lumine.
I don't know.
Aether has no energy, anymore, can only struggle to keep his eyes open in the infinite void of the chasm where his body rests.
He's an existence who was never known.
Nobody will remember him, a person who was never known.
Aether closes his eyes.
He just wants to forget.
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"Your sister and those archons have destroyed Celestia," the statue murmured.
They both knew what that meant.
"Her story has come to an end." There's no need to protect her.
Why... are you still here then? Aether avoids the unspoken message, responding sluggishly.
"I am tied to you,"
He closes his eyes at the short answer.
Can Lumine still get hurt?
"...Yes."
...
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Aether stayed.
Long after the statue stopped responding to him, long after the thorns lost their force.
He stayed.
(And mourned.)