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Death is not the end of life, but the beginning of a journey to immortality and “everlasting joy.”
Cyno falls into step beside him as if he’s always had a place there.
Dar al-Shifa seethes darker than the remainder of Lower Setekh for reasons difficult to explain, distended motionlessly from the sand and clustered by stars. Aether suspects that the Eleazer never truly left this hospital—not in the sense that goes beyond the corporeal. A dwelling can’t hold such corrosion for so long without becoming warped itself. The secondary sickness that haunted these grounds was an illusion made real, drawing rot and blanketing the stones and edifices with the cloying memory of desperation.
The shiver that wracks through Aether’s form has little to do with ancient unrest.
There is perhaps some self-reproach to be had here, Aether admits.
Weeks beforehand, Cyno had tracked him like a bloodhound to the Chasm border only to deliver an unending list of rules and regulations in preparation for this very trip. It had been impossible to suspend disbelief. Aether was considerably versed in the relentless drain of travel, of course. As such, he’d listened, but he hadn’t heard—not really. This becomes all too clear when the sun tumbles out of the sky to give way for the unforgiving cold of night.
The stark difference between the sopping wet humidity of the forest and the desert would threaten to give any person whiplash, but nightfall puts them both to shame. His clothes stiffen with dried sweat and salt from the sweltering heat of the day. Layers of grit chafe him a second skin on top of his pores. As the temperature rapidly drops below zero, Aether sees the herald of a freezing sand storm on the horizon and thinks he’d be remiss to dismiss the warnings of a Matra ever again.
At his side, the General Mahamatra resembles more a specter than any living, breathing thing. Cyno prowls ceaselessly forward without complaint, and does not smile, and does not tire.
Paimon lasts all of ten minutes.
Paimon says, “If you’re quite finished? Paimon can’t stay here another second! The Traveller wanted to wait for you, but we’ve been at this for ho-urs! Tell you what—we'll go collect our portion while you stay and put the lid on this. Yes, this is a good plan. The journey tends to be lengthy this time of year, so don’t wait up. Paimon thinks we’ll stop in Inazuma for a while longer than planned, and while we’re there, you should—”
“I will accompany you,” says Cyno, nonplussed.
They leave the shifting dunes behind and descend into the expansive clearing on foot, the tightly packed earth beneath Aether’s boots a welcome reprieve to the incessant motion sickness. There is still that lingering nausea from the afternoon mirages, but Aether grounds himself on the stable, unrelenting bedrock and inhales deeply.
Today he intends to take the road less travelled by. Literally.
He steps into the radius of a waypoint and muses some more while it predictably comes alive from his proximity, overtaking his vision with brilliant pulses of blue. He feels more than hears the faint exhale of surprise from behind him and briefly divorces his thoughts to consider it. But Cyno doesn’t question, so Aether doesn’t offer him any answers.
Paimon buzzes impatiently by his ear. He swats at her absentmindedly.
That’s two conflicts averted, and none explained. A dynamic is cementing itself, clearly, but to what end? When Cyno had peered over the bustling crossroads of Caravan Ribat and asked Aether to accompany him back to the Great Red Sand, Aether had nearly said “and then what?” Aether is used to being an errand boy for those who need it. Aether sees every eye and mouth as an open question mark, an eventual request. It’s a simple exchange: Teyvat takes everything from him, and he chooses to repay that with goodwill. What else is there?
“One day” —That was Cyno against the banister, slim, calloused hands, and the bronze tattoo— “I’ll gather some flowers that grow in arid desert conditions, and then I was hoping you’d join me in planting them on the remains of the Court of Desolation.”
And that had been Aether’s cue to nod. To smile, to shrug, to say nothing at all.
Instead, he’d blinked, twice, then suggested they find different flowers altogether.
Somewhere between his lapse in sanity and Paimon’s flailing shoe in his face, Aether wondered if he could blame the slipup on the trauma of nearly being buried alive. But the temple had been a few days past by that point. He didn’t think Cyno would fall for it anyway.
The culprit, as usual, was his sister.
Aether thought of his sister most days. Any breaks in the pattern were few and far in-between, with that warm, star-filled laugh always humming just beneath the surface. There were times when the longing cropped up with such intensity it crushed him from the inside out.
Standing there, imbued with grief yet outwardly stoic, Cyno wasn’t nearly as unaffected as he seemed. A trembling fist squeezed rhythmically ‘round the weapon Tighnari left them with, fingertips wet with old blood.
He was like a mirror.
When Aether spoke, he turned his eyes from the village, and Aether almost wished he hadn’t.
Witnessing that gaze was worlds apart from being on the end of it. Aether could suddenly empathize with the various researchers and criminals alike who cowered at the mere notion of facing the General Mahamtra’s scrutiny. Cyno looked through him like he’d done through the crowd, over the Wall of Samiel and past it, as if he could see into the farthest recesses of the desert. He gutted your heart out and passed judgement without mercy. Aether’s stomach burnt, soul and spirit laid bare before that piercing stare.
Cyno regarded him for a long time.
“Very well,” He’d said, and that was that.
Now he stands like a mountain a few feet from reach, immovable and just as silent. None of them carry anything but the clothes on their back. Paimon had been hard pressed to convince him that their shortcuts were completely legitimate and not the result of forbidden knowledge, tying up her words before eventually dropping the subject out of fright. The Matra had attempted to assuage her fears but only managed to make them worse with his face like lightning. Aether went somewhat blue withholding his laughter.
Aether puts a hand on the waypoint. It’s roughly textured, beaten by the sun and weathered by time. He turns, extending the other.
Under the purview of the moon everything is still. Two crimson eyes gleam from the darkness of the jackal headdress, transcendent in the silver light. Cyno’s gold adornments catch the reflection and glow till his entire being bleeds apart, shifting in a dreamlike haze.
He takes his hand.
Liyue Harbor has a presence that seems larger than life and infinitesimally lasting. Not that the environment itself is otherworldly, though it is grand and full of colour, or that the lucrative air carries a thousand opulent ships into the wharf. The people are yet bigger, giants of their own right and captivating in their self-made merriment. Illuminated beasts walk besides mortals in the light of day; some loom invisible from the rooftops. Still some reside in the sea of clouds, content to simply watch and discern. There is a melting pot of interesting characters here. Many of Aether’s friends are here.
He is wholly uninterested in seeing any of them. “Interesting,” Cyno echoes his thoughts, taking in their surroundings shortly before closing his eyes and shaking his head in a clipped, abrupt motion. Aether recalls faintly that this mode of travel could be called disorienting. Cyno is doing well, all things considered.
The plan goes like this: Liyue, then Mondstadt, then Inazuma, then Sumeru.
Aether hopes against all hopes they won’t get distracted.
“—and that there is Dongsheng who owns Second Life, though Paimon thinks he’s a little stingy with discounts. And over there is Wanmin Restaurant—” Aether places a hand on Paimon’s head and steers her quickly away before she a) gets any ideas, or, b) sees Xiangling, in which case it all becomes a lost cause. “—‘s a bit hard to get seats but Third-Round Knockout has the sweetest sake rice-balls—”
He ducks her into the alley and goes around the back. Cyno takes every bit of this perpetual babbling in stride. Aether knows that patience has an incredibly short leash, and is glad for the effort.
The fairy didn’t know much about Sumeru…she must be excited to be a travel guide again. It’s predictable. Aether likes that about her. He feels safe with Paimon’s predictability.
They manage to summit the winding pathways through the main plaza and up along the cliffside before encountering any problems. Problem number one comes running up to them with scuffed knees and a missing wooden shoe, tripping and nearly smashing their nose into the ground if not for Aether’s quick reflexes.
“I’m so sorry…!” A man in Millelith uniform huffs, rushing into his space to scoop up the little girl. He makes eye contact with Aether and the abashed look on his sweaty face falters, replaced with a spark of recognition. “You…”
The man proceeds to bend into a bow, or the best approximation with a kid on his hip. Paimon squeaks as the lance in his left hand swoops, almost slicing her in half.
“I did not think we would meet again! Please allow me to thank you once more for saving my mother’s business—I don’t know what we would’ve done without your help.”
Embarrassed, Aether tells him it’s no trouble. He repeats it firmly when the righteous supplication continues, dipping his head to let a tiny mouth press a sticky kiss to his cheek. The girl happily bids him farewell over the sound of the man’s hushed scolding.
Everything goes downhill from there.
It’s as if the interaction was a bell to call to arms. They enter Yujing Terrace proper and are assaulted by beseeching smile #2 #3 and #4, sparkling white and genuine up to the ears. Hello, greets Aether. Yes, I remember you, No, I’m busy at the moment, Oh I’m so sorry that happened, I’m so happy to hear that. When Paimon warned that the journey would be lengthy, she wasn’t referring to seasonal or topographical obstacles by any means. It’s this. Aether smiles with a throat full of vinegar. People.
Obviously, Aether likes people. He is less known in Sumeru, but the anonymity dissipates as soon as he steps foot outside the forest. He’s usually lenient about such things. After the confrontation with Il Dottore, he can’t run fast enough.
Pink tongues and shining teeth; fingers like wriggling worms. And now, it seems they can no longer hold back their sheer adoration.
Aether smiles, but he can’t find the funny part.
Paimon is not so subtly digging the blunt of her knuckles into his rib cage. He thrusts himself from the fog of his own mind reluctantly, becoming cognizant of the wilting figure in front of him. When the pleases and thank yous had stopped, he wasn't too sure, but the citizen was stock-still, lips opening and closing wordlessly. Aether glances round long enough to clarify that no calamity is descending that needs to be dealt with. The adrenaline passes, his confusion doesn’t. Then he looks at the hunter behind him.
Cyno’s eyes could frighten death itself. His pupils are red all the way through, vast and broiling.
“Hahaha!” laughs the citizen, high-pitched.
To say Cyno is unassuming would be ridiculous. His existence is overwhelming by nature. He says little, seldom has to. The only sign of his company is the rustling of his Shendyt in the tall grass, the sharp, herbal scent of Nilotpala Lotus soaked onto his skin. Even so, Aether resists the urge several times to turn and check he is still there.
He’d followed behind them at a conventional distance, but now he’s so close Aether can feel the heat blistering off of him in waves. His long hair spills over Aether’s shoulder and tickles the top of his sternum. He doesn’t need to draw to his full height to tower over them.
The citizen breaks their impression of a fish to utter a quivering, “Excuse me,” and promptly hurries off with extreme prejudice.
Needless to say, no one bothers them after that.
Aether supposes he should feel…bad? (Later he decides this was never going to happen.) He steals fleeting glimpses at Cyno from beneath his lashes, deserting the path and pushing through well-cultivated bamboo. The Matra melts into his shadow. Aether stubs his toe on the solstice rock when he speaks first.
“You are not a conversationalist,” Cyno gets right to the point. “They expect too much from you.”
Aether is surprised he noticed.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
He’s surprised, yes…but grateful.
“Hm,” Cyno acknowledges, pensive. “In my line of work, a crucial part of bringing people to justice involves first understanding their motivations. To predict where they will go, you must know where they’ve already been. Do you follow?”
That makes sense, Aether agrees, and carefully doesn’t broach the subject of Cyno comparing him to criminals.
But Cyno continues. “It wasn’t for my benefit that you waited for the cover of night to begin our journey,” he says. It’s decidedly unreadable, his voice like gravel; his expression intent. “You would do well to remember your limits, Traveller.”
“Found one!” Paimon interrupts them, circling low over a patch of grass. Aether has never been more relieved to hear that shrill tone. He’s substantially less grateful about Cyno’s perception now. “Ah- ooh! And it’s a pretty one too!”
The Glaze Lily that peeks its head above the soil is sleek and ornate, long cerulean petals spread wide in the darkness. Shades of external sky and a delicate gold center within, like a poached egg. It is arguably just as pretty as its clone a few feet away. Aether has learned not to argue with Paimon in times like these.
He nods his assent, crouching to get a better look.
“These are called Glaze Lilies. They’re important to Liyue,” Paimon announces, which is putting it extremely lightly. “It’s really rare to see one in full bloom out in the wild, but these, here in the harbor…” her pitch dips sagely, “they bloom at night.”
Cyno inclines his head. If he already knows this, he doesn’t let on.
Paimon raises a conspiratorial eyebrow at the venerated scholar from Sumeru Academiya, leading institute in historical records, and happily resumes her lecture.
“Legend has it this flower opens at the sound of beautiful music,” she grins, waggling a finger. “And it’s true! Our very own Traveller once had to sing to—”
Aether claps a hand over that treacherous mouth. That’s quite enough of that.
Ten seconds plus five more for good measure. Seventeen, and Paimon finally gives up squirming, throwing off his palm with a petulant screech. Something about the battle, something something not the war. Whatever. He digs his heels into the wet dirt and sticks his hands in whole. The shimmersoil clumps up between his fingers cold and gristly-thick, like jammed mud frosting. You have to remove the whole stalk from the root, says Zhongli, else the flowers will wilt. The Glaze Lily is a creature of memory. And so on and more besides, but Aether stops listening when the twisting metaphors become a labyrinth. The earthy smell blows up in his nose. Even after the topsoil is gone, the mottles remain, streaks of red that look greyish pink in the moonlight. Saturation. Someone watered these flowers often.
Aether is going to take them all.
“You will replant these?” Cyno warns. It’s a demand disguised as a question.
Killjoy.
Aether crosses his heart with an impish smile.
They keep to the plan and head east, whisking across Teyvat in the blink of an eye. Alive in sleepless birdsong, the crisp, sweet Mondstadt air welcomes them with unmistakable gentleness, whistling haplessly through the valley. The playful wind picks up Aether’s braid and skims his neck like a hand’s caress, melodious laughter faint in its trail.
Aether pauses for a breather. The gesture is largely pointless. Cyno has already mastered the waypoint’s steep learning curve, because Cyno is good at everything. Just as the Traveller shakes his legs out with the intention of leading as before, Cyno strides forward without hesitation and careens off the edge.
Aether leans over the lip of the bluff, squinting into the murky black. His braid goes flipped upside his head and over, dangling into his eyes while Paimon shrieks a double whammy ‘n his ears. It rattles around Aether’s skull like a bane—shush, Paimon, sh-ush, he’s fine—and peters out into a pitiful wheeze when Cyno moves in the water below, staring up at them expectantly.
“Come,” Cyno says, severe as ever. “I will catch you.”
Aether badly suppresses an eye-roll.
To his surprise, Cyno leads them in the direction of Starsnatch Cliff. Paimon and Aether share a perplexed look behind his back and allow themselves to be herded.
“Ah, Cyno,” Paimon says after a while, “sir, General Mahamatra, sir, Paimon was wondering, well, a lot for starters, but, sort of, ah, if it isn’t too much to assume, you see—”
“Yes?” says Cyno.
Paimon flies a wide figure eight that comes to rest square behind Aether’s noggin. “Haveyoubeenherebefore?”
There’s a silence that speaks tremendous volumes.
Cyno sighs through his nose, coming to a stop.
He casts an unsettlingly firm stare over his shoulder, considering Aether strangely, as if for the very first time. That swirling gaze sweeps him top to bottom, weighing his full form; what it meant to him now, what it would mean going forward. Aether feels as though he’s on the precipice of something, the whole world holding its breath.
Cyno must make a decision, because he turns to face him fully.
“I have been here before,” he intones lowly, “to Mondstadt, on several occasions; to this cliff, once in particular.” His voice carries the gravity of the words, and they sink into Aether’s bones like molasses, weighing his lids into a hooded drowse. “My aid was requested for a problem that could not be dealt with by regular means. The majority of it culminated here.”
They’ve ascended enough that dots of white are beginning to become visible in the grass. Aether drags himself out of the thudding of his own heart and tries to decipher what he is being told. He thinks about what he knows about Cyno, which is frustratingly little. Then he lists the people associated with him. The dots connect.
Collei.
Cyno looks taken aback. “Correct,” he says. He appears more spooked at the surprise itself, that Aether keeps surprising him, constantly and in newfound ways. He scrutinizes him fastidiously, as if willing the rest of his secrets to the surface. “You know Collei…of course.” He casts his focus to the three-petaled flowers. It’s difficult to accurately judge his expressions seeing as he only ever has the one, but Aether is getting better nonetheless. “I brought her here to seal the archon residue that afflicted her spirit and bound her flesh.” His eyes flash. “Permanently.”
They stand at the top of the outcropping where the slant narrows to a sharp point. Below them, the sprawling Mondstadt landscape spreads out like a tapestry, serpentine rivers and jutting mountains reaching to the heavens. Unlike Liyue, the city in the distance has no lights. In lieu of paper lanterns, a natural fluorescence rises from the ground, settling over the buildings like mist.
The tail of Cyno’s headdress billows around his statuesque figure. “The air still smells the same, after all these years,” he murmurs. “And these flowers…”
Cecilia, Aether offers vaguely, busy with his own nostalgia.
“They’ve remained unchanged.”
“This is the only place they grow,” Paimon says, reminding them that she is still there. She clings to the baby hairs cropped at the base of Aether’s neck, disinclined to relinquish her hiding spot. “Even with all this wind!”
“Tenacious and unchanging,” Cyno summarizes, brows pinched. The seams of his lips curve upwards for a half of a second, contradictory to the rest of him that seems immensely pained, “Fitting, for…” The expression clears. He pulls away, voice strong. “Enough. Let’s continue.”
Something...shifts.
It’s difficult to encapsulate. Cyno picks what they need, nothing less and nothing more, and everything is different though everything is still the same. Their hands brush. The tension bleeds from Cyno’s shoulders. Whatever precipice they teetered on they’ve tipped right over to kingdom come. Aether cannot yet properly define their relationship, but it’s more tangible now; it has shape.
When they descend the cliff, no one leads or follows. They walk side by side.
Inazuma takes the least amount of time of the four by a gross margin. This is because as soon as they land, hell opens in the sky.
Aether makes a panicked grab for Cyno’s arm and teleports them so fast they go dizzy with it. Cyno eyes him like he’s grown an extra head, which means his brows raise into his long bangs and his face barely twitches. Aether gives him a withering glare that dares him to say anything at all.
Getting caught in the rain in the Land of Electro is a certified death wish. He might as well just keel over and be done with it.
He’s taken them out to the edges of the storm—close, too close, not far enough—the overcast sky very visible and very in motion, an unstoppable force fast approaching from the west. Go, Aether urges, needling Cyno with his elbows and hands and too insensate to reel at the contact. Hurry, move, go.
Down the coast, through the shore, over Nazuchi Beach. The battlefields meet them like thick electric soup, crawling with enemies, steeped in blood; they are flies, he is beyond patience. He cuts through the hordes like a knife, white-hot and seething.
Cyno vanquishes the rest and makes no comment on his ferocity. Aether is convinced that unflappable demeanor bends for nothing at all. If he turned tail and transformed into a dragon right then and there, the General Mahamatra would only loom dangerously and inquire if he had a permit.
Paimon rejoins them when the battles are over and the water settles. The countdown to Aether’s delirium goes tick—tick—tick beneath his skin as they cross over vermillion fields, itching out of his clothes and quaking in his veins. The air smells so strongly of copper it stains his throat, steamed up from where the sun incessantly pummels the ground.
“Only death waits here,” Cyno says at length, the words drawn out of him in a long, slow hiss.
Between the blood red petals, Paimon flutters nervously.
“Ah,” she begins very quietly, hands twisting together, “these are…”
“Dendrobium,” Aether says.
Paimon blinks, wide saucers framed by lashes of crystal white. She falls silent accordingly as Aether holsters his sword and freezes in place, shuddering, bottling the star-song that sings to him unbidden. Sometimes he gets so worked up he starts leaking all over. What a mess.
“They bloom where blood spills,” Aether continues, eventually. “Or, allegedly anyway.”
It isn’t entirely inconceivable. Nazuchi Beach has been the stage of so many horrors the karmic debt must be egregious. A site being warped by corrosion. Now where has he heard that before?
“Blood, and death,” repeats Cyno, unimpressed.
“Eternity,” Aether corrects. Not that there’s a difference. “Inazumans believe that the fallen will follow the path of dendrobium into the next life. And those on this plane, they carry them in hopes of generating favor from the depths below.”
Cyno’s face darkens like a thunderstorm. “The underworld gives no favors to the living,” he seethes, dangerously low.
“It is,” says Aether, “a myth.”
Neither of them are speaking about flowers anymore. Aether can feel the pressure building, this way south of a typhoon.
He never sees him move, but Cyno is abruptly closer, hand curled tightly into the fabric of his scarf. The eye carved onto his headdress blazes purple and gold, a shroud of harsh lines and pointed edges that only heightens his crimson ire. That righteous gaze narrows, alien, casting the shadow of something else that peers out from the vessel deep within. “The dead go where we cannot follow,” he declares. There is no room for uncertainty. “This is the natural law.”
…What would it take? Aether wonders.
What would it take for you to allow yourself to grieve?
He’d reject pity if Aether gave it to him. But Aether isn’t going to give him anything.
“The interpretation is up to you,” Aether says cheerfully. He lifts a shaking hand and presses it to the muscled groove of Cyno’s exposed abdomen. Cyno flinches like he’s landed a blow. Aether pushes him back lightly, cheeks warm. “And the thought, up to me. Now, it is going to rain. Will you let me finish what we came here for, General?”
Aether has a problem.
Aether is very good at ignoring his problems. Compartmentalizing. He’s been called kind, but really, he’s smart-mouthed. Sympathetic and earnest and restless. Hot-headed, to a fault. He’d leash the sun just to prove it was possible. These are not contradictions. This is how he exists.
Aether’s problem has broad shoulders, warm skin and steady hands. He smells of salt and spices and desert rain and has no concept of personal space, touching Aether’s back, his waist, his wrist, leading him where he wants to go as if steering a particularly cheeky mare. He protects and doesn’t expect anything in return. At first, when they were strangers, Aether justified this as ignorance of the measure of his capabilities. But Cyno has witnessed Aether dispatch enemies and demons alike and still maneuvers him behind the protection of his blade. Aether, who has always been expected to bear the brunt of everything.
Aether can no longer pretend this isn’t happening. His stomach flutters endlessly, burning burning burning.
Their return to the Great Red Sand comes on the heels of dawn, the sound of daybreak waking earth and sky all around them. The sun hasn’t yet eclipsed the horizon but the red vultures are circling overhead, hissing and jeering in low tones. Cyno exhales inaudibly, looking to be completely at home. He waits for Aether to break in his sand-legs, dipping his head.
“Come.”
Aether nods, and for the rest of the walk makes his best effort of being a normal person.
Fat chance.
Recent revelations render this impossible. Cyno is the quintessential definition of noticeable, and Aether can’t stop noticing him—his stern jaw, his big hair, his capable fingers wrapped firm around the shaft of his deadly staff. Aether likes to think he’s developed an adequate restraint, but the Matra is a celestial marvel and Aether is the satellite trapped hopelessly in his orbit.
Cyno, fortunately, is uninterested in Aether’s apparent meltdown. He tips his pretty face to the approaching ruins, tranquil, and, Archons, Aether is not a child, he is not a blushing anything—but the butterflies have burst into a full blown swarm, drowning out the world in white noise and leaving him weak in the knees. Aether turns pink increasingly. Paimon keeps trying to catch his eye, bewildered.
It all comes crashing down when they reach the Court.
“…Ah,” says Paimon.
The Court of Desolation, or what’s left of it, is surrounded by stragglers of Treasure Hoarders attempting to get inside.
Aether feels his elation drop like a stone. At his side, Cyno growls, the guttural sound rumbling menacingly through the early morning air.
The hoarders split into disparate waves of reaction at the noise: surprise from some, fright from others, and indifference from those who must be unfamiliar with Cyno’s reputation. Those bold ones in particular inch forward immediately, rearing for a fight.
Fools.
Cyno strikes his staff to the sand with a resounding blow. “Leave this place.”
Aether boils. To anyone else, Cyno would sound indomitable, but Aether knows better.
Cyno sounds tired.
Not fatigued, but weary of doing good. Of keeping watch, constantly. Of spurring off criminals that keep coming back again and again and again.
They’ve arrived after a long journey at his deceased partner’s grave and Cyno is not a force of nature. Cyno is a person, just like anyone else.
Cyno makes to move, but Aether claps a hand on his shoulder and breezes by him, furious.
“Let me,” he says, and doesn’t wait for an answer.
He won’t kill them, of course.
That does not mean he has to be kind.
By the time he’s done, all semblances of rebellion have been swallowed up by screaming. They flee, as they always do, with lacerations and hot blood and threats of another day on their lips.
In an uncharacteristic motion, Aether stalks ahead as if to pursue. A warm grip around his wrist stops him in place.
His head whips around, tight and coiled with residual energy. Cyno squeezes the hand on him, beseeching but strong. Of all things, he looks amused.
He considers him closely. “Put your fangs away Traveller, I have no intention of shackling you.”
Falteringly, Paimon asks, “Shouldn’t we go after them?”
“No,” Cyno answers, but his sharp eyes haven’t left Aether’s for one second. Aether trembles underneath his hold. “Do you not see how they scatter? They condemn their partners to their punishment without remorse, because at the end of the day, every one of them is for themselves. And they aren’t generous enough to ignore self-preservation.”
He suddenly turns his attention to the fairy. “You are able to retreat to another domain, yes?”
Paimon chokes.
Aether barks a laugh, more startled than anything. Cyno really wasn’t one to beat around the bush was he?
“W-well- I—That’s just rude!” She splutters, looking to Aether to back her up.
Aether has no such intention. “Paimon, could you give us a moment please?”
He gives her an apologetic wince, imploring. Paimon’s eyes soften for a moment, and she opens her mouth, then shuts it so fast her teeth clatter.
Aether can’t see Cyno’s face from his vantage point, but Paimon’s reaction is violently telling. She blanches white as a sheet and disappears amidst a burst of fluorescent sparks.
Ah. He’ll make it up to her later. (Probably.) (With Food.)
He and Cyno are alone for the first time. It’s a strange thought.
“You,” Cyno tells him emphatically, “are reckless.”
Aether scoffs, shaking off his grip and turning to the collapsed remains, ears pink under his straw-coloured hair. Was that all? Tell him something he didn’t already know.
He deigns not to give him an answer, dismissing his sword into energy and summoning their spoils. Cyno’s eyes track his movements like a hot brand.
He kneels and breathes deeply, calming his racing heart.
The Glaze Lilies are first. “Memory,” he says, carefully placing the royal flowers at the foot of the half-buried gate. Cyno sits and tucks his legs under him, levity gone from his demeanor.
Aether stares at a stray petal for longer than he should, clearing his throat.
Cecelias, next.
“Resilience.”
Dendrobium.
“Eternity.”
The end result is a smattering of colours across the spectrum, bright whites and reds and blues dispersed meticulously in the tawny sand like sprouts of spontaneous life in an otherwise barren landscape. Aether wordlessly scatters them a bit further with a delicate burst of anemo, mulling over whether or not he should test his boundaries.
He has never been a coward.
“What was he like?” Aether asks.
You’ve met him, Cyno doesn’t say.
He closes his eyes.
“These flowers will wither quickly, exposed to the elements as they are. And yet you still gathered them.” Cyno fists a handful of sand and slowly lets it sift through the gaps in his fingers, unfettered. “Taj Radkani did not wither, and he was not like the sand, which so easily shifts under pressure. He had integrity above reproach, and dealt the hand of justice appropriately. I admired him. I still admire him. He was my senior, then my partner, then a legacy. And now he is gone.”
He crushes the rest of the sand, opening his eyes. “I know what you’ve been trying to do.”
“Oh?”
“Yes,” Cyno rumbles. “And I…appreciate the thought. But you are mistaken. I’m not running away from my grief.”
“No?” Aether turns to face him fully, their noses mere inches apart. “And you are not mad either?”
For someone who claimed not to be mad, he sure looked irritated. Cyno says, “He made his choice.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to like it.”
“It was his choice,” Cyno insists. “The very nature of the concept has nothing to do with me or my opinion.” His lashes are long this close, pale and striking in contrast to his skin. “But I am beginning to suspect we’re not talking about me.”
Aether’s breath hitches.
His eyes dart away, but Cyno blocks his escape, caging him in with an arm crossed over the length of his front and grinding into the dirt. He doesn’t look that much like a mirror anymore. He looks like a gavel.
“Aether,” Cyno says. It hits him like a punch to the gut.
“I—” Aether starts, “I don’t—”
“You don’t have to share anything you don’t wish to,” Cyno towers over him. “But do not lie to me.”
Aether’s elbow hits the ground, his leg unfurled to the side. He swallows around the lump in his throat, an unnameable thing building in the core of him, fleshy and torn. The star-song is as loud as it’s ever been.
“It’s better to have loved and lost,” Aether settles on finally.
“Do you believe that?”
“Did you mean what you said?” Aether snaps. “What has happened is already part of the past? Or was that just talk?”
Cyno’s eyes flash unnervingly. “You are persistent.”
“And you are not as impervious as you would like,” Aether scowls.
Cyno is all but straddling him at this point. Aether feels wretched and ugly, twisted up into knots and falling, always falling. His back stings from phantom wings that are no longer there. The jackal headdress slips over gold earrings and shoulders, shielding them from the world; Aether can smell the aromatic herbs and spices; his head spins endlessly. Red irises. The shape of Cyno’s hands, his strong thighs. Cyno’s body, dense and compact with muscle, all rolling torso and bare skin pressing him into the ground—Aether gasps, but he can’t get any air into his lungs.
“Does it get easier?” Cyno asks. He sounds far away.
He doesn’t know. Why is he asking him this? Why would he know?
Stop looking at me.
“You aren’t also in mourning?” comes Cyno’s voice. “I thought—”
Aether covers his face. He’s tired of explaining.
“My sister,” he manages. She doesn’t want to be found. “She is not dead.”
There is too much understanding in Cyno’s answer. “But she is not with you.”
Aether shakes silently, hot tears slipping the corners of his eyes and running down between his lips. He’s resigned to his pain, this bone-deep, confused anguish that settles into a muted ache, distant and repressed, only to rear its head at the worst of times. It was almost better when he hadn’t known where she was. But to recognize that she had known the whole time—it’s more than he can bear. Aether never asked for a mission. He could care less about the truth of this world. And yet it’s all he can do, to see her again.
She’s all he has left.
He doesn’t know how long he lays there weeping. When his tears trickle to sniffles, he falls motionless, hiccuping, fearful of the reaction.
Cyno has been rubbing slow circles over his shin, quiet.
“Aether,” he says finally.
The cadence of it is…odd. Aether can’t quite put a finger on why. He makes a noncommittal sound in reply, exhausted.
“Which type of fruit in Teyvat never sees morning?”
…
What.
“Sun-set-tia.”
Aether mechanically counts the seconds till he’s absolutely sure he’s still in the real world. He uncovers his wet face from the crook of his arm, squinting up into the light. Cyno has sat back on his haunches, tapping hypnotically on his leg, thick brows gathered together in solemn repose.
“The joke is in the name,” he says gravely. “It implies that Sunsettias exist at a certain time of day, which is a play on—”
Aether laughs.
He shakes his head, hair upsetting aggregations of sand, fine grains taking off in all directions. His body quakes with brilliant, sincere guffaws that start and stop jarringly, spooking nearby birds and causing them to fly off with a loud flutter. He descends into snorts, then tiny giggles, ebbing and flowing like a waterfall. He endeavors to get himself under control, but one look at Cyno sets him off all over again.
Cyno looks young, shy almost. He blinks down at him, surprised, then earnest, then darkly suspicious.
“I told you a similar one before, and you did not think it was funny,” he tells him accusingly.
“No, I,” Aether starts.
He what? Archons.
“Thank you,” he says instead, sitting up creakily. “Thank you for coming with me, Cyno.”
“I should be thanking you,” Cyno says matter-of-factly. He frowns, clearing his throat. “Are you…alright?”
Aether’s embarrassment makes itself known once more, placidly replacing his bemusement.
“Ah,” he says, smoothing his hair down and realizing belatedly that they’ve both been lying in sand for half an hour. He wipes at his bleary face with a sand-crusted hand and regrets it immediately. “I must look like a mess—”
“No,” Cyno says.
Aether shrinks back.
Cyno wets his lips and reaches for his face as though he was a precious thing, cradling it in the center of his palm. His thumb wipes the apple of his cheek, rough and calloused from a lifetime of battle. It comes to a rest by Aether’s lips, radiating heat and stability and everything unspoken, always. “You…” says Cyno. Aether has never been so afraid.
“You have yet to help me plant the flowers I gathered,” Cyno finishes succinctly. “The ones that will actually grow here.”
Aether narrows his eyes, flicking his tongue out stubbornly. Cyno’s eyes darken, and he pins it under his thumb like a promise.
“There is something we say about an excess of desire,” he says magnanimously, voice as deep as Aether has ever heard it. His thumb presses down, slick and dangerous, the rest of his fingers curling under Aether’s jaw and around his throat. “Don’t start something you can’t finish, Traveller.”
With that, he lets him go as if he never spoke, leaving Aether flushed and breathless. Cyno rests a hand on his breast and bows his head reverently to the tomb.
“And this too, has its limits. There is a time for everything under the sun,” he stands, his long shadow casting Aether in relief. He offers Aether a hand. “Let us do what we ought to, and not linger. This place has consumed enough despair.”
Though his cheeks shine with salt, when Aether looks back on this day, he will not think of his sister, or of betrayal. He will not think of memory or resilience or eternity or even Truth, Balance, the Order of all things. He will think of how easy it is to be wrong, that there is so much to life that is different from what he expects.
In a few hours the midday star will be high in the sky and the desert will bake in a haze. Elsewhere, rock and water and tree will shed their frost, and the ocean will hum.
Aether looks at the shimmer of Cyno’s silvery hair in the light and thinks that nothing could ever be as beautiful, but he will learn that Cyno is even more beautiful in his bed, hair haloed like liquid mercury on the silk of his sheets. His jokes forever ring terrible, painfully so, but they taste sweeter pressed to Aether’s mouth, pliant and secretive in the wine-lavender shades of dusk.
More for tomorrow.
II: 悲伤分享
Cry over you. Your own mouth has said it. Your ability has judged you. What else?
I have appeased the Heliopolis’ disturbance after the judgement, I have restored the heads to those ones who had them not, and I have finished the mourning in this country.
Journey to everlasting joy.
ⲙⲉⲓ