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Aether’s worked on a few databases when he was travelling. He’s worked on a few neural networks sometimes. Sometimes they made good conversation partners. Sometimes, he closed his eyes and shut down servers because the programming written into them got out of hand and needed to be stopped.
He’s worked on databases before.
The Akasha system is like that, Aether thinks in the spaces between moments. Feeding on information so that it could predict and act. It wasn’t a nice thing to think about.
Sometimes, the database and it’s systems were dangerous and fed on things that should be left dead. Aether thinks – databases should be harmless, and yet every time he’s seen one, it’s always turned harmful. Maybe the Akasha had innocent beginnings, but now all it’s being used for is to hurt.
Aether runs his fingers across the modified Akasha terminal in his hands, and tries to will the panic away.
---
“There’s some truth to the idea that divine knowledge drives a person mad,” Aether mutters, as he takes the device off his head, as Paimon floats closer to hand him the painkillers that Tighnari prescribed to him for any subsequent migraines he’s now prone to – they were sporadic and rare, but often cropped up whenever a foreign entity messed with his mind and all that – alongside a waterskin. He takes both things gratefully, as Ararycan returns to their perch on his shoulder to press glowing paws to the side of Aether’s head.
“Is there?” Alhaitham asks, as he reads over whatever that device printed out from reading Aether’s brain. He doesn’t really want to think about it, as he swallows down his painkillers. Bitter, but often meaning that they work.
“It’s like an ant on a circuit board,” Aether explains. “Normally, for an ant, it doesn’t mean anything. But give it the ability for it to understand the circuit board like a human does for just a second before it goes back to being an ant. Wouldn’t that drive anyone mad?”
“So, what? We’re seeing from the perspective of gods?” Alhaitham asks, seemingly pleased with the results written on the paper. Aether worries the edge of his scarf.
“I think so. No human brain is designed for that information.”
“Could you handle divine knowledge like that?”
Aether ponders the question. “I’m not a god,” is what he settles on, fingers stilling. “So I wouldn’t really know.”
---
When the storm made by Scaramouche’s hand arrives, Aether bites the inside of his cheek and tries not to scream.
Fear will not help him here. He swallows it down, as Paimon watches in worry, as he helps drag Tighnari away from the bolts that strike the ground, scorching the earth.
---
Ararycan had facilitated the connection, the sprig growing from the branch, and Aether had let Dendro pour from his fingertips and he makes the cautionary connection to Nahida.
No child should be left alone. Aether has always thought this.
So he presses his hand against the barrier, and Anemo collects itself on his fingertips. It swirls and mixes as the barrier shudders and shakes.
“Nahida,” he says, pressing his fingers further, feeling it give beneath the pressure. “It’s time to wake up.”
His fingertips are glowing teal. Anemo pushes further. “Nahida,” he says again, his voice calm. “I’m here now, so no more tears, okay?’
---
He had sent Ararycan back to Vanarana. No need for them to be here for this battle. Aether doesn’t want them to expend themselves here.
Instead, he takes his steps forward, and aims his blade at the skeleton of a god.
“Scaramouche,” he says, for a lack of a better way to refer to him. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Why would I be?” he asks, laughing. “I’ve finally reached what should have been my birthright.”
And then the world alights itself in purple lighting, and then-
---
Instead, he takes his steps forward, and aims his blade at the skeleton of a god.
“Scaramouche,” he says, for a lack of a better way to refer to him. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Why would I be?” he asks, laughing. “I’ve finally reached what should have been my birthright.”
And then a hand, larger than Sumpter beast, comes crashing down-
---
Instead, he takes his steps forward, and aims his blade at the skeleton of a god.
“Scaramouche,” he says, for a lack of a better way to refer to him. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Why would I be?” he asks, laughing. “I’ve finally reached what should have been my birthright.”
And then, the wind picks up, and Aether collides with a pillar and-
---
Instead, he takes his steps forward, and aims his blade at the skeleton of a god.
“Scaramouche,” he says, for a lack of a better way to refer to him. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Why would I be?” he asks, laughing. “I’ve finally reached what should have been my birthright.”
And then, Aether is sent flying across the room and he crashes into the cold, hard-
---
Instead, he takes his steps forward, and aims his blade at the skeleton of a god.
“Scaramouche,” he says, for a lack of a better way to refer to him. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Why would I be?” he asks, laughing. “I’ve finally reached what should have been my birthright.”
“We’ve done this so many times,” Aether confesses. The foot coming down on him, sparking purple, is no surprise. “Something is bound to break eventually.”
“Yeah,” Scaramouche taunts. “and it’s going to be you.”
---
Instead, he takes his steps forward, and aims his blade at the skeleton of a god.
“Scaramouche,” he says, for a lack of a better way to refer to him. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Why would I be?” he asks, laughing. “I’ve finally reached what should have been my birthright.”
“You’re not even a god,” Aether says, as he watches the hand curl around him, ready to crush him between steel fingers. “You’re not even a good imitation of one.”
“And you’re just a mortal,” Scaramouche sneers. “You aren’t supposed to be worth the trouble.”
---
Instead, he takes his steps forward, and aims his blade at the skeleton of a god.
“Scaramouche,” he says, for a lack of a better way to refer to him. “Aren’t you tired?”
“Why would I be?” he asks, laughing. “I’ve finally reached what should have been my birthright.”
“I mean, I’m not a god either,” Aether says, as he watches the large sphere of electro coming steadily closer to him from the sky. “But this just seems excessive.”
“Not a mortal, not a god,” Scaramouche questions, confused. “Then what in the Abyss are you?”
---
After the 168th time Aether steps forward and aims his blade at the skeleton of a god, he has the wisdom of Sumeru’s people and a migraine to go alongside it.
Scaramouche falls out of his machine, twisted wires sparking, his clothes stained with oil as he lays unconscious on the ground. Nahida gives him one look, her hands curled around the Electro Gnosis. There’s an unreadable expression in her eyes as she gives a long hard stare, before nodding to her self and turning to Aether and Paimon.
“There’s no time,” she says instead, holding the Gnosis up. “We have to save Irminsul first.”
“I understand,” Aether says, as Paimon curls her fingers into his scarf. “Afterwards, then.”
“Afterwards,” Nahida agrees and the world shifts itself again.
---
And when he watches Greater Lord Rukhadevata ask that Nahida purge her from the memory of the world, her eyes lock onto Aether’s, just for a second.
But it is enough, for her to look and communicate “I know.”
Aether thinks it is cruel anyways. Forcing him to become the immortal witness – to never change fate as he sees it.
Forbidden knowledge, knowledge from beyond the borders of Teyvat. It was such a terrible, terrible thing. He should know. He does know.
---
“I knew this wouldn’t work on the Dendro Archon,” Dottore says, his voice filled with a slimy sort of curiosity that makes Aether feel like there are ants crawling across his skin. “But I wasn’t expecting the famed Traveler to be immune as well! Who knew there were two gods in Sumeru, hm?”
“Not a god,” Aether whispers, his arms curling around Paimon, knocked unconscious, laying peacefully in his arms.
Nahida looks at him for a moment, when Dottore asks for the Electro Gnosis. And as much Aether wants to tell her nothing is worth that, he does not tell her to not make the trade. There is only one thing he does dare to say.
“It is not my place to make pivotal decisions,” he tells her. “I can’t make that choice for you, Nahida.”
---
Greater Lord Rukhadevata never existed. She has successfully removed herself from the annals of history – there was only ever Lesser Lord Kusanali. Aether knows this is what everyone else remembers. This is what is the factually correct one.
But – for millions of years of information to simply be wiped from existence…Aether never likes tampering with history.
“Did I say something wrong?” Dunyarzad asks, and Alhaitham shakes his head.
“No. Everything you said was correct.” He replies, and Aether knows he is watching for his reaction from the corner of his eye.
“May I be excused?” Aether asks, before anyone can ask him what’s wrong, standing up from his place on the floor. “I need to, uh, walk around a bit.”
“Oh that’s fine!” Nilou says, waving her hands around. “Please, take your time!”
Aether waves his goodbyes, and leaves the Grand Bazaar.
---
Eventually, he finds a quiet, dark spot to curl up in the roots of the tree, away from the city.
There, he sits and stares at the bark, head leaning against it surface.
“Why should I be the only one who remembers?” he whispers, picking at the edge of his scarf. “Does even my sister remember?”
The world is silent.
---
And then – after everything –
-Aether continues on with his life, regardless. There’s no more database that feeds on information, no more forbidden knowledge that plagued the land and caused it to rot.
There was never any Greater Lord. People are allowed to dream again. Aether has become the immortal witness once again – his position is to watch and remember, and not to act.
He is not Irminsul. He will not be affected by a rot like that for the next billions of years.
His sister – the world claimed her as theirs. It does not claim Aether – only Lumine. He doesn’t know how he feels on that, but for now, he will wait until it is time to leave for Fontaine.
Aether’s memory is a database for only him to access, and so he taps his fingers against his thigh and tries to keep hold of 13 billion years of memories, one at a time.