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Aether can’t tell if it’s raining outside, or if the wind was tossing the trees around creating a mirage of storminess. Mother Nature answers his untold question promptly with a clap of thunder, causing the rims of the library windows to shake.
Lisa takes a slow sip of her Chamomile tea, composed despite the shaky saucer, “So, cutie, what do you think about the people of Mondstadt? Are they amiable enough to you?”
Aether shifts in his seat, staring blankly at a bookshelf behind Lisa. Lisa had commissioned him to assist her in organizing her library books, in alphabetical order by genre. Aether was not looking forward to the task, but it seemed to be a front for a chat over tea. A lantern beside the tea table casts a soft amber glow onto Lisa’s face and the surrounding dark wood.
“Yeah,” Aether started trying to remember all of their names, “They’re really nice. There’s Jean, Diluc, and Venti who helped me with Stormterror. Then Kaeya has been alright, and Amber is super cool.”
Aether shrugs, taking another sip of his tea, “I think that’s it.”
“You haven’t met Noelle, Razor, Bennett, or Fischl?”
Aether shakes his head, and another roar of thunder is heard outside, starting out quiet but ending with a loud rumble.
“Well, Noelle is a sweetheart. She’s training to become a knight,” Lisa sighs dramatically, “Though that would make me so sad because she’s the best at dusting my bookshelves.”
“Fischl is a doll, she always returns her books in peak condition. Bennett and Razor are fun to be around, though they can be awfully rambunctious at times.” Lisa takes another sip of her tea.
“I might have met Bennett before, fiery guy, white hair?” Aether says, putting his hands to his hair in demonstration. The rain outside starts pelting down at the windows vigorously.
“Probably,” Lisa shrugs, then looks like she’s just had the greatest idea, “Have you met the Chief Alchemist?”
“Who?” Aether has never heard of an ‘alchemist’ around Mondstat except for Timaeus, though Timaeus has mentioned a reclusive teacher of his.
“Tsk, tsk, doesn’t even know the ingenious Albedo. You really are a curious case,” She waved a finger at him in disregard, “He’s quite the alchemist, ask him any question and he’ll know the solution. He’s very easy on the eyes, too, just like you.”
Lisa waves her fingers at him with a grin. Aether shakes his head in disapproval.
“Maybe you two would get along well, you’re both very odd,” She says, then sets her teacup down, “Anyhow, I did request you to organize my library, didn’t I? Let’s be hasty.”
Aether feels a pit in his stomach opens up at the prospect of organizing books, but nods his head nonetheless. As he rises from his chair he reminds himself over and over of the Mora he’ll hopefully take home tonight.
-
Aether would like to think he had a good deal of patience, but it seemed to wane thin when dealing with a certain Alchemist, who was known to be a man of great reclusivity. Aether trudged through the mud, past the point of caring if his boots were dirty or not. It was raining, again. And a bolt of lightning strikes nearby, setting the sky ablaze a blinding white. That was too close for comfort, Aether really needs to get out of here.
He wouldn’t be here in the first place if it weren’t for a stupid commission by Sucrose—Aether takes that back, it wasn’t Sucrose who was stupid, it was this Albedo guy! Sucrose came to Aether with one of the most pitiful looks he has ever seen, chin wobbling and distraught. Aether accepted her commission on the spot, it was just finding an Alchemist, can’t be that hard, right?
Wrong.
Sucrose gave him fairly vague directions since she didn’t know his location herself. She just said last time she saw him Albedo mentioned that he would be somewhere in Windrise. Aether questioned why it was so urgent, and she said something about an experiment gone wrong.
The wind howls through the pines and the rain stings Aether’s face, his dull blade is drawn and he can barely see in front of him. Aether calls out Albedo’s name amidst the torrential rain, but his voice only gets lost in the sound. Albedo seemed like a fairly responsible man, from what Aether had heard, so he must have found shelter in a nearby cave.
Aether was about to start spelunking in every cave in Mondstadt—he wasn’t sure if there even were any—when he sees a stark contrast against the muted colors of the storm. Light blonde hair blowing frantically in the wind caught Aether's attention. Somebody standing in the middle of a field, it looked like, with their arms raised up to the sky. Sucrose described Albedo as medium height, with light hair. This strange silhouette fits the bill pretty well.
Aether stomps his way through the partially flooded field, the rain has been nonstop these past few days. He grips his dull blade, and against the stinging rain, he trudges up behind Albedo. Albedo’s holding out a glass jar to the sky with astute concentration, almost like he was offering himself to the Archons. Aether noticed the jar was partially made of metal at the bottom, and had a metal rod extending out of the top.
“Hey, If you’re not careful the Electro archon will strike you down,” Aether huffs out, stabbing his dull blade into the ground and leaning on the hilt.
“I’ve heard she’s more preoccupied with confiscating people’s ambitions,” Albedo replies, still holding the jar up into the sky. He turns away from Aether, almost like he never existed in the first place.
Aether didn’t like this guy's indifferent attitude, “No, but seriously, what are you doing?”
“Trying to get lightning to strike me, why are you so concerned?” Albedo replies.
Aether is pretty sure he got the right guy because this seems like a pretty alchemical thing to do. Aether stops leaning on his sword to point a finger at Albedo, he notices the way the raindrops lance across the other's face.
“Well, I got a commission from Sucrose to go find you. It’s urgent,” Aether said, nodding to prove his point.
“Urgent?” Albedo sighs,” I suppose I should retire, then, they probably got into a scuffle with my new serums I left out,”
Another clap of thunder rumbled across the sky, “My name is Aether,”
As he says that, Albedo visibly brightens. He lowers his extended hand to the sky and moves closer to Aether.
“Ah, the outlander from another world,” Albedo says, he must be pretty intuitive because not many have picked up on that yet.
Aether rubs a hand through his soaked bangs, “Yeah, how did you know?”
“I recognize you,” Is all Albedo says, before placing a gloved hand on Aether’s heart. His hand is not cold nor hot, a perfect medium.
Aether steps back, slipping slightly in the muddy terrain. He didn’t know the alchemist was a creep!
“Hey! No touching acquaintance's pecs,” Aether says, putting an offended hand where Albedo was shortly before.
Albedo almost looks a little bit disappointed, “I see. I’ll have to work on surpassing the acquaintance stage, then.”
Aether feels his cheeks heat up, the warmth contrasting against the cool rain pelleting against his face. Lisa was right, Albedo wasn’t bad looking at all. He was around Aether’s height, beautiful eyes, a confident demeanor, and sharp features. Albedo looks at him earnestly, like he entirely meant what he just said.
“I’ll hold you to that,” Aether mumbles out, a clap of thunder shortly follows, it was so loud Aether swore he could feel it in his spine.
“Your pulse is normal, so you appear to be human,” Albedo says, looking at Aether with concentration, “Though appearances can often be deceiving.”
The rain brings a smell of dampness and soil, Aether adjusts his position so he doesn’t face plant into the mud. Aether has heard that this much rain is atypical for Mondstadt, being less rainy than other nations. Aether watched Albedo put the jar back into his satchel, observing his gloved hands. His fingers look fairly long, perhaps the gloves served to prevent any dangerous chemicals from getting on his hands.
“Let’s return to Sucrose, shall we?” Albedo asks, he places his hand on his shirt button, adjusting his collar.
Aether’s gaze raises from Albedo’s hand to his sternum, to his neck. A stark contrast to Albedo’s skin, a vivid star etched on his neck. Aether is smacked with fear and curiosity all at once, that star—the ashes, the destruction, the stench of death of that place. A pounding starts at the back of his neck and starts traveling toward his brows. And he has to quell down the urge to reach out toward Albedo’s marking and run his fingers across it, to somehow be closer to something long past. That mark was seen in Aether’s dreams, recurring nightmares that he didn’t comprehend.
-
Aether heaved out a sob, not paying any mind to the rubble indenting his knees. Hair fell into his mouth from his partly undone braid, his mind was too full to spit it out. Aether was never good with change, especially when the one constant in his life was being torn away from him. Lumine stands over his crouched form, back turned, facing the horizon alight.
The fire reflected vividly on her blonde hair, just like his. Lumine—his only kin, she was half of him and he half of her. Being torn away by her own doing, for the best, she said.
Aether sobbed again, his chest rattling and eyes stinging from the endless tears. Vision blurry, he groped around the rubble, searching for something, anything. One hand lay on a flower, intact through the destruction. His other hand lay on Lumine’s calf, causing her to turn.
“Lumine—“ Aether heaved, his hands digging into the dirt, uprooting the flower. “Please, stay.”
Lumine has never looked calloused in Aether’s eyes. But beneath the shattering sky of red and orange, her eyes dauntless and void, she didn’t look like herself. Aether wanted to scream, you’re not my sister! Lumine wouldn’t do this to me! But it was happening, and it was all real, not some elaborate dream.
Lumine looked down—maybe with pity, as Aether extended the Inteyvat flower he uprooted toward her. Lumine mirrored his crouched form, letting herself fall to her brother's level. Placing her hand on his jawline, catching his tears. The flower was shoved clumsily into her hair. As the city she grew to love became ash, the flower started to crystallize.
“Aether, I hope someday you can come to understand—and forgive me for what I have to do,” Lumine said, stroking Aether’s cheek with her thumb. Aether sobbed harder and clutched his chest like it was about to burst.
“Forgive you? I can’t even understand why you’re doing this to me!”
“Once the dust has settled, and all of this is over, you will understand.”
“But I don’t, I—I want to know,” Aether said, wiping his running nose on his forearm.
And out like a light, she was gone—gone in a flurry of light. Aether spread out his arms, hoping to grasp some semblance of her in the emptiness. Her absence filled him and weighed on him stronger than the heaviest of boulders, he felt crushed. Petals of the Inteyvat were left as taunts in her wake.
As Aether pulled away, for the first time but not the last. He hoped Lumine knew this; she will always be his beloved sister, in spite of her faults.
-
The rain stings and Aether is flooded back into the present. He must have looked pretty glazed over and dazed, because again, Albedo was checking his pulse.
“There you are,” Albedo says, pulling away, “You seemed to have malfunctioned.”
Aether shook his head, water droplets falling off of his bangs. “I’m not a robot.”
“No doubt,” Albedo nods, wet hair clinging to his forehead, “Let's head back to Mondstadt.”
Aether wants to grill Albedo right there and interview him about all his funny quirks and idiosyncrasies. Aether also wanted to feel the soft rise of flesh where the star starts and trace the outline with precision and care. Aether shakes his head, following in Albedo’s footsteps on the trail back to Mondstadt. Aether did not want to start having a crush on a mysterious alchemist—he couldn’t even figure it out himself.
In the heavy pelts of rain, Aether stayed by Albedo’s side, occasionally talking about surface-level things—like Albedo’s job, his hobbies, etc. Aether watched the mist rise from the surface of Cider Lake, the windmills of Mondstadt shrouded in the rain. They started exchanging goodbyes at the bridge, Albedo saying something about how he would ensure they met again. Those words left Aether with a warm, fuzzy feeling. Aether considered on the walk back, trying to decide between two sides fighting for victory. Maybe it would be nice to be understood by someone who was as incomprehensible as you.