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Aether doesn’t know how long he’s been spaced out for, but it certainly can’t have been for too long, because as he comes back to himself, as he steps back into his aching body and once again focuses in on everything that’s going on around him, it doesn’t seem as if all that much has changed at all.
Just as minutes before when he’d first begun to—dissociate, perhaps, Paimon is still fluttering nervously beside him, strands of her hair flying around as her head swivels this way and then that. Wriothesley and Clorinde still appear to be locked into some sort of heated discussion, or at least, as heated as a discussion can get between those two and their often monotone drawls, and Lyney is still in the corner with Freminet and Lynette, looking just about three seconds away from launching himself at Wriothesley in a fit of revenge.
Aether doesn’t know why exactly, but it’s all starting to really get under his skin.
All of the talking, and the muttering, and the heightened emotions that whizz around them all—it’s just.. infuriating. It settles at the back of his throat like a sour aftertaste; digs underneath his nails like a piercing splinter; tugs at his hair, and flicks at his nose, and squeezes its way behind his eyes in the most irritating of ways.
Aether swallows back bubbling bile, lifting a hand to his warm forehead as he takes a single step backwards. Too many feelings, too many thoughts, too much of everything and it’s driving him crazy.
Paimon shifts in his peripheral vision, and her nervous flapping tapers out as she floats in front of him instead. Her hands rise, and then they fall, her mouth downturning as she regards him. “Traveler!” She exclaims in that high-pitched tone of hers that doesn’t usually go right through him like nails on a chalkboard. “Are you okay?”
Is he okay?
Is he okay?
Aether hasn’t felt okay in months now.
He wasn’t okay when he stepped foot on Fontaine’s land after traversing through Sumeru’s heated deserts for weeks on end, and he wasn’t okay when he was being chased around Inazuma for reasons that he couldn’t even begin to wrap his head around. He was barely okay while dealing with the mess that was going on in Liyue with the fatui, and Zhongli, and everything else, and Mondstadt had been—well, the start of his troubles, really.
All that he’s felt as he’s scoured through the Chasm and tiptoed around Enkanomiya; as he’s raised his swords to Gods and bested Harbingers; as he’s fought, and he’s battled, and he’s helped so many people that were so unwilling to help him in return, is contempt. He’s felt nothing but contempt for all of it, and all of the people, and even himself, at times, for allowing himself to be trapped within this hell.
He has more worth than this. He has more power than this. He is not made for guiding cats off of roofs, or helping children pick flowers, or prancing around pretty nations with no apparent care in the world - like everything is just fine and dandy, and that’s all that it will ever be.
To put it simply, Aether is not okay.
“No,” he says quietly, unable to push away all of the resentment from his tone. He pinches the bridge of his nose, and then raises his gaze to meet Paimon’s wide-eyed stare. “No, I’m not.”
Paimon squeaks, gliding forward a little. “What’s wrong? Is it your head? Do you need to sit down? Oh no—”
A sharp inhale. “No, it’s—”
“Traveler? Something’s wrong?” Lyney looks to him from where he’d been simmering quietly beside Freminet and Lynette. He stands, taking careful steps over to where Aether and Paimon are. “Would you like me to get—” his voice falters for a moment, before he lets go of prior reservations in favour of aiding his friend, “—Sigewinne?”
Just the idea of bringing somebody else around, of having to listen to another voice, has Aether shuddering. It’s an unfortunate, involuntary action, and one that has Paimon freaking out all over again.
“Are you going to be sick? You should sit down! You look like you’re going to be sick—oh, Paimon doesn’t know what to do!”
Stop it, stop it, stop—
Wriothesley walks over amidst the kerfuffle, and Clorinde follows. Aether can hear their footsteps loud and clear. He can hear each breath that they take, can hear the confused murmur, and the frantic babbling from Paimon as she flutters around like a panicked crystalfly.
He almost feels as if he’s being surrounded, as if not only are the walls closing in on him, but the people are too. They’re cornering him, pinning him backwards, forcing him against a wall, and it—it makes him furious, makes him bubble with anger, simmer with a red-hot fury. He’s an active volcano of raging emotions and his rocky enclosure is cracking.
“Is the Traveler—”
“Aether.”
“..Pardon?”
“It’s Aether,” the man in question repeats—or clarifies, really. “It’s Aether. It’s not the Traveler. I have a name.”
There’s silence for a few moments, the type of silence that’s awkward, and heavy, and drags on for far longer than it probably should, and then Paimon breaks it with a nervous giggle. “Of course you do! Of course you’re Aether! That’s, um—”
“Everyone’s always calling me the Traveler,” Aether barrels on as he takes a step backwards. He pushes his palms against his eyes for a moment before letting his hands drop down. They clench into fists at his sides. “It’s always the Traveler, or the Outlander—the Knight, or the Captain, or the Hero. I’m sick of it.”
Lyney reaches forward—or at least, he tries to before Lynette guides him back. “Aether—”
“I’m just so sick of it. Of all of this,” Aether gestures towards them, and he shakes his head. “I’m sick of the arguing, and the conversations, and having to entertain so many different people all of the time. Every day I wake up and I have to do something for this person, and then that person, and now I’m here trying to figure problems out for another person in power. It’s always me.”
His mind is crazed, and his hands might be shaking. “I don’t want to be a part of this anymore. I don’t want to spend my days in prison just because nobody else can. I don’t want to waste my energy working, and researching, and trying to unpick problems that don’t even involve me in the first place—I don’t care about the Primordial Sea or what it could do to the citizens of Fontaine, gods above, I don’t even care about Fontaine itself!”
Aether throws his arms upwards. “Let the nation drown for all I care! Let the citizens disappear, let the land be washed away. I don’t need to be here. I don’t need to be doing any of this—I don’t need to be conversing with blacksmiths, or playing pretend with magicians. I don’t even need to be here for Childe. Whatever mess he got himself into is his own problem.”
“And maybe I’m selfish,” he says quietly, his tone dipping away from borderline-hysteria as he rakes in a shuddery breath. “Maybe I’m horrible, and maybe I’m a terrible person, but I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to fall from the sky after fighting a dragon, I didn’t ask to aid a God in his reckless retirement, I didn’t ask to free the citizens of Inazuma from a tyrannical ruler, nor did I ask to deal with Sumeru’s multitude of problems.”
“I just want my sister. From the very beginning, I’ve wanted my sister. I’ve put up missing posters, and I’ve searched within domains, and I’ve begged Gods for help, and yet she’s still not by my side—she’s still off, stuck within problems caused by mortals such as yourselves, and it’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair. None of this is what either of us deserve. I don’t need to be the Hero of Teyvat, nor does she need to be the Princess of the Abyss. We don’t need any of this. Or any of you. Not a single one of you.”
Wriothesley is trying to say something, and even Clorinde looks a little taken aback, but Aether doesn’t focus on it—can’t focus on it. He can’t focus on any of it, not with everything that he’s feeling, and the way that it all seems to be leaking from his chest in scalding droplets. His soul is a leaking cavity and it’s leaking out everything that’s wrong.
Aether straightens, his rigid, quivering form taking on a smoother one—one of liquid, of ease of movement, of—calmness, almost. His heroic, brave facade had cracked to reveal mania, and then had cracked even more to reveal the true being underneath. The fingers on his right hand twitch a little, and he takes a deep breath.
“I’m tired of this now,” he says again, firmer. “I’m tired of this.”
As he speaks, a long, purple sword begins to materialise between his twitching fingers. It’s a Mistsplitter Reforged, doused with purple light and crackling with sparks of hissing electro. His hand grips onto the handle with a tight embrace. He’s held this sword up against Gods before, Gods, and Harbingers, and innocent, crying civilians who can’t seem to scream fast enough before he cuts them down in the dead of night.
Aether’s next words are combined with a breathy laugh. “I’m tired of carrying this around on my back, on my side, against my hip, acting as if I’m not the one who controls when it appears, and how it appears. I’m tired of keeping up a ‘normal’ appearance for the sake of all of you and your tiny, fragile minds.”
“Aether,” Wriothesley says slowly, his hands outstretched in what he might hope is a placating manner. “Put it down.”
“And who are you to tell me what to do?” Aether replies, a tiny smile carving into his features. “The Warden, sure, but not my Warden. Not my keeper. You aren’t. Neuvillette isn’t, the other Archon’s aren’t, hell, the Unknown God isn’t, either.”
Aether shakes his head. “I didn’t spend centuries of my life traversing between worlds with my sister just to get stuck here doing meaningless tasks for people that I just don’t care about, and having to fall in line underneath weak, weak creatures. I’m tired of it, I’m sick of it, I’m—I’m done. I’m done with it all.”
He can see Paimon floating away, further and further. He can see the others drawing their weapons, Lyney and his bow, Wriothesley and his catalyst, Lynette and her sword. Freminet still seems a little too weak to be holding up his claymore, but he tries. A valiant effort, but also quite pathetic. It nearly makes Aether want to coo.
It doesn’t matter, though, none of it matters.
Anemo builds beneath Aether’s feet in billowing gusts, Geo spreads from the tips of his hardened fingers, Hydro crashes behind the sharpened points of his teeth, Dendro twists it’s way around the curve of his braid, and Electro continues to zap along the length of his sword - hissing out like a threatened snake.
“I am done with this now,” Aether repeats, calm even when faced with a multitude of ‘friends’ turned foes. “And I am done with all of you.”
Aether’s footsteps are light against the grated staircase leading out of the entrance to the Fortress of Meropide, but the sound of boot against metal is surprisingly loud. There’s an echo as he walks, but he doesn’t mind all that much, as it distracts him from the thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat that’s pulsing in his ears.
He takes a breath as he reaches the top, and he brings his free hand upwards to swipe over his eyes as they adjust to the sudden onslaught of bright daylight. It doesn’t do much other than smear a streak of red across his pale skin, though—not that he minds all that much anyway.
Just as he’s about to continue walking onwards and away from all of the—incidents, perhaps, a voice calls out from behind him.
“Traveler? Is that you?”
Aether turns.
Neuvillette is standing there in all of his blue-tinted glory. His hair sways in the wind, his hands neatly held at his sides. He’s the image of put-together perfection, with his perfectly fitted clothes, and his perfectly straight posture, and that perfect drawl of his. He contrasts quite nicely against Aether’s undone braid, and his manic gaze, and the streaks of red that have splattered just about all over his body.
Aether tilts his head, and then nods a little in slow confirmation. “Hello.”
Neuvillette falters momentarily as he takes in the sight before him. “Goodness. Did—what happened? Is everyone okay? Is the Fortress of Meropide under—”
Aether purses his lips. He lets his sword slowly dissipate from existence, disappearing right before them, and doesn’t miss the way that Neuvillette’s gaze shifts to be something guarded rather than concerned for him. How sweet.
“Everything’s fine,” the Traveler says. His smile is bright—familiar. “Just fine.”
“Traveler—”
“I’ll be leaving now. I wish you luck when the prophecy unfolds. We both know that it will.”
Aether doesn’t stay to hear any more after that. He stalks on forward, gaze determined and now furiously heart beating for one cause only—he is to find his sister, and he is to leave with her. Nations be damned, prophecies be damned, Khaenri’ah, and Archons, and Unknown Gods be damned.
He’s done with this world now.
It’s time to move on.