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Aether’s least favourite thing about Teyvat was the stars and he didn’t know if it was the heavenly principles being assholes or he was just going insane. Still, if another star constellation flips him off one more time he might just burn the whole world out of spite yet aside from this very irritating problem, they were also his favourite thing because they were his living space for well a majority of his travels before Teyvat.
“Hey Paimon?” Aether was met with silence……oh yeah Paimon had drifted to sleep a few minutes prior and decided that his head would be the perfect perch to nap. He sighed and kept walking forward, they were supposed to have been making their way to Inazuma for a commission and they had hardly even made it out of Sumeru yet.
But the new hilichurl camp that blocked the road seemed to tell him that this would take so much longer than he thought and after clearing around 5 in the area already he was exhausted and honestly didn't want to deal with this and there was a convenient cave for him to slip on into for the night.
So he did just that and hid in the cave.
The cave was so dark it was perfect for Cyno to make a joke about not being able to c. Aether steadily walked through the cave being careful not to trip and send Paimon flying (not in the normal way but in the bad way). Aether couldn't wait till he got to Natlan and he could finally light easy fires but he pushed forward and kept going deeper mostly out of morbid curiosity.
Suddenly he noticed a dim light deeper in
'Well' He thought to himself ‘isn’t that oddly suspicious’ But up til this point seeing something suspicious hasn't stopped him before and it won't start now so what did he do? Walk towards the light of course. The deeper he got the more bright it became and soon there was a clearing it was mostly empty except for one tiny thing.
“Dainsleif?!?” Aether yelled in shock. It was so loud it woke up Paimon and Dainsleif spun around quickly to face them
“Ah, it's just you two” Dainsleif said he seemed to calm down after realising they weren't a threat. The light that lights up the tunnel was from the multitude of light-up torches in the area
“Paimon is surprised to see you Dain, what are you doing here?”Paimon said after calming down
“Waiting” Ah one of Dainsleif's(or any Khaenri'ahins) many quirks, literally never giving a straight answer
“For wh-” Aether started but right on cue an abyss order portal opened but this one was different, it had more wind blowing than one of Dvalin's tornadoes
And in a definitely unforeseen series of events that 100% weren't spoiled in the tags Lumine stepped through, her gaze was sharp and serious as her eyes swept the cave and when it landed on her twin the seriousness vanished quickly and was replaced by absolute confusion and that confusion was returned in an equal amount
“HUH?!”
“LUMINE??”
The twins yelled at the same time before both turned to Dain at the same time
“WHAT'S HE/SHE DOING HERE?”They continued to say in unison
Dain looked like he wanted to tape both of their mouths shut but he sighed and turned to Lumine
“He appeared out of fuck knows where” he then turned to Aether “She told me to come here for a reason I don't know yet”
The explanation seemed to satisfy the rest and there was an awkward silence that followed with no one wanting to speak up first but Paimon noticed something that made her speak out
“Uh, Traveller your braid came out….”
There was another pause
“It WHAT??” Aether shouted again and pulled his hair over his shoulder to check on it and the braid had in fact undone itself probably during the big portal storm, the face he made after it processed made him look like a kicked puppy “Oh it did…”
He thought for a minute before turning around and sitting on the floor and leaning back enough that he could see the other two blondes in the room
“Lumine can you help me redo my hair for old times sake?”
Lumine let out a huffed laugh before sitting down behind him “Alright for old times sake”
Aether smiled and patted a spot near him as a way to tell Dain to sit his bich ass down and join them and he begrudgingly did just that
Silence engulfed the cave again as they all sat there with Lumine starting to work through Aether's hair
Lumine suddenly sighed and whacked Aether over the head “Did you seriously not undo the braid I put in last time?”
“I like my hair braided and I don't know how to do it and it hasn't been my biggest priority” Aether defended
“Wait so you haven't undone your hair since you guys last met?”Dain cut in with varying levels of confusion and concern
“But Traveller's hair is in such good condition, Paimon wouldn't have guessed that” Paimon also butted in
“Yeah well normally it's better than this but his maintenance skills are horrid” Lumine sighed
“Hey it's not that bad” Aether childishly pouted
“Aether the last time I did your hair was 500 years ago and you haven't undone it since” Lumine says with a deadpan stare that Aether couldn't see but he definitely knew she was
“In my defence, I was knocked out during that period of time”
“Paimon has a question how did the braid stay for all the gods we fought but collapsed at a strong gust of wind” Paimon asks intrigued
“That- that's a good question actually,” Aether thinks “How did it survive all that?”
“I make magic braid now shut up and sit still” Lumine said with a hint of pride that the braid survived that long
“Oh, can you braid Paimon's hair too?” Paimon asked happily
Lumine nodded and the conversation gradually changed from hair to storytelling of adventures in Teyvat and such but they somehow didn't accidentally drop what I would like to call sensitive information
“Then Paimon and Traveller got sent to the fortress of Meropide and we met the Duke!”Paimon rambled excitedly as it was now her turn for a hairdo
Aether was now sitting next to Dain and they were both engaging in small talk while Lumine and Paimon were sharing stories
When Lumine was done with Paimon's hair and Paimon was done with her story and drifted off to sleep again Lumine stood up and stretched intending to leave which caused Aether to stand up quickly too
“Lumine wait” Lumine paused giving him the time to say what he wanted “I know I can't convince you to not” Aether paused “You know try to overthrow the celestial government but-”
Before finishing his sentence he dashed towards her and hugged her after a brief surprised pause she hugged him back. After a while, they let go and Lumine reached to get hair and took one of the flowers which were in there and put it in Aether's hair
“I'm sorry” and with that she reopened the portal this time it was not windy as shit but before leaving she flipped both Aether and Dainsleif off with a smug ass look on her face before disappearing into the portal and it abruptly closing.
Aether's face had a small smile at the familiar behaviour while Dain was just confused af
“Siblings” was Aether's one-word explanation before deciding he should probably make a move to pick up a sleeping Paimon
“Traveller before you leave” Dain said, Aether turned to him and nodded “If your name is truly Aether why don't you just tell people that?”
Aether paused “Dunno, Traveller was just simpler to go with, I'm not even sure who came up with it”
“I see well Aether, till we meet again” Was the last thing he said before disappearing like Batman
“Man my family is weird” was the last thing he mumbled before leaving the cave.