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Something bitter settled in Dainsleif’s stomach as he listened to the exhaustion seeping into Aether’s voice. Cooking a meal over a simple campfire reminded Dain of the better parts of his own trip. It was nice to share the experiences with someone again. The day had gone relatively smoothly, not that he had expected it not too. It was just after Aether’s brief feeling of sensing his sister’s presences, well, he might have been a bit worried about the younger.
There was a renewed determination that lay between the deep lines of fatigued scored into the traveler’s very being. Even he could tell that this encounter had changed something within the boy. For the better or for the worse he does not know.
All rationality thrown to the wayside when presented with a near identical version of his own traveling partner. Of course, he knows that despite being twins that Aether is not Lumine. He’s grateful for that he thinks.
It scares him a little bit as he listens to the younger male talk about how glad he feels to be coming one step closer to going home.
Home. He’s forgotten what it’s like to not be wandering aimlessly. To have a company on the road and a family to return home to. Does Aether feel the same?
But he at least has Paimon, the pixie who was now fast asleep after eating two-thirds of their rations, by his side on his travels.
Why would he give that up? Doesn’t Aether see what Lumine become? No. Of course he doesn’t, because the boy who sits in front of him is 500 years too late to return to his sister as she once was. They might as well still be worlds apart.
“Don’t you think all this searching is pointless?” Dain asks. To fill in the empty silence.
Aether pauses, about to take a drink from his glass of cider.
“What do you-”
“I mean she clearly doesn’t want to be found. Looking for her will only make her angrier.” He swirls his own drink around. Why the traveler packed apple cider instead of anything drink of value that might chase off the cold lonely hours of the night he has no idea. Didn’t Mond have a thriving wine industry? No matter.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Aether says, stiffening in his seat. “Lumine’s my sister. Of course she wants me to find her. She’s- we’re all we have.”
Dainsleif shrugs, this conversations would be better with liquid courage running through his veins. At the very least he could blame it all on the drink come morning. Instead, he has cursed blood running coursing through his body and enough resentment to make his next words harsh.
“Oh really. It certainly didn’t seem that way to me. I don’t know how long you think you’ve known her for but you don’t know what she’s like now. It’s been 500 years and she hasn’t missed you once then- hell I thought she had given up on you when you hadn’t awoken the first century, we were together. She’s gone on without you and one day you have to come to terms with that.”
What is he saying?
Why is he doing this to Aether?
He was in this same place once before, back then he would have given anything for someone to give him some comfort or word of advice.
He finds he can’t stop himself, something sick within enjoying the hurt that flashes in Aether’s eyes.
A festering anger for the star child in front of him and his naive disposition of the world. Of a girl he thinks to have known despite being gone from for centuries. Who’s light hasn’t been put out yet by the cruelty of the world by nothing short of a miracle. He doesn’t want to watch that happen in the hands of someone like her.
The words feel as though they catch on his teeth, coming out with a snarl. “You’re nothing to her. And you haven’t been for a long time.”
The emotion fizzles out at Aether’s reaction. It isn’t to cry, to shut down, to even ignore the meaningless words being thrown his way.
Instead a manic laughter breaks from Aether, the kind of laugh that comes from someone who has reached their limit and has just been tipped over the edge. “Save those words for yourself Dainsleif, because you’re wrong. And do you want to know why? Because you take me as some innocent fool. Don’t you think I already knew that about my sister.”
Dain flinches back at the empty glare that is sent his way. gaze that knows far more than the owner lets on and have been living that way for as long as they can remember.
He’s trembling, Dain notices, placing his glass down on the grass when the liquid spills over the rim and onto his gloves. He focuses his attention now on the ground, the first to look away even as he can feel Aether’s eyes still trained on him.
The traveler gets up from his seat, dousing the remainders of their camp fire with a burst of anemo. The wind sends a chill through Dainsleif’s bones.
“Wha- Paimon was sleepin’” he hears the fae grumble sleepily. Aether must have woken her up.
“We’re leaving.”
“We are?” Paimon shoots up, shock by Aether’s abnormal behavior waking her up instantaneously.
“Yes. Right now.”
“But what about Dain?”
“I said let’s go Paimon.”
She stares between them; Dain can’t even look up go meet her questioning gaze. Even if he did, there would be nothing for him to say in his defense. It doesn’t take the fairy long to follow Aether, after all she has no ties to Dain, and just like that the last flickers of light he has disappears.