Chapter Text
The grass beneath Aether was soft as he woke slowly, his body ached and he felt stiff in too many places to be comfortable as the sun's rays caressed his skin. He tried to shift to be more comfortable, but suddenly he was hit with sharp pains and he had to force his eyes open. He was somewhere unfamiliar, and he was alone, “Lu-” his voice and throat ached, he was suddenly very aware of his empty stomach and his dried out throat, but he still forced them out, “Lu-mine-” He broke into a coughing fit, unconsciously curling up as the movement made wounds he was now very aware of burn with pain.
He was half expecting for a canteen to suddenly be pressed to his lips, his sister’s scolding voice echoing in his ears for trying to talk and move when injured. But no such thing happened, Aether looked around the clearing he was in with scrunched eyes and found he was alone. Confusion washed over him, where was his sister?
… where was he?
Aether was suddenly very aware of the gaps and fog in his memory. He tried to force himself to focus on the least misted parts of his memory but suddenly his wounds flared up once more. He forced himself to take deep breaths as he pushed back the panic that threatened to take over his mind, he needed to be rational. First his wounds, he had no clue how long he had been asleep in the middle of the woods, had no clue what sort of illnesses and creatures existed in this world, he needed to clean his wounds. Closing his eyes he focused on listening, ignoring the sounds of birds and woodland creatures, of branches cracking and leaves rustling, and feeling relief wash through him when he heard the sound of gurgling water.
He pushed himself off the ground, wincing as his wounds burned and his mind screamed at him to sit down, instead turning and making his way in the direction of the water. Every step hurt and a part of him really just wanted to crash, but he had dealt with worse than a few injuries and he eventually made it out of the forest. He smiled in relief at the sight of a small pond with a small island in the middle. It had an unfamiliar statue in the middle but he paid no mind to it. Looking into the water, it was quite clean already, no visible predators other than fish that swam away when he stepped into it. He waded through the water and made it to the little island, it wouldn’t do much in terms of protection but it would be a good alert system, no one would be able to get to him without loudly wading through the water.
Sitting himself down on the grass he breathed a sigh of relief as his muscles relaxed, they still ached and were stiff and he wondered how long he had been asleep. He shut his eyes and put a hand on his heart, searching the subspace hidden within his heart to see what he had. He had some things he always kept with him, sets of clothing and armor that he had worn in all his years of traveling, spare boots, toiletries like hair products and body wash, and first aid kits. But there were also unfamiliar items, bundles of oddly familiar flowers, clothing belonging to children, a lot of jewelry decorated with unfamiliar gems and etched with unfamiliar words, and numerous bags of gold coins that he could only assume was currency.
He summoned his sword but frowned at the sight of it, rather than the pure white and gold weapon he had been wielding for his entire lifespan, it was instead replaced by a dull blade made of something akin to iron, the handle wrapped with faded blue leather and decorated with dull blue gems. It still fit in his hand and felt as comfortable as his sword but it had clearly lost all power that it was once laced with, he reached within himself, searching for his own power to try and fix what had happened to his favored weapon-
But he couldn’t find his power- not a single piece of stardust remained.
The panic came back once more but he could not push it back this time, it washed over him, pressing down on his mind oppressively. He had no power, not an ounce of it, his wounds ached like never before and he was suddenly very aware of his back burning.
He looked at his reflection in the water.
He regretted it.
His wings- the limbs that carried him from world to world- the gift she gave him in apology for the way they had destroyed his body- were in tatters.
The gold metal like scales that attached them to his back were missing patches, exposing muscle and vulnerable skin, the feathers that were once pristine and white and almost transparent in appearance were nearly all missing- the few that remained were coated in dried blood- he couldn’t fly, not with his wings in this state. In addition he could only count three of his six wings-
He could not fly without his wings-
He could not heal without his power-
He was weak without his power-
He would die here.
His breath came out in heaves, forcing himself to stand up and making a move to stumble to the water- hoping that the cool temperature would wake him from this terrible nightmare he found himself in, but the wind picked up, pushing his weak body back towards the island. The wind was warm but firm in its coaxing of Aether’s movements, he could not do much against it as he was suddenly pushed to sit on the base of the statue.
An unfamiliar warmth rushed through him and he looked up to the statue through his tears, the figure depicted was a young being with short hair and braids framing their face covered in flowing fabric with grand wings, they were holding an orb in their hands that suddenly glowed with power. He sucked in a breath as the warm wind that swirled around him seemed to push into him, he let out a shuddering breath as the wind pushed into his heart and settled where his stardust once was.
Aether’s breath evened out as he finally relaxed, his wounds no longer ached so much and his body no longer felt so stiff. The pain was still there, his wings still tattered, he was still alone-
The wind that still twisted around him seemed to shush those thoughts and Aether relaxed once more.
Aether was far from fine- but he could handle this- he had dealt with many problems in his long life- he could handle this.
The wind hummed in his ears, agreeing.
***
Once Aether settled from his panic attack he refocused on his task, first he needed to collect some water, he needed to both clean his wounds and hydrate himself. The water in the pond seemed relatively clean but Aether didn’t survive this long by being trusting of the worlds he traveled to. He summoned a spare pot that he forgot he had and gathered as many loose sticks as he could and managed to start a fire with quite a bit of effort. He gathered water in the pot and began the painstaking process of boiling the water, in the meantime he actually started looking at his body and his injuries.
The first thing he noticed was that he was wearing unfamiliar clothes, unlike his usual clothing, it was more comfortable and less for battle and traveling, they also stuck with a theme of dark shades of blue and golds as opposed to his warm browns, blacks and golds, he also was decorated with more of the flowers that were bundled in his heart. The clothes were beautiful and comfortable and if they were in better condition Aether would have worn them, but sadly they were torn up. He carefully removed each layer of fabric and took note of his wounds, whatever fight left him in this state was intense.
While it was less than sanitary, Aether couldn’t boil enough water to bathe in - nor did he have a place to put the clean water - so he settled for bathing in the pond. He carefully washed his hair after removing the flowers that were braided loosely into them, they had an odd texture, unlike the soft petals he was expecting, they were solid like stone or ice, they seemed familiar. He also scrubbed all the dirt and dried blood off of him, he didn’t bother trying to clean his wings, instead choosing to make them disappear as he tried to ignore the longing for the skies once more.
When his wings were gone he noticed that his back had gained a tattoo at some point in time. In dark ink, an eight pointed star branded his back. He had assumed that the backless shirt of his outfit had been for his wings but perhaps it had been to show off this tattoo. It wasn’t the worst looking symbol Aether had ever seen, but it gave him an odd sense of foreboding as he tried once more to look through the fog of his memories after he settled on the stone that lined the shore.
At some point in time he and Lumine had arrived in this world, but after that it was all foggy. He could tell he had been going through that time in a haze of exhaustion, but why was he so exhausted? He managed to clear some of it, barely any but some nonetheless. At some point the exhaustion disappeared and he was flying through the sky with Lumine, the world was burning under them and they arrived at a floating kingdom. They tried to leave but were stopped by an unfamiliar woman, a god he thinks. They fought, and Lumine had been encased in that god’s power soon before he was too.
Aether let out a heavy sigh as he cleaned his wounds with the cooled down boiled water, carefully stitching up the worst of them and bandaging the others. His sister had been kidnapped and he had no idea where either of them could have gone. If he still had his wings he would simply fly to that floating kingdom once more but his wings were damaged, damaged by that unknown god.
The wind brushed up against him in comfort and he sighed, he needed to focus on finding his sister, vengeance was never his thing.
Experimentally he flicked his hand, summoning the wind that took the place of his stardust, a gust of wind came from his hand and extinguished his fire. He smiled, he had wielded wind in the past with the use of various artifacts or techniques unique to various worlds, even if he needed to find his sister he could still enjoy the world just as they usually did when they traveled. He got dressed after drying himself with another flick of his hand, breathing a sigh of relief that most of the bandages and his tattoo were hidden by his clothes.
Cleaning up his camp he sat down by the statue once more, leaning against it and feeling the energy of it. Interestingly the statue’s energy seemed to go into the ground and extend to places he couldn’t sense just yet, he relaxed at the familiar concept of leylines. Most worlds had them, it was often how he and his sister traveled quickly in the world, granted he would have to set up exit points and it’d take quite a bit of effort to do that without his power, could he even do it without his power? He hoped he would be able to.
A part of him was tempted to simply fall asleep with the comfort of the wind and the magic of the statue, but another part worried about when he’d wake up next. He huffed a sigh before standing, it was always a tried and true method for him to head north until he ended up at some sort of civilization, but, “Where’s north?” He mumbled to himself, the wind however listened and pushed him in a direction, Aether smiled with mild amusement but genuine thankfulness, “Thank you- mysterious wind entity.” He looked up to the statue of the young looking being and smiled, “And in case you aren’t the same entity, thank you for the power.” The statue seemed to pulse with magic and Aether couldn’t stop the smile from pulling further at his lips. With mild hesitation he turned his back to the statue and waded through the pond until he got back to the ‘mainland,’ drying his boots with a flick of his hand that was quickly becoming second nature to him.
With a yawn and a half baked plan in his mind, he left the statue behind as he traveled north.
***
Aether had been to many worlds before, some were grand with human civilization covering every inch of the world, while others were filled with nature with scarce humans to be seen. This world seemed to be a comfortable middle ground, Aether hadn’t traveled far before he met a merchant who was using a pair of horses to pull their cart, in a fascinating and quite useful turn of events, Aether found he could already understand the common language of this world quite well, perhaps unconscious memory from the fogged up parts of his mind? He wasn’t the best at speaking it, but the merchant didn’t seem to mind, they were even kind enough to offer a ride to the village they were returning to. A small fishing village that belonged to the territory of Mondstadt, the apparent name of the nation he had woken up in.
“My village ain’t much compared to the capital though, I’d be happy to take you there when I deliver my next shipment- so long as you help me with taking care of my farm while you’re in the village.” Aether nodded eagerly, the promise of shelter and a ride to somewhere larger was appealing, a larger place meant more people to ask about his sister, “The Knights of Favonius will be able to help you find your sister, don't you worry young man.” He had successfully gotten it across to the merchant that he was searching for his sister, he had expressed sympathy for his plight.
“But-” His face was weary for a moment, “We might want to get you some different clothes boy, with how much gold you got on you, some Treasure Hoarders might take you for some noble kid and snatch you.” Aether frowned, Treasure Hoarders? He clearly saw the confusion as he explained further, “Treasure Hoarders are an organization of thieves, their only goal is to broaden their wealth, they’d happily pick you off the street if they think you're easy to steal from.” Well no world is perfect, there will always be people who ruin the fun of living. Aether has always worn an obscene amount of gold, that along with his young appearance has in fact made him the target of thieves quite often, but Aether was confident in his ability to fight off a few thieves.
“Not easy.” He settled for saying, the old man looked amused, “At least let me lend you a cloak kid, by the way what did you say your name was?” The man temporarily let go of the reins of his horses to search through his bags, unaware of the conflict running through Aether’s mind. Most of the time, he and Lumine would come up with fake names to go by, Aether himself has gone by hundreds of names in his life, most being made by Lumine. What should he call himself this time?
Maybe..
“Kid?”
He could just be himself?
“Aether, my name is Aether.”