Chapter Text
Travelling to a new world different from before, two blonde haired twins named Aether and Lumine notice that their path to the next realm was blocked. A woman appears from out of the crimson black primo gem shaped portal, dissatisfied at the sight that beholds herself.
“Outlanders, your journey ends here.” The woman with long white hair with such an intense aura stops both Lumine and Aether from their travels.
Determined to move forward, Lumine asks “Who’re you?”
“The sustainer of heavenly principles,” the unknown god tells the twins before levitating a gold cube that turned into even more danger for the twins, “The arrogation of mankind ends now.”
Falling back from the unknown god’s manifesting cubic power, Lumine and Aether take out their swords and manifest their wings. Both trying to fight back and continue on their journey to the next world. However, the unknown god’s power circles around the twins, as they try to fight the white haired god.
However, tragedy struck.
The unknown god pushed Aether aside, allowing Lumine to be swallowed up into the
god’s cubic force. Aether looks down at his sister’s worried eyes.
“LUMINE!” he shouts, but to no avail. His sister was already taken away, with the unknown god reducing the larger cubes that held his sister to that same compact gold cube that she held from earlier. Able to fight back, Aether tries to get near the unknown god with his sword charged up and prepared. However, the unknown god foresaw the actions that Aether took and used it to her advantage to rid of him too.
The cubic mass of particles that were used to bind her sister were now pointed at him. One of the cubes, hitting one of Aether’s hands allowing the rest of the cubic mass to take over his body.
All that Aether could say was, “Wait! Don’t go. Give my sister back!” before the world turned black. Darkness ensued and...
Aether wakes up from a terrible dream - losing his sister in some sort of ‘fantasy-esque’ situation. Some unknown god with white hair took his sister out of thin red cubic particles while he was left to watch the end of himself being reduced in cubes. He yawns, waking up to the top of his bunk bed with his Paimon plushie still with him. Looking down, he sees that his twin sister Lumine is fast asleep.
‘Sister, please be safe…’ Aether softly but sadly smiles.
He knows how close this senior Liyue high school student ‘Childe’ can get to his twin. He’s that one delinquent who's secretly in a mafia. Only a select few people knew about this from experiencing the dangerous alleyways of Liyue.
Aether takes the ladder attached to his bunk bed and wakes his twin up. Her bright yellow eyes sleepily open up looking up to her brother’s.
“H-hey. A-A-Aether…” Lumine complains a little, rubbing her tired eyes.
“It’s 6:30 am, school starts soon so we better get going.” Aether tells his sister.
“But-”
“Aunt Jean is going to lecture you again about getting a call from your teacher being late to class…” Aether sighs, grabbing his Liyue high school uniform and making his way into the bathroom. ‘Lumine won’t hog it this time.’ Aether thinks to himself, glad that he won’t hear his sister on her cell phone in their shared bathroom from last week calling Liyue high school student and part-time chef Xiangling about her worries regarding the high school senior Childe. The bathroom was also locked when that instance occurred, meaning that Lumine was being serious from here on out.
“Just give me a few minutes brother, I’ll get ready quickly.” Lumine says from outside of the bathroom.
Aether first brushes his long back hair before placing it into his signature ponytail that he wears outside. He then takes off the undershirt he slept with last night and places first a clean undershirt he grabbed before he went inside the bathroom, his white button up and finally his yellow-orange Liyue high school cardigan on himself. Changing into newly cleaned pants and brushing his teeth, Aether thinks about who he’s going to run into today.
‘I’ll meet up with Xingqiu and Chongyun during lunch and then we’ll go to the library… where I’ll see Xiao again.’
Xiao…
For some reason, Aether couldn’t get his mind off Xiao. The introverted dark teal haired individual who wore glasses and sat at the back of Liyue high school’s library whenever school breaks occurred, secretly taking a bite of his favorite almond tofu that he snatched from his book bag that was wrapped up to snack on. Although following Xingqiu to the library with Chongyun wasn’t already enough, he could take a quick glimpse at the third year student.
Yes, he may look a little lonely. Yes, he’s the kind of person to be a social outcast. But Aether realized how close Xiao was to the adults in school - Lady Ninguang (as she preferred to be called), Miss Ganyu and Mr. Zhongli were fairly close to Xiao. However, Aether never really got the chance to have a talk with Xiao. The only time Xiao ever interacted with him was through accidentally sleeping in the school’s library before it’s closure for the night.
Just a simple pat for Aether to wake up, a short talk up until they reached outside of Liyue high school and they simply parted ways.
Of course Aether couldn’t follow Xiao, taking a train or bus from Liyue to Mondstadt wasn’t always the issue. It was that his kind caretaker and aunt Jean would tell him and his twin sister to be early for one of them to pick Klee up from elementary school. If he or his sister didn’t cooperate or do the job, then consequences would arise.
Opening up the bathroom door, Aether holds out his book bag, placing his schoolwork and pencil case into it before making his way downstairs.
“Ahh, look who's awake and early here.” Kaeya smirks as Aether who sits down in one of the seats at the breakfast table.
“Good morning Kaeya, do you know where everyone is this morning?” Aether asks, looking down at the food that was setup early - bacon and eggs.
“Oh, you mean the ladies? Well Jean, Miss Lisa and Amber are out taking Klee out early for school. They said they were also going shopping in Mondstadt’s downtown marketplace so I allowed them to do so while I prepared you guys lunch.” Kaeya hands Aether his bento from behind the kitchen table, Aether believes that what Kaeya packed him and his twin were his favorite fruity skewers which he tried to fit into the lunch box. Hopefully there was no alcohol infused in the fruity skewers, Aether thought. He and his sister were still below drinking age and the two knew Kaeya added absinthe to his fruity skewers.
“Thanks Kaeya… and Barbara-”
“She’s early and off to the Favonius church in Mondstadt,” Kaeya replies “she’s also going to Mondstadt high school early.” Kaeya told Aether. Although the twins preferred going to Liyue than Mondstadt, Kaeya couldn’t blame them - though the price of taking a bus to Liyue meant that the two needed to spend their allowance wisely.
Though Aether thought about it a little - it was nice living with aunt Lisa, uncle Kaeya and aunt Amber. Although Aether and Lumine were living with the Gunnhildr sisters due to their parents’ work abroad and them allowing the twins the free will to have a regular high school life, it was also clear that Jean needed assistance when caretaking for Klee. Since Klee’s mother Alice left her under aunt Jean’s care, the twins had decided to stay with her because the Gunnhildr family was close to their parents. Though Aether thought it was also because the Gunnhildr household was pretty big to fit everyone there.
“Good morning uncle Kaeya. Morning Aether.” Lumine came down the stairs wearing her white button up, her light blue Liyue high school cardigan (which she usually ties around the back of her waist), her pleated skirt and high socks on. She also had her signature two lily hair clips pinned up.
“Ahh, seems you’re awake a little earlier than yesterday Lumine. Your sorta a slacker compared to your twin brother y’know.” Kaeya tells Lumine who blushes a little.
“H-h-hey! You don’t have to say that. I-I-I’m just having a girl moment right now!” Lumine blushes a little.
“Oh, I may know what the issue is…” Kaeya smirks a little. He knows a little about her ‘guy problems’ through Aether, though he doesn’t know who the guy she likes is. He knows it’s someone from Liyue though since Lumine would never go up to his adopted brother Diluc and-
‘Diluc is alright, I’m sure of it.’ Kaeya tells himself, knowing after the twins leave the house he should pay a visit to his adopted brother at Angel’s Share in Downtown Mondstadt. Maybe even grab a few glasses of his favorite wine from the tavern Diluc works at.
Opening up the light pink bento box, Lumine smiles. “We’re having fruity skewers and a chocolate brownie at the side? Thanks uncle Kaeya!” Lumine hugs her uncle tight, packing the bento into her bag along with her water bottle. The twins know that whenever Lisa or Jean prepares their bento it’s always healthy food, like salad (on rare occasions, Jean could pack her specialty pizza if she was in a good mood).
Aether gets up with this finished breakfast and rinses the excess food with water. He then walks up to his twin and taps her shoulder.
‘She’s used to this, it seems.’ Aether thinks a little when he looks at his sister. Lumine has been staring at her phone for 5 minutes now, presumably waiting for Childe to answer back. However, he hadn’t responded from the look that his sister was showing - one of disappointment.
“Lumine, let’s go. We don’t want to be late.” Aether reminds his sister, waving a hand through her phone to make her realize that she’s not having fantasies of Childe.
Lumine sighs, grabbing her bag and placing the bento box Kaeya prepared in it.
“Coming brother!” Lumine rushes waving to her uncle as she takes off with her brother. ‘No time to be late again,’ Lumine sighs. ‘or else Aunt Jean will lecture us again…’