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“Traveler… you must let her go, if you wish to see this nation regrow.”
Aether looked over his shoulder to see Venti standing behind him, palm reached out in an offer. The archon’s eyes were, as always, kind. There were no traces of deceit or violence in them, just a tranquil sea of green-blue. You could get lost in them, Aether remembered thinking, they were so comforting. But now with Lumine’s limp body in his arms, Venti’s kindness felt wrong. The traveler looked down at his sibling’s face. She still had a faint pulse, but her skin already had the pallor of a corpse and even the flowers resting in her hair looked wilted. Aether had gifted those to her himself many worlds ago, with the promise that they would never fade as long as she remained with him. It had seemed like an innocent promise back then, however now it just seemed ridiculous.
“I… I can’t do that.”
He heard Venti’s light footsteps make their way over to stand next to him, the bard’s shadow cast over him by the bleak sun shining over the Khanri’ahn ruins unearthed by the fight.
“I understand Lumine was your sister, my friend, but this is her only way for her mistakes to mend. Her presence has cast great shadows over the nations and we will need your assistance in stopping any remaining machinations.”
He could feel her bones, Aether realized as he gripped Lumine’s shoulders. While he’d been off making friends and enjoying the nations of Teyvat, she’d been laboring tirelessly to undermine the same gods he’d carelessly made friends with, one of them trying to comfort him right now. Lumine had worked herself to the bone and he… should he have joined her? Aether brushed her bangs back into their usual style, a fondness in his motions. He understood now. He’d been too distracted with everything here to remember that they were the most important things to each other and if Celestia fell… was it really their problem? He knew it was selfish, but looking down at the girl he’d traveled worlds with and all of the memories that they had shared together, did the guilt of a nation they had nothing to do with matter?
“Venti. Zhongli. Baal- everyone. I’m sorry, but I can’t follow your requests.”
The traveler stood up, hefting Lumine into his arms. She was still as light as she was the last time he carried her like this centuries ago, but this time, the burden of a nation rests upon him with her. Venti takes a step back and the other archons except for Cryo all appear in flashes of their own elements, weakened by the fight alongside Celestia against the Abyss Order, Tsaritsa, and Lumine. Zhongli, no, Morax, says nothing. He had not wanted to return to his godly duties, but when called upon, the Geo archon had returned. Now here he stood, golden eyes betraying nothing as he gazed upon the twins. It was Murata who spoke next, the Pyro archon’s intensity the opposite of Morax’s calm.
“Aether, we trusted you and you’ve helped us all before. So please , just leave Lumine to Celestia. They’ll deal with her and you can come back home! Doesn’t that sound great?”
Home? What was home, if not with Lumine? Mondstadt wasn’t home. Neither was Liyue, Inazuma, Fontaine, or anywhere else.
“Lumine is my home. None of you understand what I’ve- WHAT WE’VE BEEN THROUGH TOGETHER!”
He roared out, tears forming in his eyes. They were all archons, godly figures removed from any semblance of humanity no matter how hard they tried. Aether couldn’t blame them for that, but they would never understand even a drop of his suffering upon seeing Lumine like this. Venti looked shocked at Aether’s scream, Morax stoic, Murata defensive, Baal displeased, the Hydro archon’s mask indifferent, and the Dendro archon startled.
They would never understand.
It was only Aether
and Lumine.
She laid dying in his arms while these gods wanted to persecute her.
Aether screamed and it was worse than anything any of these immortal beings had ever heard. It was a scream of anguish and pain, of frustration and anger. A pair of huge wings burst from the traveler’s back, pure white geometric shapes like prisms lined with burnished gold, each wing panel reflecting the sun in every colour. They were beautiful at first glance, deadly sharp on second.
Aether screamed and the elements answered. Instead of only using one at a time like before this very moment, he felt all of them coursing through his soul. Anemo, Pyro, Electro, Hydro, Dendro, Cryo, Geo, and a deep darkness that must have been the power of the Abyss. With one hand still supporting Lumine, the traveler summoned his golden sword from when he’d first arrived. It too coursed with energy, a rainbow of lights shimmering within the blade and hilt where he held it. His blond hair unbound and glowing like a halo, he stepped forward.
“I am going to kill the unknown god in Celestia. And then I am leaving with my sister.”
He was the first to move, running forward with a flap of those large wings as he rushed the archons that stood before him and in his way to Celestia. Not one of them moved out of his path, yet all drew their respective powers. They were all weakened from the fight before this one, but they remained archons all the same.
Aether swung his sword out and Morax blocked it with his shield, jumping back as a meteor slammed into the ground where the traveler had been standing a moment ago. He’d moved back just in time, but now the Hydro archon was after him, chains of water rising from the ground. Aether deftly doged them, vaporizing them with a swish of a sword now engulfed in flame. He cut through a cage of vines the Dendro archon had summoned around him, the plants falling to the dirt in a burned mess. Baal was next, appearing and disappearing around him with her time-bending powers- he barely got a shield of Geo up in time to defend against her relentless lightning bolts. But it was enough and when the shield finally cracked, he threw it back, slamming her into a wall from the ruins. Another meteor rained down, pulsating with Geo energy before Aether sliced it into pieces. Like an infuriated bull, Murata charged the blond, the outlander moving aside and dousing the flames that raged around him with Hydro.
Mindlessly, Aether cut and slashed, his only priorities to keep Lumine safe and to get to Celestia. In a mere matter of minutes, the attacks against him stopped, each of the archons lying battered across the field. Morax was the only one who had proved to be an issue, but his shield had been no matches for Aether’s relentless Cryo attacks in the end- the Tsaritsa must have personally made a deal with Lumine that had carried over to Aether, they were that strong.
The only one left was a bard standing before him, with two braids and green eyes like the dandelion sea. The first god Aether had ever met and the one he had always felt closest with- Venti, the archon of Anemo.
“I don’t want to hurt you. Let me through, Venti.”
The petite figure in green smiled sadly and spoke, his delicate tone unfitting for the situation.
“I fear this will haunt me more than his death so long ago, but in the end it is just another scratch on the name Barbatos. Perhaps I’ll find myself adopting a new face to honour such a tragic hero… the bards will sing of your bravery till the clock reaches zero.”
Aether leapt forward and Venti flew up out of the way with a gust of anemo energy, his beret falling below him. The traveler sprung up after him- he had much experience in fighting mid-air, but apparently Venti did too. Arrows whistled past Aether, each one almost hitting their mark. The outlander had to parry a few with his sword, but he finally landed a solid hit against Venti, slicing through his emerald cloak to torso below. It was purposefully done with the blunt side of his sword, but it was enough to knock the archon off his balance. But Venti pulled Aether down with him and because of the traveler’s care to keep Lumine from getting injured any further, he let himself plummet down. Even with the bow-user clinging to him, Aether was able to push him off in time and the twins landed somewhat safely. Venti wasn’t as lucky and laid in a crumple on the dirt.
Aether looked down at his “friend’s” prone body, but after knowing how he (alongside the other archons) had nearly killed the person he cared for most, the traveler found it difficult to feel pity for any of them. He looked up to the gray sky in silence and let his sword disappear so he could carry Lumine in both arms. Celestia was his final destination and now that he had taken care of everyone in his way, Aether was going to destroy the unknown god who resided within.
“We’ll never be separated again.”
He whispered to Lumine, her pulse still weak and her eyes closed. Aether’s wings flapped, dust rising around him, and they took off towards the palace in the heavens.
But of course, each story in Teyvat ends in tragedy and this one was no different. If a civilization progresses too far. If a human rebels against a god. If an outlander rescues his family, selfishly choosing her over this world- they will all never find happiness.
Four green arrows of wind arced through the sky and each finds their target. Aether’s no longer flying, he realized, as he was flung back in the air towards the ground, curled around his sister to protect her from the impact. The arrows stabbed themselves into his legs and arms, ropes of anemo energy violently pulling him from the sky. He fell like a limp doll and when he hit the ground, just as Venti did moments ago, alabaster rock imbued with Geo climbed up his legs, encasing them. Aether desperately tried to struggle out, but his feet and calves were firmly stuck in place. He looked up to see Morax and Venti, no- Morax and Barbatos standing before him, the othr archons picking themselves off the ground. How? He’d been so close, he’d beaten them all, how was this happening? He still felt the godly power from before in his veins, all of the elements at his disposal, but he couldn’t put Lumine down to use them if he was frozen like this.
“Aether from the Beyond. As punishment for your defiance of the Archons and Celestia, your lack of care for any being of this world, and your insolence- we sentence you to divine retribution. All Teyvat will know is that you perished valiantly in battle against the Abyss Order.”
Morax’s words carried an air of finality and before Aether could speak, before he could protest, before he could do anything- a bolt of pure Electro energy speared through his heart. It’s followed by a strike of elemental energy from everyone there, with Anemo being the very last. It’s strong, too strong for Aether to handle. The traveler felt the blood rise in his throat, choking him as everything began to go numb. Death. He looked down at his twin, still in his arms, and watched in mute horror as a shard of ice slit her throat. The power she had obtained from the Tsaritsa and that which Aether had drawn upon to fight the archons- the terms of the deal must have included her life if Aether perished.
Weakly Lumine opened her eyes to meet Aether’s blank ones.
“Sorry, brother. I think-” She coughed, the slit in her throat bleeding harder. “I think you should have just left me to pay for what I’ve done alone.”
He gripped her tighter, refusing to look at the archons who stood watching. Lumine was all that mattered, all that would ever matter to him. Nothing, not even entire nations, could break their familial bond.
“I would never leave you, Lumine.”
When death took the twins a few seconds later, both of the outlander’s bodies became fully covered in the golden-veined alabaster that Morax had set upon them. To anyone else, they looked like a statue of a pair of siblings, a brother holding his sister close peacefully. Only the archons would know what truly took place on that day. They bowed their heads in silence, with Venti being the only one who dared to go close. The bard felt a tear roll down his cheek as he lifted his palm to cup Aether’s cheek, whispering something inaudible to the others standing behind him.
“I will sing your story until my throat is hoarse. Teyvat will never forget your brave heart.”
-<-><><->-
From high above in the heavens, a god with white hair and gold eyes smiled at the scene far below her.
“Paimon, don’t look so upset. Your duty was accomplished and they never even realized.”
“But… you never told me they would both be killed.”
The god laughs.
“In the end, all they are is game pieces- Do you care for your pawns in chess?”