Archive of Our Own ^beta

No matter the threads fate tries to weave together in Teyvat, nor its best efforts to create an eternal tragedy,

Aether knows this: stars are stars, and it is their destiny to die.

He still shudders in the night when Lumine, in his dreams, unhinges her jaw and devours the scraps of celestial material left over from a supernova. He remembers countless years spent bathing in the waxing and waning radiation, awaiting an end to his sister’s eternal violence.

In the better dreams, she returns to him. She gives him the scraps of what she couldn’t eat – the tightly-packed iron stars, the neutron assemblies gridlocked and unresponsive – and, with a wistful smile, watches him sate his own hunger. And then they do it again.

They do it again. They do it again. They were only supposed to do it again.

Now they are separated by a blockade of time, wind and whimsy stirred up to keep their hands from broaching the dimensional gap, and the tragedies set to befall Teyvat are all calling his name.

Upon a sleepless night that turns into a sleepless morning, Aether peels himself from the inn room bed. He has a quill and piece of flimsy ready to write, except Paimon has already opened one of her eyes.

‘Hey! Wait for Pamon!’ she snaps, anger trying to disguise the raw panic in her voice. She floats over in a rush, grabbing Aether’s pen arm and holding it hostage above his head. ‘Where do you think you’re going!?’

He wants to laugh, just like he’s supposed to. Paimon is the one friend who’s been with him through thick and thin. Aether wants to laugh and reassure his travel companion – but Lumine’s name is acrid on his tongue, and the space between his temples is pounding.

‘Come on! We have to go find Jeht and help with that stupid Jinni thing,’ rushes Paimon.

Yet Aether shakes his head. He writes his reply: We’re in Sumeru City to see what research we can find. Remember?

‘Yeah…’ Paimon trails off, starting up again right on cue. ‘So! Let’s go to Lambad’s Tavern before we get started! Paimon can’t think on an empty stomach!’

Aether produces a small pouch of Mora. Paimon surrenders his hand to pick it up; it’s weighty enough that she needs to wrap it up between both of her palms. He writes, after: I want to go for a walk. I need to clear my head.

He catches a glimpse of Paimon and the endless depths of sorrow in her eyes. More and more, she has been growing afraid at the thought of them parting. She has become less of his guide, as she was in the beginning, and more of a life partner with whom he cannot separate.

Aether does not expect her bravery, but he gets it. Paimon tilts her chin up and harrumphs, once more trying to hide the hurt on her face through a facsimile of pride. ‘Fine then! Paimon’s going to the tavern herself and ordering a bunch of food. Hurry back, or there won’t be any left for you!’

Once upon a time, as Aether and Lumine soared through the skies bordering Celestia, the Sustainer of Divine Principles came down to destroy their very lives. The Sustainer cast Lumine out of time, cursed Aether to a long slumber – and, for a reason he still fails to understand, sealed his voice and his tongue. There are few people in Teyvat who understand their land’s own Sign, and Paimon, for the life of her, can only remember a couple of phrases.

Still. Aether points his right hand at his chest, draws his index and thumb down from his chin like capturing a fine point, and gestures straight at Paimon.

Paimon kicks her legs and laughs, doing a clumsy rendition of the same.

Love is love, and it need not be voiced.

The House of Daena, tucked into the walls of the Akademiya, remind Aether less of a sprawling library than a staircase to tyranny. The elevator leading to the Grand Sage’s office remains prominent in the centre, dragging out memories of Azar – Shouki no Kami – a life erased, and a god reclaimed. Wanderer and Nahida are on the other side of the city, working in the depths of the Sanctuary of Surasthana to untangle generations of damage wrought in the Sages’ wake.

Aether walks forward and crosses his arms. There are plenty of people here, but the location itself feels sparse, half-abandoned. It’s just as Chandra and Janaki once intimated: the students and researchers are holding their breaths, waiting for the dust to settle before taking up scholarly arms again. Study is politics and study is the daily bread.

And none of that helps him with trying to locate books on the Jinn or the Lord of Flowers. Aether rolls his shoulders, sighs, and takes a brave step forward.

‘Ah. It’s you again.’

– Only to be stopped by the deadpan greeting voiced by Alhaitham. The Acting Grand Sage has a book in hand, standing in front of a monumental bookcase. He has just looked up from his text.

A twinge of irritation stirs in Aether’s chest (just leave me alone) and a heart-stirring relief (I’m not alone!), the two sensations warring it out in his expression. Alhaitham waits with the patience of a saint.

Aether conquers himself and starts talking. Can you help me find something?

Alhaitham nods and slots his book away in a pouch slung from his hips. He gestures toward the elevator on the dais, answers: ‘Come with me.’

Then they are climbing to heaven and descending to the bowels of hell while Aether’s ears pop from the whoosh of pressure. He does not miss the furtive way Alhaitham removes his headset, hanging the earphones around his neck.

Their discussion won’t need much use of hearing.

From the looks of it, Alhaitham has cleaved as much fat from the Grand Sage’s Office as possible. Even so, there is still the gaudy and ever-rotating sculpture that sits before a too-wide desk, an impossibly large chair which could swallow a man like Alhaitham three times over. The surface of his globe-spanning work space is covered in various books and scrolls, some of which do not seem entirely thetical to the work of a Sage.

A Jinni? Alhaitham clarifies, hands in motion once Aether has looked up from a book about agriculture in the time of Al-Ahmar. You want specific information tying spirits to the Lord of Flowers.

Aether nods his head. Alhaitham sits on the arm of the Grand Sage’s chair, folding the ball of one foot upon his other knee. He rubs at the skin of his jawline and up to his ears, the appearance of it red and dry. 

Access to that kind of information requires certain forms, elaborates Alhaitham. An outsider wouldn’t normally have the clearance to see it, regardless.

Aether lets his lashes fall over his eyes, unafraid to put his displeasure on display. Then why did you bring me up here?

This isn’t a normal occasion, Alhaitham says. The quick flicker and flare of his fingers, the pronounced thrust of his downward palms, colours the tone of his words with a kind of smug gaiety.

So Aether holds his hand out expectantly. Alhaitham doesn’t move. Aether stays like that for a few more breaths – and then he is looking about, wondering if he will have to stand for the entire conversation.

‘Up against the wall,’ Alhaitham provides. Aether flashes his hand in thanks before he goes to drag the diminutive chair over.

Alhaitham, when Aether is seated and the desk lies between them, starts up again. The Jinn and Lord of Flowers belong to the mythos of the desertfolk. Not even students in Vahumana are likely to research them, except as byproducts resulting from their theses.

Aether rounds his shoulders and blows out a breath. Were Paimon here, she could call Alhaitham on his “baloney”. (Then again: she’d be just as likely to snap at them for talking in a language she struggles to understand.) He bounces his foot up and down against the marble of the floor, raising an expectant brow.

Finally, Alhaitham starts to get somewhere: The Jinn served King Deshret long ago. Today, if you are to find them, you would want to go looking into magical objects. He pauses to look somewhere to the left, gathering his thoughts in the stop-and-go pace that Aether has long grown used to. Lord Sangemah Bay has experience with them. She won’t help you if you bring up the Akademiya, though.

A huff of a laugh parts Aether’s lips. Alhaitham, however briefly, smiles as well. Alhaitham does not know Dori has, for some reason, adopted Aether as her apprentice – and it’s probably better that way.

Are there books in the House of Daena about them? Aether probes, taking the gathered fingers of his right hand from his ear and presenting them to Alhaitham.

But Alhaitham shakes his head. Nothing that has more information than I’ve provided you. The Jinn and King Deshret lived thousands of years ago.

Do Jinn die of old age? wonders Aether.

Not that I’m aware, supplies Alhaitham.

And yet: old age is subjective. Stars live out their lives over millions and trillions of years. Humans in Teyvat might come to the end of their road, by his reckoning, around sixty or seventy years of age. It is all but a drop of water in the vast lake of time Lumine and Aether have seen pass by.

He finds himself asking the question without much thought: Do you think they know the Scarlet King is dead?

Cocking his head, Alhaitham considers him for a long time. His expression is unmoving; his limbs are as stone. They have sat together like this in the desert, pondering long and unanswerable questions when the sticky heat of night refused to give them rest. Alhaitham is shaped of sensitivities and alexithymia both, a not-so-ordinary combination that Aether sees more of himself in all of the time.

(And in his dreams, Lumine is the one who has stolen his voice, his expressions. Lumine – whose face, in human form, only ever seems to host the long exhaustion of her years – calls to him from across a boundary of fire, tears trailing her cheeks. Her mouth twists in desperation and she promises she will come back for him, that this is not the end; that they will try again.

And in his dreams, Lumine shouts promises and pledges and tries desperately to reach for him through the fire and flames, but

It’s her sword that is sticking through his chest, lancing his heart and coating him in bloody fury.)

Alhaitham raps the wood of the desk twice, and Aether is ashamed to say he jumps. His wide eyes takes Alhaitham in all over again. He is not here with his sister; he is not dying again; he is here, and he is in Sumeru with the Acting Grand Sage. He is digging his nails into the mystery of the Jinn for Jeht’s sake, for Jebrael’s sake – for the sake of the Tanit, and for the sake of his sister, for whom he scours every last inch.

Alhaitham says, I imagine they do. The Lord of Flowers died while they were still working with the King. The ones still around are probably the last remaining vanguards from that time.

So, then. So – Dori’s own Jinni must remember the downfall of its gods. It has existed for all these many years, alone except for the transitory grains of sand that are mortals and their feeble lifespans.

Aether feels his brows draw together in remembered pain. When it came down to it, it was always Lumine who initiated the end of the worlds they visited. He has so many memories of her face framed by the looming dark and the quaking earth and the rising ocean. And he has just as many memories of the mortals who lived until the very moment of their star’s demise: all of the people he loved, and all of the people he loved back.

They, the people who had to perish for he and his sister to feast.

Does that disturb you? questions Alhaitham, drawing Aether back one more time.

Aether says, I think I know their pain. He tries to smile but it is an empty and worn thing. He does not want to imagine Alhaitham or Dori’s faces when Teyvat is finally ripped apart. He knows what lies at the end of the road, and nothing accomplished in his journey and no one saved in his travels will get to enjoy safety for much longer.

There is always a looming end. Aether is the harbinger who never learned to stay away.

You want to empathise with them, surmises Alhaitham, on purpose.

Aether drops his weak smile and twirls his hands. It’s easier. When you live for a very long time, you collect a lot of regret, and a lot of grief.

Nodding his head, Alhaitham glances down. He absently stirs the soft ends of a quillpen on his desk, as though he plans to start taking notes on Aether’s experiences.

The brief flare of anxiety, of righteous anger, inside of Aether dies when their eyes meet again. Alhaitham has no intention of cataloguing his secrets, and one would only understand if they knew to look for the crinkle at the corners of Alhaitham’s eyes, the slightest tell present on his face.

It’s the fundamentals of trust. Aether has not trusted all of the people he has met, though they are all dear to him. In their occasional arguments, Lumine has called him a bleeding heart; and though Aether’s heart does indeed pulse and beat in time with those around him, he knows to protect himself. They are something too incredible for mortal minds to comprehend.

Alhaitham is something too odd for the mortal minds of Teyvat to comprehend. He is a manic energy chained by a need for routine – ambition tied down to familiarity, and the most fervent wish to treasure the ordinary moments. His roommate is more of the fallen star Aether has come to expect from the Akademiya’s brutality. Alhaitham, meanwhile, is a self-made man, laying his cards out for all of the table to see.

He greeted knowledge of Aether’s long-livedness, spoken soft into the evening desert air, with the slimmest nod and the dutiful flipping of his book’s next page. Yes, he had said, giving Aether one of his first conversations in Teyvat’s Sign, and I am someone who affirmed his gender after the fact. We are both strange.

Yes, he had said, when Aether tried to distill down his own manhood – tried to find mortal words for immortal concepts, like the inherent femininity of quantum cannibals and his eons of transition – Yes, Alhaitham had said, I thought as much. And there came nothing more after that.

Today they are sitting across from one another in the heart of the Akademiya, the soft hum of the ever-spinning sculpture behind them meaningless to Alhaitham’s ears. They are commiserating in silence over moments that will never be spoken, never be shared again, to be held in the chests of a mortal bound to expire and a cosmic beast bound to devour him.

Today, Alhaitham lifts his hands, gesticulating that oft-used phrase: Yes. I thought as much.

Today, Alhaitham is opening his own heart for a moment, taking Aether’s words as currency and exchanging confessions like transactions. He says, I find it hard to understand grief, but I know that it’s a constant companion. I think of my grandmother almost every day.

Aether tries to picture the tall, confident woman who must have shepherded Alhaitham in his early life. He confuses it with the memories of his own progenitor, the formless darkness that sparked and banged and ordered him to bring back every proton that escaped into the void.

My– my grandmother, Aether starts, fumbling with the word, was very strong. Some of the illuminated beasts of Liyue remind me of her. The verb tenses are hard to decide. His progenitor has not passed, but will pass, and is passing right now, and has already passed on many occasions. Time becomes null to concepts and ideas like them.

Shortly, Alhaitham replies: Mine always told me to treasure being different. It was through her I was able to study. Had she not been in my life, I don’t think we would be sitting here now.

Alhaitham exchanges just as much vagary for vagary. Aether watches his face, unsurprised to see his affect as flat as ever. Aether asks him, Do you miss her?

Every day, says Alhaitham. Do you miss yours?

And Aether gestures his many ums and ahs before he finds a way to express the idea. After a good chunk of time has passed, he manages, I carry her grief inside of me. We are made of the grief we carry.

Alhaitham, apropos of nothing, passes him a book. The title is gold-embossed and the red cover stiff, though the scent of it is thick with dust. He says, with mild motions of his fingers, That is an older collection of texts involving King Deshret. You should find some mention of the Jinn.

Distractedly, Aether signs his thanks. He sees Alhaitham nod his chin from the corner of his eye.

There is something weighty about holding grief in his hands like this. He wonders if Dori’s Jinni would weep, reading this tome. He wonders if Paimon ever glimpses him in the middle of the night, weeping over a memento taken from a long-dead planet.

Mortals and immortals both are shaped by their grief.

Take care, signs Alhaitham, nodding once more. Aether catches his eye again and nods in return.

Alhaitham doesn’t wait for him to leave before sitting down and pulling out another book to read.

Aether retreats. Paimon is waiting.