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| [Nowadays, almost everyone is whispering that House Haillenarte's youngest has at last blossomed in the most remarkable way.
It was always Count Baurendouin's intention to groom his youngest as the family socialite — and right he was for it, given that his first four children all managed to fail at the task in their own ways. Stephanivien, genius engineer though he may be, lacks the tact and poise for etiquette and lace collars. Aurvael has the right exuberance, the right attitude, but the wrong tongue, the wrong face, a certain lack of razor-sharp wit — he has long been absent from banquets and parties owing to the fact that most in high society find him something of a bore. Laniatte, despite being a radiant beauty, absolutely detests pomp and circumstance of the sort that may be found in Ishgard's ballrooms, and is simply better suited to steel and swordsmanship than she is to swift steps and seduction. And Chlodebaimt — dear, sweet, beloved Lord Chlodebaimt — is dead, though it seemed for a time that he would be the shining star to lead House Haillenarte in the coming years.
For a while, it looked like Lord Francel was not up to the task. There stood the Count de Haillenarte's youngest child, soft and meek and eternally accompanied by the Fortemps bastard — how would a fourthborn son succeed where his elders had failed? He'd been devastated when Lord Haurchefant died, everyone said as much. He seemed more likely to die of a broken heart than he was to emerge from the ashes as a new man.
(He wasn't the same after that, some of his old attendants whisper, when one sends the right eyes to look, the right tongues to probe. The Lord Francel that everyone knows now — that isn't the young lord that I knew. That I raised. He was — he used to be —)
But then the Restoration happened, and Lord Francel had led it with surprising aplomb, enlisting the help of adventurers and mercenaries, so long frowned upon by the city's elders, to great effect. And he'd built the city with such a joie de vivre! He led musical ensembles, great artistic revivals, created public baths and glorious statues to preserve the worship of Halone for a new age. How delightful that he proved to be quick-witted and easy on the eyes and an excellent dancer. Some even titter behind their lace handkerchiefs that he is nearly as fine-featured as the late Ser Adelphel.
And his politics? Ah, well — there's the thing.]
Ser Aymeric.
[He's resplendent in his newly-tailored finery, House Haillenarte's sweet Lord Francel. A fine alpine coat for the occasion, glittering rings over his gloves, a glass of wine held delicately by the stem. He meets Aymeric's piercing blue gaze without fear. Smiles with his own navy blue eyes, warm and strangely inviting, like the call of the sea on a summer's day before the Calamity. He sips delicately at his wine, his eyes never once leaving Aymeric's face.]
Are you enjoying the evening? Lady Marcelaine's taste in music is exquisite as ever, I think. The harpsichordist is particularly skilled. | |
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| [The more that Aether suspects that he's in love with Kaeya, the more he thinks that things possibly can't get worse. It's not as clean-cut as thinking that Kaeya doesn't love him the same way. Rejection would be a thousand times kinder than reciprocation, but Aether already knows that it's too late for that. It's things like thinking in circles. Wanting to say yes while wanting to be told no. Do I care about him? Deeply. Does he care about me? Yes, and if not, then probably. Is there anything either of us will do about it? Probably not.
You know, what do we really know about him anyway? Paimon asked once, and after all this time, Aether doesn't have an answer.
But — it's not as simple as saying that he doesn't know anything about Kaeya, either. It's not as simple as what Diluc's done: tell himself that his brother lied about everything so that pushing him away would be easier than accepting that words and deeds can never be entirely true or entirely false. Aether does know things about Kaeya. Knows that he likes wine, and merriment, and tricky games, and the intoxicating paradox of tempered hedonism. Knows that he smells seductive and bracing as fresh snow when he's put together, warm and vaguely laundered when he isn't. Knows that he likes to have his hair stroked — knows what he looks like when he's barefoot and bleary at the breakfast table, sweetly sleepy and improbably soft for a man who wears his heart in the steel spikes on his wrist.
Aether hates himself, but he hates all of it, really. The indecision. The yearning. Wanting someone who isn't quite a liar but wants to be a memory. Aether's the same way, and that's the problem. As a traveler of worlds, he can only ever promise to be a beautiful memory. He can't promise the future, or tomorrow, or forever, or the past.
So can we really claim to be in love if we each only know the other in the transient present? Aether wonders — and then Paimon chirps something about Mondstadt Grilled Fish for lunch, and the traveler obliges despite the fact that he doesn't particularly want to eat fish.
Anyway. Days later, it's an easy thing. Should be an easy thing, when everything comes down to it. A simple commission: Ruin Guards congregating in the Windwail Highlands, too far from Mondstadt to be a threat but too close to Springvale to not endanger the local populace. Aether isn't afraid, of course. He isn't the frail young swordsman who took a blow to the head all those months ago. These days, he could take an army of Ruin Guards all on his own.
Still, he asks Kaeya to come with him. Something about Honorary Knights, and Cavalry Captains, and the safety of Mondstadt, and the sanctity of grapes. It's all pretense. He wants to see Kaeya, that's all. Wants to hear his voice and see his pretentious smile and the way there's (sometimes, maybe, or else he's only deluding himself) a fond warmth in that icy blue eye ringed by dark lashes. It's been so long since their first adventure — since Aether first laid eyes on the knight who smiled like a wolf with a bloodied mouth and spoke of the scent of burning flesh.
Except when they get there, it isn't Ruin Guards they're facing. It isn't even a Ruin Hunter. The monstrous machines in question lie destroyed, turned into a heap of nonfunctioning junk and chaos pieces. Their conqueror apparent, an Abyss Herald, looks up from the wreckage and calmly brandishes its sword at Aether.
And then — and then they duel. With honor, and sometimes without. Aether is light on his feet, jumps and floats and stings and flutters; the Herald, much heavier yet somehow liberated from the usual laws of physics, manages to hold its own against his speedy strikes for a good long while before it is soon pinned down by a combination of Aether's attacks and Kaeya's own offensive.
The Herald's heel slips on the cliff's edge, and surely it knows that it no longer has the upper hand. It has no expression beyond its menacing helm, but one can intuit, somehow, that it snarls. "This won't end here," the creature rumbles.
Aether lunges —
The Herald snaps. Or at least it moves so quickly that something in the air resounds and echoes like it snaps, the whiplash crack of hissing air, and then Aether is a gold-and-white blur flying through the air and there's nothing to break his fall: no pillar to catch his ribs, no stone tiles to smack into his spine. He simply hurtles through the air, and for a moment it feels like soaring. Like all those years cutting through the infinite nothingness of space, flying past stars and moons and milky galaxies promising inevitable death.
On instinct, he reaches for his wings, but those aren't there, won't answer him anymore. Because they're gone because she took them she took her she took —
Oh, Aether thinks, and then goes tumbling down. Kaeya will be so —] | |
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