| [I'm fine, he keeps saying, but it's mechanical rather than something felt. He keeps saying it because Paimon keeps asking, but really, he's barely listening to her. He's been wandering in circles.
"Shouldn't we head back to Mondstadt for a break?" the fairy chirps, a little timidly, but he only shakes his head and keeps walking. Where to? He isn't sure. He's been avoiding Mondstadt and Springvale on purpose, but it's not as though he's going to walk headlong into Stormterror's Domain, either; looking around, he's somewhere on the outskirts of the Dawn Winery, at the edge of the vineyards.
He'll have to turn back. He doesn't want to see anyone right now.
It's less to do with Diluc, or Adelinde, or Hillie and Moco, and more to do with How could she? and Why did she? Except he knows why, she told him why, but even so, he can't — he can't fathom — he can't understand it. He replays the scene over and over in disjointed breaths, the way he'd reached out and his hand closed tight around nothing as the portal sealed itself behind her. And behind Dain, he remembers with a dull ache. They both left me.
(He'd thought — well, it doesn't matter what he'd thought. He was naïve. Of course he knew that Dain had secrets of his own, a life of his own, but still, for a moment there, he'd started to like the man. Started to trust him. Think of him as a friend and companion. It felt — it felt, briefly, like Dain had started to see him that way, too. But then Lumine appeared, and he knew; he knew it the way that he felt it too. Dain would have abandoned everything he knew for her. And how can Aether hold that against him, when he too would abandon everything in Teyvat for Lumine? How can Aether be angry when he would have done the same thing if he were the one in Dainsleif's position?
And yet — and yet it chafes, to be the one cast aside. Oh, the way Dain left him behind, bruised and bleeding, to chase after the girl who was his sister to begin with. His feelings aren't rational: there's selfishness and jealousy and envy all mixed in. If he trusted me at all, Aether thinks, dully, it was because I was a replacement for her.
Lumine is mine, a desperate part of Aether whispers, and then there's another part, small and plaintive: Lumine belongs to no one. You're nothing but the sad imitation of her.)
"Aether, you're bleeding," Paimon says, uncharacteristically soft, and he just looks down at the open gash where the Abyss Herald grazed him, and looks back at the road ahead. It's not important. It's mostly dried. The blood around his head and neck from when he'd been slammed into the wall — that's mostly dried, too. He wiped it out of his eyes at some point. It might have mixed in with his tears.
He's not crying anymore. He didn't really cry to begin with, not in front of Paimon, never in front of Paimon. But there'd been the quick pass of his wrists over his eyes and — and. Anyway. He's. He has to pull himself together.
I'm fine, he says again, and he knows it's stopped comforting Paimon because the fairy only twists her fingers together and wrings her hands a little, looking around as if searching for someone who can help.
A sound startles them both: footsteps from the road. Paimon only perks up, hopeful, but Aether reacts like a wounded wolf, snapping to attention to bring his sword in front of him. He knows it's pointless; hilichurls don't step that lightly, and it's probably just someone, someone like Connor or Tunner or anyone else who works here. He's only snarling at nothing. But it happens all the same. What am I even doing, he thinks, dull and toneless even in his own mind. Who am I protecting with this? Myself?]
...Who's there?
[His voice shakes a little on it.] |
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