[Anyway, Aether's not naive. He may offer occasional words of comfort — sometimes he really just says whatever he thinks the other person needs to hear — but he tries, in general, to avoid statements like your father was a good man and I'm sure he'd be proud of you. He doesn't know that for a fact, really. He can't claim to believe wholeheartedly that Crepus Ragnvindr must have been a good person. He doesn't think that Crepus Ragnvindr was a bad person, either. It's just that he doesn't know, and he won't make that judgment. He won't pretend to be something that he's not.

But on a day like this? A day that Diluc had invited him to dinner, plied him with fruit juice instead of wine — looked at Aether in a vaguely heated way that suggested that, for all his wealth and power and charisma, he didn't want to be left alone? Well, Aether knows something of loneliness, then, and on days like this, he'll pretend to be whatever it is they need him to be. It's hypocritical, he knows, but he also just can't help it. He doesn't want anyone to have to feel the way he feels all the time.

So it's Diluc's birthday, and, accordingly, Aether spent most of it with Diluc. They played chess and drank juice and Aether did his best to take Diluc's mind over the thing that must have been hanging over all of them for the entire day, and when the traveler went down to the cemetery behind Mondstadt Cathedral, he pretended not to take note of the red-ribboned bouquet of flowers resting there.

By the time Kaeya comes down to the cemetery, too — perhaps not necessarily because he wanted to, but because someone must have seen the traveler there and wondered aloud at his presence — Aether has already tidied up the headstone a fair bit. The marble stone, once faded from exposure, now shines properly, and he's — somewhat oddly — rubbing what looks like some kind of dirt over the inscription.

The traveler turns. Nods his head in acknowledgement. Goes on doing what he's doing, as if it doesn't look like he's desecrating a grave.]

...In Liyue, there's a kind of sand that shines like gold. Something to do with the amount of Cor Lapis in the composition. It's worthless, if you try to sell it, but they rub it into engravings to color the text, like this.

[He wipes the sand off of the surface of the tombstone, leaving only the silicate now embedded in the engraved letters — though this, too, will fade away with time — and the effect is immediate. Against the beautiful white marble, the letters shine as if inlaid with gold: Crepus Ragnvindr.

Aether dusts the sand off his hands and looks over his shoulder.]

Hello, Kaeya.