112 » the taste of home is filling up my mouth

[500mora]

[ Fitting, that this journey should end where it began.

Five hundred years ago, there was nothing here but destruction and death. Now, the tainted remains of what once was are destroyed, too, and that is for the best. It is pointless to mourn Khaenri'ah's ruins, after all, this desolate, crumbling place — Khaenri'ah was already no more. These broken pillars and steps are nothing but the last traces of a rotting corpse finally laid to rest, faded bones and dust.

What awaits a wanderer at journey's end, then, when home no longer exists in the world?

Well, it would be a lie to claim that Dainsleif has lost the capacity to harbor hopes and dreams and wishes altogether. Cursed to endure eternity, he may have retained a sense of purpose in unfinished business spanning the centuries, but with that done, only one thing steers him onward — though by rights, it should have been crushed like a fragile flower trampled beneath careless soles. That single remaining thing drives him to dash through the darkened phantom realm around him; his heart beats with the urgency of reaching his final destination.

And there—

He acts against Aether's wishes, he suspects. The Abyss Order's leader, defeated, has no desire to be rescued, not now, not even if his own sister were the first to find him (or especially not then, perhaps). The man he came to consider an enemy is surely no better a prospect. Yet Dainsleif does not keep his distance, kneeling at Aether's side upon discovering him slumped against a slab of debris — wounded, all too still. ]

Aether...

[ Very lightly, taking care not to jostle him, Dainsleif's gloved fingertips touch Aether's cheek, lingering where they should not. Dainsleif leans closer, listens for faint breaths drawn. He stirs again to confirm the extent of Aether's injuries before securing his arms around his former traveling companion, meaning to lift him from the floor.

If this is journey's end, whether or not one last reunion leads to any reconciliation, he would welcome rest after seeing Aether to safety. ]

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[500mora]

[ The rift widening between them all these long years is not bridged in a single step, but Dainsleif's arms tighten around Aether's slight form, as if in wordless defiance, refusing to relinquish their precious burden now. There is no time for relief — still, something dangerously near just that buoys Dainsleif's heart, raising it up from dark depths to rival the Abyss itself, the instant that Aether rests in his hold, cradled against his chest. It stays there as Aether stirs and speaks, despite those murmured words. Despite everything, Dainsleif's grip comes close to a daring, desperate squeeze of Aether's body, an embrace to keep Aether from slipping through his fingers and far away, far beyond reach.

Aether lives. Khaenri'ah's ruins will not become his resting place — Dainsleif himself will make sure of that.

(If all hope were gone, if it weren't too much to ask, then perhaps they could rest here, at long last, together.)

Questioned, this is his answer, divulged in his silent movements. He bears Aether away, stubborn and swift and steady to disobey Aether's request, offering little in explanation. A new destination lies ahead. ]

This... is not where your story ends.

[ Instead, it must resume in Mondstadt, where Dainsleif has no choice but to entrust Aether to an infirmary room's bed. Aether's wealth of golden hair, loose from his customary braid, spills across the pillow in tendrils. The covers are drawn up, dwarfing his frame, rising only slightly with his breaths. His wounds, though treated, will need more attention.

For the moment, at least, the two of them are alone again. ]

[ironwind]

[Caught fast in Dainsleif's hold, Aether can feel nothing of his own pain, nothing of the open wounds along his arms and torso, but he feels, numbly and distantly, the squeeze around his shoulders, the desperation and tension in Dainsleif's arms.

The next few hours pass by in a haze of near-unconsciousness. That pigtailed girl from the Church of Barbatos is there for a time, as well as the other woman, the one that looks like her sister — they must be in to treat Aether's wounds jointly, though he can no longer even feel them, and it surprises Aether that Dainsleif would go so far as to petition servants of the gods for aid. Lumine has had an effect on all of them. She doesn't visit, as near as Aether can tell through his haze of pain and painkillers, but that's all right; he won't hold that against his sister. She must be busy, now that she's been crowned the new god of this world.

Aether sinks into slumber for a time, and he finds it dreamless and dark, healing in its nothingness.

When he stirs again it is after many long hours in Dainsleif's vigil — but what is another five or six hours when the both of them have waited over five hundred years for this moment? Aether's lashes flutter open, and he looks strangely beautiful despite the pained pallor over his face, like a princess woken from slumber in a fairytale for children. His eyes scan the room, then fall on Dainsleif's masked coutenance at his bedside.]

...Dain...

[It's all that matters. It isn't a question. He doesn't question, now, that Dain is here, even if he doesn't fully understand the answer as to why.]

Where is Lumine...?

[500mora]

[ Time became meaningless as damning failure stretched on without any end, and Dainsleif should be accustomed to watching and waiting. It's over now, all of it — the battles and the betrayals. The waiting.

And yet, the handful of hours before Aether wakes are another eternity, agonizing. An odd tension lingers in Dainsleif's stillness, in the silence as Aether lies unmoving between the infirmary sheets, somehow fragile, an ethereal being. Dainsleif's gaze is fixed upon the bed, never straying from Aether's features. Out of necessity, for Aether's welfare alone, he sought help from Lumine's allies, and they have done their best, but he prefers the temporary privacy granted their resting patient.

Strange, that he could reach out and touch Aether again so easily, that they are barely an arm's length apart, no corrupted creatures and blades in the way, but an unseen chasm to cross still remains, it seems.

There it is, isn't it, when Aether opens his eyes to ask a new question, something vulnerable. Minutely, Dainsleif cants his head. He searches Aether's expression. ]

...She will hear the news soon, I expect. That is, I doubt that she has given up on a sibling reunion.

[ In other words, where precisely Lumine is hardly matters until she has found her brother once more. She could be on her way as they speak, undeterred even seated upon her newly-claimed throne. But what of Aether, who asked to be left to die — what thoughts prompt him to ask after his sister now? ]

[ironwind]

..I see...

[So Lumine still toils. It's not as though he expected anything different. Even so, the answer seems to bring some sort of relief to Aether; he falls back into his pillows, sighing deeply, and when his eyes close, it is at the very least not to sink into a slumber from which there will be no waking.]

She shouldn't... have to worry about someone like me.

[Aether opens his eyes soon afterward, however — golden, catlike slits. He fixes his irises blearily on Dainsleif's face, but there can be no doubt that he recognizes what he's seeing. Who he's seeing, after so many years of looking at Dainsleif as if he was no more than the carcass of a crushed bug on the sole of his boots.]

...You shouldn't have to worry about me, either.

[His voice is soft. So soft. Impossibly so — the way it was years ago, when they traveled the land together, and the smiling, golden-haired traveler from Dainsleif's memories once mentioned that he wanted to see Andrius of the northern winds. On the bed, Aether tips his wrist just slightly, turning his palm toward the ceiling in a movement that might be discomfort — or might be prompting Dain to lace their fingers together.]

Dain...

[500mora]

[ Dain — Aether utters the name again, a third time in the span of hours, not years. How different it sounds now... No, it's familiar, softer than it became, and Dainsleif does remember Aether's voice, long ago, when their journey took them across Teyvat.

Each time, Dain takes on new meanings, so much unspoken all in a single syllable.

The movement of Aether's hand catches Dainsleif's eye. He perceives that chasm, still, but a small part of Aether seems to be reaching across it, as if his upturned palm beckons to Dainsleif. It makes Dain a request, or an invitation, in that moment. ]

...Inevitabilities.

[ Dainsleif doesn't elaborate just yet, but he imagines that Aether already understands. His arms are crossed until he loosens them, allowing his hands to lower, aligning them with the edge of the bed. Aether's hand, pale against the sheets, is not far from his fingertips.

Another slight movement closes that distance; Dainsleif's palm covers Aether's. His fingers slot into the gaps between Aether's fingers, with a residual touch of his earlier desperation, and that chasm shrinks a little further. ]

[ironwind]

[Inevitable? Which part? All of it, Aether's mind supplies: it is inevitable for Lumine to worry about her only brother, and it is just as inevitable for Dainsleif to forgive the traveler that has pushed him away for so many centuries. But it hadn't felt inevitable only a few short years ago, and... and nothing in life had ever been truly inexorable save the cold indifference of Celestia to the plight below.]

...You could go to where she is... and she'd treat you a thousand times better than I ever did...

[The stress of talking about this might not be doing Aether any good. His breaths grow slightly more shallow, as if he's exerting himself, even though he's not doing anything but resting in bed.]

...I'm sorry, Dain...

[Is it not just as inevitable that they would someday reconcile, the traveler and his traveling partner? Shakily, Aether closes his fingers around Dain's until each of their palms are pressed flush against the other's, without room for escape or judgment. But this feels right, somehow; this feels the way that they should be. Locked together for eternity.]

I'm so sorry... I don't understand how you can forgive me...

[And then, at last — is that the faint glimmer of tears in the former Abyss Prince's eyes...?]