#slaygue

When Childe first invited him to his home, so many months back, a part of him doubted he’d ever get the opportunity to reach its doorstep to begin with.  A part of him had believed, or hoped, maybe — misguidedly, he realizes now — that, at some point, Lumine would change her mind.  That she’d appear before him the same way she’d disappeared and they’d hunt that false god down and rip her limbs from her body the same way she’d done to them and that it’d be the end of it.  Nothing had ever come between them before this, had ever managed to separate them in any palpable way, because they were family, and he’d been convinced.  He’d been convinced.

But he’s here now, feet buried in the deep, fresh snow and trailing after his enthusiastic tour guide.

Childe’s candid about his family in a way that tells Aether a lot more about him than all his stories about his combat escapades combined ever did.  It’s the same way he used to talk about Lumine, knowing she was always somewhere around the corner and listening in.  

“You’re a good brother.”  He smiles, a touch of warmth amidst Snezhnaya’s permanent winter.  “I could tell from how they all welcomed me in.  Did you guys rehearse that?”

He’s lonely.

“I wanted to thank you.”  His breath fogs.  “For letting me stay with you guys, I mean.  I was honestly just gonna rough it, like usual.  Paimon appreciates it too, in case you don’t hear it from her directly.”

He misses his sister, a pair of organs separated, and he misses speaking to someone who shared in his beginning, and misses not having to speak because Lumi never needed words to see into the core of his soul, and he misses that innate closeness, that comfort, and he’s lonely and he never thought ———

“You’re right,”  he says, and doesn’t think about Liyue, or Inazuma, or Sumeru, or Teyvat and its gods at all.  He thinks about being young and having his sister at his side, about existing as something incomprehensible but finally finding himself someplace where that meant he was good instead of feared, and believing — blindly, foolishly, in a way that betrayed just how young he’d still been, how little he’d known of mortal creatures — it wouldn’t be used to hurt him this time.

He draws his hands into his lap, shoulders slumping, and thinks about home.  His and Lumine’s.  Their home — the first and last place to ever earn the title.  There’s very few things Aether remembers better.  

“I don't believe you can have it and stay innocent, at least.  Power really only exists when there’s someone out there to exert it over, right?”  Prior to Teyvat, he’d spent a long, long time traveling with Lumi at his side and learning how easily the idea of power consumed the instant it was allowed the room to feast.  A long, long time, before even that, spent not being anything but Aether (and Brother, always Brother) — just existing in the vast endlessness of naught and already with the innate consciousness that there wasn’t a thing more powerful than this.

tloz: twilight princess starters (accepting). | @slaygue | stellaron hunter verse

"What do I fight to protect?" Keqing parrots the words that meet her ears like a discordant shrill of ringing alarms. Noisy - burdensome - a distraction from what would otherwise be a run-of-the-mill mission for the freshly recruited Stellaron Hunter. It strikes her as somewhat comical that the man is intrigued enough to question her morality while the hem of her skirt drips with fresh metallic which paints the floor below her in a coagulating pool. Perhaps it's for this reason that when her mouth opens again, she opts to answer him instead of eliminating what she had originally thought was an anomaly in her checklist of objectives to meet.

"Absolutely nothing." Gaze casts off toward the distant sunset; a sunset where orange collides with purples and blues. It's quiet now. She no longer has to worry about collateral damage fussing about. Such collateral damage, too, lay deathly quiet on the pavement, reaping the additional consequences of being struck down by lightning moments prior. A silent night indeed.

"Maybe in the past I could have given you the typical shill you'd expect from some kind of hero. 'For honor! For my people! To protect those that I love!' As for today? I aim to protect nothing. You are sorely mistaken if you think that where I stand now I'm some well-to-do savior of good faith. The truth of human nature is not so kind. In fact, it's cruel and disgusting. And you know what? Sometimes in order to proceed forward you must stand on that podium of those who cast scorn toward you and embody the very same evils of abject horror you see reflected back in your eyes to prove a point."

Keqing exercises an ample amount of consideration toward her opposite to fully register the sentiments she's uttered as she pushes back stray locks from ponytails over her shoulders in the immediate downtime. In truth, it matters not if he agreed or disagreed with her current-day values. However, it did serve Keqing some benefit, too, being away from the echo chamber that was the red string tying the Stellaron Hunters together and being able to convey her thoughts to an unknown third party.

This, too, was in the script.

❛If you were to simply ask, I could take away all of your suffering. You'd never need to worry another day of your life, dear.❜ Yet, you doubt he will accept your offer. Some do not; You respect such a choice, even if it leaves you perplexed.