𝕾PLENDOR 𝕺F 𝕿HE 𝕳EAVENS

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the sun on your face, on your shoulders, its golden light whispering (so it seems ). . . YOU, YOU, YOU! 𓂃₊✧ private and selective interpretation of aether / the traveler, from h.oyoverse's genshin impact. headcanon based and canon divergent. heavily influenced by fairytales, mythology and personal worldbuilding. minors and personals dni. ©

aether's eyes drift from the crude snare hidden beneath the leaves to zack, lingering just long enough to catch the flush creeping across his cheeks. he says nothing at first. the silence stretches, not unkindly, before the corner of his mouth lifts into something too restrained to be called a smile.

❝ it is, ❞  he agrees. ❝ which is why i'm trying very hard not to ask how you nearly walked into it. ❞

the words are delivered without mockery, only quiet amusement. he steps past zack, crouching beside the disturbed earth. whoever had laid the trap hadn't even bothered disguising the tension in the rope properly; one tug with the tip of his sword sends the mechanism snapping harmlessly into the air. the bent branch whips upward, scattering leaves before settling back into the canopy.

aether rises, brushing the dirt from one glove. he glances back at zack, golden eyes carrying the faintest trace of fondness. ❝ next time, let me be the one who almost trips over the obvious bait. ❞

he cranes his head upward at the call, leaning back so that his braid spills onto the ground and he can see the other’s face. the expression marring flins’ features is somewhere between interest and concern :  worry, that aether has stayed up this long, this late, without any seeming pause. fascination, at his apparent lack of any fatigue. aether offers his most winning smile, hoping to dissuade any worries. he only briefly considers that, upside down as he all but is, the expression might resemble more a strange grimace than a grin.

no one but the tsaritsa and maybe pierro know aether's real name. his alias among the harbingers is brighella, and if he's not referred by it, he's called "outlander", mostly disparagingly.

he actually predates the existence of the harbingers, though not by much. about 20 years give or take.

jumping off from that, aether really doesn't count as a harbinger. unofficially he is often considered the first of the harbingers ever, but he really started out as the tsaritsa's personal soldier. his duties are separate from the twelve, so their paths don't normally cross unless by her majesty's orders.

aether is very devoted to the tsaritsa to the point of being blind towards anything else. he was awake long enough to see the destruction of khaenri'ah, and that combined with what he sees as the other archons indifference, gives him a heavy bias towards the tsaritsa and her mission, believing it not only to be foolproof but ideal. high key projecting onto her.

doesn't actually know the harbingers beyond the basics, with the exception of dottore, and that's just because aether has made it his personal mission keep an eye on dottore and his weird experiments.

has adopted his archon's "the ends justify the means" mentality.

was sent to mondstadt to do some diplomatic work and as damage control for the fatui's reputation, projecting the image of a kind, helpful fatuus that mondstadters can rely on.

man I've had aether on hiatus for too long I wonder what's up—

it's a playful, yet correct assessment. mana is disheveled and exhausted. they look as if they've run the whole way here. aether's wings twitch with the urge to scoop them up, carry them the rest of the way and let them catch their breath, but he knows they'll swat him, if he dares. mana has their pride, after all. instead, he lifts his hand up to them. when they stand in front of him, he cups their face, the skin tender beneath his fingertips. some of the vines and the tendrils creep up his arm. ❝ ah. some of them scratched you. ❞ he gestures with a nod to the scratches on their face, then at the now creeping plants, shamed by their actions. ❝ i can heal that for you, if you want. consider it an apology. ❞