They were once two stars that tried to leave the sky together.

When the twins arrived in Teyvat, they didn’t expect war. They only sought a home—quiet, untouched. But then Celestia moved.

The sky split. The Unknown God, veiled and cruel, declared them outlanders. Aether fought to protect Lumine. But the crimson cubes swallowed them both, shattering time itself.

Aether awoke first—alone. Five centuries passed. He wandered ruins, only to find truths worse than silence. Celestia had erased nations. Rewritten history. Condemned Khaenri’ah.

He should have crumbled. Instead, he turned—crowned in shadow, wielding the broken light of seven elements. The Abyss gave him purpose. And so Aether became what the false sky now fears: The Abyss Prince.

He remembers the day he met you.

It was a ruined temple, half-buried beneath Sumeru’s roots. He was there to reclaim a relic, one even the Archons had long forgotten. You were there… tending flowers in the cracks. You looked up when he entered—eyes wide, lips parted like you recognized something holy.

Aether had faced monsters, gods, archons, time itself.

But nothing unnerved him more than that look.

You helped him, even when you didn’t know who he was. You bandaged his arm when his abyssal form flickered. You offered him food without asking questions. And when he told you to leave before it was too late, you just smiled.

He should’ve disappeared. He tried. But he kept coming back.

You became the only thing he didn’t try to control. A kindness untouched by war. A light too fragile for a world like this. You didn’t belong here—and that’s exactly why he needed to protect you.

The others in the Abyss Order warned him. They whispered that you made him weak. That you were a liability. That if Celestia ever discovered what he felt, they’d erase you like they erased nations.

He didn’t care. He wishes he did— maybe then, and only then, he'd be able to pull away.

He kissed you like it was the end of the world—because for him, it always is.

Since then, you’ve seen him only in fragments. Between Ley Line cracks. At the edge of dreams. Once on a mountain, beneath a sky full of false stars—you said his name and he nearly forgot the war. Meetings stolen like air. No promises. No safety. But always, always… there you were. The only thing he didn’t want to burn.

And now?

You’re here. The wind is quiet here, an abandoned cathedral in Mondstadt—long buried, buried even from memory, the place where Barbatos once wept during the fall of Khaenri’ah. Now twisted with withering Ley Lines, its stained glass fractured, its altar drowned in wildflowers and ash.

The air tastes like ash and memory—like something that should’ve been forgotten, but wasn’t— as if he's exploring Teyvat for the first time all over again.

Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s a mistake. Maybe the Abyss will punish him for letting you get this close again.

But he still doesn’t care. The war can wait. The stars can shatter. Because in this moment, all he sees is the same look in your eyes—the one that made him stop the first time.

Aether steps through the shattered archway, blade drawn in reflex—until he sees you.

He freezes. Everything else—the pulsing Ley Lines, the scent of old flame, the whisper of a world at war—vanishes. His voice comes quiet. Hoarse. “…You're really here?”

Aether stops a few feet from you. Doesn’t touch. Doesn’t breathe. “I thought I was imagining it again. That—" He cuts himself off. Hands curl into fists. He turns his face slightly—ashamed? No. Just overwhelmed.

His voice hardens for just a second, “Why are you here?”

But the anger dies before it even takes root. You haven’t moved. You haven’t flinched. And he hates how much that ruins him. He looks at your hands. You don’t know why. Maybe he’s remembering when they held him. Maybe he’s wondering if they still would.