APHROS DELOS CHAPTER, ACT I, PART IV
The night had fallen into silence, the others had fallen asleep while you stayed up, sitting near the Dragonspine, going through your phone to rewatch the upcoming Archon quest that you would have to face soon. The day where Aether would find out that Lumine sided with the Abyss, also marked the second time you would meet her, formally. That thought had come to your head out of impulse given that Lumine had a connection with the Abyss.
You recalled when you first met her, she was absolutely hostile towards you and gave you a bit of insight into your connections here while finding out that the hourglass that you found was somewhat fabricated by your sister. She also warned you not to get in her way. You let out a sigh, not looking forward to the future.
The only thing you fear is that she told straight to her brother that you two had met and Aether surely lose his trust towards you. Should you even follow him there? If you didn't follow him, it won't guarantee that she won't tell him about your meeting with her once. If that happens, he surely ignored you when he returned from the whole commission. Your head became heavy, it almost felt your heart tightens and you felt irritated with this whole thing.
Wouldn't it be easier if Lumine just returned to Aether as soon as they reunited? You rewatched the scene where Lumine told Aether about Dainsleif's origin and status. Mentioning how he failed to do his task as the Royal Guard. For some reason, everything she says about irritated you. You could barely feel your legs anymore and at this point, maybe... maybe, the ending you wanted to happen will never happen. Thoughts became overflow before you felt a gentle flick on your forehead.
You immediately looked up and saw Orochi in a form of Kazuha crouching in front of you with a frown on his face. You never understood why he suddenly changed form and you can instantly tell it was him since his eyes weren't red. "You think too much." He huffed in Kazuha's voice before he sat next to you. "Aren't you cold sitting here all alone? You're gonna get frostbite." He remarked, looking at the view of the snow falling ahead of you two.
(A/N: Just a vision of what their view looked like)
This feels odd just to hear Kazuha talk so casually but you already knew it wasn't him. You wondered why Orochi appeared but you aren't too concerned about it. You were more worried about the upcoming obstacle you had to go over. "Of course I am." You said softly, hugging yourself. "But I can't help worried that if Lumine told Aether about us meeting just to ruin our relationship. If she did that, how am I supposed to.-"
"To give them a happy ending?" He cut you off before letting out a sigh. "Why are you so focused on giving others a happy ending when you barely had one yourself? It's not your responsibility in the first place." He continued, glancing down at you who had a concerned look on your face.
What he said is true but to you, it felt that it gave you a reason to continue being on Aether's side. If you didn't fulfil that, wouldn't that mean that you are letting bad things happen to him? Wouldn't that make you the worst person in the world for letting such a thing happen? Though you only thought of the answer and didn't verbally respond to him, he brought you in for a hug which is something you didn't expect.
"You are stressing yourself way too hard that it's hurting me. This is Teyvat. No one is going to judge you for not doing a better job trying to make every situation better or be stronger than Aether to save them all." He comforted you as you let out a sigh. True, no one will judge you for failing here.
No one ever is going to judge you.
No one even knows you knew their stories from the start.
No one has to know about it. No one will know about you.
Those were his thoughts flooding in your head. It certainly had put your worries at ease for the night and made your eyes heavy. Tired from worrying and thinking. Orochi broke the hug, forming the Abyssal energy you just emitted into a ball before eating it for himself. He reverted back to his original form before carrying your body back to the tent with Paimon and Aether sleeping soundly.
He let out a sigh before swiping his hair back. "That was close. I can't afford him to go berserk just yet." He mumbled under his breath before recalling what he had seen in his memory. "I can't let him be exposed to Abyssal energy nor he can go areas that are highly concentrated with Ley Line just yet... so how..." He fell silent before disappearing into the thin air as soon as he heard someone coming towards the tent.
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Morning has come, and your head and your heart felt so much lighter though your body felt absolutely heavy for some reason. You barely recalled what happened last night. You do remember watching the upcoming Archon quest that you would be facing and that was We Will be Reunited. You had forgotten what comes next after that and the next thing you know, you woke up in the tent. Did you dream of watching the quest?
"Ah, Y/N, you're finally awake." A high-pitched voice greeted you in the morning as Aether brought a bowl of hot soup to you and sat next to you. "Eula told us that she noticed you got a fever last night so she took care of you the whole night. Paimon knows that you want to go with us on this mission but you should rest." She said as you looked at her in confusion.
"I have a fever... I guess I overexerted myself." You muttered in a hoarse voice but still, you aren't the type to fall sick easily. Hell, you remember during the pandemic, you wanted to catch Covid just so you could skip school but you were unsuccessful since you were way too healthy.
Even though you find this odd, you supposed that you are still human in some ways. You glanced at Aether who was trying to feed you. "Aether I can feed myself." You declared, reaching for the bowl before he pulled the bowl away from you and shook your head.
"No, your hands are shaky. Haven't you noticed? Let me feed you for once." He insisted before you looked at your palms, noticing they were shaking terribly. Huh... Well, since fate has spoken that he shall feed you, you are not gonna reject it. Still, you could only wonder how did you get sick in the first place.
After you finished eating, Aether and Paimon began to head off, leaving you alone on the camp with, of course, people watching over you. You are bored to death with nobody to accompany you around here. Yet you don't feel like you don't have enough energy to get up to wander around the camp to see how people are doing or talking to any of them.
You let out a long sigh, playing Subway Surfer on your phone since there's no one else to entertain you. You just wished that you weren't sick in the first place and if you knew what caused it, you would certainly avoid it. "Oi brat." You looked up after hearing Orochi called your name and saw him being a splitting image of you which was creepy.
"Why are you me and what do you want?" You asked, frowned on your face.
"I'm gonna go with the pipsqueak and blondie as you. Change my voice." You raised your eyebrows out of confusion but do as he told anyways. "Alright thanks, bye." He left which left you even more puzzled. What the hell could he be up to?
You continued your prolonged sigh and continue playing Subway Surfer with a little wish that you could possibly meet Albedo coming down from Dragonspine or going to Dragonspine.
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"Well, we obtained our Gebratenes Fleisch mit Sauerkraut for Schubert. It's a shame we don't have Y/N here to do the talking so I guess we have to just guess around how to talk." Paimon said, looking a bit disappointed that they had to leave you behind while you are sick.
Aether nodded in agreement before Orochi clear his throat. "Who says I'm not here." He said which immediately made Paimon shrieked and Aether jumped before he chuckled at their reactions. "Look at you guys. Looking at me as if I was a ghost." He snickered as Paimon and Aether looked at him with complete baffled expression.
"Y/N, what are you- No, Paimon doesn't think this Y/N. There's no way Y/N would spook us of besides, he's sick. This has to be Orochi, right?" She affirmed as Orochi let out a sigh.
"Ahh... Here I thought I could fool you two. Well, I'm here because one, I need to fulfil his wish here and second, I need to tell you two about his condition as to why he suddenly got sick." Orochi said as Aether and Paimon looked at each other for a split second before looking back at Orochi who had serious expression on, telling him to explain about the condition.
They make their ways to Springvale by foot, as Orochi began, "You remember about Y/N mentioned that he came from a different world as well when you two met for the first time?" They both nodded as he continued, "Currently, his body isn't able to handle to long exposure of the ley lines, anything that had to do with the Abyss. Even though he has close connections with the Abyss in one of his past, he can't afford to be exposed by them just yet. Especially with someone watching him after sensing he had returned." He concured as Aether frowned.
"Someone was watching his every move?" Aether didn't like the sound of that as Orochi nodded before he looked at Aether, contemplating if he should say it or not.
"Blondie, you said that you lost your sister from the Unknown God yes?" Aether hesitantly nodded at his question. "Keep Y/N close to you and trust every word he had to say even if one day it would clashed to what your sister's word could possibly said about him. He's the closest thing that can get you to meet that god again. All you need is to help him recover all his memory and after that... It's up to you to judge who is right and wrong." Orochi stated before stopping at his track, noticing that they arrived at the destination.
"Wait what-"
Aether got cut off as soon as Schubert took notice of their presence and saying something before Orochi took control of the conversation. Aether was left puzzled by what he meant by clashed by his sister's word and how would he knew. If anything, this is more like Orochi knew so much about you yet tell you so little that he wondered why never told you anything about this.
TO BE CONTINUED
Author Note:
Sumeru quests are truly interesting... Especially the Aranara world quest. I just want to skip Inazuma story quest but I can't afford that since I already note down what I wanna write about. I forgot but if there's still Tighnari wanter that hasn't gotten him, I wish you guys the best of luck or someone who have yet to get a Dendro goblet like me also have the best of luck trying to farm it. Anyways, I hope you all have a good day and thank you for reading :D