Give me your, give me your,
give me your attention baby
Treasure by Bruno Mars
Y/n was hunched over a table with many, many books piled upon the table. Lisa was babbling nonsense about wizards, herbs, magic, what she was to eat for lunch that day, her schedule. All this left y/n in despair as they had to wait for their friend to stop her nonsense, or their blond friend to enter and stop her himself.
And the latter was exactly what happened.
The door to the library creaked open and out came the familiar face of the one and only Aether. The boy stared over the balcony of the book cramped room and watched over the two, one seemingly losing brain cells by the second, and the other running her mouth about the most unimportant speech.
"Hey, Lisa. I'd appreciate it if you didn't talk my friend's ears off." Aether called towards the librarian, who stopped talking. "Oh! Cutie, you've finally arrived." The brown haired woman said softly as her eyes met the ones of the boy. Y/n perked up at this, and found themself staring at Aether, now content.
"So, did you look into it? The curse, I mean." Aether asked, finding his way towards the table the duo were at and sitting beside the now upright y/n. "It only took about a minute.." The woman said gently, watching Aether with a smirk. "It sounds a bit cheesy, but I feel Signora wanted a little bit of romance to make herself feel better."
"Romance?"
"Precisely," The female responded. Y/n groaned at that.
She continued, "Finding true love is what will make this curse go away." Lisa cooed, cupping the face of y/n who only shook their head in annoyance. "Aether, I'd be glad to take your place and help my darling out." Lisa offered, to which Aether only responded by grabbing her wrist, and dragging her hand away from the individual's face. "I'm sure I won't be needing help with that." The blond responded dryly.
Lisa looked towards Aether with a look of focus, like she was trying to decipher what he was thinking. "Cutie," she started, holding eye contact with him, "you knew what kind of curse this was already. And how to break it, didn't you?" Aether lowered his head, and looked towards y/n. They seemed to be lost in thought, still processing the whole "I need to find my true love or else I won't be able to speak for the rest of my life," situation.
"I'll remind you, I never asked for a witch's confirmation." He said slowly, still looking towards y/n. Lisa smiled, "But you still asked me. You had doubts, Aether. You didn't know if your theory was exactly true or not." The purple gowned herbalist had a point. Aether knew what kind of curse Signora put on y/n, for a long time. But he never wanted to admit that he was the person to break it.
He never wanted to admit that he knew about the curse, way before he knew them himself.
"I'm sure we'll be fine on our own. Thanks for the help, Lisa." Aether said, and stood up from his chair. "Leaving so soon? I never got to offer you any tea." The woman sighed, and brought her hand to rest against her cheek. "Well, have a safe journey. You cuties are always welcome to come visit the library." she said amorously.
The duo walked up the steps, the two of them waving goodbye to the herbalist. Once, they exited the library, y/n breathed out a sigh they didn't know they were holding. Their eyes met the one's of Aether, who was looking towards them as well. "Don't think too much about what she said. I'm sure the whole 'true love thing' is just a silly tale." He reassured them, and exited the building, leaving them alone.
They weren't that stupid. They knew Aether understood what Lisa said wasn't fake, but they were more worried about a silly curse's answer. True love? Their thoughts found their way to a specific blond male, making them lightly slap themself. The last few months Aether had been so kind to them, but ever since that conversation with Lumine about the boy they'd been taking his gestures for granted.
Maybe he was the answer, or they were getting ahead of themself again. Whatever the case, they dropped the thought when their eyes met the ones of the same boy who had been clouding their mind. He smiled sweetly at them, his eyes shining their bright gold colour as they were now in the hot rays of Mond. His hair flowed gently behind him, and he offered an arm towards y/n.
Since when did he look that attractive?
-
The strange trio of a fairy, a witch, and a bird, continued to make their way through the entirety of Mondstadt city. Handing out flyers, describing appearances to civilians, however it was safe to say that they weren't making any progress. That was, until Lumine was rammed into by a young boy.
"Ah! I'm so sorry," the silver headed male apologised, rubbing his head as he sat on the ground. Lumine did the same beside him, smiling gently at the boy. "It's alright, really. We all get clumsy once in a while." The boy grinned sheepishly and stood up, offering a hand to the blonde to which she took.
"You see, I'm not the luckiest guy out there. But I manage," he laughed, keeping his hand intertwined with Lumine's. "I'm Bennett! Leader of Benny's adventure team." He exclaimed proudly, shaking his already joined hand with her's. "Lumine," She stated, shaking her hand as well.
When they let go, Lumine reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled paper with the face of a pigtailed girl with an eyepatch. "Does she look familiar to you?" The green eyed boy thought for a moment, before his face lit up, giving the blonde in front of him a little bit of hope.
"Her name is Fischl!" He started, "She's a part of the Adventurers' Guild, and is a good friend of mine." Lumine smiled brightly, and held onto the hands of Bennett happily. "You really know her?! That's fantastic," she beamed, "Do you know where she is currently? Me and my friends desperately need to talk to her." At this Bennett seemed confused.
"You're not gonna stalk her, are you?" He said, backing away. "No no! It's like.. Like an adventure! And we really need her help." Bennett sighed, trusting Lumine a bit too quickly. The silver headed boy smiled, "I thought you were another Albert.." The blonde was a bit confused at that statement, but never-the-less continued to listen to him. "She actually left Mondstadt about a week or two ago. Apparently, she was trying to run from something? Maybe it was a bad dream.. I get those often."
Lumine's smile faded away, and she found herself sighing, knowing that she isn't much closer to finding an answer. "However," Bennett started, striking the girl's attention once again. "You could ask Mona. I'm sure she'd be happy to use her witch powers to find her." Lumine, once again, smiled gratefully and hugged the boy.
"Thank you!" She exclaimed, "Thank you, thank you, thank you! You were so much help! I need to tell my friend's the news, thanks again." Lumine grinned happily, and quickly sprinted towards where she presumed Paimon and Oz were. This left Bennett with a large smile, and a better start to his day.
-
On the duo's way down the staircase, y/n and Aether had found Paimon and Oz.
"Is y/n safe now? You're not in trouble anymore?!" Paimon squealed, her voice still as ear piercing as ever. Y/n responded with a thumbs up, and Oz let out a sigh of relief. "We should find Lumine and tell her." Aether started, "Did you guys have any luck?" Oz nodded quickly and landed on the shoulder of y/n. "We found the kind deaconess of the cathedral and she told us mein Fräulein seemed familiar to her."
Aether smiled in response to that, knowing they were one step closer to finally finding a way out of the Tsaritsa's grasp. That thought stuck to him until he noticed the familiar face of his twin sister. "Lumine! We've got some info." He called as she ran to them grinning. "I do too." She beamed, crouching to catch her breath.
"Someone in this city is friends with her. He told me that she left the city about a week or two ago." She recited, obviously excited about the information she received. "He said we should ask Mona about her. Not sure who this person Mona is though.." Aether smiled towards her and patted her on the head. "We've gotten pretty far, haven't we?" He said, and she nodded in response.
"I know where Mona lives. I think I met her once or twice, she probably knows all of us as well. Let's go visit her." Aether stated. With that, they headed south-east to meet the witch.
It gets more interesting I swear