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i.
By now, Timaeus is by no means a stranger to eccentricity.
He's worked closely with Albedo and Sucrose for years, after all, has been exposed to their odd ways of thinking and working, and been dragged along on some of their strangest experiments. At his post at the crafting bench, in the very center of the city, he's seen all manner of strange guests wandering Mondstadt. Indeed, in recent memory, the crafting bench has been graced by some very odd visitors.
Even so, the Traveler, to Timaeus at least, seems to be one of the more inexplicable people he's met.
"Hey Timaeus!"
For the third time that day, Timaeus startles upright. He turns around to spot Aether coming to an abrupt halt mere inches away, bouncing slightly on his feet to dispel the momentum of his sprint. Timaeus can't help but take a step back, raising his arms instinctively in surprise.
"Hi there," he manages, after a moment. "Are you also interested in alchemy?"
"I'd like to use the crafting bench," Aether chirps, friendly as always.
"Sure, go ahead," Timaeus replies.
As the Traveler happily begins to root through his knapsack for materials, Timaeus turns back to his work.
Aether has earned quite the name for himself over the course of the Stormterror incident. As Mondstadt's one and only Honorary Knight, he commands no small amount of respect from the knights, and is widely lauded as a hero by the people. But despite his formidable reputation, he can often be spotted running around fulfilling all kinds of small requests throughout the day— tireless, and endlessly helpful.
Having finished hammering away at the crafting bench, Aether waves a swift goodbye, before heading towards the Adventurer's Guild at a jog. Easing slightly, Timaeus turns around curiously to examine the crafting bench. There are small fragments of broken hilichurl masks scattered around the bench, and while that's far from the strangest thing Aether has crafted using the alchemy bench, Timaeus still can't help but be perplexed.
"Traveler," he mutters to himself. "What are you doing?"
He hears footsteps from behind, followed by the distinctive sound of wind catching under a glider. He turns around, pausing at the sight of the Traveler once more. Aether has vaulted over the side of the ledge overlooking the main square, and is gliding back down towards the crafting bench again. Timaeus can't help but look incredulously down the stretch of cobblestone leading towards the city gates, which he'd sworn he'd seen Aether disappearing through mere moments ago.
"Hey Timaeus!"
"Hi there," Timaeus manages weakly. "Are— Are you also interested in alchemy?"
"I'd like to use the crafting bench," Aether chirps again.
"... Sure," Timaeus says, after a moment. "Go ahead."
Aether opens his knapsack, cheerfully emptying out more broken hilichurl masks onto the bench. Timaeus stares at him for a moment longer, before turning to look back in the direction of the city gates. After a moment, however, he just bites his lip, and turns back to his own project.
Perhaps he should just ask fewer questions.
ii.
"Aether," Amber begins hesitantly.
It takes Aether a moment to respond, busy, it seems, scouring the ground for sweet flowers.
"...Yeah?" he responds, after a moment.
Amber sucks in a breath.
"What are we doing?" she asks.
At that, Aether turns to shoot her a slightly puzzled look.
"Uhh," he says. "Commissions from the Adventurer's Guild?"
The way his voice lilts up at the end makes it sound more like a question than an answer. You were there when I accepted the commission, his confused expression seems to convey.
"Are we—" Amber begins, before pausing to suck in another breath. "Are we in a hurry?"
Aether seems to consider the question.
"Not really," he finally answers. "Unless you have somewhere to be?"
Amber quickly shakes her head. She had been the one to ask if she could accompany Aether on his commissions after all, curious to see what their Honorary Knight was getting up to now that things had mostly settled down. Her schedule has been cleared for the day.
"If we're not in a hurry—" she says, and takes in a final, gasping breath. "Then, Aether— why are we running?"
Aether's eyes widen.
"Oh," he says.
He slows to a walk, and Amber immediately doubles over, hands on her knees, and gasping desperately for breath. The Knights of Favonius demand a rather rigorous training schedule of its recruits, so Amber does not think that she is unfit by any measure of the word, but the Traveler— Aether is on a whole different level altogether. They've been running between hilichurl camps for nearly an hour now, not stopping for any breaks, and Aether does not seem even remotely out of breath. Now that Amber thinks of it, though, she's rarely seen him moving at anything less than a run.
Most of the time, he's sprinting.
"Sorry," Aether says after a moment, expression contrite. "I'm used to running between places. You must be tired."
He looks around, brightening as he seems to spot something in the distance.
"That's Lynn over there!" he points out. "She usually lets other people use her cooking pot, so why don't we sit down and cook up something to eat?"
Indeed, as Amber straightens, she can see Lynn at her usual spot by the bridge, standing over a campfire. Lynn looks up as they approach, and immediately breaks into a friendly smile.
"Hey Traveler!" she greets.
Aether waves.
"Hey Lynn," he says. "Mind if we use your campfire?"
"Not at all!" Lynn chirps. "Knowing how to cook is essential in the wild, so don't forget it!"
Amber collapses bonelessly down onto the log by the fire, closing her eyes as she works on regaining her breath. She can hear Aether beginning to root through his bag for ingredients as Lynn takes a seat beside her.
"You okay?" Lynn asks.
"Fine," Amber gasps. "Just peachy."
For a long moment, there's just the sound of Aether clanging around as he puts something together. He's humming a little as he cooks, a quiet yet cheerful tune. When Amber finally looks up, however, she double takes.
"Aether!" she screams, shooting to her feet in alarm. "You're on fire!"
Aether looks down.
"Oh," he says, and steps backward out of the flames.
Amber stares as he resumes cooking without another word, humming faintly and completely unruffled, as if he hadn't been standing in the fire mere seconds ago.
His clothes are still smoldering.
iii.
For a long moment, Xingqiu can only stare.
Beside him, Chongyun sheaths his claymore, blinking confusedly, while Xiangling crowds closer with a somewhat bewildered expression. They watch on for a few minutes longer, catching their breaths from the hilichurl camp they'd just cleared out. When Aether's efforts continue to prove fruitless, however, Xingqiu decides that he should probably intervene.
"...Aether," he calls out. "What are you doing?"
Aether looks up from where he's scaling the side of a Statue of the Seven. His expression brightens into a friendly smile as he spots them, and he waves a hand in greeting.
"Hey Xingqiu," he greets. "Hey Chongyun, Xiangling."
Beneath him, the figure of Rex Lapis lounges regally against his throne of stone, one ankle crossed behind the other. Turning briefly back to the statue, Aether grips one of the throne's spires, and hauls himself firmly up so that he's standing on the statue's thigh. Then, he turns back around, pointing at something in the distance.
"There's a geoculus suspended over a rock right there," he says, still standing in Rex Lapis' lap. "I've been trying to get to it for the past five minutes."
Xingqiu knows. They've been watching him for a good portion of those five minutes.
Having answered their question, however, Aether seems to turn his attention back to his task. Putting one hand on the statue's shoulder, he pulls himself deftly up onto the back of the stone throne, and then just stands there for a moment, as if gauging the distance. A moment later, he launches himself off the statue. The wings of his glider snap up, and off he goes— gliding soundlessly over the plains of Dihua Marsh.
"Ugh," they hear him groan a few seconds later. "It's still too high up."
iv.
The clatter of a displaced pebble, falling down from a nearby roof, is what first catches Jean's attention. A shadow sweeps over her a second later— someone jumping from a nearby roof to the canopy of the stall opposite, and Jean immediately grips her sword, craning her head to look up at the intruder.
There, she finally pauses, frowning.
"Aether?" she asks, bewildered. "What are you doing?"
Aether turns around, looking down at Jean from where he's standing on the canopy.
“Oh, hey Jean!” he greets with a friendly smile, before turning to gesture at the building beside him. “I’m collecting philanemo mushrooms! They grow on eaves, you see.”
“I… see,” Jean says.
She does not, in fact, see.
“I need sixty of them,” Aether clarifies, and then peeks into his knapsack. “Looks like I’m almost done and— oh!”
He points at something in the distance.
“There’s another one right there!” he cries.
He leaps off the canopy. Jean watches as he sprints off with nary a word of goodbye, engaging his windglider at the top of a flight of stairs, and gliding soundlessly down the stone steps. A moment later, he disappears around the corner, gliding the whole way.
For a few moments, Jean just stands there in silence.
She has absolutely no clue why Aether needs sixty philanemo mushrooms. She also has no idea why Aether can’t ever just take the stairs like a normal person, and how he hasn’t gotten his gliding license revoked yet. Archons know how many times Amber has been sanctioned for gliding in the city. After a moment, however, Jean just sighs, and turns to continue her way back to the Knights of Favonius headquarters.
Somehow, the thought of booking Aether for unauthorized gliding never crosses her mind.
v.
After more than three thousand years of life, Ganyu thinks that she’s seen much of what there is to see in this world. She’s lived through war and peace, through the rise and fall of civilisations. As such, she likes to think that she’s generally difficult to startle.
When the Traveller comes plunging down from above, however, sword crunching into the concrete mere feet away from her, she finds herself erupting into a most unbecoming scream.
“Aether!” she cries, clutching at her heart. “What on earth are you doing?!”
The Traveller straightens up from where he’d landed, smack in the middle of Yujing Terrace, wincing a little. At the sight of her, however, his expression immediately brightens as he waves in greeting.
“Hey Ganyu,” he chirps. “I was up on Mt. Tianheng. I thought this would be a good shortcut into the city. It's definitely faster than walking.”
“... Right,” Ganyu manages after a moment. “But Aether, you’re frightening the civilians.”
Aether turns to look around. A group of clerks are standing just outside Yuehai Pavillion, arms still raised defensively.
“Oh,” Aether says, expression turning contrite. “Sorry about that.”
Ganyu exhales.
“It’s fine,” she says, and manages a smile. “Just don’t do it again, alright? You’ve even injured yourself. I saw you wincing just now.”
Aether grins sheepishly.
“I’m really sorry,” he apologizes once more. “I misjudged the plunging distance. I won’t do it again.”
"It's fine," Ganyu assures him, before softening her tone a little. "Just take care, alright?"
"Alright," Aether says, still sounding embarrassed.
Ganyu looks up into the sky. Judging from the position of the sun, her lunch break will be over very soon, so she turns back to Aether with a smile.
"I have to go now," she says. "I have a meeting after my lunch break."
"Of course," Aether says quickly, and smiles. "See you again soon."
With a final wave, Ganyu turns to head back towards Yuehai Pavillion. Just as she begins to ascend the stone steps into the building, however, she hears the distinct sound of a loud splash . She turns around, perplexed, to see Aether wading through one of Yujing Terrace's ornamental ponds.
"Aether?" Ganyu calls, bewildered. "What are you—"
Aether turns around at the sound of her voice.
He is holding a fish in both hands.
Ganyu blinks once, and then twice, but the bizarre sight does not go away. Aether blinks back at her with an equally puzzled expression, head tilted inquisitively, as if merely waiting for her to speak. Nothing in his expression suggests shame or embarrassment.
Ganyu blinks a few more times.
"Aether," she says slowly. "Are you… catching fish with your bare hands?"
vi.
"Aether," Xiangling pipes up timidly, after another five minutes of fruitless gliding. "I don't think that's going to work."
Aether turns to look at them, one foot on Rex Lapis' shoulder, and the other on the back of his throne. After a moment, he turns to look back in the direction of the geoculus, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"I think you may be right," he finally admits. "But there's got to be another way to reach it."
He twists around, clearly looking for more places to glide from. Before he can do anything more, however, there comes the whistling sound of something traveling very quickly through the air.
A dark figure plummets suddenly down upon them. Glowing teal spears pierce the ground with a cacophonous noise, and from within the resulting crater, a masked figure straightens, shrouded in wisps of writhing black smoke.
"Who dares disrespect the image of Rex Lapis," the Vigilant Yaksha thunders furiously. "You shall face retribution for—"
He stops mid-sentence.
There is a moment of silence, the quiet carrying with it a sense of incredulity. Then, the dark wisps dissipate into thin air, anemo spears fading slowly away as well. The Conqueror of Demons reaches up, and removes his mask.
"Aether?" he demands incredulously.
Aether brightens.
"Oh, hey Xiao!" he greets cheerfully. "It's great to see you again."
The Vigilant Yaksha blinks once, slowly, as if suddenly doubting his sense of sight.
"Aether," he finally says. "What are you doing?"
Aether tilts his head inquisitively, before he turns, and points.
"There's a geoculus suspended above a rock right there," he explains for the second time. "I've been trying to get to it for ten minutes now, but I can't seem to find something high enough to glide from."
The Vigilant Yaksha blinks again.
"What?" is all he finally says.
"There's a geoculus," Aether repeats patiently. "I've been trying to glide to it from here, but I keep missing." He turns around. "Here, I'll show you."
Adjusting his footing slightly, Aether narrows his eyes in determination, then launches himself deftly off the top of the statue again. A moment later, the wings of his glider snap up. The rest of them watch silently as he disappears into the distance.
"You see?" he shouts, after a few moments. "It's too high up for me to reach!"
vii.
Childe has to be honest. When he’d asked to accompany the Traveller out of Liyue Harbor to fulfill a commission, he hadn't quite expected this.
"Aether," he finally sighs, slinging his bow over his shoulder. "What are you doing?"
Aether looks up from where he's squatting in the dirt. He blinks a few times, clearly confused at Childe's question.
"We were supposed to be clearing out all the slimes in this area, weren't we?" he asks.
"Yes," Childe says. "But do you really need all that junk?”
Aether looks down at the slime residue he’d been carefully scooping up off the ground.
Archons know why he needs the stuff, but as Childe has discovered over the course of this expedition, Aether will pick up anything and everything, from the stray flower and wayward berry, to broken insignias and smoking ruin guard cores. On more than one occasion, he'd witnessed Aether stopping to catch lizards, frogs, or insects, and when curiosity had eventually driven him to sneak a peek inside Aether's knapsack, he'd seen a truly eclectic mix of mints, sunsettias, and various flowers, thrown haphazardly in alongside broken hilichurl masks, mitachurl horns, and now— slime condensate.
He does not understand what Aether is collecting all of that for.
"You never know when these things may come in useful," Aether finally says in answer, before turning back to his task.
"What could you possibly use all those broken masks and slime condensate for?" Childe asks incredulously.
Aether just shrugs.
"I don't know," he admits. "But what if I did end up needing a tonne of them at some point? You just never know, and besides, they are already lying right here. It doesn't cost anything to pick them up."
Having seemingly finished scraping the rest of the remnant slime residue off the ground, Aether stands.
"One of the hilichurl masks fell down the side of the cliff," he says. "I'm going to jump down and get it. Be right back."
"What?" Childe says, but Aether is already gone.
Childe peers over the cliffside in disbelief. Far below, he sees Aether gliding to a graceful halt atop one of the foothills. He bends down to pick something up, before craning his head to look up in Childe's direction.
"Got it!" he shouts, waving a broken mask fragment. "I'm coming back up!"
He tucks the mask fragment into his knapsack, and then cheerfully begins to scale his way back up the cliff.
viii.
"Aether—" Xiao begins. "Aether, stop— Just— stop."
Aether turns around from where he had been jumping repeatedly in place beneath the geoculus, his head tilted inquisitively.
"Aether," Xiao says exasperatedly. "What are you doing?"
Aether blinks, confused, and then points at the geoculus above his head. Xiao closes his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. He really, really doesn't understand mortals at times. Then again, he is beginning to suspect that Aether is far from mortal. Is that perhaps the reason for his strangeness?
Whatever.
It's not important.
"Give me your arm," he says curtly.
Aether raises an eyebrow, but extends his arm obligingly. Pulling his mask on, Xiao grips him firmly around the bicep, and launches them both upwards with a burst of anemo energy. The geoculus glows briefly as they grasp it, before dissipating.
“Wait, you can actually jump that high?!" Aether demands. "That is so useful!'
As they land back on solid ground, Aether immediately twists around, craning his head to look up in the direction of Wangshu Inn.
"Say," he muses, rubbing at his chin thoughtfully. "Did you come plunging down here all the way from Wangshu Inn? Do you not take fall damage? That seems awfully convenient.”
Xiao has no idea what he's talking about, so he just sighs, and turns away.
"Stop climbing Rex Lapis' statues," he says sternly. "Next time, I will not be so forgiving."
With that, he disappears into the wind.
ix.
It’s just past noon, the tavern still empty, when Aether comes falling down from the second floor. Diluc looks up from the mug he’s wiping to see Aether landing deftly on the counter. Aether looks around briefly, before he pulls a map out of his bag, and begins to consult it with a frown.
"Aether,” Diluc says flatly. “What are you doing?"
"Oh, hello Master Diluc!" Aether greets. “Someone posted on the bulletin that they are looking for valberries. Hertha marked the person’s location on the map, but I can’t seem to find them.”
“Please get down from my counter,” Diluc says.
“Oh,” Aether says. “Sorry.”
He immediately gets down from the counter, expression apologetic. Diluc puts the cleaned mug back with all the other mugs, and then wipes the counter down. After a moment, however, he closes his eyes, and sighs.
“Who are you looking for?” he asks.
“I’m looking for Nimrod,” Aether says.
“If he’s not sitting at one of the outdoor tables, then he’s at The Cat’s Tail,” Diluc informs him.
Aether brightens.
“Thank you, Master Diluc!” he cries, putting a hand over his heart in thanks, before he turns away. “I guess I’ll be going then. See you again soon!”
"Aether,” Diluc calls as Aether opens the door.
Aether pauses in the doorway, turning around with a questioning tilt of his head. After a moment, Diluc sighs again, reaching up to massage the bridge of his nose.
“Next time,” he says tiredly, “please don't jump down from the second floor. The stairs are there for a reason.”
x.
To be clear, it's not often the case that Keqing takes her lunch break outside. When work is piling up on her desk, she much prefers eating in her office, where she can continue to work. Today, however, she had invited Ganyu out to discuss the reopening of the Bishui trade route, and so they are chatting, side by side, on the way out of Yuehai Pavillion, when something hits the concrete several feet in front of them with a thunderous clang.
She and Ganyu burst out into startled screams.
Keqing immediately draws her sword, alarmed, but upon closer inspection, she realizes that what had landed in front of them was not a thing, but a person— two people actually.
Before them, Adeptus Xiao straightens, expression confused and a little exasperated, as Aether hops off his back.
"Hey Keqing!" Aether greets, waving. "Hey Ganyu!"
"Aether?!" Keqing demands, and then pauses, incredulous. "What— What are you even doing?!"
"You said you wouldn't do this again!" Ganyu scolds. "Didn't you hurt yourself the last time?"
The last time?!
"Don't worry!" Aether chirps. "I didn't hurt myself this time. I found out that Xiao doesn't take plunge damage, no matter how high he plunges from! That means we can safely drop down into Yujing Terrace from Mt. Tianheng!"
Keqing shoots a disbelieving glance at Ganyu. She is looking at Adeptus Xiao from under her lashes now, biting her lip with a reproachful and vaguely disappointed expression on her face. Clearly, she wishes to, but does not quite dare to chide her senior.
Keqing, on the other hand, has no such compunctions.
"You went along with this?!" she hisses at the adeptus. "Seriously, you could have hurt someone!"
Adeptus Xiao crosses his arms.
"I would not have landed on a mortal," he says shortly.
Keqing puts her hands on her hips, swelling up furiously, but before she can give Adeptus Xiao a piece of her mind about responsibility and common sense, she hears a loud splash from somewhere behind her, and turns around.
For some inexplicable reason, Aether is standing in one of the ornamental ponds. She watches, bewildered, as he wades through the water, occasionally making a grab for one of the fishes, and cursing under his breath when he misses. After a few moments of this, he sighs, reaching up to dry the sweat off his forehead with his sleeve, before turning around to pluck the head off a nearby lotus.
"Aether," Keqing begins incredulously. "Are you… catching fish with your bare hands?"
xi.
When Sucrose arrives at the crafting bench, trailing a few steps behind a preoccupied Albedo, Timaeus whips around with an uncharacteristically wild look in his eyes.
"Chief Alchemist Albedo," he hisses urgently, reaching out to grip Albedo by the elbows. "I think the Traveler… has a twin."
Albedo looks up from the field notes he'd been reviewing. After a moment, he turns around to look at Sucrose. They trade bewildered looks, before Albedo turns back to Timaeus.
"Yes," he says, sounding quite bemused. "Aether has stated multiple times that he's looking for her."
"No, that's not what I mean," Timaeus corrects, and leans in slightly. "I think he has another twin, an identical one! How else does he keep appearing behind me seconds after running off in the completely opposite direction?!"
"Hey Timaeus!" a voice chirps from behind them. "I'd like to use the crafting bench."
"Yaargh!" Timaeus cries.
xii.
By the time Kaeya arrives at the Treasure Hoarder camp, they are already running, scattering like frantic ants from a destroyed ant hill. The intel he'd been given seems sound, judging by their presence there, but something has them spooked, and Kaeya gets the definite impression that it isn't him.
"What?" one of them cries, when he manages to catch them by the elbow. "What do you want? We weren't doing anything illegal! We were just scoping out the ruins!"
"Then why are you running?" Kaeya asks, unimpressed.
"Some kid released a ruin hunter and three ruin guards!" the man protests. "I don't have a goddamn death wish— now let me go!"
A kid?
With an insistent tug, the man yanks his arm free of Kaeya's grip, and immediately takes off running. Kaeya lets him go, more concerned now by the sounds of battle he can hear from within the ruins. Through the stone doors, he spots the distinctive flash of a familiar gold braid.
"Traveler!" he calls out, immediately drawing his sword to assist.
Aether turns around at the sound of his voice.
"Oh, hey Kaeya," he greets, strangely unruffled by the situation at hand.
"Woah!" Kaeya cries, alarmed. "Watch your back, my friend!"
He winces as a slew of missiles hits the ground at Aether's feet, sending him flying back from the impact. Reacting quickly, he rushes forward to draw the ruin guard's attention away from Aether.
"Hey," he calls out breathlessly to his companion. "Don't die on me now. That won't be fun."
To his credit, Aether gets right back up.
"Ruin hunter!" he shouts in warning.
At the sounds of missiles firing up, Kaeya ducks behind a stone pillar, and not a moment too soon. When the barrage of missiles finally stops, he emerges from his hiding spot just in time to see Aether take a running leap, piercing the ruin hunter through the core with uncanny precision.
That's their Honorary Knight, alright.
The powered down remnants of the other two ruin guards lie across the floor in pieces. Kaeya takes the last one out with a timely blast of ice, and as the light in its core sputters out, turns back to his companion.
"You okay?" he asks breathlessly.
Aether wipes a hand over his brow as Kaeya walks over, then looks up with a smile.
"Nothing a Sweet Madame won't fix," he says, still panting a little.
Rather alarmingly, the hem of his clothes is smoldering, and the rest of him is covered in soot.
"Traveler," Kaeya begins. "I really don't think a Sweet Madame will fix burns—"
He falls silent as Aether walks over to a crumbling pillar and crouches down. On second glance, Kaeya realizes that there's a person lying there, slumped lifelessly on the ground.
"Shit," he hisses.
He dismisses his sword with a flick of his wrist, and approaches them swiftly. The goggles pushed back over pale hair alerts him to the identity of that slumped body.
"Shit," he curses again, with more feeling this time. "That's Razor's friend, isn't it?"
The boy is covered in soot as well, obscuring the full extent of his injuries, but from the singed state of his clothing, things aren't looking good.
"Fuck," Kaeya mutters, running a hand back through his hair. "Fuck. Lisa is actually going to kill me."
For someone who might very well be sitting by the body of a dead friend, Aether seems rather calm.
"Don't worry," he says, opening his bag. "I have just the thing."
He reaches into his bag, and somehow manages to produce a Sweet Madame and a fried egg out of it, the latter of which he proceeds to slap unceremoniously onto Bennett's face.
"Aether!" Kaeya shouts, shocked and horrified. "What in Tevyat's name are you doing?!"
Much to his surprise, however, Bennett immediately begins to splutter, sitting up with a groggy expression.
"There we go," Aether says, still inordinately calm.
He sits down beside Bennett, passing him the Sweet Madame, before digging into his bag. A moment later, he produces another Sweet Madame, which he begins to eat.
"Thanks for waking me back up," Bennett says, wiping the remnants of the fried egg from his face with bizarre nonchalance. "It's just my luck that I managed to release a ruin hunter and three ruin guards from inside the ruins. Sorry about that. I hope you didn't get hurt."
"No worries," Aether says, pulling a drumstick off his Sweet Madame. "As I told Captain Kaeya, it's nothing a Sweet Madame won't fix."
Kaeya stares, disbelieving, as they begin to dig into their Sweet Madames with no further fanfare. After a moment, however, Aether looks up at him. His expression turns slightly concerned.
"Are you okay, Captain Kaeya?" he asks worriedly. "You're not injured, are you?"
He turns around, reaching for his bag again.
"Don't worry," he says once more. "I have just the thing."
He digs into his bag and, rather inexplicably, manages to pull out yet another Sweet Madame.
"Here, sit down and have one," he says, patting the ground beside him.
"How many Sweet Madames do you even have in there?!" Kaeya demands.
Aether looks into his knapsack, shaking it a little, before he frowns.
"Only six left," he answers, before adding, matter-of-factly— "I'll have to make more when I get back to Mond."
"Six?!" Kaeya repeats incredulously. "You have six Sweet Madames in there?!"
"There's nothing in life a Sweet Madame won't fix," Aether explains sagely. "I try to ensure I always have at least twenty in my bag."
Kaeya stares as Aether happily picks his own Sweet Madame back up, tearing a strip of meat from the drumstick with his teeth. After a moment, however, Kaeya just sits down heavily at Aether's side, still feeling rather numb from leftover adrenaline, and also a healthy dose of confusion.
He reaches for the offered Sweet Madame.
By some strange and inexplicable power, it is still warm.
He stares down at the glazed chicken, sitting innocuously in his lap, for a long, long moment. Then finally, as the sheer surreality of the situation hits him with full force, he puts his face in his hand, and begins to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
Aether shoots him an extremely bewildered look.
"You okay?" he asks.
Kaeya just waves him off, coughing in an attempt to stave off the last of the hysterical laughter.
"You," is what he finally says, "must be the strangest person in all of Tevyat."