Chapter Text
Aether. 24, he/him, Cancer, ISTP. Food and travel. Currently residing in Mondstadt. World's best twin to @viatrix.
It really was amazing how easily he could seemingly sum up his entire being in an Instagram profile description. Sure it didn’t really go into depth by any means, but the main points got across and that’s all that really matters, right? Pressing his thumb to the screen of his phone and flicking upwards, he was met with a scrolling grid of photos, a reverse-chronological look back at the past 6 years of his life. The snowy expanse of Snezhnaya, the tall golden cliffs of Liyue, the blossoming violet trees of an Inazuman shrine, all scattered between photos of local cuisine and, of course, selfies of himself and his twin sister.
Glancing at the time in the top corner of his screen, Aether sighed, clicking the lock button on the side before sliding his phone back into his pocket. Break time’s over, it seems. Mondstadt was a lovely place to be staying, something about the gentle breeze and rolling hills just made the wind-blessed nation feel like home, but that still didn’t quell Aether’s desire to get back out there and see the world. He and Lumine wanted to visit Fontaine next, but being a pair of travelers in their early twenties who never settled down in one place long enough to get a proper post-high school education meant that funds were often quite thin. Lumine was lucky enough to pick up part time employment at a small bakery, but so far all Aether was really able to land were several odd-jobs through an organisation called the Adventurer’s Guild. The compensation for his work wasn’t great, almost every job involved nothing but hours of manual labour, and sometimes there wasn’t even work to do in the first place, but at least it meant Aether was able to get out and about and experience new things rather than being cooped up in one place all day every day.
Today’s work was helping out the Church of Favonius with groundskeeping. Hundreds of years in the past the grand cathedral was in service, as any historical religious landmark would’ve been, but nowadays it was more or less a tourist attraction so the upkeep of the grounds was more for aesthetic purposes rather than out of worship for the nation's tutelary deity. From what Aether had learned of Mondstadt’s history, it didn’t seem like Barbatos would really mind his place of worship being turned into some sort of spectacle, as long as his people were expressing their freedom in doing so.
Standing from where he was crouched in front of one of the few headstones behind the cathedral, Aether stretched, feeling the ache of a hard day’s work reaching the ends of his limbs. Nobody really came back there very often, due to it not being a very aesthetically pleasing location and the people buried there being long forgotten, but it was still good practice to respect the deceased and keep their final resting place tidy. Packing the last of the cleaning supplies the church had given him to work with away, Aether turned, noticing the head deaconess approaching him, her fluffy knee-length skirt bouncing with every step. It was quite an interesting appeal the Church of Favonius had- despite it no longer being an active place of worship, the sisters who kept the ancient landmark running and open to the public still wore the same uniforms that were worn when the cathedral was in its prime. If anything, it was a charming addition to the historical monument.
“Good afternoon, Aether. Thank you for your hard work as usual!”
Aether smiled at the short woman, Barbara really had a way with making the world a little brighter. “Always happy to help. Anything else you need me to do today?”
“No, you’ve already done more than enough for us.” Barbara turned slightly, frowning as she looked at the dark clouds rolling in the distance. “In fact, I think it’s going to start raining soon, so you’d best be on your way home.”
Aether nodded, hoisting the crate of supplies back onto its shelf in the supply shed at the back of the cathedral, before locking the door and returning the key to its rightful owner. “Right. Well, if you ever need help again, don’t hesitate to put in a request for me at the guild.”
“Of course, you always do so much for us here at the church! Take care and stay safe on your journey home.”
With a final nod and wave to Barbara, Aether set out for the long walk through the city back to his and his sister’s shared apartment. Reaching the fountain in front of the Goth Grand Hotel, Aether slowed to a stop. Usually, he’d just continue down the staircase to the right of the hotel to go straight home and collapse on his bed, but he really didn’t feel like going home just yet. He wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something in Aether’s gut telling him to instead visit the nearby garden and rest a while. Surely there wouldn’t be any harm in taking a slight detour so, nodding to himself, Aether turned and made his way toward the tucked away area.
He’d come here several times when he first arrived in Mondstadt, finding it on one of his many starry-eyed walks throughout the historical city. It wasn’t an impressive garden by any means, all it really had to offer was a single fountain and a handful of benches, but the pure tranquility and the view of Dragonspine’s snowy peaks in the distance were unparalleled. There was also a small flower shop right by the garden, an expansion built off of an old windmill tower- Aether had been curious about the shop for a while but never had any excuse to go inside and finally take a look around.
Making himself comfortable on one of the park benches, Aether pulled out his phone, intent to get back to his mindless scrolling through his Instagram feed. He thought about what he should do for dinner, it was his turn to cook after all. Mentally he went through the list of what ingredients he could remember seeing at home, not too optimistic about his options. He could always stop by Good Hunter and pick something up instead…? But no, that wouldn’t be fair on Lumine, taking the easy way out while she had cooked the previous night and would be cooking tomorrow too. Guess he had to pick up some groceries on the way home then, but now it was a matter of what exactly he should cook.
Aether opened the browser on his phone, intent to visit his favorite website for recipes but before he could get too far, the sky seemingly opened up, rain bucketing down and drenching him completely. Running entirely on instinct and the desire to get out of the rain as soon as he could, Aether pocketed his phone and stood up, seeking out the first shelter he could get to- the little flower shop built into the windmill. Seemed Aether’s excuse to go inside and finally take a look around came by sooner than he was expecting.
Sprinting to the store, Aether made an effort to remember to carefully open and close the door, so as not to disturb the plants or anybody who was inside. Catching his breath, Aether glanced around, taking in his surroundings. It was a nice little store, the walls lined with shelves holding buckets full of different flowers, and several tables in the centre of the open room decorated with premade bouquets, small potted plants, and various knick-knacks.
Raising his gaze to the back of the store, Aether found the service counter and, staring right back at him from behind it, was the only other person in the store. Aether was surprised, he expected the person who ran the quiet tucked away flower shop to be a little old lady or something, not a young man who seemed to be around the same age as himself. Aether took in the florist’s appearance, finding him to be quite pretty with his round face, bright aqua eyes, and fluffy blond curls grazing the tops of his shoulders where they’d fallen out of his messy ponytail.
Noticing Aether’s unabashed staring, the florist’s eyes widened slightly, averting his gaze as he cleared his throat. “Welcome, is there anything I can help you find today?”
A pretty voice to match a pretty face, huh. Aether blinked, suddenly remembering that the reason he was there wasn’t just to stand around and gawk at the pretty florist boy, and that said pretty florist boy was asking him a question. “Oh! Uh, I’m not actually here to buy anything, sorry,” Aether brought his hand up to rub at the back of his neck, finding it wet when he pulled it away. “I kinda got caught in the rain just now.”
“I can see that,” the florist smiled slightly, the corners of his mouth ticking up the tiniest bit. “You’re welcome to wait here for it to pass.”
“Sorry again,” Aether started, making his way over to the counter now that the rainwater had stopped literally dripping off his body. “Sorry for making your floor wet, too.”
“It’s quite alright, just a shame you couldn’t use it to water the plants for me.” The florist joked, moving to stand up straighter. Aether hadn’t noticed it at first, but there was some sort of sketch book on the counter, which the florist promptly closed before Aether could be close enough to peek inside. Understandably, Aether was a stranger after all, he doesn’t really have any right to go about snooping through the pretty florist’s personal belongings.
“So…” Aether trailed off, not really knowing what he actually meant to say, and only realising how awkward the situation was now that the sole thing separating him from the florist was the three-foot wide counter between them. Said florist didn’t seem to mind too much, fingers thrumming a steady pattern on the cover of his sketchbook while he waited for Aether to continue. “Do you own the store?”
“No, it belongs to my…” the florist paused for a moment, pursing his lips in thought. “Aunt, I suppose. She’s currently away on some business, so she left the store in my care while she’s gone.”
“Must be pretty tiring, keeping a whole store running by yourself.”
“It’s quite manageable, really. We don’t get much traffic past here, especially with Floral Whisper on the main street getting more business. If anything, taking care of my younger sister is more troublesome than running the shop.” The thrumming stopped, the florist looking up to meet Aether’s eyes. “What about you, what do you do for work?”
Aether felt his face heat up at the question, a little ashamed of having to explain his situation to somebody who managed to run a whole store and seemingly raise a kid by himself at the same age. “Oh I kinda just do a lot of odd jobs here and there, whenever somebody needs it.”
“So you’re unemployed?”
Aether’s ears burned. “Well when you put it that way…”
“There’s nothing shameful about that. Honestly, if I could afford to have a second pair of hands around the store, I wouldn’t hesitate to offer you a job- ah, that is, only if you were interested.”
“A lot of the work I pick up is through this organisation, the Adventurer’s Guild, you might’ve heard of them?” The florist nodded, prompting Aether to continue. “If you ever need a hand you can put in a request with them, you don’t even have to worry about the cost, they handle all the compensation.”
“I’ll… keep it in mind, then.” The florist tilted his head, peeking past Aether and out the front of the shop. “It seems the rain has stopped.”
Aether turned, following the florist’s gaze. “So it has. Well, I’ll get out of your hair now. Thanks for letting me wait in here.”
Aether started for the door, fingers barely grazing the handle before he heard a small commotion behind him, the florist calling out for him to wait. Turning his head, Aether watched as the florist scurried out from behind the counter, quickly walking to the shelves as his aqua eyes scanned over the various flowers. The florist reached out, pulling a yellow flower from one of the buckets, round in shape due to the sheer amount of petals packed into the head. Nodding to himself, he made his way over to Aether, holding out the flower with the stem delicately pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
Aether tilted his head, eyes darting between the flower and the face of the man holding it out to him. “What’s this?”
“A ranunculus- ah, a buttercup. A gift, for you.”
Aether smiled softly, taking the flower, being careful to not damage it. “Thank you… see you around?”
The florist simply nodded, watching Aether as he turned and left the store, making his way back to his apartment.
Coming to the landing of the second floor, Aether pivoted to continue up the stairs to his apartment on the third, but before he could even continue climbing, the door to the second-floor apartment flung open.
“Oh, hey Mona,”
“Is that rainwater?” His twin-tailed neighbour stared at him, cementing him on the spot.
“Yeah, I-“
“Get in here we’re doing a reading.”
Aether heaved a heavy sigh, begrudgingly following his eccentric neighbour into her apartment. As much as he wanted to just get upstairs, take a shower, and scream into his pillow, Mona had been nothing but kind to him and Lumine since they moved into their apartment, so he owed her at least this much.
Mona is a self-proclaimed astrologist, who specialises in the art of hydromancy. Much like Aether, she didn’t exactly have a form of stable employment, instead earning her living through writing astrology columns for magazines and newspapers between meetings with individual clients. Mona’s financial situation probably wasn’t helped by the fact that she had a bad habit of not actually charging most of her clients, people who were more often than not just her friends that she’d dragged in for an impromptu reading, just as she was currently doing with Aether.
“I could feel you coming, you know. I could sense that you’re…” Mona paused for a moment, hesitating to finish her sentence. “…wet.”
Aether snorted, making himself comfortable on the couch behind Mona’s coffee table. “Yeah, well, that tends to happen when you get caught in the rain without an umbrella.”
“You know I’ve been wanting to do a reading for you for a while now, Aether.” Mona reached out, briefly gripping Aether’s long braid to wet her hands before picking up and shuffling her deck of cards. She’d explained it before, something about how using water that had soaked into her clients for some time is what supplied the energy for her readings. “It’s no coincidence that you got caught in the rain, this was ordained by fate. The natural water of the sky and stars is what will allow me to have a greater connection to you than usual.”
Mona stopped shuffling the deck and cut it into three stacks, placing them on the table. Aether didn’t need any instruction for this, having had his fate read by Mona several times before. ‘Choose the one that resonates with you the most, don’t think about it too much.’ she’d told him the first time they did this. In all honesty Aether didn’t actually buy into this whole thing, but he had to admit it was pretty fun to get advice from Mona like this, from time to time.
Aether selected one of the piles, Mona discarding the other two and placing the card from the top of the selected pile face down, to Aether’s left. With the remaining cards she once again shuffled them and repeated the process a further two times.
“First, your past.” Mona flipped the card to Aether’s left, gazing at it to collect her thoughts. “You’ve spent a lot of time looking for, or chasing after something.”
“So, experiencing new things through travelling?”
“That seems most likely. Next,” Mona flipped the middle card. “Your present. You’re about to find, or even potentially already have found what you were looking for, whether you realise it or not.”
Aether frowned slightly. “Any hints to what that might be? I’m not exactly out exploring the world right now, I thought that was what I was looking for.”
“It could be anything, whether it’s something metaphorical or just a sock you’ve been missing for a while, I can’t say. Finally,” Mona flipped the final card. “Your future. It seems there’s a pretty significant decision to be made on your horizon, it’s up to you to come to the right conclusion.”
Aether bounced his leg, processing Mona’s words. “So what you’re pretty much saying is that I’ve looked for things, I’ve found things, and I’ll have to make a decision? I dunno Mona, seems like a pretty average look at life in general.”
“Aether, I’m not asking you to to blindly follow or even believe my reading,” Mona reached out, resting her hand on Aether’s shoulder. “But it wouldn’t hurt for you to keep it in mind going forward. Don’t just brush everything off and blindly go with the flow, please put some thought into your actions.”
Finally home, Aether collapsed onto the couch, blindly feeling around for the TV remote. He figured it must’ve slipped between the cushions. However, instead of finding the plastic device when he plunged his hand into the plush void, Aether’s fingers brushed against some sort of cloth. Pulling the object out he couldn’t help but scoff when he was met with a sunflower print.
“Huh, so that’s where that sock went.”