Of Calm Calamities

Of Calm Calamities (21)

Aether patiently waited for everyone to get comfortable, which included Childe using Zhongli as a pillow, and even Xiao reached out a tentative hand to hold Aether's for reassurance. Childe, although feeling a little surprised by the adetpus's display of affection, looked on approvingly, as if he was Xiao's proud father. Wait, no. That wasn't right. Zhongli was like Xiao's proud father, so did that make Childe his... mother? He decided not to get too into that and just focus on Aether for now. He'd have all the time in the world to figure out his weird relationships with other people, so he might as well just live in the moment for now.

"So," Aether started, their hand in Xiao's as they subconsciously moved their thumb over the back of Xiao's hand. Okay, those two almost looked as in love as Childe and Zhongli did. "Remember how I was looking for my sister? Well, I found her."

"That's great!" Childe smiled widely, relieved. He recalled how he and Aether had first met, with Aether desperately searching for Lumine. He could understand how Aether felt. If his own siblings disappeared, he'd scour the world for them. Aether seemed to have done just that for their sister, too.

"She was leading the Abyss."

Childe's face fell immediately, a million questions rushing through his head all at once.  What did they mean, 'leading the Abyss'? Why was she even in the Abyss in the first place? Childe briefly remembered Aether mentioning how they were alive for hundreds of years, meaning that surely, so was their sister. Did that mean that she'd been leading the Abyss all that time? And did that mean that his time in the Abyss had partially been her fault? Wow, so technically speaking, he was sitting across from a person whose sister had tried to indirectly kill him. Then again, considering his line of work, he really needed to stop getting so surprised whenever he heard that people wanted to kill him.

"Well," he finally managed, considerably tenser in Zhongli's embrace, "that's not great. Wait, was?" 

"She wasn't moving when I found her." The silence that came with Aether's words was a heavy one. Zhongli's grip around Childe tightened, as if someone was threatening to take Childe away, and Childe pressed himself against Zhongli in return. Xiao immediately sat up straighter, though his hand was still holding Aether's.

"That's, um..." Childe trailed off, not knowing what to say. How was he even supposed to respond to that, when Aether basically just told them 'oh, hey, my sister is actually evil and tried to kill everyone, but she's dead now, so it's all good'? Should he apologize? Should he congratulate Aether on losing a sister that was probably pure evil? Somehow, that felt very, very wrong. Something told him that if his own siblings had chosen to talk along a dark path, he still would've wept if they died. He never really learned how to reply to these kinds of things.

"Ah. I wish you'd had a chance to say goodbye to her," Zhongli said, his calm tone replaced by one that hinted at sadness. Bless Zhongli and his perfect self for being capable of talking to grieving people, because Childe had no clue what he would've done without him here.

"I might still have a chance to do that." Aether replied with a shrug. "There's a way to bring her back."

Childe frowned in confusion, running everything through his head. "Wait, wait. So you're saying that your sister that you've been searching for just happens to be the leader of the Abyss and is now somehow dead, but you still have a chance to bring her back to life?"

"Um..." Aether paused, thinking it over. "Yeah, that pretty much sums it up."

"O-kay," Childe nodded along, more than a little confused. Aether was probably just grieving and spouting nonsense. They couldn't exactly just bring a dead person back to life, but to be fair, their sorrow-induced delusions were completely justifiable. If anything bad had happened to his own family, he was sure that he'd have gone mad with sadness.