Secret Nemesis | Aether x Reader

XIII

As an apology for not staying consistent to the schedule, here is another chapter. I've been recovering and thank you for all your understanding. I'll be staying more consistent. I hope you all have a great day and stay healthy everyone!

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Opening your eyes, you found yourself in a forest not too far from the castle. Fireflies fluttering around and lighting up the forest that covered up the starry night, it was like you were in a mini galaxy of your own. As the fireflies were guiding you, a pathway started to open up for you. 

"So beautiful!" Paimon exclaimed as she flew around, looking at the different aspects that the forest had to offer.

"Has the Abyss always been like this?" Aether asked you as he watched his flying companion enjoy the area.

Shaking your head, you replied, "No. Back when Lumine found me, it was a deadly and cold place. You wouldn't be able to survive for a week. But after a few years, it started to grow luscious. How, I don’t know. All I do know is that it became a beautiful place, a place that I would willingly call home.”

Suddenly out of nowhere, as if hearing you, the wind started to pick up. The trees slowly dying, you started to back away in fear. The nightmare that you had once lived in was coming back to life.

“What’s going on?” You gasped in fear as you started to tremble, your fear of the Abyss growing once again.

“Hurry!” Aether shouted as he ran against the wind in hopes to find the cause of the sudden change.

The fireflies that Paimon had once been focused on were dying, slowly dropping to the ground one by one. The lifeless Abyss that you had known was coming back, however the reason why was unknown to you. Nonetheless, even with the fear straining your mind, you followed Aether. 

“Paimon hurry up!” Aether cried to his flying friend who was busy fighting against the wind but to no avail was strong enough. Rather, she started getting pushed back by the wind that continued to grow stronger and stronger with each passing second.

Clicking your tongue, you let yourself get blown back a little to help Paimon out. Holding Paimon to your chest, you nodded to Aether who was watching the two of you. Giving you a smile as thanks for helping out Paimon, the traveler started to summon his anemo power in hopes to give the group a fighting chance against the winds.

“Aether!” You shouted as your legs started to grow numb from the strength you were exerting to fight the wind and carry the extra weight. “I don’t think we’ll get anywhere with this. Let’s try to glide to the top and see if there’s any way that we can get through.”

“Ok!” Aether summoned his glider to have the wind carry him up.

Doing the same, you were quickly thrown up into the sky. Trying your best to sturdy both yourself and Paimon, you summoned some anemo power to help you balance out yourself and to keep from being too caught up with the wind current.

“Paimon is scared!” the flying companion that you were holding on to screamed. “The wind is too strong.”

Shouting once again, you looked up at Aether who was flying right above you, “Do you see anything Aether?”

“Nope,” he shouted back in reply. “I think it’s best to find a place where we can rest. It would be a death sentence to keep fighting against the wind.”

Listening to his suggestion, you closed your glider wings to dive down. Right before you were about to hit the trees, you opened them once again to let the wind current fly you back. Using anemo energy to keep yourself in a straight line and to keep from hitting the trees, you could hear the strong winds blowing you back.

A good few minutes passed as you followed the path of the wind with Aether following behind you before things started to die down. Feeling less of the pressure from the wind, you removed the anemo energy that surrounded you and let yourself rest for a while.

Starting the descent, you released Paimon to make landing easier for yourself.

“Thank you y/n!” Paimon gratefully thanked you as soon as you landed. “If you didn’t help Paimon, Paimon is sure that she would have flown all the way back to Mondstadt.”

“No worries,” you giggled at her exaggeration.

Soon after, Aether also landed and laid on the grass in exhaustion. Trying to calm his breathing, he looked up at the cloudy blue sky. Sitting down, you watched him get some rest.

“What was that all about?” Aether muttered, questioning where all the wind had come from.

“I don’t know,” you furrowed your brows, frustrated with your lack of knowledge.

“Don’t worry about it,” Aether sat up and looked at you with a comforting smile. “Don’t rack your brain too much. It wasn’t anything that any of us expected.”

“Yeah!” Paimon exclaimed in agreement with Aether. “Don’t worry about it y/n!”

“Ok.”

Everyone took a good half hour in silence to regain their strength. A break was definitely needed after that whole situation. Even you who had been trained to deal with some of the harshest things that could happen felt exhausted from fighting the powerful wind current. It was unlike anything that you had ever experienced.

In that time, you were thinking of how you would be able to get through the wind. You had tried to see if the wind was still there after you had regained some form of strength and unfortunately, it still existed like a barrier protecting whatever was inside - which you had suspected would be the castle of Lumine.

You came up with two different options. One would take longer in which the three of you would have to find a loophole through the barrier. The other was shorter but much more dangerous. You would teleport everyone into your room but if you were to do that, you wouldn’t know what to expect. If anything, all of this could be a trap.

“So what are we going to do?” Paimon asked you and Aether.

He shook his head, a plan not coming to his mind. As of right now, you were the most knowledgable about the terrain and so, you knew you had to say something.

“I have two ideas,” you started as your two companions intently listened to your ideas.