Aether

Aether stared up at the clouds. They weren't the white, formless masses you might expect to see. He had always liked those clouds. The kind of clouds that looked flat, but where once you started to think of them as three-dimensional it was almost mind-breaking to realize how big they were, and that they could just move so easily through the sky. These clouds had a shape, and they didn't end. They swirled and dragged far above him, black and suffocating.

The rain was another thing. It wasn't the warm rain you could enjoy yourself in, and it wasn't the refreshing downpour you wished for on a summer day. This was the fast rain that tore past you like hailing thorns, biting through your skin with freezing splashes. It was a sticky, horrible rain that you couldn't get away from.

He would have thought he was falling faster than the rain was, he certainly felt like it. Yet, it still hit his face and stomach as he plummeted for the ground. He wished that he could just fly, that he could pick himself up and escape. But laying down like this didn't allow this. He wouldn't get to stand up again.

For a second, Aether felt leaves on his back. Then he hit the water.

"Active sleeper?"

Aether threw his eyes open. He was balancing on a railing, looking over four colorful houses in the shadow of a wall. The academy wall. The sun had set long ago, and greyish-blue floating orbs light illuminated the area as they haphazardly drifted around, throwing shadows every which way.

He was above the balcony, outside his room. Why was he here? Wasn't he falling? Was it a dream?

Aether felt a hand on his lower back and he realized how badly he was shaking. He looked over his shoulder to see a young man standing behind him, down on the balcony.

He was an ethereal figure. He had dark greenish-blue hair and there was a blue diamond marking on his forehead. He was wearing loose green sweatpants and a tight black tank top that revealed the bright markings on his left arm. Aether couldn't tell what they shaped but the scale-like pattern climbed from his elbow to his shoulder. His eyes were catlike; orange and shining in the dark with slitted pupils.

At the moment they were looking, unblinking, at Aether, and he couldn't look away.

"Step down, please," the cat-eyed boy implored, his eyes narrowing with concern. He sounded confused, and a bit worried.

Aether leaned back a bit against the supportive hand on his back and stepped down onto the balcony. He was still shaking, and he felt cold. Right then his knees suddenly gave out completely. As he fell backward, he found himself slipping into the lap of the stranger, who had moved underneath him in an instant.

Aether felt himself shiver. It felt like he had a desperate need to hit the ground, to complete something, but it wasn't happening and he couldn't concentrate on anything else. He didn't want to fall, but he felt like he had to.

"Are you alright?" the stranger asked. His voice was gravelly and quiet, and he gently sat Aether up so that Aether's head fell onto his shoulder.

Was he alright? Aether couldn't tell. There were so many thoughts racing through his head and he didn't even recognize all of them. Where was he? He knew that, but where had he been? How had they found him? Who were they? Aether shuddered and he distantly heard himself make a kind of half-sob when he tried to exhale.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Aether didn't know what else to say.

"Let's just stay here," the stranger answered.

Aether breathed in, he felt like he was suffocating, but he managed it. It felt too slow, too calm, but he forced himself to exhale slowly. He did it again, and it didn't feel any easier.

He needed to rise. Why? Aether shivered again and kept breathing. The night was warm, but he was so cold. He kept breathing. He could feel blood pouring from his stomach, but he wasn't hurt. He kept breathing. His right eye felt warm and he covered it with his hand as he rocked back and forth.

Aether just kept breathing, and he didn't know for how long, but at some point, he started thinking about other things. The stranger was so nice. This place was so cool.

Aether was calmer. He was shaken, but he was okay. Aether opened his eyes and saw the cat-irises staring back at him.

"Are you alright?" the stranger asked.

"Yes. I- think. Thank you," Aether nodded. He thought he might be, actually. Talking out loud grounded him a little bit more. He could feel his heart beating quicker than it should, but he also felt calm. Tired even, actually.

Aether wrapped his arms around the stranger and leaned into him. He was warm and firm.

"Oh- ah, thank you," the cat-eyed boy spoke. Aether felt smooth, lean arms hug him back, tentatively.

"Who are you? Why was I up there?" Aether asked. He didn't even know the stranger's name and he was curled up in his lap. Aether didn't know why exactly he had hugged him, he still felt very out-of-it. The stranger relaxed his arms, and Aether extracted himself from the sort of hug. He leaned back against the glass pane of the balcony railing.

"I'm Li Xiao, you can just call me Xiao," Xiao responded. "I'm a member of the guild that you, as I understand it, have just joined. I was on the roof, and you climbed up to there in your sleep. So, then I jumped down and interrupted you."

He had just climbed onto the balcony? While dreaming? Shit, you would hope he could remember he could do that.

"Thank you. I'm sorry. I had a nightmare," Aether explained, rubbing his eyes.

"Hm. Some nightmare, but don't be sorry. Are you tired?" Xiao cocked his head, and his eyes swept over Aether, examining him.

"Yes, I- yes," Aether responded.

Xiao stood up gracefully and smoothly and held out a hand to help Aether up with. Aether took it and was pulled to his feet, momentarily against Xiao. He stepped away, trying not to dwell on that briefly intimate contact.

"I would expect you to be. Go to bed, I'll lock your balcony doors. Goodnight Aether, please sleep more soundly this time." Xiao looked at him with an expression that was painfully reserved but that still felt warm.

"O-okay. Thank you. Goodnight."

Aether didn't know what else to say, so he ducked inside the lounge area and went to his room. At the door, he looked back. Xiao had stepped inside and locked the balcony doors.

Aether went inside his room, and he heard Xiao step out into the hall. He could hear muffled voices, but he crawled into bed and they faded away as he drifted again into sleep.

Aether opened his eyes. His hair was thoroughly messed up by the pillows he was lying in the middle of, and he was uncomfortably warm under all of the layers, but he was safe. He had been afraid of dreaming more, but he felt okay. That was nice. Really nice.

He was also hungry. Was Lumine awake already? He pushed off the blankets and slid out of bed. His head hurt a little bit when he stood, and his vision started to go fuzzy and dark. He needed water.

He had just slept in a bathrobe he had found in the bathroom, and he realized now that his conversation yesterday must have been all the more strange. He should find Xiao and apologize. He also realized that he didn't really have anything clean to wear.

He had undone his braid before he showered, and he didn't really remember exactly how one braided hair. He just tied his hair back in a bun.

Was Lumine up? Probably not, and he shouldn't wake her. Aether quietly slipped out of his room and found that a handful of shopping bags had been newly placed in the kitchenette. A neat stack of clothes had been folded on one stool, and a small bag of toiletries was sitting on the countertop beside it. Aether had noticed while changing earlier that his whole body was shaved, and he was comfortable continuing that practice so he was grateful to see the pack of razors amidst the other items. Besides the bag, two brand new phones were plugged in on the counter.

The school must really have money, wow. It looked like the other half of the items had been grabbed, but he didn't hear Lumine in her room. Aether grabbed his newly acquired things and returned to his bathroom to wash his face, brush his teeth, and change into some thin pants and a black t-shirt.

He walked out into the hall. How many people were in the guild? He only knew of five including himself. The house couldn't support many more than that, surely? Had anyone mentioned their number before? He didn't remember it happening.

Aether saw that Lumine was sitting on the inside of the corner that led down to the stairs, and only when she gestured to be quiet did he hear the voices drifting up from the kitchen.

Aether crept up beside his sister and sat shoulder-to-shoulder with her. She smiled and turned towards his ear to whisper: "They're talking. I think someone else in the guild wanted a different first year to join. Listen."

"I wish I could help, but there isn't any way I can justify it. Mr. Kadehara is left with four members. You started with six and now you have eight, which is more than the other guilds will likely reach. We only have four other first years currently planning to attend in the fall," said the general. Aether could recognize her voice, but it was distant and more strained than usual.

"What does that bring the other guilds to?" said Beidou. She sounded a bit annoyed.

"If two go to the Wave guild, oh that's Kaz's new name, he'll have six. That means the River Guild and the Owl Guild will have seven each if they get one. Right?" Hu Tao answered.

"I believe the other heads plan to change the titles as well, but yes. We can't give your guild a third first year, the other two would have to completely skip a generation and they would be the second guild over which you had a two-person advantage regardless. I'm sorry, it just cannot happen," the general answered.

That was smaller than Aether was expecting. Who were the other three guild leaders? Who was the other first-year Beidou wanted?

"It is okay. I understand General Gunnhildr. Thank you," someone said. Her voice was low and almost hollow. It sounded cold and emotionless, but not in a cruel or sinister way. It sounded more sad and a little lonely.

"I'm sure he will want to meet you regardless, Ms. Teng. You're all right next door to each other anyway," the general answered. She sounded apologetic, but Aether felt he should be the one doing that. They had kind of messed up the process.

Would one of them have to go to another guild to balance the numbers? It sounded like they had made things unfair. Surely they would be able to stay together? They could transfer to the smaller guild, Kaz's. Aether felt bad. He was honestly more worried about being separated than he was about upsetting the other girl. He was curious who it was she wanted to be guildmates with but hadn't met.

"Yes. We are," the new girl responded. "I think I'll go for a walk. I'm thirsty."

The kitchen was silent for a moment, and then someone left the building.

"Is Aether alright?" the General asked. Aether jumped. Had Xiao told the general about the incident? Oh no, he was so embarrassed. He didn't even know what happened. He wanted to tell Lumine. Did she already know? Wait, no, that didn't make sense. She had probably just woken up, too.

"I mean, no. Apparently, he isn't, but he didn't come out again," Xiao responded. Xiao was there! Aether got excited. He had been so nice, Aether should talk to him. Last night was really bad, he was grateful for what he had done. It was probably better that people knew though.

"Wait, how late were you out there watching?" Beidou asked.

Xiao did not answer at first.

"Xiao!" Hu Tao yelped. "Did you stay up all night again? How are you alive?"

"..."

"I'm doing just fine. I'm more useful to the guild guarding him than I am failing to sleep in bed," Xiao answered.

"Well, it's daytime. So sleep, kid. I'm serious, you need to start taking care of yourself." Beidou asserted. She sounded concerned but forceful. She seemed like a good leader. She had also saved their lives so it was possible that Aether may be a little biased in the matter.

"I'll save you a sprinkled donuttt," Hu Tao added, in a singsong voice.

Lumine shifted, and Aether felt goosebumps run down her arm from where he was leaning against her. Hmm, interesting… he could bring THAT up later.

Aether heard footsteps on the stairs, and then Xiao sighed heavily: "Thanks."

Oh wait, Xiao was going to be right there in a second. Uh oh. Lumine jumped up as the older boy rounded the corner.

"We were just-" she started.

"-headed down, actually." Aether finished. He had lied seamlessly, however, he was unfortunately still fully sitting down so the performance felt unconvincing.

Xiao was wearing the same clothes he had been earlier that morning, or maybe the day before, and he looked down at Aether curiously.

"Um, good morning?" Xiao said. After pausing briefly, he turned, moved past them, and entered the dorm right next to theirs.

"Oh, is that you guys?" Hu Tao called up.

Well, they had been discovered. It's not like that was a private conversation right? Anybody could be around, would they be mad?

"Yep!" Lumine called. She sounded calm but she was looking at Aether with a startled expression.

Aether shrugged. Lumine turned and started down the stairs, so he followed her into the dining room area.

Hu Tao was wearing a black t-shirt with a butterfly icon on it, and she was inspecting a box of donuts sitting on the counter. Beidou was sitting on a window seat with one leg slung up onto the cushion, and General Gunnhildr was seated at the opposite end of the table.

Aether sat down at the kitchen island and Lumine looked furtively at the donuts. Seeing that, Beidou spoke up: "Take one. There's plenty."

"Is everything okay?" Aether asked. He checked but didn't see anyone immediately outside, where had the new person gone?

"Oh, yeah yeah. It's all good. Another member was hoping to get someone in the guild but our numbers are pretty strong compared to the others so it doesn't look like it'll happen. On the plus side we all live here anyways and now we get to dominate intraguild contests," Beidou answered, turning a chocolate-frosted donut over in her hand to inspect the light from the window reflecting on the glaze.

Lumine grabbed a donut and thanked the room as a whole.

"How many people do we have?" Aether asked. He wanted to meet them, he really didn't know many people yet.

"Well I'm the head and the only other fourth year student we have is Kaeya, whom you've met. He made it clear he didn't want the job. Qiqi, who just stepped out, and Wendy are our third years. Tao and Xiao are our second years, and you two are the final duo. We have eight, and it looks like it'll stay that way," Beidou responded.

"How many of them are at the Academy? Right now, I mean" Lumine spoke up.

"Most of us, surprisingly. Everybody but Kaeya. Qiqi was here a second ago, and Wendy lives right in Snowport," Hu Tao answered.

"Cool," Aether nodded. Eight was a lot of people to live with but they all seemed nice so far.

"I'm happy to answer any other questions you have about the academy, but I don't mean to get in the way of introductions," General Gunnhildr interjected.

"Oh nono, I actually wrote a few down," Lumine walked over to Aether and handed him a piece of notebook paper upon which she had written a series of questions. "Are there any you want to add?"

Aether glanced over them, but couldn't think of anything else he had to know. He shook his head and offered the paper to the general. "I'm good, here."

The general took it and looked over it for a second. Lumine handed Aether a powdered donut. That was his favorite! Wait… no? How would he know? It felt like his favorite. How had Lumine known?

Aether grabbed a napkin from a holder on the island and bit into the pastry. The powder wasn't overdone and it was still warm and fresh. He could very much get used to breakfast donuts.

"Ah, alright, so question 1; 'How large are the guilds and who are their members?'. I actually do think there's an old copy of the guild list on the bulletin there," the general spoke, indicating a large bulletin board near the front door.

"Yepp!" Hu Tao announced, grabbing it from the kitchen wall and handing it to Lumine. She set it down so Aether could read it as well.

Flower Guild

Wendy Galesdottir

Hu Tao

Kaeya Ragnvindr

Li Xiao

Rosaria Pegg

Albedo Rhinedottir

Teng Qiqi

Zhou Beidou

River Guild

Varka Boreal

Feiyun Xingqiu

Eula Lawrence

Mona Megistus

Peng Ganyu

Ren Zhongli

Fischl von Luftschloss Narfidort

Owl Guild

Duan Ningguang

Noelle Fane

Barbara Gunnhildr

Pan Keqing

Mao Xiangling

Diluc Ragnvindr

Yang Xinyan

Crane Guild

Sucrose Ampulla

Diona Finch

Kadehara Kazuha

Lisa Minci

Ping Shenhe

Ping Yanfei

Amber Tian

"Let's see, so Albedo and Rosaria graduated this year. Sucrose and Diluc did too, and then Lisa and Varka are the others. Everyone other than those six still belong to their guilds expect that the Flower Guild is the Storm Guild and the Crane GUild is now the Wave Guild," Beidou told them.

So this guild had been a little strong before too.

"Barbara is actually my younger sister, and my youngest sister is a first year. Her name is Klee," the general commented.

Aether hadn't noticed that.

"Ren Zhongli is the head over there," Beidou waved across the street to another guild house. "Kazuha is the head there, and Ninggung and Keqing don't know who will take the head position. Technically a third year could lead too but it rarely happens, and besides; Xiangling and Xinyan aren't necessarily ready."

"Let's be careful now. But yes, both Ms. Pan and Ms. Duan are very capable," the General warned.

Beidou nodded in agreement.

"Are the non-vision guilds this big?" Aether asked.

"Oh, we have about twice as many other students as we do students in the signature program and their guilds are a little larger," the general answered.

"Interesting." Lumine noted.

"Yep! Oh, so to keep going here; training with the school here is both academic and physical. Your days would consist of learning things like geography, mechanics, combat strategy, arcane principles, and history, but they might also include weapon training and work with magic and your signatures."

"It sounds like a lot but we do different stuff on different days and it's fun. Don't worry," Hu Tao noted.

"You wanted to know if you needed money. The Academy can offer you everything you need, but we also act as a third party through which you can take on mercenary work as a guild. You can make a lot of mora with your talents if you want to so you can buy whatever you want, but you don't have to worry about it, no." the General added, looking through the other questions.

"Oh, and you don't have to serve in the military. Most students do, but others don't pursue that kind of life," she continued.

She looked up from the questions. Aether was relieved that they didn't have to become soldiers, but he didn't know what else to do. They had to stop being hunted first, probably. That seemed like a good first step. It was too bad Xiao was asleep. Aether felt horrible for keeping it up. Did he just not sleep anyways? He was really-

"Is there anything else I can help with?" the general asked.

"I don't know. I don't think so, but when will training and all of that start?" Lumine responded.

"Oh, the first day of Mois de la Pierre, so you have some time. That's about a month and a half from right now," the general answered.

That was so much time! What were they going to do in the meantime? The work actually sounded interesting. He imagined there must be books and things. Maybe he could still train, people probably did that. He could figure out his signature too, probably.

"General?" he spoke up.

"Oh, yes Aether?"

'What would happen if I couldn't figure out my signature before the year started?" he asked.

"Oh, don't worry about it. You don't actually need to whatsoever, but I'm sure you'll get there," she answered, smiling and waving a hand.

"Okay, I don't think I have any other questions, thanks," Aether hadn't realized how much he had been worrying yesterday, but he felt relaxed now. This had answered a lot of questions. He should find out his signature regardless though, that felt very important. Besides, he was curious.

"Thank you so much, for everything. It's weird that we were dying in a clearing a few days ago, this feels like a good place to be," Lumine followed up. She paused and seemed to hesitate.

"What would happen if we have a family?"

"They will be hard to find until you get your memories back, but I'm trying to find a way to help that happen. How you do things from there is up to you, but we can cross that bridge when we get to it alright?" the general reassured her. "How else can I help?"

Lumine smiled. "I think I'm okay too actually. Thank you."

"Alright then. Welcome to Dragonspine Academy. I'm going to go talk to my youngest sister, who arrived this morning. I'm very worried she'll destroy something in my absence. You can always find me somewhere around my office."

"Thank you," Aether said. There was no reason for the school and everyone to be this nice to them, they had just been dead kids in a forest and now these strangers had literally fought for them twice, not to mention that they had given the siblings a place to live. Aether almost didn't want his memories back. What would it be like for this new life to become suddenly inconsequential? He didn't feel like he had a family. He probably did, but it felt weird that he would start caring about something that was so alien to him at this moment. Did people often recover from memory loss like theirs? He should look it up.

The general left.

Hu Tao perused the donuts predatorily. Lumine walked over to her, and Aether stood up.

"Hey," Beidou called.

Aether looked over, had he done something wrong? Oh shit.

"Qiqi, and to my knowledge Kaeya, have never used their signatures here. So you really do not have to worry about yours yet, alright?" she said.

"Really?" Lumine asked.

"We think that Kaeya's is noncombative. Albedo made a list of theories based on existing signatures that hadn't been reincarnated but I don't know where it went. And Qiqi can't exactly, well, she can't use hers anymore. But she should be the one to tell you about that." Hu Tao chimed in.

"Okay, that makes me feel better," Aether said. It was true, he was less stressed. If Kaeya had made it three years he shouldn't stress. "Sorry I don't feel better because Qiqi can't- you know what I mean. I feel better that I don't have to stress about mine. Thank you."

"Yeah, don't worry about it," Beidou reassured him. "So, how about a tour?"