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Aether has a garden.
It’s a little thing, tucked away in a far corner of the Teapot. It is not grand, or loud, nor built to awe.
It is not the only garden in the Teapot, though. The others are grander, with trees to touch the false sky, bushes and flowers bred from adeptal soil, but most importantly, they are gardens built by power, not by hand. Perhaps that’s not quite true, with how Aether carefully chose placements and worked to build steps to guide and requested specific colours from Tubby.
Aether’s little garden is grown from hand-picked seeds from every nation. Toiled by scarred hands looking to create and not hurt, calluses on rough fingers digging holes for seedlings and saplings. Aether’s little garden is not only that of nature, but of memories.
Windwheel Asters from Windrise. Qinxin from Liyue. Dendrobium from Inazuma.
All plucked from their home much as he had been, brought somewhere new to grow, to flourish.
Today a new flower joins the little family he has grown in this hidden space.
the Inteyvat.
—
Clutched in shaking hands Aether screwed his eyes shut. Gloveless fingers tracing petals gentler than anything. Held close he yearned for but a whisper of a voice, a tease of a scent, anything. There was no god to beg to in that moment, all he had met offered little if not nothing.
Was he selfish for his anger at such a fact? Was he selfish for hating the lacking progress? Was he selfish for wishing she’d just been true?
Was he selfish for yearning?
—
The flower would not wilt.
But that did not mean he would not treat it with the same love he offered his sister.
It would not grow- it was nothing if not frozen in time.
Aether wondered, as he dug a divot into the ground, if she had been right when she had said they always had enough time. Was it enough? Or were they, too, frozen in time like the Inteyvat?
He’d asked Albedo once, after the depths of the Chasm had been left behind, what he thought of an unwilting flower. The alchemist had been silent for a while, watching as Aether traced the shape again and again, as if it would glow and tell him all he needed to know.
“Do you really want my thoughts?” had been the response, “or are you asking something else.”
Albedo had created from nothing, himself being from chalk. Aether wondered if he was being selfish, carrying this petrified flower as close to his heart as he could manage.
“...may I see it?”
‘no’ he wanted to say, as though Albedo was to steal the last of his sister he had. “Okay,” he whispered instead.
Their hands had brushed and Aether wanted to turn to link their fingers, to hold and to keep. The flower or Albedo? He still didn’t know. Maybe the cold had finally gotten to him.
Aether had cried when Albedo had handed back a bouquet of Inteyvat, the original a star in the midst of mimics.
Albedo had held him until he calmed, until he felt faint.
It was not Lumine, but it was something.
Dragonspine had never felt like a home, but his place in Albedo’s arms had, if only for a while.
—
Perhaps it was cruel in a way, to disappear into this realm without notice. Cruel, selfish, petty, childish… It could be a lot of things, but Aether was allowed that this time. Allowed to look at the same sky and sun, to look at hand picked stars and wonder if his place among them had ever been real. Was the sky ever true if he had no place there anymore?
He thought little of time outside watching the sun rise and fall, quietly requesting for but a few more moments under the stars.
He’d held the flower high to the stars, Albedo’s mimics entwined in his braid much like the accessories Lumine used to use, and wondered if wherever she was, Lumine could see them too.
Did she miss them like he did?
—
The scent of soil and the grounding feel of dirt on his hands kept Aether from spiraling in his thoughts.
He’d donned less than normal, warm under the Teapot’s sun, yet shaded by one of his few homegrown trees. The scars that laced him reached for the warmth when he twisted to grab the frozen flower. He held it tightly.
It didn’t need to go here.
The dirt on his knees could be wiped away, the hole filled in, the idea forgotten. But Aether knew it would do little good to cling to something that wasn’t going to change. Ironic, perhaps, given the state of the Inteyvat outside its homeland.
As he brushed the petals against his forehead one last time Aether thought about how Xiao guarded the Teapot despite what he insisted. That included this little spot.
The karmic debt that flowed through the Yaksha was memories of ill intent within his very being. Clawing and curling like smoke in ones lungs, blotting out a painting of life and comfort as it drips from a maw. Sometimes, when Xiao allowed himself a moment, Aether had caught the shakes he let out, the gritted teeth and the screwed closed eyes. When Xiao was vulnerable, here, in this little world, Aether had wondered how much he remembered.
Every swing? Every cut? Every bruise?
Xiao had been here once. Not quite asleep, but calm. Peaceful. Welcomed and comfortable among Aether’s memories.
In the moment he’d been envious. That Xiao could rest surrounded by memories.
…he’d felt horrible about it mere moments after.
he held Xiao close the next day, hands in his hair and kindness on his lips.
But - he did his best to stop shaking - it gave him courage that one day he’d be able to look upon all these memories and feel that same calm.
He was not abandoning her by planting it here.
Nor was he trying to bury those feelings and thoughts.
He was planting this - her - among his other memories, both good and bad. Planting it beside memories of Windblume, of the battle with Childe, of the Iridori Festival.
Planting it beside memories of his life here, of the growth he’s been through.
Planting it here so Lumine can be a part of those memories. Be part of his growth.
So Lumine can be here.
Never far. Not truly.
The Inteyvat is petrified in time. It does not need to be watered. But the tears that slip from Aether’s eyes wet it all the same.