Abyss Aether × Xiao || You can try to escape ||

Aethers Return

(Aether POV)

It was a normal night, like any other really. I was wandering around the nation known as Liyue, unbeknownst to me that my twin sister was also here. Normally if I ended up seeing my sister, I would just teleport away with an Abyss Mage, but I couldn't today due to the fact that my power was drained from an early battle, and because of that I was unable to contact anyone. Not an Abyss Mage or Herald.

I continued until I made it to Liyue City and I moved with caution as to avoid getting noticed because I saw missing person posters all around me. Based on the description, I could tell that Lumine had to have done this. So now all I could do was move in secret.

I made my way over to some kind of inn. When I entered the place, I got some kind of uneasy feeling in my gut, but I couldn't tell for what. I just thought maybe I was imagining things so I ignored it and went to rent a room for a while so that I could recharge my stamina.

"UGHHHHH" I sighed as I laid down on the bed exhausted. I turned over on my back and stared at the ceiling. As I started to close my eyes for a small rest, I could hear two people talking above me. At first I paid no mind to it, but then I noticed that one of those voices sounded very familiar. My curiousity took over and I got out of bed to go upstairs and check. As I approached the room I saw that it was wide open and I decided to peak inside. And that's when I saw her.... My beloved sister, Lumine. She was talking to some weird floating thingy, and honestly it looked really weird to me. I was about to leave when all of a sudden I felt something blunt hit my neck, and then everything went black.

I awoke to find myself in some kind of Chamber like Palace, with my hands bound behind my back. I started to struggle with them, but to no avail. I was still short of strength and I was getting nowhere with this so I gave up. A little while later the doors in front of me opened and a group of people walked in, one of those people being my sister. I tilted my head down in hopes that she wouldn't see my face and recognize me. I prayed that she would not come near and realize the truth. Cause in truth I knew she was not ready to join me yet because she had not seen the true nature of this world.

I kept my head down until I heard some speak.

"This is who I caught sneaking outside the Travelers room" a mysterious voice said.

"Oh is that so? Interesting... " another voice said. The second voice I could tell belong to a women and one of high class at that. I wanted to look at them and see what they looked like but I didn't want to risk Lumine seeing me. As I continued to just stare at the ground I heard someone question it.

"So is he still passed out or something? Why is he looking at the ground? ". This time it was a males voice and he sounded young. I didn't want to move so then maybe they would think that I was still passed out. However, that was not the case.

" He's awake, I can tell, " This voice belong to a different young sounding male. It also almost sounded kinda raspy in a way.

"So then why isn't he looking at us? " I heard the previous young male ask.

"He probably doesn't want us to see his face Chongyun" the woman from before spoke.

'Ah, so the first young sounding boys name is Chongyun?" I thought to myself.

"Ah okay, that makes sense Lady Ninggunag, " Chongyun said.

I had learned yet another name. The fancy sounding lady went by the name of Ningguang. However learning two names wasn't all that great. I could feel over 10 people's presence in the room, minus Lumine of course.

My neck was beginning to hurt from staying in this bent position. I wanted to lift my head sooooo bad, but then I would be busted the minute they saw my face. So I kept holding out through the pain.

"Y'know.... " Lumine said. My eyes immediately widened when she spoke. My heart started to speed up as I was coming to the conclusion of what she was going to say.

(Y'know twin telepathy kinda feels)

Everyone in the room looked over at Lumine.

"There's something about his presence that is familiar... " she stated, "too familiar". I could feel my heart stop. She knew. SHE knew. SHE KNEW. LUMINE KNEW IT WAS HIM.

As I began to panic at what to do I felt a hand on the top of my head, clenching my hood. The hand pulled my hood off, revealing my long, blond, braided hair. The hair Lumine knew all too well.

I opened my eyes when I heard Lumine gasp. I looked right at her and everyone in the room was taken aback by how similar I looked to Lumine.

She began slowly walking towards me. Then soon after she started running my way before she embraced me in a tight hug, yelling my name with joy.

" AETHER" she screamed at the top of her lungs, tears slowly starting to fall from her eyes.

'It's all over now' I thought to myself since Lumine now knew that it was me under the hood. I looked at all the other people in the room and how shocked all of them looked.

"Wait so your saying that this boy that we captured.... IS ACTUALLY THE TRAVELERS MISSING TWIN BROTHER" a purple haired girl shouted.

"Hm... " I hummed as I turned my head away from all of them. As I began to look back, one person in the room particularly caught my eyes.

He had black hair with teal highlights. He wore a white shirt and had a green tattoo on his right arm. He also had amber eyes glaring right back at me. Lumine looked up and noticed me looking at him before she started smiling.

"Yeah I can see why you might feel weird around him, I mean he is the one who knocked you out'" she stated. All that did was make me glare at him even more, before she continued speaking. "He's an adeptus and he goes by the name.. Xiao, " she finished. I looked back at the boy and thought to myself.

'Huh, so his name is Xiao.... interesting'