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A low rumbling from Aether's stomach makes him painfully aware that he hasn't eaten anything in days. So focused on travel, neither he nor Lumine have thought to eat anything as they fly through the cosmos.
There is so much matter around them, no matter how far out how fast they move from each star system. Bright masses of hydrogen and helium, pulsing with heat, tempting Aether to come closer, open his mouth, unhinge his jaw, allow the vortex within him to consume-
There comes a moment when a low rumble in the stomach turns into a high bubbling in the throat. It travels up, up, up, and suddenly, the pain of hunger that once overwhelmed Aether is nausea roiling through his body, threatening to spill out of his mouth and into the emptiness of space.
Fundamentally speaking, Aether is not much different from stars. He is a boy formed from the compression of gases, and traverses the sea of stars as a bright entity of helium and hydrogen and so much more. Aether is, fundamentally speaking, no different from the stars that make up the cosmos, yet he attempted to eat one to sate his own, selfish hunger. Aether gazes upon the thousands of stars dotting the vast expanse of the universe, and he thinks he feels sick.
Hundreds of years later, in a world known as Teyvat, in a star system millions of lightyears away from the one he nearly committed celestial cannibalism in, Aether still feels sick wherever he looks up at the stars. "The stars, the sky... It's all a giant hoax," he remembers Scaramouche say, and yet, looking up at the night sky makes his stomach churn in disgust of what he could have done.
Aether wakes in the dead of night during a trip to Dragonspine, with a hunger-fueled motivation to forage for anything remotely edible. Having not eaten for the entirety of the trip due to a lack of Mora and nearby resources, Aether fantasizes about his time in the sea of stars, when there was never a shortage of food. As he chews on a mint leaf, he imagines the feeling of consuming a white-hot star, burning with energy-
Aether freezes, the mint leaf long forgotten in his mouth. Bile begins to rise in the back of his throat as he recalls what he just wished for. To eat a star. To eat one of his own. He hears a faint keening noise, distantly recognizing it as his own voice, and feels his stomach sink and churn.
Aether lurches forward and gags violently, the white snow beneath him darkening as he coughs up bile. Tears stream down his face as he continues gagging and coughing, body racking with tremors as he hugs his arms to his stomach. His kin. He wanted to eat his kin. The thought of Lumine crosses his mind, and a surge of dark bile erupts from his mouth at the thought of one day consuming her too.
Aether remains kneeling in the snow for hours, feeling nauseous once again from the sensation of vomiting. He lets out a shuddering breath as tears stream down his face, and hopes he is never hungry again.