dropped into a waspnest

While Aether was left to the hungry mercy of Aaru Village’s women, his own pride claimed a quiet house on the edge of the settlement and shut the door behind them.

They had an excellent night.

With no Traveler to rotate around and no immediate danger to manage, the women actually talked. Stories from Mondstadt, Liyue, Inazuma, and the desert surfaced one after another. Old tensions and small misunderstandings got air and, in most cases, dissolved. Rosaria and Yelan compared quiet, lethal methods with surprising ease. Ganyu listened more than she spoke but clearly relaxed. Cloud Retainer offered the occasional dry, centuries-old anecdote. Shenhe sat in comfortable silence that no longer felt cold.

The clearest new connection formed between Lisa and Dehya.

The two of them ended up side by side for most of the night, trading lazy Akademiya memories against blunt mercenary stories, needling each other with growing fondness. By the time the moon was high they were laughing at the same things and finishing each other’s sharper observations. Something easy and genuine settled between the witch and the Flame-Mane.

Every so often a distant scream or a deep, helpless groan drifted in through the open, lidless windows — clear evidence of whatever Aether was enduring (or inflicting) across the village.

Each time it happened the women only smiled, exchanged knowing glances, and kept talking.

They had no intention of interrupting.

The night belonged to them, and they used it to become a tighter, more honest version of the pride he would return to in the morning.

Yelan woke at first light, the same way she always did.

She slipped out of the quiet house without disturbing the others and began her usual perimeter check of the village. The desert air was still cool. Most of Aaru Village remained silent.

Then she saw him.

Aether stood in the central square, barely upright, surrounded by a literal sea of satisfied, sleeping women. Bodies lay tangled across blankets, sand, and low walls — Candace among them, equally spent.
[](https://im.ge/i/QMR2k9P)
(artist: fumihiko (pixiv2658856))
He looked like a beast that had torn through an entire army and remained standing afterward out of pure, stubborn pride. His chest rose and fell in deep, uneven pulls. Every muscle was locked against the exhaustion that clearly wanted to drop him where he stood.

Yelan did not approach.

She turned, walked back to the house, and woke Rosaria with a single firm shake. The nun was on her feet instantly. Yelan only pointed toward the square and gave a short, stoic little tilt of her head that said go do your job.

Rosaria understood.

She crossed the village without hurry and stepped into the circle of unconscious women. Aether’s eyes found her. There was no plea in them, no pathetic request for rescue — only recognition and a bone-deep understanding that the one person he could finally stop performing in front of had arrived.

The last of his pride let go.

His body simply folded, like a doll whose strings had been cut.

He never hit the ground.

Thin blue hydro strings were already there, catching him with precise, almost gentle tension, holding his weight suspended until Rosaria could reach him. She stepped in, gathered him against her chest, and took his full weight into her arms without a word.

Yelan watched from a short distance, expression unreadable but faintly contemptuous of how thoroughly the night had carved him down, then turned away to finish her perimeter.

Rosaria carried Aether back toward the house, stepping carefully over the sea of women his sister’s opposite power had forced him to satisfy.