one womb unfilled

Faruzan remained completely useless as a guide.

Whatever Aether had done to her the night before had left the scholar unable to form coherent words — only broken groans, whimpers, and the occasional full-body shudder whenever her restraints shifted. With no reliable information about the deeper tunnels, the group had no choice but to set up a semi-permanent camp at the edge of the ruins and settle in.

the Day began to blur into a rhythm of light exploration and heavy breeding.

Aether used the unexpected free time with single-minded focus on the one woman in his harem who was not yet pregnant.

Dehya.

He took her apart slowly and thoroughly, over and over, across the entire day. In the tent, against the ruined walls, under the open stars — long, claiming sessions that left the Flame-Mane trembling and full. He didn’t rush. He simply kept returning to her, pouring hours into her body until something deep and instinctive finally shifted.

Her feline side woke up.

[](https://im.ge/i/QMR1n6K)
(artist: miyuai)

The strong, persistent male who had already rewritten her loyalty was now unmistakably claiming her as a mate. Her body responded the way an animal’s body was meant to respond. Heat rolled through her in a sudden, overwhelming wave. She ovulated hard and shamelessly, the change so sharp and honest that even Aether noticed it immediately.

He pulled back slightly one evening, still buried inside her, and stared.

Dehya’s scent had changed. Her skin felt hotter. The way she clung to him, the soft, continuous sounds she made, the instinctive way her hips kept trying to pull him deeper — all of it radiated fresh, undeniable fertility. Her animalistic body was broadcasting the truth without any filter: she was ready and she was fertile for him.

Dehya felt it too.

Her golden eyes went wide for a moment as the realization sank in. The last piece of her old independence cracked and fell away. A shaky, almost helpless laugh left her throat as she pressed her forehead against his shoulder.

“…It’s over for me, isn’t it?” she whispered, voice rough. “My body’s already decided. You’re not just the man who owns my loyalty anymore. You’re the one who’s going to knock me up.”

She clenched around him, heat and acceptance flooding through her in equal measure.

Aether was still a little surprised by how openly and honestly her feline instincts had announced the change — no subtlety, no delay, just pure biological surrender — but he didn’t stop.

He simply settled deeper into her and kept going, making certain the newly fertile lioness understood exactly who her mate was.

[](https://im.ge/i/QMRdMaY)
(artist: miyuai)

That evening the pride gave Dehya an unofficial welcoming party into the well-bred inner circle.

It started casually — shared food around the fire, easy conversation, the usual rotating attention from Aether — but the tone shifted once Rosaria made a dry comment about “another one joining the club” and Lisa rested a hand on the small, just-noticeable swell of her own belly with a knowing smile.

Dehya’s golden eyes moved from woman to woman.

She could just barely see it on Lisa if she looked carefully. The others, though… Rosaria’s toned stomach, Yelan’s lean waist, Shenhe’s athletic frame, Cloud Retainer’s elegant lines, even Ganyu’s soft curves still didn’t show anything obvious. They were all too fit, too powerful-looking for early pregnancy to be visible.

Her mind raced.

Adepti. Half-adepti. Ancient beings who shouldn’t have been able to conceive from a mortal man at all. And yet the way they spoke, the quiet certainty in the group, the way Aether touched them all with the same proprietary ease…

Before anyone could explain the truth — before anyone mentioned sacred shrine grounds or a certain pink fox’s convenient little fertility miracle — Dehya’s instincts supplied a much simpler answer.

Her ears flattened slightly. She looked at Aether with new, wary understanding.

“…You’re not human, are you?” she said quietly. “No regular man knocks up an adeptus. Or a half-qilin. Or half a damn army of strong women in under a month. Whatever you are...”

The conclusion was completely understandable given what she could see.

The real explanation — Yae Miko’s deliberate, amusement-driven intervention on holy ground — still sat unspoken for the moment.

Dehya sat there newly fertile, newly claimed, and newly convinced that the man who had rewritten her loyalty and her body in a matter of days was something far beyond a simple Traveler from another world.

The welcoming party continued around her, warm and unbothered, while the Flame-Mane quietly recalculated everything she thought she knew about the center of her new pride.

Dehya’s quiet conclusion hung in the air longer than expected.

Most of the group let it pass with mild amusement or simple acceptance. Cloud Retainer, however, went still.

The ancient adeptus’s golden eyes rested on Aether with a new, measuring weight. She had lived long enough to recognize when something sat outside ordinary patterns. His stamina, the way he could read and unravel a body so precisely, the almost unnatural efficiency with which he drew out pleasure until even beings like her lost composure — none of it felt entirely human. She had told herself it was simply rare talent mixed with experience. Dehya’s blunt words made that explanation feel thinner than before.

Cloud Retainer’s gaze drifted, thoughtful.

In truth they knew almost nothing.

He had appeared in Mondstadt with no history, no clear origin, and only a single driving purpose: find his sister. Everything else — the power that grew after the Plane of Euthymia, the ease with which he rewrote women far older and stronger than himself, the way loyalty and even biology seemed to bend around him — remained unexplained. They had accepted him because he was theirs, because he had proven himself across nations, because the alternative was to question the center of the pride they had all joined.

But the questions were still there.

What exactly had crossed into Teyvat the day he fell from the sky?

What kind of being carried a sister who could attempt to breach the Forbidden Library and vanish into the desert?

And why did his presence keep changing the people (and adepti) who stayed near him for long?

Cloud Retainer said nothing aloud. She simply watched Aether laugh at something Rosaria muttered, one hand idly stroking Ganyu’s hair while the half-qilin dozed against him, and allowed the old habit of long observation to settle back over her.

The Flame-Mane’s assumption might be crude.

It was not necessarily wrong.

For the first time in many centuries, the adeptus who had raised a calamity and bargained with Archons found herself quietly, seriously wondering what their Traveler truly was.