SPECIAL HEADCANON I’VE BEEN WORKING ON which i may or may not write a future drabble about, but for now, just a simple post will do since i’ve been developing these with some dear writing partners of mine. to put it simply, since i’ll also be integrating this from hereon, my aether has a lowkey god complex when it comes to his (im)mortality.

as i’ve stated in a lot of other headcanon posts, he isn’t human; he’s a star-forged deity, a caeling. this means that his species is meant to live for billions of years, just like real stars would. he and lumine are quite young in comparison to other caelings, being around three thousand years old each. they are (or, well, were) known to be all-powerful, controlling cosmic elements and what have you, loved and respected by the astros above in the sea of stars, the prime of fighters and universe’s willmakers. therefore, having battle scratches or getting hurt was a luxury they’d experience once in a thousand years.

ever since falling in teyvat, aether lost his wings, his divinity, his strength, his ability to communicate with the stars, as well as his connection with lumine—he knows all of that, and he grieves deeply, for he feels those losses in his very core. but he doesn’t realise that, since he’s bound in teyvat by its laws and concepts, his very being bends to them. he’s stronger than most, sure, but that doesn’t mean he’s much more resistant than a regular vision holder human. and he refuses to see that (perhaps because he doesn’t sense it immediately). he bleeds a black, thick type of blood—yet because he has never been injured that badly before, it’s unconceivable to him to even consider that that blood on his hands is his. death doesn’t come easily as a concept to him either—others can die, it’s life’s natural cycle for humans and mortals alike, but him and lumine? no. that can’t be… right? so even if his vision is blurry and he’s dizzy, feeling his energy wearing out, he won’t ever think that there’s any actual danger to himself. he’s a warrior. he was designed for this. to fight, to protect, to serve. he can’t lose this, too.