Coming to Terms

After Aether Woke Up.

"Oh finally you've woken up! I was getting really worried!" Barbara said in relief, "I don't think I've ever been hit like that before..." Aether lamented as he sat up holding his head, then he felt a push against his chest, looking down he saw Paimon hugging him and slightly sobbing, he put his hand on her head and began petting her, "There, there, I'm not going to die so easily." Aether reassured, causing Paimon to snap out of it in a slight rant, "What!?!? The only reason you're fine now is because that girl called Barbara! You need to be more careful!!" She scolded before pouting and looking away.

Hearing Paimon say that, Aether remembered what happened the previous night, "Right! Sibley fought against our assailant!" He exclaimed, "I'm guessing that happened right before she came to get me, I asked her if she wanted to check how your recovery would go, but she said that 'she's not invested in you enough' or something like that." Barbara explained, "I guess it wouldn't really be her priority, still we should go thank her." Aether reasoned, "Also Lord Barbatos went away soon after I healed him, he wouldn't even let me check if he healed well." Barbara added, "I think we know where he went, but what about Sibley?" Aether asked wanting to thank her first, "I think she went in the direction of the Church." Barbara pointed to the general location.

On The Church's Roof.

Sibley is sitting on the edge of the backside of the roof looking over the horizion, "This world truly is beatiful." she thought to herself, before looking down at her hand, "...I really did die..." She told herself putting her other hand on her face, feeling how cold it was, "This because of an error in a bunch of papers? It's unfair!" She thought as she put her other hand on her face, feeling her eyes starting to sting slightly as tears started coming out, then she started audibly sobbing.

She cried for a good two minutes until she heard someone grunting behind her, turning around, she saw Aether lifting himself over the edge of the roof, "...How did you find me?" Sibley asked in a slightly upset voice, "Barbara told me you went in this direction, for the rest I... Followed the crying..." Aether admitted as Paimon floated closer to Sibley with concern evident on her face, "Why were you crying? Did something upset you?" She asked, seeing how red Sibley's eyes were.

Realizing she couldn't just lie her way through this, Sibley sighed and started explaining "I'm a SpiritCatcher, I became one the day Amber found me." She started recounting, "As I've been told, those who die before their time become SpiritCatchers, which tells you all you need to know..." She finished, "...So you're dead..." Aether realized, "But you're here right now!" Paimon pointed out in surprise at the revelation, "Apparently there's this 'God of Gods', she made the SpiritCatchers, which she called 'Multidimensional Law Enforcement' as an apology, giving people another chance at life, as long as they enforce the laws set on a dimension." Sibley added while looking at her Freedom Matrix.

Paimon looked at the Freedom Matrix in curiosity while Aether asked "What constitutes dying before your time?", Sibley put a hand on her forehead while her lips quivered, "Apparently people have these paper where their life gets written as they live, there's a set amount of them, but if there's a mistake that causes the person to die before the papers end, that's dying before your time..." She explained before falling on her back, "Wait, that would mean you died because-" Paimon started before Sibley sat back up and yelled "BECAUSE OF A BUNCH OF FUCKING PAPERS!!", the yell caused her to start coughing, and also she started crying due to the outburst she just had.

Aether stated patting Sibley on the back trying to comfort her, which worked for the most part, "With stuff like this it's better to just... Get over it... I came to terms with the fact that it would be a while before I meet my sister again a long time ago." He told her, trying to give some serious advice, "Better to just rip the band-aid off the moment you can huh?" Sibley compared the situations, "It might take some time, but it's the better course of action." Aether insisted, "I just hope it numbs out soon, it hurts to think about it..." Sibley muttered as tears stopped flowing out of her eyes.

Taking a moment, she got up and looked back at the horizon, "You know? Maybe with a place like this it won't be so hard getting over it." Sibley rationalized while wiping her eyes, "Wait you said multidimensional, are you also from another world?" Paimon asked having remembered that part, "Yeah I- Also?" Sibley stopped noticing that specific word, "I'm also not from this world! It's just I'm stuck here due to different circumstances." Aether explained, "This should be quite the story." Sibley commented, wanting to hear it.

On the Walk to the Symbol of Mondstat's Hero.

"That God you met sound like quite a jerk, and I'm the one saying it." Sibley said remembering how cold Shiva Samba was, "Yeah, but I have to say, she didn't seem to hate humans as much as the one you met." Aether pointed out, "Yeah, but it seemed more the ones frommy world specifically, and after what she told me, I get it, I get it a lot." Sibley said while nodding, "I'll say, when you start talking about your world with the EMU WAR! What the hell?" Aether asked, clearly still confused about that, "I don't get it either, the fact that the minister of war was assigned insted of the minister of agricolture." Sibley expressed her equal confusion.

As they walked they saw that Venti was under the tree, "You know, for a symbol I thought it would be a statue..." Sibley commented as she looked the tree up and down, "Paimon was a little confused to as to the reasoning honestly." Paimon admitted, "Maybe we could ask Venti." Aether suggested, "The Tone-Deaf Bard would just dodge it with some vague answer! Like always!" Paimon frowned as she said that, "I hear you you know?" Venti said looking at the group from his position.

The three got closer to Venti so they could talk eye to eye, "When Barbara said you went away when healed this was my first guess." Aether told him with a slight smirk, "What can I say? The anemo energy here is perfect to recuperate." Venti explained as he sat against the tree with his arms behind his head, "Energy? ...Hey, I'll leave you to talk for a moment, there's something I want to check out." Sibley told them, having remembered something from the day prior.

Having gotten in the middle of a field, she began looking through the apps in the Matri, "Spirit Index... Catcher Rank... Storage... Construct cronolo- Storage?" She noticed going back one app, and indeed, it's labeled as storage, "Maybe here..." She though as she opened the app and the hologram appeared on the screen, "Welcome to the Freedom Matrix's storage unit! Here you can view everything that you put away in it one way or another, this is the main page where you can choose what to view, varying from objects, liquids, gases and energy, to have a narrower search you just need to vocally request for a filter to be put in place, don't worry about removing it as it will do it automatically when closing the storage, hope this has been helpful!" The hologram explained before disappearing from the screen.

"Annoying, but useful." Sibley commented as she checked the energy section, and labeled there is Cryo Energy 64% full, "So something did happen with the shield yesterday... I wonder if I can make some kind of absorbing device... Questions for later." Sibley concluded as she exited the storage, "Hey Sibley! We just finished talking, what are you up to?" Aether asked as he approched the Catcher's location "Just checking something on the matrix, I still haven't figured it out yet." Sibley explained quickly lifting her arm to give them a better look of the matrix before putting it back down.

After taking a look at the matrix, Aether decided to inform Sibley of something "By the way, we were planning to go to Liuye next, from what I understand it's the closest region to Mondstat." Aether explained catching Sibley off guard, "You're going already??" She asked in surprise, "After what happened yesterday?" She reminded them, "We were thinking of resuppling for the trip first, don't worry." Paimon reassured getting a sigh of relief from Sibley, "Do you mind if I help you gather resources? I might get to catch some more spirits... Also I want to view this world some more." Sibley proposed to the two.

Aether crossed his arms as he was considering it, but Paimon seemed to have a great idea "If you help us gather then it's a deal!" She exclaimed, "That actually doesn't sound like a bad deal, what do you say?" Aether said agreeing with Paimon, "Alright! Shouldn't be too difficult, what do you need?" Sibley said before bringing the Freedom Matrix to her face and said "Open notepad." not really expecting it to work, but to her surprise a holocram of a notepad complete with keybord on the screen appeared, "That thing really has ererything..." Aether said in surprise, "I was bullshitting, I didn't think it would actually work." Sibley corrected his assumption, "Well then... Better than not having it." Aether pointed out as he started listing what they needed.

After the Notes Were Taken.

"Are you sure you can carry all this stuff?" Sibley asked having read over the notes, "Not really, Mondstat is a pretty small and secluded area so we never really had to trouble ourselves with supplies." Paimon replied for Aether, "Also we usually just hunt and gather when needed, so keeping stuff fresh might be a problem." Aether added, "If you want I could accompany you, the matrix has a storage unit apparently." Sibley offered, "Oh, no there's no need-" Aether was refusing, but Sibley grabbed his shoulder and got uncomfortably close to his face, "I. Insist." She stated firmly, making it clear that 'no' isn't an option, "...Alright, you can come..." Aether said a little frightened now.

Happy with the response, Sibley smiled and stretched to be comfortable when hunting or other, "I'd say we start with the fruit." She suggested, motioning to all the trees and all the wild roots around them, "It should be the easier part, but I don't know what's edible and what not." Aether brought up, "Paimon is not sure either, i think we should borrow an encyclopedia or something from Lisa before we start." She suggested, but Sibley had another idea, "Can't I just use the scanner?" She asked shaking her left wrist where the Matrix is and formed the crosshair in her other, "Right! I forgot about that!" Aether exclaimed having remembered that it's the first thing he saw Sibley do.

After a moment of thinking, Sibley sent the crosshair floating around to look specifically for commestible roots, herbs and fruits, "Are you sure it'll be precise?" Paimo asked feeling a little unsure of the method, "It singled out Barbara as a healer in the church which was full." Sibley brought up, "It'll definetly work then." Aether nodded as he saw the crosshair suck up fruits, roots and herbs, each time notifing the Matrix that something was added to the storage.

Seeing how well it was working, Aether thought of something, "Maybe we could gather less than what we need if it can pick up stuff from the distance." He suggested, "And pick up stuff while on our way to Liuye? Not a bad idea in all honesty." Sibley agreed, "We still should get some meat to eat right now though, I'm feeling quite hungry." Paimon suggested, her stomach making an audible gurgle a second later, "Right now lunch sound really good actually." Aether agreed with his companion, "I don't feel that hungry right now honestly, wait, I didn't eat anything even after waking up..." Sibley realized, "Probably don't need to cause you're dead." Aether rationalized, "That must be it." Sibley agreed not wanting to dwell on it for long.

As they began thinking on where to begin hunting, the Freedom Matrix began beeping like it did the day before with Amber, Sibley quickly brought it up to her face and tapped the screen hoping it wasn't that, "There's a spirit nearby! Activating radar!" The matrix said as the screen displayed a map of the area with a red dot right over the Hero's Symbol, "Ah fudge..." Sibley said instead of cursing.