As the night sky darkened with pitch black, aether's desperate thoughts about his future from there went on. He was particularly concerned about how he could feed paimon and take care of her, for him,he could hunt and feed on those but paimon was only a child,she couldn't be fed raw hilichurl meat all the time. He looked at the paimon,who was curling up on his lap each time a insect tried to sit on her soft cheek. The firewood and the fire nearly ran out. Aether couldn't risk sleeping until he finished making a temporary shelter with whatever leaves,sticks and pieces of wood he found from the jungle. He had picked up a ragged torn up cloth from the nearby bushes.
"This should make a soft surface, atleast for her"
It was not in his pride to let a child sleep on the grass or his dirty legs because of working.
To him,no matter how much paimon had amazing knowledge and skills,she was still like a child. At times he even thought if paimon was a fish, because she was inside the water.
The shelter was large enough to have someone of aether's height go into it. He gently put paimon on the cloth placed over the grass inside the shelter and let her sleep without any discomfort. Soon aether dozed off to sleep too,and they both slept till noon in the day.
Paimon was the first one to wake up and she was confused..
"Wait...when did paimon get here?"
She looked around the inner surfaces of the temporary shelter, particularly surprised to have crafted so precisely with mere leaves, sticks and pieces of wood.
"Aether..? " She looked at him, confused and slightly panicked. "How long were we sleeping..did we get kidnapped..?!"
And with that she started panicking and groaning, moving aether violently sideways to wake him up. Aether suddenly pushed her back and gets up, "what's your problem..?" He was half sleep and rubbed his eyes. Seeing that paimon was so panicked he just touched his sword and paimon calmed down.
"What is it?" He asked properly.
"Aether...where are we?"
"Uh...in the grassland,in the middle of a grassland where we were last night...do you not remember?"
"I do! I do.. but,this is in Mondstadt right.. right.?"
At her persistence aether took her outside and showed her the city of freedom, faraway from where they were standing, "see that? We are in Mondstadt. Besides do you seriously expect me to travel at night?"
Paimon calmed down but her panicked state still didn't falter. "Then... then! Who made that shelter!? And why were we inside of it?!"
Aether at once understood why she would react like that. "Do I need to remind you that you helped me collect those woods and sticks last night before going to sleep? This shelter is made of that only.I only covered it with a few leaves."
Paimon stared at the shelter for sometime and then completely calmed down.
Paimon looked down,she felt bad for creating a ruckus over something so trivial.
"Well whatever...let's go. I am thinking about heading to Mondstadt ,how's that?"
He asked trying to cheer her up .
"Well...yeah ,but we don't have any money can we even have a place to stay?"
Paimon asked,the matter was unwelcomed but yet something to think about.
"I will try to look into some jobs if I can...some if temporary only.."
He assured her and then they cleaned the area where they lit the fire but the shelter be as it was.
Then they headed towards the way of the forest where they saw the bard and the blue dragon for the first time,aether deduced that the path following after that would a shortcut to the farms in the city. After passing that path while they were continuing,some hilichurls out of nowhere jumped over the but aether instantly cut one of those hilichurls and the rest got killed by his wind powers which he got from touching the anemo statue.
"Thank you so much, traveler!"
A mild young voice of a girl, coming from their back came to their ears.
Aether turned his head around,and there was a girl standing slightly panting because she ran towards them. She wore a red outfit and a band in her hand.
"Thank you for killing those hilichurls, they have been too much to handle, lately."
She smiled at them but aether just stared,and expressionless face and paimon was confused.