[He's quiet for a long moment, eyes flickering up at the fireworks still glittering overhead, and the smile on his face waning. And slowly, he shakes his head.]

I guess I should count myself lucky that I don't talk in my sleep. I've... always had them, actually. They've just gotten worse since Lumine disappeared.

[Well: since Lumine disappeared, his friendship with Kaeya self-destructed, his soul broke and got wabi-sabi'd whole again, and he remembered a new batch of Inazuma-adjacent trauma that he's still not sure how to process. But he's not going to get into all of that right now. Because ultimately, the content of the nightmares doesn't matter--]

And... after being sealed away in a nightmare for so many years, I can't force myself to sleep through them anymore. So I just haven't slept.

[When Aether mentioned back in November that the god who took Lumine had "sealed him away", he never said how long, nor what it was like. He's not sure he has it in him to talk about it at length right now, but he's already decided not to hold back when talking about himself anymore. Or at least, not with Childe.]