Chapter Text
The false-Albedo vanished in a haze, like blossoms scattered on an unkind wind. Kaeya was back on the pedestal with the star-flung twins and his partner again. They hadn’t moved an inch. Irminsul had dragged Kaeya through the worst moments of his life in the blink of an eye. There stood Albedo, frozen in place with one hand outstretched, calling the roots down. He faltered just as Kaeya realised he was still laughing.
“What’s his problem?” Aether asked his sister. Still holding Paimon, Lumine responded with one of those shrugs that said she often had little idea what was going through the Captain’s head. Kaeya smoothed down the fur on his neck with both claws, like he were preening his coat.
“It’s done. You can go,” he said, once he’d recovered some sense of propriety. To his right, Albedo flailed his clawed hands suddenly at the air. The roots were receding.
“Let it,” Kaeya told him. “It’s finished.”
Albedo’s magenta eyes on him looked almost offended. It must have felt like a lot of effort summoning the roots, only for the need for them to vanish in an instant. Subjectively, Kaeya felt the urge to embrace him as if they hadn’t spoken in months. It took a moment before he realised there was no reason not to, and approached to wrap the alchemist into his arms. Albedo settled with his back to Kaeya’s chest and his small, gloved hands resting on his forearms.
“We’re free, you said?” Aether said. “It’s over, Lumine! Five centuries of drudgery in this backwater are finally done. Once we get out of the Abyss, we’re home free.”
Lumine hefted Paimon in her arms to settle the pixie’s weight better. Barely conscious, she hung in Lumine’s grasp like a human child, limp and heavy. Her small hand held onto Lumine’s scarf, which was the only sign that she was awake at all.
“Yeah, um. Let’s get out of the Abyss. First thing’s first,” Lumine said, distractedly. She didn’t take her eyes from her friend when she spoke to her brother. A moment’s silence passed and she added,
“How?”
Before Aether could reply, Kaeya raised a paw. “I’ll find us a way out. Though I can’t guarantee we’ll emerge all too close to the peak of the mountain.”
Albedo mumbled, “All but one of us can fly. I think we’ll manage.”
“What. You think the twins can carry me, one per arm?” Kaeya chuckled in reply. He released Albedo and walked a few paces away, calling for silence with an outstretched hand. Once their voices faded, the loudest sound was his heartbeat in his own ears. A few seconds later, the queer resonance of the Abyss made itself known, somewhere between a prickle and a noise. His ears twisted to follow the sensation and triangulate its origin. Where the tumult was thickest, that was frequently a conflux where the void met the waking world. And it was easier to find an escape than a specific point within the labyrinth of elemental chambers.
“First of all we’ll need to get down,” he noted. “After that, I think I can feel a way out.”
The journey was a peculiar one, at least compared to the long passage through the maze to Rhinedottir’s garden. Unlike that whole parade, Kaeya’s ears led him through silent blackness and swirling stars. No elemental vistas opened up before him, even when passing through vents in the Abyss’ structure. They were deep indeed. The point of inversion where the highest peak touched the lowest darkness pierced through to an inky black without any light or heat.
Fortunately, Paimon recovered after ten minutes or so of wandering. Her faint glow kept the sensation of utter blindness at bay, though there weren’t any walls or obstacles to navigate. Every so often, Albedo’s molten eyes would flash in the gloom, seeking Kaeya as if to reassure himself that he wasn’t alone in the pitch night.
Within an hour, Lumine piped up, “Oh. I feel a breeze.”
Kaeya’s ear swivelled towards her to hear the words, then away to seek the breeze. It flicked in pain after so long of stillness.
“As promised. Seem cold?” he asked. Lumine put her hand out, turned it in the fissure she’d found.
“Not too cold. Maybe you led us to the slope,” she ventured. Without further quizzing, she stepped through and vanished. Next went Aether, pushing past Paimon to do so. Then the pixie themself, and Albedo shortly after. Kaeya took one last look around as if there were anything for his eyes to see, then followed the others.
The light of the snow stabbed into his vision painfully. It was a sunny day - well below the perennial blizzard of the mountain’s peak. Albedo stared uncomfortably up at the cathedral skeleton of his dead elder brother.
Kaeya turned to quip about his good luck on finding them an exit, but Lumine was already gone. She stood on an outcropping where red quartz had once grown, speaking with her brother. Even the split second between her departure and his so deep within the Abyss had dilated into a minute or so.
“You want to say goodbye?” Kaeya asked Albedo. The wind, though not as vicious as upslope, still snatched away the sound of the twins’ conversation away from even Kaeya’s sensitive ears. Albedo stared flatly into the distance. If a person didn’t know him well, it might have appeared that he hadn’t listened. But that subtly narrowing of his eyes said he was thinking.
“No, he concluded, and turned away. He started walking across the virgin snow without so much as a glance backwards. Kaeya snapped his beak together with a clacking noise. Well, good. She hadn’t exactly earned herself a loving farewell from anyone. Not least Kaeya. Being the Hero of Mondstadt earned her the right to leave with her limbs intact, not a tearful send-off. Kaeya loped to catch up to Albedo, leaving the twins behind.
“You think Paimon will manage?” he asked. “I’d hope she’d come to the Knights once she’s on her own again, but then, I’m still holding out that she’s secretly a Goddess the size of a castle in disguise.”
Albedo managed a soft laugh at that. “She’s friends with Klee. Let’s stay nearby just in case, though. Titanic deity or not, she’s but a child in my eyes. And we need to work out what to do about your medicines.”
“Ah. Yes. I hardly thought to pack for a long trip. And here we are.”
Sending Albedo to fetch them would have been the logical choice, before. Now, the alchemist only looked superficially more human than he did. Not just his eyes, but his demeanour were so different that it would hardly cause less excitement than Kaeya himself appearing.
“Someone as smart as you remembers the ingredients, surely,” he proposed, tentatively. “I can help forage.”
“I’d need to consult the moon cycles. Smart I may be, but I’m not a walking encyclopedia. Plus, with our foray into the Abyss, even if I did recall - I don’t know precisely how far we are into the present phase of the moon. I need to know that when creating it.”
Kaeya took a seat on a gnarled, wizened branch. He looped his tail over it like a discarded shawl and put his head on one palm. Albedo hopped, using his arms for leverage to jump up and join the branch beside him.
“So. My mother’s Vision,” he said, so casually that Kaeya took a long moment to notice, and look appropriately chagrined. With his mask of a face, that mostly amounted to lowering his ears closer to his neck.
“She took exception when I decided to follow you after Lumine’s little stunt,” Kaeya offered. “There was no reasoning with her. I’m sure you’re familiar with her enough to find that unsurprising. Rather than take your mother out of the world without your say so… I decided to do what I could and keep her from causing further harm. Chiefly to myself in the moment, but also to others.”
As if turning away would hide what he was doing, Kaeya twisted around to conceal his mouth from view. He popped the Vision out from under his tongue and gave it a thorough wipe on his thigh fur. Only once it looked dry did he present it to Albedo without comment.
Albedo observed the Vision for a long time, turning it in his hands. His own throat looked bare without his shattered one, discarded and broken. Instead only the livid red mark remained.
“I will keep it. Her ambition was venomous. Perhaps, without it, she might learn to live a peaceful life. And if she never recovers then… I suppose that is her fate,” he said. He turned the article over a few more times, running a gloved finger over the dendritic shape, the uncommon frame of Khaenri make. So few of their people ever walked in view of the Gods, before or since. Carefully, Albedo removed a kerchief from his belt pocket and wrapped the Vision in it before returning it. Kaeya held his own up on a claw thoughtfully.
“You know-” he began, then raised both his ears up sharply. A human form was approaching from further along the mountain. It had to be one of the twins, but he tensed, ready to flee like the rabbit he was if the face was unfamiliar.
The newcomer turned out to be Lumine, with Paimon, and no Aether. Albedo sighed through his nose with an uncommon lack of grace and patience. He sat stiffly, hugging himself, poised with a rigidly upright spine. He didn’t speak, rather stared balefully at his ex-partner.
“I’m staying,” said Lumine. She stood with her hands at her side as if she didn’t know where to put them. Paimon drifted around behind her, wide curious eyes beaming around like a lighthouse. Albedo blinked slowly, like a cat.
“Why?”
Even Kaeya found himself flinching at that icy tone.
“I’m not ready to leave yet. I want to finish my journey,” Lumine insisted. Kaeya stepped in to prevent a one-sided slapping match breaking out.
“Even though its entire purposes was to find the man behind you?” he said.
“I thought it was at the time. But now I found him. I want to keep looking. I learned that the hard way. Giving up what I did, thinking he was the only thing that mattered. It was a mistake.”
Each sentence emerged from her as though tugged. She kept closing her mouth with a certain finality, but then more words would jostle their way loose. Lumine rarely spoke so much at all.
Albedo watched this, unmoving. “Alright.”
So Kaeya added, “Where will you go?”
Lumine’s eyes widened a little, then returned to their usual, glittering unreadability. Kaeya’s words had their intended effect; his question told her that, wherever she went, it would not be Mondstadt. The Traveler had the grace to accept that without disagreeing, leaving Paimon ignorant to the snub.
“Liyue, for now. Perhaps through to Fontaine or Sumeru,” Lumine said, well aware that Kaeya had not been asking, but threatening.
Once the silence stretched too long for even him, Albedo said softly,
“Goodbye, Lumine.”
The words, light as snow, fell like a guillotine. Lumine all but flinched.
“Bye, Albedo,” she replied. Paimon gave a wave, which Albedo and Kaeya both returned as if seeing her off for one of her usual trips abroad. The pixie took Lumine’s hand eagerly when the Traveler opened her shimmering, metallic wings. They hung like a chandelier, suspended in the air, for just a moment before one beat launched her into the air. Paimon flew alongside her until, in barely a few heartbeats, both their shapes dwindled to the size of distant birds. And then, they were gone, hidden by the brow of the mountain. Only then did Albedo ease, and slump onto his seat with his head in his hands.
The Sun moved slowly through the hazy sky, and Aether made no appearance. No last moment to gloat, no change of heart. No brother hurriedly appearing to question the whereabouts of a sister. Perhaps they’d meet again on another world - or not. Kaeya swept his tail through the thickening snow around the branch and stood, dusting himself off.
“I’m going back to get my medicine,” he announced. Albedo blinked blearily. He’d been drowsing on Kaeya’s shoulder until the latter abruptly moved. Now he rubbed his ear and squinted, as though certain his sleepy ears had misheard.
“You mean tonight?” he mumbled.
Brightly, Kaeya replied, “Nope. Fuck it. I’m going home. I’m getting my medicine. Now.”
A few snowflakes scurried in on the wind and settled in Albedo’s hair, coming loose from its braids. “What happened on that dais?”
“Irminsul spoke to me, with your voice. They walked me through my whole life. Every fuckup. Everything that should’ve broken me, but I refused to die. I don’t know, I think it wanted me to give up and die, or waste my wish on fixing things. But. Clearly, that didn’t work,” Kaeya explained. “I think a tree bullied me into self-acceptance. With you, for the first time, I opened up to someone and it got better. Not worse. If I try again, well. Perhaps lightning might strike twice.”
Albedo smiled, eyes still pensive. “Done hiding, then?”
“I want my human shape back. But if I have to pretend to fit in… that’s not home, is it? You don’t have to come with. I know you might want to figure your new self out first.”
The words had Albedo look down at his hands. The mercurial red flowed over the gloves and crystallised into claws and glittering scales. Then, as quickly as they’d appeared, they ran off into runnels to sink back into his skin. A stream, then beads welling like blood, then nothing.
“Yes. I need time,” agreed Albedo. “I don’t think it will be safe for me to return to Mondstadt at all. Perhaps.. Not for a long time. Perhaps not ever.”
Kaeya sighed. “You fear you’ll become another Durin, don’t you?”
“I.. Wouldn’t want to risk it. For now, will you make excuses for me? I’ll remain up here, in my laboratory. It won’t be so different from ordinary after all. I just worry - about Visions. My reaction to them.”
“I’ll buy you some time. But I don’t want you staying up here in your eyrie forever. My Vision’s been here the whole time. Clear as day. Tell you what. I’ll go back, tell our friends you got yourself tied up in work like usual. I’ll come back if they don’t skin me and use me as a rug. By then, if you haven’t made a snack out of your mother’s Vision -”
“ - Kaeya - “
“-which you won’t. Will you discuss coming home?”
Albedo’s eyes slid away from his earnest gaze. So he was determined to exile himself. Well, fighting him on it at present would only agitate him. There was time between now and Winter to coax him back down. Surely - surely - his impulse wouldn’t be to devour the Vision of every allogene in Teyvat the moment he saw them?
“I’ll try,” Albedo lied. “For now, go ahead. I’ll see you soon, since the weather’s fair.”
It was so distant, almost clinical. Kaeya flicked his ear unhappily but let the matter slide. He was mourning an old self. A relationship, a friend. And when he mourned, Albedo retreated from the world. Well, he wouldn’t be left alone with the loss for too long. Kaeya had very long legs.
“And Kaeya?” Albedo called, once he’d loped a few bounding strides. Kaeya skidded to a halt to lift up on his hind legs and listen.
“Some Lebkuchen, if you would? I would be very grateful.”
If he had lips, Kaeya would have grinned. “Of course. Try to wait patiently.”
Watching Mondstadt melt away as he ran had a soothing effect, when he wasn’t fleeing fate. Kaeya galloped through the soft, wind-strewn grass like a wild thing. Slimes startled and tumbled away in his wake. Trees rushed towards him and then away; stones skittered under his paws. And yet above, the clouds stayed all but still, indifferent to his travels. He felt fleet, unstoppable, yet small. Too small to carry burdens; a free beast.
How he could run! Human knees would ache by now, even with how fit and sturdy he was. In this form, Kaeya’s springy body could propel him from here to Fontaine if he so chose, he was certain of it.
Once he neared the bridge that crossed close to Cider Lake, Kaeya reared up onto his hind legs. He took a moment to card through his mane, tangled as it had become in his running, and smooth down his fur. Most of all, he moved the Vision to a prominent place on his chest, obscured as little as possible by his thick fur. Though like a Mondstadt’s frame, his Vision had a unique shape to its setting. It would help for the discussion to come.
Kaeya walked slowly, as upright as his bent spine would allow. He kept his head high, even when the guards at the gate raised the alarm. A Hilichurl, one to harass the city. As if any lone ‘churl would be foolish enough to assault them. Swan and Lawrence. What else was new?
“Relax,” he called out. Try as he might, his ruined voice sounded like a beast’s. Hopefully his mellow and cultured way of speaking might sway them, if not the way he held his hands up and out harmlessly.
Kaeya watched the two men raise their arms, exchange a confused glance. Since when did a Hilichurl speak Mond?
“If you promise not to skewer me, I can show you proof. But it’s me. It’s Captain Kaeya Alberich,” Kaeya announced. “This is what I really look like.”
The words should have dropped like a stone. Instead, their weight wheeled away into the wind, like birds. He’d said it. Now, whatever happened, fate would decide. He just needed his medicine, perhaps to see little Klee and assure her wellbeing. Anything else - he wouldn’t ask for.
“What’s your proof?” called out Swan, dubiously.
“My Vision. Here. I’m going to take off my necklace.”
Kaeya lowered his head and slipped the thong off over his long neck. From there, he held it in one clawed fist, dangling the Vision. Its elemental glow sent a shard of light pinging across the city walls as it spun to and fro, before coming to a stop.
The guards did a poor job of whispering among themselves, especially given they stood eight feet apart.
“Could be a hilichurl that stole the Captain’s Vision,” said Lawrence.
“Wouldn’t it go blank if he was dead?” replied Swan.
“If it’s yours, prove it. Do that blizzard thing!” Lawrence called out. Kaeya sighed and tapped the Vision with a claw impatiently.
He said, “I’ll need to blow out that torch to get the elements moving,” and pointed to a nearby brazier with his talon. With a shaky assurance from Swan that, no, he wouldn’t be poked in the back with a spear - just in case he was the errant Captain - Kaeya turned away. He swelled his chest and breathed out, blasting the fire with Cryo and sending elemental energy scattering like sparks.
Within a few moments, his Vision had greedily lapped up the confluence, and with it, reached its full glow.
Kaeya held it tightly in his fist and stood firm. At his will, a swirling flurry of icy wind poured out, freezing the grass around him into gelid needles. No hilichurl could command a Vision, not in the exact way Captain Kaeya once did. He could see it in their faces, even through the storm. The shock. Fearful, or jubilant? Kaeya kept watching after his burst of energy subsided, watching their eyes for disgust or violence.
Swan dropped his weapon and sprinted over, arms open like a young boy.
“Captain! You’re home!”
He slowed once he got nearer, and realised that, despite his resemblance to a teddy bear, the being before him was his direct superior. Kaeya patted him companionably on the shoulder with a hefty paw.
“That’s right. Would you two escort me to headquarters? I don’t want any more interrogations between here and Jean,” he said. After so nearly stabbing him (as well they should have; it was their job to be cautious) the pair were most eager to obey orders and re-establish some normality.
So it was that the decidedly abnormal scene unfolded: an enormous lagomorph making his way through the city, with an armed guard of two apologetic Knights of Favonius. Crowds of confused onlookers gathered on street corners and peered from shop windows, but nobody dared intervene. Besides. The supposed Hilichurl amongst them was on his best behaviour, so why provoke him?
It was at the steps to the headquarters that Kaeya’s nerves re-emerged. Every so often, his ears would traitorously swivel back, and he’d need to consciously right them. By the time he arrived in the courtyard, word of the unusual visitor had spread. The door opened, and out came Lisa. Always the first to gather up gossip. At first she emerged with a cat-like expression of prurient glee, before her gaze fell on the new arrival.
“Oh my goodness. Kaeya. Is that you, sweetie?” she called out, approaching with her distinctive high-heeled trot. Lisa stopped only a foot or so away, and looked up into his face with surprise, but no trepidation.
“Trust a witch to recognise me,” Kaeya said. “It’s me.”
“What on earth happened? Didn’t I tell you not to drink potions offered to you by strange hags?” Lisa admonished. Kaeya opened his mouth to begin the first of many recitals of the truth. Before he could utter a word, a red figure burst out of the doors.
“Oh, wow! Bunny!” Klee exclaimed. “You look like my friend Dodoco, but big and blue! What’s your name?”
“That’s Kaeya, dear. He drank a potion,” said Lisa.
“What’d you do that for?!”
“I didn’t. I-”
Sucrose this time. She took one look, shook her head, and ran back inside. Kaeya resolved to keep his mouth shut until the woman herself was present, and folded his arms. He didn’t have to wait for long. After Amber made a terrible effort to hide that she was peering through the window - her ear-like ribbons gave her way behind the curtain - the next to investigate was Jean.
“Don’t panic. It’s me, Jean. It’s Kaeya,” he said, pre-empting whatever grilling he might receive from the watchful Acting Grandmaster. “Just ask Lisa.”
“He took a potion,” she repeated. Kaeya pulled her hat down sharply, halfway covering her face.
“No, I didn’t. This is what I really look like. The cuffs I wore used to make me look human. Now I use a potion. But this is what I look like, since I was a boy. I got changed by the Abyss. But - I’m me. I might look like a monster. But I promise, I’m - yeah. I’m human inside. I was born one. I still am.”
The Khaenri spy. The traitor. The outcast. Kaeya saw those accusations reflected in Jean’s wide, seeking eyes. He bid himself remain still when she stepped forward. Her eyes fell on the Vision at his chest, now glowing a cosy, dull blue.
“Your Vision tells me you are,” she said. “I can’t say I’m not shocked to see you this way. But it - it’s alright. You’re more than just human. You’re my right hand man, and one of my dearest friends. Whatever shape you are.”
Having said her piece, she held out a hand. Kaeya wrapped it in his much larger paw and shook it carefully. Lisa, hat returned to its rightful place, reached over and placed her hand on both of theirs. It was a trite gesture, but a reassuring one. Especially when Klee sprinted over to wrap her arms around his hindleg.
“Albedo’s on the mountain doing some work. He won’t be back for a while. Sorry, Klee. But - yes, he knows I’m like this.”
Together, the assembled Knights moved towards headquarters. Lisa shook her head.
“Are you sure you didn’t drink a strange potion given to you by a hag?” she pressed, with one of her unreadable smiles. Kaeya tapped the side of his beak in a knowing gesture, then lifted up Klee. She settled into his arms as if she’d always known him to be this shape. In fact, his furry body seemed to please her immensely, as she snuggled her face into his mane with great glee, despite the news that her sibling would remain absent.
“Let’s get me my medicine, little one, and then I’ll make you hot chocolate. That sound good?”
Klee kicked her legs happily. At the door, Jean touched his arm and looked up into his eyes.
“Welcome back, Captain,” she said. “I doubt we can keep people from talking, but - your brother. Does he know?”
Kaeya shook his head. “I guess he will, now. I’m past worrying what he thinks of me. Besides. I’m bigger than him now. He can seethe for all I care.”
“I think you might find him more understanding than you think. But I’ll be here, if you need a brandy and a shoulder. Always.”
She had to crane her neck to look at him, to offer that support despite how small and fragile his bulk made her look. Kaeya inclined his head as graciously as he was able with a young child grasping his mane.
“Of course. And - thank you. It’s - it’s good to be home.”