Chapter Text
The paintbrush dashed across the canvas, and in turn, something true came to life.
On the grassy plains of Mondstadt’s surrounding areas, a boy stood silent, a palette of colour in one hand, the brush in the other. Gently, he curved those colours across the blank sheet, splashes of blue and green and brown, the boars that roamed the plains recreated in paint and chalk outlines.
These boars were unremarkable, but that in itself was what made them noteworthy. Such a contradiction shouldn’t have made sense, but to the boy, it was perfect enough to immortalise. Hilichurls and Abyss Mages took to these lands like they were their own, but still the boars persisted, living free and unafraid. At any moment, they could be hunted, for sport or for food, and yet the few before him had survived their entire lives out in an unforgiving world.
Now they lived immortal in his image. Caught up in his work, he paid no attention to the passing of time around him, how the sun crossed the sky, how the wind danced across his skin, the Anemo Archon’s quiet blessing. Another brushstroke here and there brought his vision closer to completion. The boars continued to graze. The grass was emerald green, and if he mixed his colours just right, then maybe—
A distant explosion had him pausing. The boy turned his head, a single strand of pale hair falling into his eyes as he searched for the source. Somewhere over the hills, it seemed, far enough from him that he needn’t pay it any mind. Were the Knights of Favonius out exterminating vermin today? He wondered, idly, if Sucrose was with them, though he didn’t identify any sort of Anemo traces in the air from this far away. Another boom in the air, and he cast the thought aside, returning his attention to his art.
Life stilled around him once more. That was it. The boars carried on quietly. The colours melded together. Three boars, quiet, content, living beings, born from the soil and destined to return to it. They breathed, interacted with the elements, survived—
An explosion shook the air, so close that it rattled his canvas. The boy stopped still, a frown on his face, because he was certain he knew that sound. And he knew that intensity.
And he knew that brand of giggling.
He opened his mouth to shout, to cry, wait—but he was a fraction too late. The sight before him erupted into fire and chaos as an explosion roared and took out every single sign of life in front of him. The grass flamed, the boars that had survived their entire lives out on the plain now little more than charred carcasses before him. He stared at the carnage in front of him, the canvas still depicting his quiet moment from moments before, wordless at the sight.
And then, from the smoke and disaster, a tiny figure came sprinting out, arms at her side, eyes wide. She skidded to a stop before the boy, planting her hands on her hips, looking immensely pleased with herself. “Albedo! Did you see Jumpty Dumpty! It went boom!”
Albedo looked beyond her, to where the grass was still burning, smoke rising up into the sky. “Klee…? Why did it have to be here?”
He knew better than to question her intentions, because her intentions were always cause the biggest explosion possible. She beamed at him, and then, spotting his canvas, she bolted up to it. “Oh! Oh! Were you drawing again? It looks really good!”
“I was…up until you decided to blow my subjects up, yes.” Albedo looked between the smoking grass, the charred meat that was cooking in the fire, and his art, which was miraculously unscathed. “How did you…why were you…where’s Jean?”
Klee giggled. “Master Jean is busy today, so she let me go exploring! I wanted to try out some of my treasures, but Kaeya says that ‘explosion inside city wall, grounded be thy woe’, so here I am!”
She admired his painting as he looked down at his colours and wondered if he should add the fires to his painting. It was hardly an interesting specimen to recreate.
“They look really cool, Albedo is so good at making pictures!” Klee sat on the ground in front of it and watched the flames rise. “I didn’t know you’d be here, I just got lucky! I haven’t seen you in a while…you’re always so busy, but now we can hang out, right? Maybe we can play with my treasures?”
Playing with her treasures was a shortcut to a fiery doom, but he couldn’t deny that her words instilled a sense of guilt in him. So caught up in his alchemic studies as of late, all his time had been spent with Timaeus and Sucrose. He’d been hanging up his do not disturb sign constantly, and Klee had been all but left to her own (chaotic) devices. “Sorry, Klee. I didn’t realise you wanted my attention. Seeing as the boars are all…well, halfway to becoming a sticky honey roast, I suppose I can spare some time to play with you. Not that it was exactly how I saw my day going.”
“Oh! Oh! Can we find a cooking pot? Can you make Woodland Dream? I love when you cook, Albedo! It’s just like when you do your alchemy stuff, like, you go poof and then…bam! You make something new!”
Her enthusiasm might have been infectious to someone else, but fortunately, Albedo had been blessed with the ability to remain calm and casual-minded in her presence. “Considering we have plenty of fresh meat right here, Woodland Dream seems like a waste.”
“But if you make that, then I can go and get all the fishes with Jumpty Dumpty! We can play, and then we can eat! And then you can draw. Maybe you can draw me?”
She hopped up as Albedo considered her request. He hardly ever used his skills to paint that which did not pique his interest in the realm of alchemy, but she’d asked so earnestly. Would it be so wasteful to dedicate a couple of hours to produce happiness?
“Albedo?”
He looked down. The fire was beginning to die away now behind Klee, the grass singed and blackened. She adjusted her backpack, and he said, “Yes?”
“You should breathe,” she said, smiling impossibly wide. “Come on, let’s go! We’ve got fishes to get!”
And then she was gone, dashing off across the plains, and he realised that she was right. In his pursuit of life, in his creation of art, he had not taken a single breath in. He closed his eyes and did as she asked, allowing himself the mimicry of human necessity. Nobody noticed, except her, and she didn’t question it.
In the distance, she turned and shouted, “Albedo! I’m gonna leave you behind if you don’t hurry!”
Packing up his art supplies, he chased after her, thoughts of eruptions in the back of his mind. It was going to be a long day, keeping her from wanton destruction, but at least she’d be happy—and he couldn’t deny that a day spent with her wouldn’t brighten his spirits regardless.
***
The outskirts of Dragonspine mountain were bitterly cold, the water close to freezing entirely, and yet the moment Klee went beneath the surface, Albedo didn’t hesitate to dive beneath.
It wasn’t supposed to be serious. He’d asked the traveller and her floating companion for assistance in collecting Starsilver for an alchemical recipe, and yet Lumine had shown up on the mountain side with Klee in tow, claiming that she’d been with her when he’d sent word to Mondstadt that he wished for her help, and that she refused to stay behind.
“It’ll be fine!” Paimon had declared in Lumine’s lieu. “Paimon thinks that even if things go bang, at least it’ll be nice and warm!”
“And we can always cook you over one of her open flames if things start looking dire,” Lumine added, looking a little smug.
Klee had been giggling then, but that had been before they’d run into the Lawachurl, before the lumbering beast had picked her up in its great hands and thrown her through the air. Her scream still rang out in his ears. Life born from soil was so fragile, and that was what he’d thought when he’d watched, helpless, as she hit the water and sank beneath it.
He had not thought through his plan, he’d just acted, tossing aside his sword and abandoning the traveller to the battle. The cold had not been a factor in his mind. The fight was forgotten. Miss Alice’s words echoed in his skull, treat her like a real younger sister!
Elder brothers protected their siblings. The traveller had told him stories of her own brother, how she would do anything to find him. She’d also mentioned the Fatui Harbinger who would do anything for the sake of his baby brother, and he knew of Diluc’s loyalty to his own non-blood sibling, how the rift between him and Kaeya had not prevented him from coming to his aid before. Albedo was not related to Klee, but she was his sister nonetheless, and that meant he had to save her.
The water was akin to ice, but his body withstood it, powered by something more than adrenaline. His eyes stung, but there she was, floating lifelessly, a small body so still, and something surged in his chest, emotion that he did not often feel, emotion that overtook his thoughts, his logic.
He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close to his chest, and oh, she was still a child, still so tiny, with so much power but as fragile as every other being. He thought of the boars she’d taken the lives of that day before his canvas, how she’d ended their existence with the childish joy of an exploded bomb, and he thought of the Lawachurl and its base desire to attack. They were not the same, yet they were; life was inexplicably difficult to understand.
He broke the surface, not choking or hacking, but that was normal for him. Klee did not move. There were no coughs, no groans, no cracking open of her eyes. She was limp in his arms, drenched through and frozen.
“Klee!” Albedo shouted, the roar of the Lawachurl’s fierce battle with Lumine nearly sweeping away his voice. He kicked his legs to keep them afloat, but he was losing his strength fast, the cold sweeping it away. “Wake up!”
Still, she didn’t move. She hung there in his grasp, and it was then that he realised that she wasn’t breathing. Fear gripped his heart as he dragged her through the water to the snowy bank. He had to hope that Lumine could hold it off without him. He had to hope that there was still enough of Klee left in her body for him to save.
Pushing back his shivers, he laid her on the snow and tipped her head back. Acting on instinct more than thought, he pressed the heel of his hand to her chest, one hand instead of two, not wanting to hurt her with his actions, but wanting to keep her with him through any means necessary.
Usually, he brought things to life through the act of creation, through alchemy, through his paintbrush and his clever mind. This was different. Klee was already living, he just had to keep her that way, and in his experience, keeping something alive was almost always more difficult than giving it a pulse. Practicality and alchemic practices went hand-in-hand, and yet here he was, doubting himself.
He pressed down. One compression. Two. Three. Keeping track of the time between them as Lumine shouted behind him, as the Anemo Archon’s winds whipped across his skin, as the unforgiving bitterness of Dragonspine bit deep into his bones of chalk. Albedo thought of blooming flowers, of exploding bombs, and he thought of Miss Alice and his own chest splintered beneath the pressure.
“Breathe, Klee!” he cried. “Breathe!”
And she did. She choked. Water expelled itself from her lungs as Albedo sat back to give her space. He heard the thump of the Lawachurl hitting the ground behind him, and, trusting Lumine to finish it off, he gave Klee all his attention.
As her breathing calmed, he asked, “Are you okay? Klee, speak to me.”
“Too much water…” she whispered, reaching out her arms to him. “I was scared…”
He knelt in front of her and answered her request silently, pulling her close to his chest as she buried her head into his. Alive. She was still frozen but she was alive.
“Your catalyst,” he said. “Your Vision. Use it.”
Between them, Pyro erupted, warmth in a different sense than her usual explosions. It swept through him and her both, and into his chest, she said, “You rescued me, Albedo…”
“Of course I did.”
And as she wrapped her tiny arms back around him, she said, “Breathe too, please?”
He closed his eyes and did. In and out in time with her, soil and chalk. The oxygen did nothing for him, but it did everything for her, so he followed her lead, this girl full of energy and life, his family until the end.
“Woodland Dream when we get back,” he said. “I promise.”
She held onto him tight, and he listened to her breaths, the cold forgotten, the fear draining away.
He could breathe for her as much as she needed him to.