Chapter Text
Above the clouds, it is beautiful.
Xiao lives on the edge between immortal and an eternal sort of death, which would feel more as though he is simply fading than really dying. Xiao lives his life on the edge of cliffs with blood loss darkening his body day by day.
His life, as it is now, is agony. Even staring into the soft clouds is chilling, a sort of grief welling in his chest for the freedom that they have. Bound to his duties, in love with the endless protecting of the people, he is deathless.
That does not mean, however, that he does not feel like everything means nothing. This does not mean that he believes that, as long as he protects the city and those who live within it, he will be content.
Xiao’s heart is that of a bird with one leg caught between feeble traps. He has the capability to get free, he has the strength to tear his leg off just to feel the freedom of the skies again.
He does not. He does not, and never will. His debt to repay— it is unpayable. It is a well that he can never refill because it is endlessly pouring his efforts into some eternal abyss that never becomes full.
Xiao lives a life of leaping karsts and slaying dead gods. Xiao lives a life of agony.
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For hundreds of years, Xiao is a ghost in humanoid skin. A ghastly thing, wreathed in the rages and grievances of his enemies. He is lost, even under the care of Rex Lapis.
Truthfully, he thought that he would never be happy again. That this eternity already spent in agony was enough for the rest of his life.
What he did not know, however, is that love in its most basic form is perseverance. And with perseverance, there is bravery.
In an eternity that his eye cannot see, Albedo saunters through a kitchen. Blurry eyed, warm sunlight gently drifting through the windows, and the clattering of dishes.
In a time that is not his, not yet, Xiao is happy. He wakes up, preforms his morning routine, and begins to wash dishes for an early morning breakfast.
In that eternity, that world so far yet close, he is happy. The karma that stains his soul does not rage and fester, but instead it pulses. Gently, weakly. Almost carefully.
In that world, he is happy.
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When Xiao is young, very, very young, and the world is simply colors with beautiful meanings and sounds that are artful in their most basic forms, he dreams. They are not hateful, they do not writhe and burn against his heart, but they are instead warm.
With his gentleness, his heart that was so kind back then, he sees a face. It is pale, the gentle kind. His face is caressed, with slightly roughly padded fingers that are fragile like glass.
Xiao, at such a fragile age, learns to love.
His very first dream is of warmth and comfort, of dusty windowsills and warm mornings. Of soft kisses and faint aching.
When Xiao is merely a day old, he learns how to love. He learns how to grieve for something that has not been yet, he learns to remember and carry the memory with him like a tightly-clutched locket full of his deepest desires.
Xiao loves to live, and he lives to love.