Chapter Text
It’s incredibly bright and the snowstorm makes it hard to breathe the dry and frigid air of Dragonspine.
Why is he here?
Why does his body feel so heavy?
He looks around but he can barely see a thing. Licking his lips, the taste of iron snaps his attention to the blood running down his face. It drips from his chin to the head of green hair nestled against his chest.
“Sucrose…" His arms tighten around her body.
That's right… He needs to get to the campsite. Sucrose… She… He can’t bear to even think about it. He continues to blindly trek into the unknown, dragging both himself and her body into the storm.
“Sucrose… you’ll be fine…” He mutters to himself.
Albedo tosses in his sleep, brows furrowed as he grasps at his sheets. His chest tightens. Quick gasps of air and soft sobs cut at his shallow breathing.
“We’re almost there…” Albedo whispers and soldiers through the storm, finally making it to the campsite. He collapses onto the ground, eyes tightly shut, heavily panting from exhaustion. His arm across her chest keeps her close to his side. With all the stamina left in him, he drags them deeper and deeper into the cave. A low and foreign heartbeat thumping, reverberating against his ears, and his vision goes red.
Despite the lack of a flame, he finally feels warmth—one that he’s craved for so long.
"A L B E D O..."
Albedo wakes up in a cold sweat, chest heaving as he quickly props himself up on his elbows. He scans the darkness of his room. He could have sworn he heard something but there was nothing amiss in his room. He was completely alone, except for the reflection of a broken man, staring back at him from across the room. A bandaged right eye and a busted left leg that shackles him to his bed.
“Another dream…” Albedo whispers under his breath, running his hand through his blond locks, now slick with sweat.
He lays back down, hands grasping for nothing at his sides, suddenly empty without the warmth he felt in his dream. “It’s been a month already,” and he’s still haunted by memories of Dragonspine.
His arm reaches blindly for his bedside table. From the last drawer, he takes a flask, filled halfway through with an ambiguous indigo liquid that shines in the moonlight. Popping the lid off, he takes them in sips. Like a wave splashing over him, a numbness washes over his tight muscles, drowning him into a bottomless void. The night passes without incident to his relief and he has his exhaustion to partly thank for the rare silence of his mind. The distant sound of birds chirping and the light seeping through his curtains stir him from this slumber, though his peace is short-lived. Albedo flinches when he notices Sucrose sitting on the chair from his desk, unnervingly perfect in posture. His left eye skims over the seated figure before letting out a shaky exhale.
"What time is it?" Albedo asks, pulling himself up to rest his back against the headrest of his bed.
Sucrose checks. "It is almost 11:30.” She’s in her usual clothes, but her mismatched eyes still stick out like a sore thumb. Her gold and blue irises are already drawing more attention to her, as if her green hair wasn’t enough. “I came by earlier, but you were still sound asleep. I thought you could use the extra hours."
"I see…" He mutters, rubbing the morning dew from his good eye.
"I brought food and medicine." She beams and begins to unfold the small portable bed table and set it over his lap. Turning to take a tray full of breakfast and a flask of bubbling colored fluid, she outlines today's menu. "We have some cream stew for your stamina, some sweet madame for sustenance..." The rest is food jargon.
Albedo thanks her as he guides the tray down onto the table. He stares at the neatly organized meal, now somewhat stale. Despite the grumbling of his stomach, he lacks an appetite to even want to touch his food. Instead, he redirects his attention to Sucrose.
“Did you meet with Lisa today?” He asks.
Albedo made sure to direct her to the library as soon as she was discharged from the infirmary. Luckily Albedo was soon to follow, relocated to his own quarters, but he remained bedridden due to the limp in his right leg and the occasional spasms of pain.
After Dragonspine, Sucrose in every physical aspect was the same, except for her new cerulean iris. Albedo's bandaged right eye says it all. However, she sustained a severe head injury, damaging her ability to recollect any past memories.
He hoped reading would at least trigger something in Sucrose's memory. He recalls the moment she woke up from her deep slumber.
They were in the infirmary and Albedo occupied the bed next to hers. The night was cold, as if the winds had followed them from Dragonspine, and Albedo couldn’t sleep, listless by his own thoughts.
She woke up silent, and it was only the rustling of her bedsheets that alerted Albedo of her awakening. Albedo said nothing as she looked around. She had a rigidness to her movements. Her head turned slowly from left to right, scanning her surroundings before finally landing on Albedo. Even in the dark, her hair glowed bright, but her eyes were foggy and empty.
"Who… are you?" Her voice is coarse and flat. Albedo would not have recognized her voice if he wasn't looking back at her blank stare.
"I'm Albedo."
"Albedo…" She tests out the name in a whisper before repeating it again, a little louder this time. "Albedo… Who am I?"
It took her at least a week for her to integrate herself back into society and another to be back in the lab. When Kaeya came by after Sucrose was discharged, he had made comments about her unusually bland responses to his teasing when she had returned. He made sure to let Albedo know that she was usually a flustered mess and often tried her best to avoid his company, so he found it all quite strange. Albedo wasn't sure what Kaeya wanted from him after saying all those things about their imbalanced friendship, but indulged the cryo swordsman anyway in conversation.
When Klee and Jean came by to visit, the young girl was instinctively cautious once she set her eyes on Albedo's bandaged eye and the trail of scars that mark his skin. Klee became teary-eyed before giving him a side hug, with the alchemist leaning from the edge of the bed to properly reach her and comfort the child.
Jean made no comment about the situation, but Albedo was certain that she knew more than she pretended to as she stuck to topics regarding plans for the future rather than digging up the past and the events of Dragonspine.
"What's done was done. Nothing less and nothing more. Take care, Albedo." He remembers Jean saying before leaving with Klee.
Lisa, on the other hand, was very accommodating of Sucrose. She spared a few hours in her day to help Sucrose learn about the world around her, as well as assigned readings every week.
"It will do good to let your sweet little assistant recover her memories naturally." He recalled the few words she spared him and the slight sigh following after. "Give her some time… My library is open to her any time, dear."
But a month later, and Sucrose has only recovered bits and pieces.
“I've finished the first batch rather quickly. I’m sure I’ll be visiting the library again sometime soon," Sucrose says with an air of pride, like a child who has done their homework earlier than the due date.
Albedo hums. "That’s great, Sucrose. What did you make of the previous books? I believe there was a journal on the variations of sweetflower growth and phenotype with changing altitudes."
Of course, Albedo had to ask.
After all, it was the first journal she authored.
Sucrose ponders for a moment, index finger pointed and pressed against her cheek. "I do recall skimming the book but I found myself more interested in the third volume of Monstadt's insectopedia."
She continues on about the many facets of life that have interested her, especially taking a fondness for the variety of creatures spawned after the Cataclysm. Not a word about sweet flowers.
"I see…" Albedo responds, his tone soft and somber.
Sucrose pauses, eyes drawn to his slight frown. “Did… I say something?” She asks, fiddling with her sleeve.
“It's nothing to be concerned about. I may just be a bit lightheaded from dehydration.” Albedo shakes his head, taking the glass of water for a sip.
Sucrose nods. “Well, is your leg any better today? I can reduce the dosage of your medicine if your condition is improving."
“I’m afraid that I'm still experiencing moments of strain.” A half-truth. His leg was exceptionally better than before, but he still needed the medicine for his nerves.
Sucrose hums, mild confusion on the tip of her tongue. "Strange… The medicine should have alleviated the pain, as per instruction. As I'm not a medical professional, someone else should at least examine your leg."
Albedo stiffens. "Give it another week."
His assurance does little to wipe the frown off of Sucrose's face. She doesn't reply immediately, staring off into the distance for a moment, before returning with a warm smile. "I'll be sure to order more medicine then."
He spares her with a faint smile, before finally turning his attention back to his food. He just had to chew and swallow till nothing was left. He notices Sucrose stand but she lingers restlessly as he begins to eat, taking a slice out of the leg of the sweet madame.
"Is something wrong?" Albedo looks up as he asks.
"Um… Well, I've been meaning to tell you this, but I recently remembered something."
Albedo immediately perks up upon hearing this, almost dropping his utensils at his surprise. "That's wonderful, Sucrose. What is it?"
She fumbles a bit with her jacket before producing a flower from her inner pocket. "Here you go!"
Albedo carefully takes it from her by the stem. "A windwheel aster…?"
She nods. "Yes, well, you see… I saw visions of myself frequently picking these flowers."
Albedo falls mute. That didn't make any sense. Sucrose had never picked windwheel asters. Albedo had always been the one to give it to her—
"I thought maybe you could tell me what they mean?" Her eyes are wide with curiosity but she quickly catches onto his confusion. "What is wrong?"
Albedo clears his throat. Maybe she was mistaken. Her recall is still hazy. "... These were your favorite."
She claps her hands together. "I suppose that's why I often picked them. They look quite like the windmills around Mondstadt. I can still see the appeal."
When Sucrose takes her leave, the echo of the door shutting close hushes every other noise seeping in from the outside as she leaves. The air is still, that Albedo almost feels as if everything around him, including himself, has frozen in time.
The windwheel asters… It was a mistake. Albedo assures himself. Sucrose must have phrased it wrong or seen it wrong.
He finally moves to lean back against the pillow at his headrest, and the breath he lets out finally makes time flow through again. From his bed, Albedo reaches for the last drawer of his bedside table, as he did last night. Now that it was daytime, he peeks into the disarray of flasks that occupies its space. Half were filled with the same indigo-colored fluid, and he takes an empty one to transfer a portion of his medicine. The rest, he downs in a quick second.
It’s the toes of his right foot that start to numb first, then it's his hands, then his face. He takes it in all at once and he feels like he's floating. The pressure in his bones and the weight on his chest dissipate.
He feels like he can disappear at any moment now.
How he wishes he could.