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There is a bitter familiarity in the message that Alice leaves for Klee. Albedo often reads into things, far too deeply for his own good sometimes, and he finds the tone of a sad farewell in Alice’s recorded voice that no one else seems to catch.
Albedo knows what a parent’s goodbye sounds like. Rhinedottir hadn’t been his mother, not really , but the word “mom” had almost slipped through lead teeth more than once in his time as their apprentice. It’s a bitter memory for him, something that makes him flinch in embarrassment. But he can’t help revisiting it in moments like these, when his mind is caught in the throes of family and the like.
Alice tells Klee, “You are of a race blessed with longevity. For us, time is like a gust of wind, and moments come and end.” Albedo does not like thinking of this for too long. It’s something he has known about Klee for a while already, a fact branded into his cranium and begging to be addressed. Him and Klee are alike, much too alike for Klee’s own good. Albedo is a lonely being, a lonely creation, and he knows this very well. He does not want Klee to face the many things he has faced before: the abandonment of a guardian, the passing of people he’s loved, the witnessing of corruption in ones close to him.
He knows how this will end, with this city in flames and his palms damp with blood and sweat, a history of crafted humanhood pushed aside simply for the sake of fulfilling a legacy. Albedo’s corruption is inevitable, and this is another bitter fact that he hates thinking about. He hopes, though, that he will end this temporary chapter of his life with his sister still in his grasp; hands linked together, tight and tentative, eyes damp with tears. His time will end in destruction, but he has years before it will succumb to it. He has time. Klee has time. They both have far too much of it.
And so, Albedo cannot find it in himself to resent Alice. He has little doubt that she must know the truth about him, and in this knowledge she must have figured out that he is by far the best person to appoint as Klee’s guardian. “Blessed with longevity”--that is what he is, and that is what Klee is. Alice is a keen woman. She does not make decisions on a whim. No doubt, she has thought about this through and through, and must know more about Albedo than he thought she did at first.
He will protect Klee. It is a duty he holds close to him--closer than the final assignment that Rhinedottir had given him before their departure. Even in the ruins of the city that he has found a home in, he will wipe his hands clean of blood and ash, and reach out to hold Klee tightly. He will shield her eyes from the fire and the bloodshed and cover her ears so that the screams are muffled, and he will make sure her socks are still clean and tucked neatly into her shoes.
Albedo has many jobs, and many legacies from many places, but Klee is a permanent fixture in his life that will not easily dissipate. He knows this well.
“Albedo!” He hears Klee’s voice shout from close beside him, and he is snapped out of his dreadful line of thought. She is beaming at him, a conch shell held in her hands, pale blue and glimmering with tales echoing quietly from within. “Look what I found,” she says, quieter this time. “It’s really pretty, and if you hold it up to your ear, you can-- here, listen to it!”
She holds it up to Albedo’s ear as he leans down to reach it, and the alchemist hears the echoes of lost tales flow from the curves of the shell. It is familiar, oddly so, and he lets himself listen to Klee’s mutterings about collecting all the shells she had found scattered around the islands.
“We should go in the water,” she declares after a moment of mindless rambling. “Mommy used to take me to the lakes in Mondstadt. Not for fishy-blasting, but to dip our feet in the water and splash around, and it was super fun! And I wanna do it again, but it’s boring to do it alone, so…” Klee turns to face Albedo, a hopeful look in her eyes and in the curve of her mouth. “Can you come with me? Please!”
And he smiles. He smiles and laughs quietly and nods his head, pushing himself up to stand and face the water. “Of course, Klee,” he says, with the same familial warmth that always lines his tone whenever he speaks to her. “Take your shoes and socks off, we don’t want them to get wet.”
And when they step into the water, with bare feet and bare calves, Albedo feels strikingly human. There is a freeness in the water unlike anything he’s felt before. Sand digs itself into the gaps between his toes and floods around his feet, mixed with cold salty water.
This is human. This is free. He looks down at his sister, who splashes her hands in the water and shrieks with laughter. This is home.