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When he first arrived in Mondstadt, the architecture captured his interest for a few short moments.
Albedo is not one to typically keep focus on anything other than his alchemical work, but he did note the intricate wood detailing on the houses about the city, the craftsmanship of the bricks in the wall around the populace, the perfectly carved statues and the cobblestones askew from years of wear. Charming indeed, but the city was not his focus; he had only a task from his master to complete, and he sought to complete it swiftly and without fail.
Find the truth and meaning of this world.
Days, then weeks, then months had passed, and he was no closer to reaching his goal, nor had his master made any moves to return, and so he had succumbed to… Alice had called it a sort of "depression," but he remains unsure if that is the appropriate term, or if he would consider it closer to a mild disillusionment.
Nonetheless, Albedo remains here, in the city of Mondstadt, surrounded by wood and brick facades, crooked roads, stone stairways and fresh fountains.
Albedo, in his fatigue from working for literal months on end, has finally decided to take some time away from his alchemical lab. Considering the Acting Grand Master told him to please, just take a walk outside or something, and considering how infamous she is for her rather excessive duty to her work, he's decided perhaps he should follow her advice.
It has, after all, been quite some time since he's last had a spare moment to pursue his hobby.
As an alchemist - one who practices Khemia, no less - he is able to bring forth life from his artwork, but that does require a certain degree of skill for the earth to recognize the illustration as something worthy of being, to take paper and charcoal and create from it the same vitality that comes from soil and chalk. As such, he's well versed in a rather scientific style of drawing, realism at its finest. He typically does not draw things that already do exist, though, unless they capture his interest. Things of interest tend to be whatever he deems them to be of use to his final task, or if they simply keep his attention long enough that he can finish a sketch.
The statue outside the cathedral looks quite radiant at this golden hour.
Golden. Chalk pursues gold.
But this hobby of his, he realizes, as he flicks his brush across his canvas, is no golden influence, no pursuit for the sake of his master. It is merely a habit he developed parallel yet independent of her. Outside of his research… well, it is something he enjoys, simple as that.
It's not necessarily the "walk" Master Jean had suggested, but he is outside, and so, he thinks this should satisfy her.
Even with the distance between master alchemist and homunculus, Albedo still feels compelled to follow orders in some way or another; it is what he was made for, after all. The habit has been slowly dying, though. He wonders if it's for better or for worse that he must now rely on self-control.
He wonders if he should mix a touch more orange dye into his paint to match the sky above, or if the reddish hue will fade to an acceptable color.
Albedo gently blows on the canvas, urging the watercolor to dry, and from behind comes a breeze of wind, as if Barbatos himself were watching and curious to see the final product, precious sunset beyond the massive effigy of the Anemo Archon.
"...a little more orange."
"Is there anything the knights can do for you, sir?"
Albedo is not surprised when the knights do not recognize him; they had been told of a new Chief Alchemist, yes, but Albedo himself is rather reclusive, and so it is not unusual for someone to see him and not quite recognize him as a knight, even when Varka had so kindly gifted him a uniform that should be easily identifiable to any Knight of Favonius.
So inefficient, a certain Master Diluc had said to him once before. Albedo had shrugged it off, but does find a bit of truth to the statement. For all they can do, the knights are sometimes a bit… ah, never mind it.
"E-Excuse me, sir?"
"Oh?"
Albedo has been drawing the knight, keen on taking in the man's contours, the way the shadows fall across his nose and over his brow, the particular shape of his eyes and the flow of his hair, but he has not… really registered that he has, indeed, been staring.
Don't stare, Albedo. That makes people uncomfortable.
Ah, right. He'll have to apologize to Alice later.
"Is… there something I can do for you?"
"Oh, not at all. Simply being my subject for today is plenty enough."
It… takes a minute for him to realize that probably didn't sound right. Just pretend to be human, Alice requested, and once again he finds that objective much more taxing than finding the truth and meaning of this world.
"Rather, um…" Yes, the other knight looks a fair bit perturbed, and so Albedo, a bit panicked and a bit flustered (emotions he never had to deal with when he studied with his master), simply points to his sketchbook, and that seems to be enough of an explanation.
"O-Oh! Oh," the knight chuckles, "I-I see, yes, that… does make more sense." More, implying he thought something else of Albedo's statement. "Are you from Mondstadt, sir? I don't think I've seen you in town on my rounds before."
Flustered, confused, lost. So difficult to handle are the emotions he never had to feel when he was with his master.
"I came to Mondstadt recently, some months back. I… haven't been about the city very often. Busy."
So difficult to handle are the relationships he never had to think about when he was with his master.
To act, and not to think. To do, but not to control. He wonders if he even has control, or if he is a ship without a pilot, navigating the seas of humanity by the whims of the wind more so than any sails or captains.
"I see," the knight nods and grins amiably, and Albedo does not respond, so the knight continues. "A few months, you say? I'd almost think you worked for the hunters out in Springvale, but you don't look dressed to hunt…"
A new meeting, new face, one he's studying through art over proper eye contact or social bonds. Social bonds, social norms… he should at least introduce himself, perhaps.
"I am Albedo," he says, and adds his new title, not so foreign to him as the day it was bestowed onto him, "Chief Alchemist of the Knights of Favonius."
"Oh - oh! It's a pleasure to meet you, sir! Captain Kaeya told me a bit about you," of course he did, "but, well, this is my first time actually meeting you, hahah. You've been busy, then?"
"Indeed." A rather strong jaw, a shadow from where the hair at his scalp rises up into a wave and drapes down the side of his face, sits just above his eye. "I've been preoccupied with my - a project for the knights," don't say "your master's task," Albedo, I don't know if they're supposed to know that you're… "and as such, I haven't had the time for much else."
"I can only imagine," the knight nods. "Timaeus mentioned that you're just as bad as Master Jean when it comes to burning the candle at both ends."
He smiles, and the contours of his face shift, subtle dimples at his cheeks and the subtlest crows feet at the corners of his eyes; he must smile often, Albedo concludes.
"...ah, um," the man continues to speak as Albedo continues to sketch him, shading the part of his hair, the sharp line of his jaw, "I never introduced myself, did I? My apologies; my name's Huffman, a guard for the city of Mondstadt. Pleasure to meet you, fellow colleague."
"Mm." But that is not so pleasant a reply. "Pleased to make your acquaintance. You've made for a wonderful subject today."
Before Albedo leaves to return to his work, he skillfully tears the page from his sketchbook and offers it to Huffman, as a sort of peace offering for his behavior.
Hufman is not so off-put when Albedo stares him down next time.
"So, I hear you've been drawing some of the knights in your spare time, have you?"
Somehow, Kaeya always finds his way to Albedo.
"Indeed I have," he answers, not even looking up from his work, and Kaeya approaches with a low chuckle. He always sounds a bit… dare Albedo call it ominous? The smooth words and the rolling tone of his voice often lull people into some sense of security, but Albedo can't help but feel it's a false security.
It takes one to know one, after all. He cannot guarantee that he will not, one day, lose control.
(If he is in control at all.)
"I have to say," Kaeya hums, perching himself in front of Albedo's work desk, "I'm a little offended that you have yet to draw me. Dare I even say, you've wounded this poor Cavalry Captain's soul…"
Always so dramatic, this one. "Dare I even say, I would only need three strokes to draw you."
"O-ho?" Kaeya sounds amused, and Albedo feels him lean closer. He's not sure what Kaeya seems to see in him, why he takes this… almost flirtatious persona and turns it against him so readily. If it's any sort of genuine interest, he's out of luck. Relationships of even the platonic variety are far too taxing.
...then again, Kaeya is often like this. Maybe he just does this to everyone.
"Here." Albedo pulls one of his data sheets aside from the stack and looks up at Kaeya, pencil in hand, and without so much as looking at the sketch, he rounds out the very essence of the man amidst lines of numbers and experiment notes. "Capturing the features that make you recognizable is actually a fairly unimpressive feat. I need only one stroke for the face, one for the eyepatch string… and one for the eyepatch."
"Hm." He can't tell if Kaeya is offended or not. "Surely, you can do better than that."
"Oh, of course," Albedo answers. "However, you are immediately recognizable as you from a sketch like this. Unless, of course, you know of another person in Mondstadt who wears an eyepatch over their right eye."
Kaeya seems to be examining Albedo's research this time, and Albedo, not knowing whether his research should or should not be seen by someone else branded with a symbol of Khaenri'ah, pulls the paper unceremoniously back into the stack.
"I will say," Albedo continues, "that it's actually quite an honor that I can draw you so quickly. You are quite… recognizable."
Kaeya stares at Albedo for a moment longer, which Albedo was instructed not to do, but when Kaeya stares, suddenly it's all well and good and human, and he just… doesn't understand these semantics yet. How frustrating.
"What's on your mind?" Albedo ventures to ask.
"Nothing of particular interest," Kaeya answers, then adds something of particular interest. "As per your comments to me upon our first encounter, I almost expected you to use one stroke for the star in my eye, rather than the eye patch. If I were as talented an artist as you, I could draw you in three strokes, as well."
That starred eye twinkles like the night sky.
"One for the face," Kaeya purrs, "one for that tuft of hair between your eyes… and one for the star on your neck."
"Oh, no. You wouldn't draw that," Albedo replies, "just as I wouldn't draw the star in your eye."
"Oh? And why ever not, my most artistic alchemist?"
"Because the average citizen of Mondstadt doesn't notice our stars."
"Mm… are you implying you paid closer attention to me than the rest of the crowd? I have to say, I'm quite flattered! I'll even forgive you for not having taken the time to properly draw me."
"What do you mean? That was a proper drawing."
Kaeya laughs, warm and sultry, like wine. Delectable in healthy doses, lethal in large quantities. He wonders how much Mondstadt will drink of the captain before he poisons them all.
Wonders, too, how much Mondstadt can take of its newfound Kreideprinz before he succumbs to his fate.
(Albedo wonders if Kaeya circumvented his fate, remaining here as a living, breathing Khaenri'an, when the gods wanted to strike them all down. Wonders if he, too, can circumvent his own fate.)
(But chalk pursues gold.)
"I just have a few more genomes to breed, then I can begin the real part of the experiment."
"Is the breeding of genomes not as important as the study of them, though?"
"I-It is, but… mm…"
Sucrose is a peculiar person.
Relationships are quite troublesome, a taxing affair indeed, but as it were, she seems to feel the same as he does, and as it were, that makes the relation between the two of them really quite easy. Alice's motherly affection when he does not quite see her as a mother, Kaeya's generally flirtatious nature to his rather indifferent one, the absolute regularity of the other knights to his abnormality… it is the inequity of relationships that makes them so difficult, he's found, or perhaps he's simply becoming something undeniably else now that he's been so distant from his master for so long. He wonders if he would have blended in if he had still been with his master today.
As to what he is alone, though, he is… unsure. If he is not a homunculus made to serve his master, and not a son to the mage, not a human in a city of humans, he cannot say with any certainty what identity he has or even what purpose he holds.
He can say, with any certainty, that he is an alchemist. He can compare himself to Sucrose, and while neither of them are anywhere near the level of expertise as his master, they are on par with one another. If she is identified as a self-driven alchemist, perhaps he too is the very same breed. A different genome of the same plant, perhaps.
Perhaps that is why he thinks her peculiar in the first place. She is organic, and he is not, and yet they are rather alike.
(As to whether she is less human than other humans, or if he is more human than a homunculus should be, he'll never know.)
"I want to see what happens to the genomes, though. This kind of fertilizer - I-I've been working on it for awhile, now, a-and it's been reacting consistently enough that I think I can use it as a control substance now - it'll act like an accelerator for horticultural use," Sucrose explains. "Some of the farmers over in Springvale were complaining about the soil not being as rich in nutrients, s-since they've spent so much time farming there. While I, um… haven't had a lot of success in reinvigorating the soil," she admits, "I-I think this potion could be a work-around for now!"
"For now?" he asks, not even looking up from his sketchbook, and he does not have to, for she does not look away from her carrot samples, and so the lack of eye contact is cordial.
"I-It's a bit of a time sensitive issue," she sighs, "so I can't keep working on the reinvigoration experiments without leaving the farmers there without any crops to harvest. S-So, um, this is… a temporary solution, b-but I think it could have other uses, too! It seemed to revitalize some of the wilted flowers around the base of Dragonspine when I was coming up here, which means it can bring new life to plants that are nearly dead from severe elements!"
"I see."
His interest in her was, initially, this passion for bio-alchemy. A passion for life. She, whether she realizes it or not, is in pursuit of the truth of life on this world, and Albedo seeks that truth and the meaning of the world at large, and so when she deemed herself his assistant, he accepted without hesitation.
And yet… and yet.
Relationships are troublesome things, and yet he finds himself drawing her over and over, though she's often with him in this darkened cave atop Dragonspine. The lighting around her hardly changes, and her expression is always somewhere between gently pleased and utterly focused, very little variation there. Her hair is never done up and her uniform is rarely ruffled or unkempt… no, no, Sucrose always looks definitively like Sucrose. Less environmental variance than Huffman and the other knights about the city, less emotive than Kaeya, less monumental than the architecture of his new home.
Yet he finds himself drawing her on repeat, like a drunkard at a bar requesting the bard play the same song about the same winds over and over and over, for no other reason than it scratches some unidentifiable itch, that it brings about some feeling so pleasant and yet so esoteric that it can only be captured in a moment and not in words, never in words.
Though, it is even difficult to capture her in an image.
Her eyes carry a distinct glow to them; it is not a physical bioluminescence, nothing like small lamp grass, but nonetheless her gaze seems bright. The faint blue circles under her eyes betray her when she claims she's well-rested, but the way her pupils grow in the low light, how her eyes flutter open quickly after being blinded by some concoction blossoming into light unexpectedly, yes, it would be difficult to capture such an essence. Those eyes are windows to her soul, her passion, her freedom.
She styles her hair as to allow her ears to blend, and to the untrained eye she would seem quite average, but it's when she experiments here in his lab that she's given away, ears twitching in anticipation, fluttering when something explodes into a cloud of smoke and startles her, perking up when she's particularly focused… Sentiment is less often shown in her face and more often resides in her ears, he's learned.
And then there's the way she chews her lip when she's nervous, or when she fears she's disappointed him with a failed experiment, but even in her failures does he find yet another fact of life, another arrow leading him toward the truth and meaning of the world, and he tells her she's done well because she has, and she gives him this big toothy grin that he can safely assume no one else has ever seen.
And then there's the way she presses her glasses up when they slide down the bridge of her nose, or how she wrings her hands absently when faced with the bustling streets of the city of Mondstadt, and the sigh she lets out as if she's held her breath from the city walls to his lab when she finally returns with her supplies, and the way she jumps into action when she sees a bone she'd like to add to her collection, and…
He could describe it all, but it would take thousands more words than pictures. He could draw her, but it would take far more pages than his sketchbook has to capture everything that makes her who she is.
He wonders how many people actually notice her beyond her title. She is Mondstadt's harmless sweetie but she is his assistant - yet she is an alchemist of equal caliber to him, and he wonders if -
"Sometimes," he muses aloud, not necessarily to her, but she is welcome to listen, if she so chooses, "I wonder if it would be more appropriate to consider you a partner than an assistant."
"W-What?!"
Panicked, flustered, emotions she's surely dealt with before, as she is human, and ones he, inhuman, still struggles to cope with, but he knows that when they are caused, they should be felt in turn; this is the cyclical experience known as empathy. She is embarrassed for reasons beyond him and he too feels a certain flush, for he is still learning how to pretend to be human.
(Some years from now, he will realize his feelings were not emulative but genuine, and he will wonder if this was what started it all.)
"Ah…" And he knows what the term partner means to him, and it's secondary meaning in regards to relationships, yes, but those pieces have clicked too little too late. "R-Research. Research partner."
"O-Oh. Right." Her ears flutter, drooped low against her head, and she does not look at him, and he should look away, but he cannot help but capture this essence, a sort of sudden heat that he's never seen from her before. "W-Well, um… I-I'm just happy to be your assistant, Mister Albedo."
"Well," and he feels a bit breathless, as if he's sprinting without destination, "even so, I feel we are working toward a common goal, are we not? You, too, study life and its mysteries."
"W-Well… s-still… you're a lot better at this than I am, Mister - "
"Albedo. Just Albedo."
"R-Right. Albedo." The room remains quiet, her hand still on her garden trowel, his on his pencil that scrapes across the page of his sketchbook. "A-Are you drawing me again?"
He freezes, and feels a decidedly heightened sense of embarrassment.
"...perhaps."
Sucrose, still flushed, sighs. "I-I don't understand why you draw me so often."
"Ah… do I?" Has… has she noticed?
Somewhere below her own embarrassment, there's a hint of something smug in her eyes, amusement, perhaps even endearment. "You can't really think I never noticed."
"Oh." He's… not sure how to respond. She gives him a lopsided grin and he forgets what he's supposed to do in this situation.
"You're really silly sometimes, Albedo."
He realizes now what it means to feel butterflies in one's stomach, understands why people feel the need to hide their faces when they flush pink, realizes now where the sweetie in harmless sweetie comes from.
Albedo does not like to throw away his art.
It's nigh impossible to even consider. Even his worst works have their value in being examples of what went wrong, of what to avoid in the future, of what he knows and what he doesn't and how he's meant to proceed. Every drawing of every knight, and citizen and hilichurl and statue that doesn't quite look to be what it's supposed to be, they are all valuable in showing him what he does not know. Failed artwork is the pursuit of improvement. To dispose of it would be refusing to seek the truth of his subject.
It is why he's filled quite a few papers depicting one particular bard.
He's one of the best in Mondstadt, as far as… well, as far as just about everyone is concerned. He performs not for mora but for dandelion wine and apples, not for the notoriety but for the adoration of music itself, it would seem. He often performs around the taverns, of which Albedo does not frequent, but when he accompanies Kaeya he does see the bard and he hears the bard, and he finds it rather unfortunate that he cannot capture sound on a canvas.
Perhaps he should look into that, in some time. That isn't the most pressing matter for the moment.
No, the trouble that ails him today is, instead, the very fact that the bard looks so similar to the statue outside the cathedral, and it… bothers him deeply. He's been able to write it off before, presuming that maybe it was the warm shadows of the bar, or the difference in scale between bard and Barbatos.
A perspectival illusion, he told himself, or perhaps a trick of the light. That's all.
But it's now that Albedo sees the bard performing near the center of town, and from this distance, he looks to be roughly the size of the statue of Barbatos. In the setting sun, he has no shadows to blame for the potential misinterpretation of his subjects. It is, perhaps, what will finally put to rest the question that's been burning in his mind; how are these subjects different?
The answer; they are not.
Heresy, perhaps, he thinks, that the bard presents himself as if he is an archon. A god complex of sorts, or even something as simple as pure serendipity…
After all, the bard sings songs of wind, and freedom, and it supports Albedo's theory of intentional mimicry. Heresy, or perhaps the highest form of flattery.
Yet, he feels he's not quite right in that assumption.
"Say, mister, if you're gonna keep drawing me, you could at least pay me for being such a good model!"
Albedo does not look up from his sketches, observing the essence of statue and bard on the page alike, trying to determine if it is an error of his own hand and not of the world at large. Albedo does not need to look up to know it is the bard speaking, because he's listened to the bard sing for the past hour as he's been studying him.
"Unfortunately, I don't have any dandelion wine," Albedo replies, "but I can bring you a slice of apple pie tomorrow, if you would like."
"Hm…" The bard considers the offer, even his pensive hum rolling out as if it were a song. "Deal! We'll meet right back here when the sun is high, and you will deliver my apple pie!"
"Very well." A beat of silence. It is perhaps too… unusual to be so blunt, but he can't help but ask. "Has anyone ever told you that you look very much like that statue outside the cathedral?"
"Huh! You think so?" The bard turns to the statue, shielding his eyes against the sunset to get a better look at his lookalike archon, his braids echoing those of the Archon.
"Indeed. Since you seem to be local, I would only assume someone has mentioned it to you before."
"I'm just a humble bard, no more! If I were an archon, I'd have a lot more in store!" Pause. "And… probably easier access to wine. You must be new, though," this conversation again, for the reclusive alchemist, "since I don't recall seeing you running to and fro. I've always got an eye on the City of Freedom, you know!"
"I'm often busy with my work," he replies, much less articulate than the bard. "I am Albedo, Chief Alchemist of the Knights of Favonius."
"Another knight, huh? I guess that makes sense; you're all always so busy! My name is Venti. Venti the bard!"
And he has learned that eyes are the windows to the soul; Huffman's are rather ordinary, and Kaeya's carry with them the mark of a fallen land, and Sucrose's glow with an unbridled passion. It is by observing one's eyes that their intentions become clear. It was never something he had to do with his master, but now that he must make judgments of others for himself, he's gotten somewhat used to the practice. You can always tell if someone's a good egg or not when you look them in the eyes, Alice has taught him.
Albedo is, therefore, understandably perturbed when he looks into Venti's eyes and feels that something is wrong. Almost familiar, and yet they have never formally met. As if some ancient crow has passed down the knowledge of a threat to the hatchling alchemist.
"...uh, welp!" Ah. Seems he was too quiet for too long, Albedo realizes. "I'm off to go perform at Angel's Share for the evening! Come on down, if you'd like a tune! I could always use someone who'll buy me a drink or two," he adds with a cheeky wink.
But Albedo can only focus on the eyes, and his own unease, and the statue of Barbatos outside the cathedral, and the sensation that something that should not be wrong… is wrong.
It isn't until Albedo decides to sketch the Statue of the Seven on the same page that he drew the bard that it starts to click.
He does not elaborate when Sucrose asks why his sketchbook is missing some pages. He merely checks that his blade is sharpened and prepared to defend, and closes the collar of his shirt when the bard is near, lest he notice a remnant of Khaenri'ah that he did not destroy.
Albedo does not like to destroy his artwork, but he crumples those pages of the bard and feeds them to a pair of pyro slimes, and he pushes his fears to the back of his mind.
(One day, he will find himself struck with a sudden and unrelenting terror when Venti summons Dvalin so he can find his sister on some faraway archipelago, and the moment the dragon lands, he will abandon his travel companions so they do not see him hyperventilating and shaking and clutching his chest as if the dragon would slay him as it did Durin.)
Albedo does not like to destroy his artwork, but he's sick of trying and failing to draw his master from memory.
He wonders if he will ever see her again. Surely she would return if he found the truth and meaning of this world, and then he could draw her, and all would be well.
(He does not think she will ever return.)