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“Albedo!”
He nearly drops his pencil, whirling around just in time to catch a handful of excited Klee. His clipboard clatters to the ground as he moves to steady her in his arms, careful not to drop the girl. Not because she was fragile, she was Alice’s daughter after all, but because he wasn’t sure exactly how many bombs she had on her person, and he would really prefer not having to set up his lab just as he was getting used to it.
“Klee,” he says, nodding down at her in acknowledgement. “What brings you to the laboratory this early in the morning? Did your Dodoco blow up the bed again?”
It’s not an outlandish question. In the month that he’s spent in Mondstadt, there have been several Klee-related explosive incidents that have required his attention, since she seems to have latched onto him in the short time they’ve known each other. Albedo is equal parts amused and exasperated by all of this.
(There’s another part ‘warm-emotion-that-he-can’t-quite-place’, but it’s unbefitting of him to include inexact variables in an equation, so he disregards it.)
“No!” Klee shakes her head enthusiastically. “Mom already fixed that!”
She stops before she finishes speaking, looking up at him expectantly with an expression that he’s come to learn is her asking him to read her thoughts with his ‘mind powers’. In actuality, it’s plain logic, but he supposes that even that much is magic to a child of her age.
“Hmm,” he says. He draws his hand to his mouth in faux thought. “Did you–”
“Klee wants to go to town with you today!” she bursts out, almost vibrating in excitement. Albedo tries not to smile; he’d known from the start that Klee wouldn’t have the patience to wait for him to guess. “Mom mentioned that none of the Knights have given you a tour yet, so Klee can bring you as the Spark Knight!”
He blinks, faintly surprised. “Ah, a tour? But I am already familiar with most of the city.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t experienced Klee’s Super Mega Awesome Explosive Mondstadt Tour yet!” She squirms until he lets her back onto the ground, then places her hands on her hips, beaming up at him proudly. “Klee even drew us a map!”
The ‘map’ is a crayon sketch of messy dotted lines that arc across the pamphlet he’d recently illustrated as a favor to Jean, which were intended to be for new visitors to Mondstadt. How one had gotten into Klee’s hands, he didn’t know. Many of the major landmarks are completely indecipherable; scrawled over with bright red Dodocos and four-leaf clovers.
“It’s very pretty,” he says, patting her lightly on the head.
“Klee did it during solitary confinement time!”
“Oh, is that so?” Albedo scans the paper, but after a full minute of trying to puzzle it out, he still can’t figure where they’re meant to start, go, or end at. He gives an approving hum anyway. “Well done, Klee.”
Klee bounces on the heels of her shoes. “So you’ll go on Klee’s Super Mega Awesome Explosive Mondstadt Tour?”
He glances at the stacks of partially done work and unfinished sketches piled on his desk. None of it is particularly pressing at the moment, so he can spare a day to spend with the girl. It’ll be good for him to ‘get out of the lab for once’, as Alice often tells him to.
“Alright, lead the way.”
The first section of their tour, he learns, is through the Headquarters of the Knights of Favonius itself, which explains the mess of scribbles covering the building on their map. For some reason, the majority of the time is spent with Klee introducing him to the staff, regardless of the fact that he works with them on a daily basis.
“This is Huffman! He’s kinda boring and super strict, but he gives Klee candy sometimes when he’s in a good mood.”
“That guy by the big doors is Wyratt. Don’t mess with the books or blow up stuff inside the library or else he gets scary and grumpy…”
Eventually, they reach the door to the Grandmaster’s Office, and Klee pulls him in by the arm. She‘s strong for a little girl.
“This is Jean,” she tells him with the utmost seriousness, as if she’s introducing him to Barbatos himself and not his boss. “She’s the biggest boss of the Knights and why you have to behave, or else she’ll put you in solitary for forever, like Kaeya told me.”
“Hello, Jean,” Albedo says. He waves politely with his free hand.
Jean glances up from her paperwork, then double-takes. “…I see that Klee brought you along on her tour, Albedo?”
“The Super Mega Awesome Explosive Mondstadt Tour!” Klee interjects.
“She brought you on the Super Mega Awesome Explosive Mondstadt Tour,” she amends. There’s a vaguely amused expression on her face as she repeats the words, though she quickly shoots Klee a stern look. “I hope you didn’t pull him away from his work for this, Klee. Albedo conducts highly valuable research for the Knights of Favonius.”
He shrugs loosely, gesturing above Klee’s head at the vice-grip she has him in. Jean’s face twists in mild sympathy.
“Albedo said he wanted to.” Klee pouts. “Klee asked this time!”
“You did?” A questioning look directed at him.
“In a manner of speaking.”
“…and you’re sure you want to go outside?”
Albedo thinks that he really has to get out more if Jean’s that shocked at him wanting to leave. Sure, he’s spent the past month in the lab except for meals and rare outings, but still. “I am.”
“Well, okay then.” She sighs, neatening the stack of documents she’d been going through during their conversation. Albedo has to commend her multitasking abilities. “If you want to, there’s no problem with taking a break once in a while. It’ll be good to have someone watching over Klee today, anyways; everyone else is busy. Keep her from committing overly extensive property damage, please.”
“I’ll do my best,” he says, which is all one can do when faced with Klee and property damage. The two are a familiar combination in Mondstadt.
Klee shifts in place, already looking bored at their ‘grown-up talk’ despite being the one to have initiated it in the first place. The second he finishes his sentence, she tugs on his sleeve insistently. “Albedo, come on! We have to hurry or we won’t visit everywhere before the day ends!”
“Say goodbye first, Klee,” he says. He and the rest of the Knights (excluding Kaeya) have been trying to teach her manners, but it seems to be a futile endeavor. Children can be a lot more stubborn and difficult to deal with than hilichurls or Treasure Hoarders, and a great deal more troublesome, since it was generally frowned upon to address the problem with brute force.
His reminder falls on deaf ears; she’s already halfway through the doorway. Albedo nods in farewell to Jean then turns to follow her out with a faint smile.
“Albedo, I’m hungry,” Klee whines once they reach the city plaza. He stops just before running into her, barely catching himself on a bench.
He raises an eyebrow. “Why didn’t you eat breakfast?”
“I wasn’t hungry then,” she says, pouting, “and I was too excited about getting to play with you for the whole day! I couldn’t even eat Noelle’s pancakes…”
“Well, we can take a break for brunch, I suppose.” Albedo looks away, unable to scold her for her lack of foresight when she put it that way. Teaching her precautionary measures could wait for another day. “Good Hunter isn’t far from here. I hear they have a special deal running for children’s meals.”
Klee pulls out her map, then grins up at him. “Alright, Albedo, Good Hunter’s our next stop! Follow Spark Knight Klee so you don’t get lost!”
He refrains from mentioning that he regularly goes there for his meals, instead obediently tagging along behind the skipping girl. People walking in the streets turn to look at them, though most of it is likely remaining wariness from Klee’s recent accident, which levelled a small hill behind the walls. Even then, most of their gazes are fond.
“Hi,” Klee greets cheerfully once they arrive at the Good Hunter, the top of her head barely reaching the counter. “Can we have food?”
Sara looks pleased in the way most people do when they see Klee unless she’s carrying a Jumpy Dumpty. It must be the appeal of being a very small and very cute child, he thinks, but he doesn’t really have room to judge.
“Of course you can, Klee,” she says. “What do you both want to eat? We’re having a special on Satisfying Salads, if you’re both interested.”
“Eww, no,” she complains, “Klee doesn't wanna eat veggies.”
“They’re good for you,” Albedo tells her. “Vegetables contain many important nutrients and vitamins that you need to grow.” He lifts his head to look at Sara, who’s watching them both amusedly. “We’ll have two Satisfying Salads–”
“Albedo!”
“–and one Mint Jelly,” he finishes.
Klee perks up immediately, earlier displeasure gone in a flash. “Dessert?”
“If you behave while eating,” he says, though she’s getting it either way since he’s already ordered and paid, not that he’s about to let her know that. She hadn’t been paying attention to any part of their transaction, anyway, and he doubted that she actually fully understood the concept of money. At least not that he knew of, judging by the bills of gunpowder that lined Jean's desk at all times.
They eat quickly, at Klee’s own urging. She reminds him through mouthfuls of food that they still have a lot of ground to cover during their remaining time, cheeks puffed out like a small chipmunk. Albedo finishes his meal quickly and spends most of his time trying to get her to finish her plate.
“We’re not leaving until you finish your plate,” he gently chides. “The faster you eat your tomatoes, the faster we can get back to the tour.”
“The Super Mega Awesome Explosive Mondstadt Tour,” Klee says, swallowing another bite with an exaggeratedly disgusted expression, then following it up with a large portion of Mint Jelly. He’d ended up having to order an extra serving of the sweet just to get her to finish the salad.
Albedo wipes the area around her mouth with a napkin. “Yes, the Super Mega Awesome Explosive Mondstadt Tour.”
“Albedo, Klee thinks we’re lost,” Klee said.
Albedo glances up from where he’d been sketching a particularly interesting Sweet Flower. He decides to play ignorant, because he had indeed warned her that they were going the wrong way. “Are we? I thought we were using the map.”
“We were!” She peers closely at the map; they’d been heading for Starfell Lake, but he didn’t think they were anywhere close, due to the lack of any bodies of water nearby. Not only that, but they’d gone in the wrong direction from the get-go. When they’d left Mondstadt, they’d taken the southern road to Dragonspine instead of the northern one to Starfell Lake. “But Klee got distracted looking at a bird, so we ended up going off track…”
She droops, expression reminiscent of a kicked puppy that’s been trampled by a horde of hilichurls then used as target practice for Amber. He immediately regrets his earlier decision.
Albedo purses his lips. “It’s alright, Klee,” he says, brushing off his pants and coat as he stands. He pats her on the head reassuringly, which seems to cheer her up a little. “I think I know where we are. It won’t take us long to get back on track.”
“Sorry,” she says guiltily.
“Don’t worry.” Albedo takes the map from her. It gives him absolutely no information, since most of the roads are colored over with red crayon, but she looks happy to be useful. “Hmm, I think that if we just turn around from here and keep walking, we’ll get there soon.”
“Really?” she asks, looking up at him with wide eyes, as if he’d just performed a miracle or given her gunpowder, both likely equally impressive in her eyes.
“Really,” he confirms.
At that, she brightens back to the usual lively Klee. “Great! Let’s get going, Klee wants to show you something at the lake!”
“What do you want to show me?” he asks as he hurries to catch up with her. It doesn’t take him long to; no matter how fast Klee can run, her legs are still a great deal shorter than his. It’s a welcome observation, since he’s unused to being taller than other people.
“It’s a surprise,” she says, “and Klee can’t tell you, cause then it won’t be a surprise!”
He tries not to laugh at her circular reasoning, instead reaching out to steady her before she trips on a rock. Seconds later, she almost falls again. Then again. Enthusiasm seems to be far more efficacious at disorienting than any sort of alcohol, he thinks, or perhaps it’s just Klee.
“I can carry you if you want,” he offers. “It’ll be faster.”
She stops, nodding so eagerly he worries that her head will fall off. “Klee wants to be tall!”
Albedo crouches down. Small arms wrap tightly around his neck as he moves to support her legs at his sides, Klee giggling all the while. The soles of her shoes dig into the heels of his palms, but thankfully he’d stopped her from walking into pigeon dung earlier or else he might have dropped her.
“Ready?” he asks. She lets out an affirmative noise, face pressed into his hair, no doubt messing it up more than it already is.
Slowly and very, very cautiously, he stands. Though the extra weight is strange, it’s made bearable by the excited shrieks he hears above him. He’s extremely careful not to drop the girl, because while it was true that she was unlikely to get injured by such a short fall, he didn’t think he could ever forgive himself if she was.
When they reach the lake, Klee jumps off his back and towards the water, shouting something at him that he can’t quite make out. His legs had started cramping about half the way there (he was an alchemist, not an athlete), but he somewhat misses the contact.
He wonders, for a second, why he thinks that.
In that second, thundering explosions fill the air, and he remembers that leaving Klee unsupervised, even if only for a short, self-contemplative second, is a horrible mistake that he should have known better not to commit.
“Klee?” he asks cautiously, approaching the large, thick cloud of fog that now surrounds the lake. He’s not sure exactly what happened, but it doesn’t take a genius like him to puzzle out that Klee plus the bombs she had definitely snuck in plus a body of water did not form a safe combination.
Albedo prays that she had ended up unharmed by the aftermath.
Luckily, his fears are assuaged moments later when a small, familiar body comes barrelling towards him, tackling him to the ground.
“Look!” she says, as if she wasn’t in trouble for blowing up Starfell Lake and severely worrying him, shoving a charred, dead fish into his face. “Look, Albedo, it’s a fish!”
“I… can see that,” he says. He’s in shock, he thinks, as he takes the still-slimy carcass from her hands.
“Do you like it?” She’s practically vibrating in excitement.
He doesn’t have it in him to say no, so he blankly nods.
Klee lets out a glee-filled noise, pulling them both up and dragging him over to the still smoking water. There are a few more fish scattered around the lakeside. “I knew you’d like it, Mom said you would too! C’mon, if we start bombing more fish now, Jean won’t notice until later!”
“I,” he says. Part of him wants to tell her no, but he doesn’t think his heart can take her disappointment after the recent shock it’s been through. “…if you lay the bomb here, the shock waves will hit more fish.”
Her eyes widen, then, “Yay! You’re the best big brother ever!”
The words run through his veins as warm as his own blood, giving him a high that not even spending the rest of the afternoon setting up explosives does. At the end of the day, even as Jean scolds Klee for ruining the lake ecosystem yet again and him for enabling her, he can’t find it within himself to regret anything.
After all, only the best for his little sister.