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A tree sprouts from a seed, with time, it grows. Its roots stretch out, it gets taller, stronger. Branches spread out too. They deploy small leaves from their ends. The tree survives the seasons, it sits still, watching the other plants come and go. It loses leaves, it gains some more, but it stays. It survives. Through rain and through heat, through days and through years, the tree stands still, almost unchanged.
They planted flowers, right at the base of the tree. First cecelias, then calla lilies. The tree watched the flowers as they came and went as well. Windwheel asters, snapdragons, lamp grass. The tree remained.
Kaeya loves the tree, and he tells Albedo often. He likes the flowers too, but he knows they’ll be gone soon enough, that only the thick trunk of the tree and the branches that shade them during summer days will remain.
Longevity and affections are linked, apparently. We love better the things that stay. Kaeya caresses the trunk of the tree. He’s proud that he’s seen it grow and he’s proud that it will continue to do so.
They sit under the tree sometimes, after work when it’s more early morning than late night, and they are doing it now. Albedo leaning on the cavalry captain’s shoulder.
Kaeya holds his hand. He’s safe, he realises for what feels like the billionth time. The sun is shining above him and the wind is a gentle breeze. Kaeya’s voice is gentle as well when he breaks the silence.
“Wouldn’t it be nice,” he squeezes the alchemist’s hand twice. “Growing old together.”
Albedo inhales the smell of violet grass and thinks about it, considers it. Because Kaeya’s words always deserve to be thoroughly considered.
“I would love that,” But chalk doesn’t grow old. Not in the way humans do. It’s a truth he cannot deny as he sits and imagines what the future entails for them.
There are plants in the garden, but there’s also a rock, big and greyish. It has been here before them, even before the tree. It has remained, immuable, when Diluc helped Kaeya build the shack where they store their gardening tools. In an old painting of Mondstadt, the rock has been there too, staring at Albedo mockingly, reminding him of their shared nature.
“But,” he continues. From the corner of his eye he catches the sight of a small black velvet box in Kaeya’s unoccupied hand. “I don’t think it’s something I could do.”
Their love is bound to be a tragedy and only two things can happen. Either he dies, of corruption or of something else, and his meaningless existence ends sooner than it should have. Or worse, he survives. He survives Mondstadt, he survives Kaeya, and his unaltered body goes on, centuries after all the people he cherishes become but a timeworn memory.
“Oh,” Kaeya visibly freezes and Albedo doesn’t know how but he wants to wipe that troubled expression from his face.
“Are you alright?”
“I, uhm, yes- I mean, yes, of course.” The black box disappears and Kaeya straightens his back.
There is time. There is still time, he thinks. Kaeya is in his twenties, not even halfway through his lifespan. For the moment, they can have this. And Albedo will make sure to have this until he can’t anymore.
“Kaeya, let me braid your hair.”
Kaeya’s hair flows on his back as Albedo takes it out of its ponytail. It’s blue and beautiful and long. Longer than last time, he notes. He runs his fingers through it, delicately, and tries not to think about the dead petals scattered around the garden’s ground.
//
There is no time. And Klee is a reminder of it.
Once a week Albedo has his schedule cleared off to spend time with his sister. Today, she leads him into Starsnatch Cliff, where they pick cecilias.
Lately they’ve been fishblasting less, and promenading more.
“You’ve grown a lot, Klee,” he remarks. A lot. Too much. Too fast. It’s scary. It feels like just yesterday she was coming to him crying, after Jean scolded her for blasting another waterbody.
Her hair has become wavy, she doesn’t fit into her old dress anymore. She carries a satchel instead of her backpack.
“Of course, I’m a big girl now!” She smiles brightly at him, she’s missing a tooth. “You haven’t changed at all though, big brother Albedo!”
Of course he hasn’t. Not noticeably at least. No one perceives the changes of a mountain. It’s always the same. The same coat, the same hairstyle. The same routine between Dragonspine and Mondstadt.
“But you’ve been smiling a lot more lately!”
He brings a hand to his mouth, as if he’ll find a proof contradicting what she just said. “Have I?”
“Yes! Ever since you started hanging out with Kaeya, I can tell you’re a lot happier.”
The sun dips into the horizon and they know it’s time to go back.
“I hope you’ll still play with me when you’re all old and wrinkly.”
“... Of course, Klee.”
//
“I can’t grow old.”
Kaeya looks up to him from where he’s cooking dinner. A simple salad with fisherman’s toast on the side, he knows Albedo doesn’t like eating too much.
“There will come a day when Klee appears older than me.” There will come a day when Albedo’s actual monstrosity becomes all too plain to the citizens of Monstadt. Strange. He’s always been strange. And in no time his strangeness will be singled out and he knows he’ll crumble under the accusatory stares of those who bear the title of humans.
“What will we do, then, when people start to get scared because my appearance hasn’t changed in years, while you and the other knight get worn out by time?”
A year of Kaeya’s life isn’t like a year of Albedo’s. He feels guilty, all the time, for stealing from him such important years. Albedo’s existed for so long, time means nothing to him.
Kaeya is a flower while Albedo is a tree.
The cavalry captain crosses the kitchen to him and places a reassuring hand on Albedo’s cheek, soft and cool. “I don’t think the people will care, my love. Look how accepting they’ve been of the traveller, of the bard and his giant dragon, of Sucrose’s unique ears. They’re not even surprised by Alice’s antics anymore.” A thumb smoothes the line under Albedo’s eye. “I don’t believe an immortal alchemist would faze them that much.”
“But it will pain me. Greatly so. When I look at you and all I see is the fact that you are ageing while I cannot. When your humanity reflects the lack of mine. I’m not sure I can take it.” His panic must have been audible in his voice, because he sees it reflected in Kaeya’s eye.
“We’ll find a way, I’ll ask Venti, I’ll find something. We will find a way.” On rare occasions such as this one, Albedo likes the sound of Kaeya’s lies. And he lets them divert him.
“If you can’t age then I won’t either. I’ll- I’ll dye my hair, I’ll wear makeup. I don’t care what it takes. This way Mondstadt will have two unageing immortals.”
“If we can’t have our happily ever after, we can at least pretend.” Lies, lies, lies. Beautiful lies that enthral the heart, challenge reason.
“Kaeya, you’re a genius,” he grabs his hand and perhaps grips it a little too tight from the way Kaeya audibly winces. “I don’t necessarily need to age, I can simply appear like I did!”
“Do you mean..?”
“I am a being of Khemia after all, a little alchemy is all that’s needed for me to appear older.”
And he knows it’s not a solution. He knows that Kaeya will wither away soon enough, that all this time, their love has been fated to end a tragedy.
“That way, though we cannot technically ‘grow old together’, we can have our version of it.”
He tries not to think about it, the end of Kaeya’s lifespan. When his hair, turned silver, will fall off gradually and each breath will become a painful one. All he hopes is that they can return to the earth together, buried in the same dirt Albedo was made of. One dead, the other pretending.
The black velvet box reappears in Kaeya's hand, this time his expression is soft and fragile.
“Then, my dear and beloved Albedo, will you marry me?”
//
When Kaeya gets his first white hair, his first wrinkle, they both know it is time.
He had all the ingredients at the ready specifically for this moment. He pours them into a cauldron and heats them over the fire.
The liquid turns golden as he mixes it. It thickens and it smells of earth. Albedo knows it means it’s almost ready. With one move of his knife, Kaeya makes blood droplets fall from his finger and into the cauldron. Albedo mixes its content once more, watches the way it boils, and turns off the heat. He’s ready for it, he’ll change as many times as he has to, altering his being to his core, moulding his body like clay with water. He knows deep down it’s nothing but a flimsy game of pretend, that he’ll exist for millennia while a ticking clock looms over Kaeya’s head. He can’t think about that for now. He has to make the most of this instant. Love at all is enough, he thinks.
And Kaeya holds his hand when he drinks.