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The starry fabric of the skies surprised the boy called Kaeya Alberich when he first arrived to the surface. Light twinkles forth from those sparkles, much different from the luminescent boughs that lit Khaenri'ah. The rest of Teyvat was wonderfully different from home, yet also strangely homely and welcoming. (Kaeya would have appreciated more it if the rest of his family could enjoy this starry world with him.)
Then came morning, as a great shock to Kaeya when he opened his eyes.
What is this brightness?? he cried as he clapped his hands over his eyes.
A voice he recognised as belonging to the man who took him in the night before. Firm hands gently gripped his shoulders. Kaeya tried to look towards this unfamiliar adult that he is told that he needs to gain the favour of. Oh no, had his cry been too loud? He peeked slowly through his fingers, forcing himself to look at the Ragnvindr noble.
Still too bright. Kaeya felt his head spin and he squeezes his eyes shut as he flops forward onto the stranger's chest.
A soothing tone, a hand patting at his head. He is not in trouble?
Another voice, female. Clacking sounds, then the rustling of cloth. A lady in a white apron had drawn the curtains, and then the light became bearable. Kaeya opens his eyes again to look at the nobleman with him.
The man spoke in a rich calming tone, words he barely understood from his tuition back home.
He was the colour of the earth: cool, familiar, comforting.
Kaeya learns that there are colours he cannot see when Master Crepus was teaching him to paint.
"What is the difference between red and brown?" he asked innocently one day, hold out two tubes of gouache to his foster father. "We use brown when talking about furniture, but red for people?"
Crepus blinks at him, puzzled. "Why would you say that, Kaeya?"
"You and Diluc's hair colour is the same as the dinner table, but we say the table is brown and your hair is red."
The older man glances over the paints and Kaeya's childish, incomplete painting thoughtfully. "Hmmm, I have heard of how some people don't see certain colours, but can't say I have ever known one personally myself..."
Kaeya shrinks back into his chair nervously. Oh no, had he asked something wrong? Has he given away his identity as a Khaenri'ahn?
His response did not go unnoticed, for Crepus ruffles the boy's hair affectionately. "Ah, don't worry about it, son. It is just a minor sight problem that some people have. Shouldn't affect you much! I'll borrow a reference book from the Favonius Library just to be sure. Well, anyway, just what are you painting this time?"
"Umm... a tree! Oh, sorry, trees aren't supposed, to be white, they're brown, so I'll use the brown colour now..." Kaeya replies haltingly, realising that he had yet made another mistake.
"And ruin that perfectly good shading? Celestia, no! Who says trees can't be white? Have you never seen the birch trees that grow around Windwail Highland?" Crepus laughs warmly. "Guess I really do need to take you out more often. Maybe we'll have an overnight camping trip one evening next week? Diluc will love it!"
Kaeya returns a smile and continues to render his tree with the white wood. Mister Crepus seemed to have noticed his sensitivity to light, and his kindness towards the outlander child is like the setting sun: Cool and comforting. While Kaeya is grateful for his consideration, he makes mental note that he would have to train himself to slowly get used to the brightness of daytime in Teyvat and walk under the sunlight. Sunlight that was never present in Khaenri'ah.
Through his new life on Teyvat, while Kaeya realises he is unable to see red, he learns what red feels like.
Red is huddling together into a thick blanket with Diluc by the warm fireplace while it pours heavily outside, listening to his brother reading him a history book about the resistance in Mondstadt.
Red is cooking together with his Mister Crepus Father in the kitchen, then serving the meat on little skewers to everyone at Dawn Winery.
Red is Diluc receiving his vision, the embodiment of the hopes and dreams of the Ragnvindr family as well as the favour of the gods, which made his father so proud that there were celebrations at the winery for a whole week.
Red is their father lecturing them about doing anything flammable near plants when Diluc accidentally set a bush on fire. And red is Adeline laughing as she suggested they train on the shore by the lake instead.
Kaeya loves red, everything about his adopted family is red and it is beautiful.
On the evening of Diluc's 18th birthday (Mister Crepus' death), the lovely Teyvatian sky lost all its red. Even though sunsets are usually red, there was no red to be found.
Kaeya did not think he would ever find red in Dawn Winery anymore.
And Kaeya realised he was wrong. Wrong about red being gone from Dawn Winery. Wrong about what red felt like.
As raging flames burst forth from the man he had grown to consider his brother engulfed him, Kaeya saw red for the first time in his life. It was beautiful colour: dazzling, vibrant, completely unlike the blues and yellows that he had only been able to see so far. He reached out a hand out to grasp at the wonderful colour (raised an arm to protect his face from the fire), and found that his arm was able to catch hold the exquisite colour for himself (the skin of his arm burnt off to reveal glossy flesh).
He laughed. Beautiful, but also incredibly intense and rather painful.
"Hmm, how curious..." Albedo ponders as he jots down notes on his file.
Several months after Diluc's departure from Mondstadt, Kaeya is seated on a wooden stool in the Alchemy Laboratory of the Knights of Favonius Headquarters, blindfolded.
The Chief Alchemist brings another petri dish in front of his face.
"A bright yellow soft circle... Oh! I know this one, it is sweet flower, isn't it? Sucrose's sample, I bet."
"Right."
Another tube.
"Little dots of greyish teal. That's salt though. I probably saw teal because that's what the sea smells like."
Albedo nods to himself. "Hmm, so the colours of the smell may not match the colour of the specimen..."
A flask.
"Ashy red, but it's swirly with pink? That's a weird smell, what is that?"
Kaeya removes his blindfold to see a purple crystal in the flask. "Huh, purple...? Oh, electro crystal! So the red I saw must have been remnants of the pyro that was used to mine it."
"I see..." Albedo puts down his file, having reached a satisfactory conclusion. "Our initial hypothesis about the serious injury curing your colourblindness has been proven untrue. Instead of suddenly being able to see red, it seems that the incident triggered in you a sort of synaesthesia, in which you would see colours and shapes when you smell things."
"Ah. Interesting! This is the first time I have learnt of such a thing. You really know about everything, Albedo."
Albedo simply smiles as he gestures to the cloth in Kaeya's hands.
"Now put that back on."
"Again? Haven't you already figured this out? I swear, if you're just being kinky... Well, okay, I don't oppose to it..." Despite his jesting, Kaeya puts the blindfold on obediently.
Albedo chuckles good-naturedly.
Kaeya hears the door creak open and little footsteps thump into the laboratory. He recognises who it is: He has heard her enough times.
"Waterdrop-shape orange, squiggly white and light blue. Is that a dessert? Awww, Albedo's treating me? How unusual!" He guesses aloud, pretending not to know that Albedo's little sister is present.
He hears a chak sound, followed by...
(Red that fills his sight completely.)
... Albedo raising his voice, "No, Klee, that's too much...!"
Fwuusshhh...... The sound of a flame being extinguished. (The red flattens into a grey line.)
Albedo sighs, "All right, you can remove that already."
Kaeya takes the blindfold off his eye and grins at Klee. "Wow! What a surprise to see you here, Klee!"
Klee has in her hands a cake with haphazardly arranged candles, with some parts of the cake toppings burnt and caramelised into black clumps and other parts covered with ice chunks, which were probably contributed by Albedo putting out the fire with a cryo potion.
"Big Brother Kaeya! Big Bro Albedo said it is your birthday!! So Happy Birthday!" the little girl bounces excitedly while Albedo helps her support the plate as the cake threatens to slide off onto the floor.
Kaeya takes the plate from her and puts it on the table. "It's a lovely cake, Klee!" He pats her on her head affectionately. "Thank you! Let's cut and eat it together?"
Klee beams at the praise. "Okay!"
It seems that Kaeya was not wrong about red feeling like family after all.