Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Get out,” says Diluc, no emotion left behind his eyes. For once, Kaeya obliges without a word. 

April 30th. In the aftermath, all Kaeya feels is numb. What started as a coming of age celebration for his beloved brother quickly turned into a massacre of everything he’s ever loved. Crepus, his second father - in many ways better than his first - died, and Kaeya felt nothing. He watched his brother strike the final blow, put their father out of his misery, and could only watch from afar. What should have been a time of grieving instead sparked a shift in the debate in his head that he had fought to suppress for years. Internal arguments mixed with the selfish guilt of not being there for his brother led him to knock on Diluc’s door and confess to it all. The anger in his brother’s eyes matched the flame of the claymore headed his way, and no signals in Kaeya’s mind told him to duck. The greatsword landed on his left collarbone, skin quickly melting to something irreparable, and Diluc seemed entirely unbothered as he lifted it up for another blow. Kaeya was on the floor now, accepting the fact that this would be the end of him, when ice met fire and saved his life. Diluc told him to leave, and he did. The storm outside was unforgiving, a sign of grief from the gods and a reminder of the very day Crepus had taken him in. Ironic, really. His second attempt at life is ending just as it started - alone in a storm, with no clue as to what’s next.

When he doesn’t think too hard about the rain, the pressure of the cool water and the sound of roaring thunder help to keep his feet on the ground and his mind at bay. He walks with no destination until darkness starts to settle in the sky and he realizes he probably needs to find a place to stay the night. Kaeya considered his options: there were plenty of people in Mondstadt who would be more than happy to let him spend the night, but there was also a recently exterminated hilichurl camp nearby, and only one of those choices involved dealing with other people. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first time he had roughed it outdoors for a night, and they didn’t have the luxury of huts in Khaenri'ah. The dark, starless sky wasn’t so different from the faded memories of his homeland, really. Those were the days of his first shot at life. Tomorrow he begins the third.

-

May 1st. When Kaeya thought the next day would be a sort of new beginning, he didn’t think it would go like this. The rain had stopped overnight as the month turned from April to May, and the sun was now shining above a typical Mondstadt blue sky. If Kaeya hadn’t lost all hope in the world, if this wasn’t his third try, maybe he would have seen it as prophetic. Light after a storm symbolizing the end of a bad chapter and a brighter future. But he was smarter than that, and 16 years of being fucked over by the gods told him the weather was nothing more than a mockery. Regardless, he has a life to be getting to, and he’s learned nothing if not that sitting around pondering nature’s metaphors won’t get him anywhere. He heads off towards the city, grabbing an apple from a nearby tree and attempting to fix his appearance in the reflection of the surrounding water. All things considered, he doesn’t look half bad - his usual hairstyle being a bit messy is every bit intentional, so in times like these he can maintain the appearance that nothing is wrong. Of course, the faded bloodstains on his clothes say otherwise, but he is a knight, so that shouldn’t seem too odd either. Yes, Kaeya thinks he’s quite ready to begin the next chapter of bottling everything about himself up. Ready to resume his endless charade, he approaches the city gates, but before he can take more than two steps inside he feels himself being whisked away by Jean.

“Jean, I-” Kaeya begins, ready to apologize for his lateness. He still doesn’t know what time it is, but he’s assuming by the way she’s dragging him through the streets that he’s late for something. Before he can finish the sentence, she’s making a sharp turn into the space between a supply building and the city wall. There’s an indent in the building where outgoing materials are sometimes stored, but today it’s empty and the perfect spot for Jean to finally let go of Kaeya’s arm and start talking.

"Where have you been?” is where she starts, stern but not unkind. Then, she gets her first real look at him, and switches to a much more worried "What happened? Are you okay?”

While Kaeya was confident his appearance was enough not to raise any alarms among the ordinary citizens of Mondstadt, Jean is a different story. He had planned on grabbing spare clothes from the knights to change into before talking to her today, but he had stupidly overlooked the possibility that she would seek him out herself. "I’m fine,” he assures her, like he always does. "After he passed, I went out for a walk to get some air, but I lost track of time so I ended up just staying the night in an old hilichurl hut.” Not a complete lie, but most certainly not the whole truth.

Jean looks dubious, glances at the new vision loosely attached to Kaeya’s belt, but she doesn’t press further. "I assume you don’t know what Diluc did last evening, then?” 

Kaeya shifts on his feet, shaking his head. Surely he wouldn’t have said anything about that, right? He has nothing to gain, not when he already has all of Mondstadt on his shoulders. They say grief can change people… 

"He quit the knights,” Jean says as if she’s been holding it in her whole life.

"What?” Kaeya doesn’t exactly know what he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t that. Not now, after Crepus had been so proud of him for it. 

“Eroch said we would have to paint his death as an accident, for reputation’s sake. Diluc wouldn’t hear it and quit on the spot. Last I've heard, he put Adelinde in charge of the winery and left in a hurry. Don’t know where he’s headed, he just left.”

Kaeya is stunned into silence. Diluc leaving? On a whim? Kaeya had always been the reckless one out of the two of them, while Diluc would think before every move. If he put Adelinde in charge, he must be serious, but where could he possibly be headed?

Kaeya’s too-fast brain is interrupted by Jean placing a hand on his shoulder. "I’m sorry about what happened to Crepus, by the way. I hope you aren’t blaming yourself for that.” she pulls him into a hug for a second before adding, "Also, you’re the new cavalry captain. So we might want to get back to headquarters.” The hug turns into a slap on the back, and Jean starts leading the two of them out of the alley and towards the knights.

Kaeya forces himself to give a smile, and pretends he’s listening as Jean talks about how Varka never takes things as seriously as she does. He knows this is her way of comforting him - trying to keep his mind off things, since they both know any attempt to talk about it further will be shut down instantly by Kaeya. And he appreciates it, really, but there’s also a voice in his head warning not to get any closer, warning that you already ruined your relationship with your brother, best to distance yourself from Jean now before you both get hurt. And then, of course, there’s the quieter afterthought, saying he’s not your brother anymore.

-

Sat at a desk far too grand, Kaeya finally takes a moment to properly process everything that’s happened in the last twenty four hours. He isn’t a stranger to this room - he’s spent plenty of nights sitting on the desk after hours, talking with Jean and Diluc about new recruits and making bets for who has to pay for lunch the next day. But that was when this was Diluc’s office, and he was just the younger brother there for comedic relief. It feels wrong, somehow, sitting in Diluc’s chair, at his desk, holding the title he worked so hard for, something their father wanted so badly. It feels worse remembering that they’re both gone now, and more so remembering that it is the very fact that they’re gone that Kaeya is sitting here in the first place. And though only this morning Kaeya recalled that pondering nature’s metaphors was a waste of time, he can’t help but feel that somewhere the gods are having a good laugh.

It’s time to reevaluate some life choices, he thinks as he mindlessly flips through the pages on the desk. He wishes he could run away from everyone and everything, but Diluc took that route before he had the chance and left Kaeya with all the responsibilities. Kaeya supposes that Diluc doesn’t have allegiance to a fallen nation to uphold, just a wine industry that can apparently be handed off to the head maid at any time. 

Kaeya doesn’t know how he should be feeling about Diluc at all, actually. They’re in quite the unique situation: it’s not every day that you reveal your conflicting loyalties to your brother following the death of your father, causing him to attempt to murder you and then quit his job and flee the country. Kaeya spent years meticulously observing social interactions in all forms, and he thinks he would have remembered that. What exactly is there to feel? If Diluc, his brother, his best friend, had spontaneously left the country two days ago, Kaeya’s sure he would have been worried, probably would have gone after him. But of course the Diluc from two days ago would have never spontaneously left the country without telling Kaeya first. 

Now Kaeya’s back at ground zero, alone without a family once more, and feeling underwhelmingly neutral about it. Crepus’ death awoke a dormant conflict in Kaeya’s head: was he truly partial to the loveless nation bestowed on his shoulders, or the one that had cared for his existence beyond use? He had anticipated Diluc’s reaction to his confession, known the possibilities and done it anyway. A part of him had welcomed it, was ready to be put out of his misery once and for all, wanted to die at the hands of his brother rather than be forced to make a choice one day that would tear him apart. But those damn gods, who Kaeya is certain by now take joy in his pain, decided to spare him at the last minute and give him a vision like some sick twisted joke, and Kaeya has finally found the meaning of a fate worse than death. A punishment, certainly, but for what? He came clean that the last decade of his life was a lie, was that it? 

And were they even? Who’s to say how much of that 6 year old Kaeya, scared of everything in a bright new world, was part of a scheme from an ancient land? How could he begin to separate the real from the fake when he himself didn’t know what the assignment was? Being the last hope of a fallen kingdom is a lot of pressure for a kid, and it doesn’t exactly come with an instruction manual. Had he ever truly been living for Khaenri'ah, or in spite of it?

Kaeya realizes he doesn’t know which parts of him are real.

-

Reevaluating life choices doesn’t seem to have been his best idea, because no matter how he feels about the situation, he’s going to have to come up with a plan for the foreseeable future. For one thing, he’s going to need an explanation for why he and Diluc "fell out”. Kaeya has no clue if or when Diluc will be back, but the fact that he left without telling him is enough to raise some questions around the knights, and he knows that Jean’s caught on already. Not to mention the brand new vision at his side, something usually so celebrated given to him in his worst moment and bound to only make things harder. Getting a vision is supposed to be a big deal, and he’s going to have to come up with a story for getting it that doesn’t involve an unsuccessful betrayal-induced homicide attempt. After that, it’s back to his regular routine of throwing his all into the knights to keep his brain from imploding, this time without any family to hold him back. Kaeya’s always been a little reckless in battle, but in the past there was the weight of his father and brother keeping him from going too far. Now Kaeya has nothing left to lose and nobody waiting for him to return home, just a death wish and some gods above insistent on keeping him alive.

The sound of heels clicking against the wood flooring snaps Kaeya out of his thoughts before he experiences his third spiral of the day. He straightens his posture and throws on his best show smile before he looks up. When he sees it’s only Jean he allows his face to soften back towards its previous state, and opts for a "what’s up?” instead of a more traditional knights greeting.

Jean looks at him with another expression of concern and holds out a bag. "I brought lunch. You’re bad enough at taking care of yourself as it is, and I figured after everything…” Kaeya sighs before she can finish, but pushes his papers to the side and accepts the food. Jean doesn’t say anything else so he looks up expectantly, preparing for the questions he knows she’s holding in. Jean hesitates for a second but her curiosity wins. "Are you sure you’re alright? Everyone’s a little shaken after yesterday and I can’t imagine how much harder it must be for you. If there’s anything I can do, you know I'm always -”

"Really, I'm fine Jean. I’ll be okay, I swear.” She mumbles something Kaeya doesn’t catch but doesn’t press further. At least, not until she goes to squeeze his shoulder in support and Kaeya flinches like he’s just been stabbed. Her eyes widen and Kaeya knows she’ll never let him off the hook now. "Sorry, just a little sore from those hilichurls. I underestimated how many were at the camp and before I knew it my shoulder had arrows sticking out in every direction.”

Jean, unfortunately, does not buy his excuse. "You’re one of the best fighters we have and even when you do get hurt it’s never fazed you before. It would take a lot more than a hilichurl camp to get that kind of reaction out of you. What happened, really?” Kaeya gives up resisting and pulls down the sleeve of his shirt, revealing the sizable dent in his left shoulder surrounded by molten skin. He doesn’t know what Jean was expecting, but by the look on her face it certainly wasn’t that. "Are those… Did you get burned? What could possibly have-”

"Gee, Jean, I wonder who we know that has a heavy claymore and the ability to set it on fire,” Kaeya knows it’s a bit mean to break the news like this, when Jean was just as close to Diluc as she is to Kaeya, but he’s getting tired of this conversation already and comforting words take up more energy than he can afford. Jean’s face morphs once more, this time to one of complete horror, and Kaeya decides to answer the rest of her questions before she can ask. "After Crepus died, we had a fight. Things escalated. That’s when I got this,” he holds up his vision, pausing for a second to turn it in his hand before standing up to meet Jean’s eyes. "Nobody needs to know about that, though.” Jean is still speechless, instead moving to give Kaeya a hug. He accepts it, even though everything in his head is telling him not to, and they stay like that until Kaeya remembers he needs to get his things from the winery before nightfall. He grabs his bag and heads to the door, citing the need to "Finalize details about the passing” when Jean tilts her head in question. She offers a sad smile in return, and Kaeya knows she wishes she could do more to help. He wishes he could let her.

-

The trip to the winery is mostly painless, ground damp from the storm but the sun shining bright above. Adelinde greets him like she doesn’t know him and it hurts a piece of him that he didn’t know was there.

"Mast- Sir Kaeya. I should inform you that before his departure Master Diluc stripped you of the family name and titles.” Kaeya wasn’t aware ‘Master Diluc’ had that kind of power, but okay! He can tell Adelinde isn’t enjoying this any more than he is, so he doesn’t bother making a fuss.

"That’s fine, Adelinde. I just came to get my stuff, and then I'll be out of your way.” he offers his best-selling smile and turns to enter the manor, but Adelinde pulls him to the side.

"I thought I also should inform you,” she lowers her voice, "That Master Crepus left half of his assets, including the winery, to you in his will. Master Diluc can remove your current titles, but he can’t change someone else’s dying wishes. I'm not supposed to be saying this but- we’ll miss you. You’re welcome here as long as I'm in charge.”

Well, at least he has Adelinde. He whispers a thank you and another smile before he heads in to pack. He mostly takes clothes: not much else is of use to him while he still hasn’t figured out living arrangements. He does grab one picture from his old dresser, the last family portrait the three of them had taken. Seeing it makes him feel ill, but he knows he’ll regret it if he leaves it behind. What he doesn’t take he tucks into newly emptied drawers. He’s sure Adelinde won’t mind him coming back to get the rest of his things, and he’d rather them gathered out of sight in case of Diluc’s return. With a final glance at the now emotionless room, he heads back into the hallway.

His intention is to grab his hairbrush from the bathroom and then head back to the city, but he can’t stop himself from pausing at the entrance of Diluc’s room. It’s exactly the same, big windows and tall shelves decorated with awards and books. Pristinely clean, every item in its place. Except…

Sitting on Diluc’s perfectly made bed is his Pyro vision, glittering brightly against the bedspread. Curious, Kaeya thinks, that he would leave it behind when he left, as if it was just another trinket and not their father’s biggest pride, not to mention his strongest weapon. Even curiouser that he would trust it out in the open, loose on his bed where anyone [Kaeya] could take it, after going through the trouble of taking Kaeya’s name and all. Curiosities aside, the vision is there and bright as ever, so Diluc hasn’t gotten himself killed yet. Kaeya doesn’t dare to touch it, but he watches it from the doorway in a trance until the faint sound of walking snaps him out. 

Hairbrush now acquired, Kaeya makes his way to the back door when he is once again distracted, this time by a smell. The wine cellar is parallel to the back exit, and Kaeya finds himself grabbing the handle for the cellar instead of the outlet. He’s only 16, still two years under Mondstadt’s drinking age, but he’s probably sampled every bottle in the room. Such is common practice when you grow up in a winery, and while Diluc had never been fond of alcohol, Kaeya had become the winery’s youngest connoisseur. He walks to the dandelion wine, their best seller, and packs a few bottles in his bag. He owns half the place, after all. 

It's early and Kaeya doesn’t feel like thinking about where he’ll be spending the night just yet, so instead he walks to the Barbatos statue that overlooks the property. Years of church ceremonies couldn’t make a child of Khaenri'ah believe, but Kaeya had always liked visiting the statue when he was younger. On sunny days he and Diluc would climb up the hill, backpacks filled with books and snacks prepared by Adelinde. They would sit there for hours, reading and talking, failing to catch crystalflies and deciding to pick flowers instead. 

The memories are nice, but Kaeya can feel his brain coming up with unwanted reminders of betrayal and loss in response, so he does the only thing he can and takes out one of the wine bottles. He removes the cork with one of his spare knives, and the resulting smell hits him like a truck of bricks. It smells like Crepus, like learning how wine is made at age 11, like childhood days spent with Diluc interrupting the staff, over the moon when their father would let them each taste a sip. The memories are overwhelming him now, so Kaeya starts to drink, and wonders why, if alcohol is supposed to help you forget, is he remembering more now than ever. 

There's something about getting drunk in front of a holy statue that amuses Kaeya. Barbatos is an absent god anyway; perhaps he’s out somewhere drinking as well, ignoring his duties as an archon the same way Kaeya is ignoring the growing list of things he needs to do to adapt to this new life. He considers leaving the now empty bottle of wine as an offering to the statue, an inside joke between him and his idea of a god. He doesn’t want it to look like littering, though, so he picks a few flowers from nearby and puts them in the neck of the bottle. The wine has effectively quieted the traffic jam of emotions in his head, leaving room for only one thought process at a time. Kaeya doesn’t get properly drunk, not in the way most people do, because his mind will never relinquish control over him. Instead, it brings his too-fast brain closer to normal speed, just enough to give him a break but never enough to make him lose his wits. He’s not immune, however, to the physical effects of being intoxicated, and with the sun about to set Kaeya gathers his bags and heads back to the city before the motivation to do so disappears completely.

-

Kaeya turns up at Jean’s apartment door soon after, having decided that sleeping in the wild for the second night in a row would be unbefitting of the Knights of Favonius’ newest cavalry captain. Jean sighs at the scent of liquor but lets him in anyway, takes his bags and offers him dinner while she gets sheets for the couch. Kaeya notices that Jean’s trying not to press, and he appreciates that, but he’s had enough of his own thoughts to last a lifetime and the silence is unnerving. He tells her about the afternoon’s events, about inheriting half the winery and losing the family name in one swoop ("What? Can he do that?” "That’s what I thought!”), about Diluc’s vision left behind and the smell of dandelion wine making him remember instead of forget. He reveals entirely too much about the whole thing and the voice in his head is yelling at him for it, but it’s easier to drown it out when Jean is next to him, eagerly following, and he can almost pretend it’s like how it was before, when he was 16 and felt like it and the conflict in his head was just a whisper at the back of his mind. Almost.

“Kaeya, have you had anyone take a look at your burns?”

"Are you trying to get me undressed, captain Jean?” she rolls her eyes like always, but this time she doesn’t try to hide the smile that comes with it. Kaeya does remove his shirt, albeit dramatically, and Jean moves them to the bathroom so she can properly clean and wrap the wounds. She still looks worried, especially after seeing the full picture, but the shift back to Kaeya’s usual joking personality seems to put her at ease a bit.

Jean hugs him when she’s done, reminds him to be careful with his shoulder until the burns heal a bit, and the alarms in Kaeya’s head are back to telling him to stay away, that he isn’t worthy of being taken care of, that his injuries are self-inflicted and deserved. They remind him that Jean doesn’t deserve to be hurt too, that she shouldn’t be doing all this and that she should have better friends than him. They’re almost convincing, but as he watches Jean hum around the apartment he comes to his senses and realizes that it’s too late for that. Like it or not, Jean cares for him, and the worst thing he could do to her is leave now, especially when Jean’s just lost Diluc too. He just needs to be more careful, needs to keep that part of him as far away as possible, and needs to not let it happen again.

-

May 6th. Crepus’ funeral is held outside at the winery. He didn’t plan on going, but something compels him to stop by anyway, watching from a careful distance. There’s enough people to fill every seat and then some, gathered from all over Teyvat to pay their respects. Crepus was always well-loved. Kaeya stays to hear Elzer read the eulogy, and right before he sneaks away Adelinde locks eyes with him and smiles. She always did have good eyesight.

The days that follow blur together. Kaeya throws himself into work completely, just like he knew he would. Kaeya had always been a good fighter, but with a new vision and lack of restraint he quickly becomes one of the knight’s most brutal. He maintains his public reputation, offers charming smiles to girls and earnest assistance to their grandparents and leaves them all infatuated. Kaeya has no interest in women, but to be loved is to be trusted, and to be trusted is to have another potential informant on his side. He buys drinks for Mondstadt’s shadiest, eases them into admission without ever reaching the interrogation room. He lets his too-fast brain go wild for once, takes in as much as he can and tries to connect the dots so he doesn’t have to think about anything else.

Days turn to weeks, and Kaeya finally gets an apartment of his own. He hardly uses it, just a place to go to sleep every night and wake up every morning. He keeps up his appearances, dedicates himself to his job so fiercely even Jean’s impressed. Despite everything, he gets genuine satisfaction out of working, figuring things out and getting things done. The paperwork, boring as it may be, keeps his head from spiraling and his body from drinking. But what Kaeya really loves is the fight. His strength and skill in battle combined with his strategic thinking make him an excellent captain, and the trait is decidedly his, not another mannerism he has to question the origin of. Everything else that makes Kaeya who he is can be debated, tracked in winding paths back to his homeland or abandonment, but the way he fights is real. 

Weeks turn to months, and Kaeya slowly adapts to life after the Ragnvindrs. The alarms in his head quiet a bit with time, and he lets himself fall back into routine with Jean as Mondstadt’s up-and-coming captains of the Knights of Favonius. In July, the knights gain Sumeru’s top academic, Lisa Minci. Though gifted beyond Kaeya’s comprehension, she categorically refuses Varka’s attempts to make her a captain and settles instead for the role as librarian. Kaeya learns to understand her more than most, and they become fast friends. While most grow to see her demeanor as lazy, Kaeya finds the fear and caution beneath, resonates with it even where he can’t precisely relate. She lives up to her Sumeru legacy in every way, but more times than not the pair opt for lighthearted banter and trashy gossip over the intellectual discussions they’re both more than capable of handling. 

Jean likes Lisa too, but Kaeya is starting to think it’s in a very different way. It’s fun to see his usually perfectly professional best friend get so flustered over the mere presence of the librarian. He teases her plenty for it, and in those moments he gets a glimpse of what being 16 is supposed to feel like, where problems come in crushes and lunch banter instead of conflicting allegiances. Nothing can replace either family he’s lost, but new people and memories help him to pack away the old.

A bit later in the summer Kaeya meets Alice, renowned adventurer and mother of the world’s youngest arsonist. Alice is joyful and spontaneous, an open book of stories with a plethora of talents. Klee is every bit her mother’s daughter, bold and carefree in the way only a child can be, mixed with… unique abilities that perhaps a child shouldn’t. Kaeya takes a liking to them, as do they to him, and soon enough Alice is ruffling his hair every Thursday when he takes his weekly visit.

By September, Kaeya realizes that he’s found himself a new sort of family. He’s more careful now, doesn’t let any of them too close, but at arms length he can still appreciate the company of the people he’s grown to love. Klee has established herself as his little sister, and when he doesn’t think too hard about the resemblances to a certain other Pyro user he cherishes her more than anything. Kaeya may be known to the adults of Mondstadt as a joker or a flirt, but with children he becomes his most genuine self. After all that he’s experienced, more back in Khaenri'ah than with the Ragnvindrs, he’s made it his top priority to make sure no kid he encounters goes through anything close to the same. With Klee he pays extra attention, because while there’s no doubt Alice loves her daughter, she isn’t the most reliable, and he feels the need to insert himself when she can’t. 

Late November, a week before Kaeya’s 17th birthday, a short young man graces Mondstadt’s gates for the first time. Kaeya hears this through the grapevine, his all-knowing web of connections that tell of an unfamiliar blonde walking through the streets jotting furiously in a notebook thick with taped in cuttings and samples. The news piques his interest, but a series of Abyss Mage sightings keep him from investigating on his own time.

On November 24th, Kaeya is taken from his paperwork by Jean with the prospect of greeting the newest knight. There are ten captains in the Knights of Favonius, and technically speaking Jean isn’t even one of them, but he and her are most recognized after Varka to Mondstadt’s citizens and are therefore the ones chosen for activities like these. Varka opens his office door upon their arrival, and inside lies the very man Kaeya’s been meaning to meet. The sight of him is met with a twinge of pain under Kaeya’s eyepatch, but he brushes it off and tries to pay attention. Varka introduces the man as Albedo, an alchemist that’ll be doubling as the Investigations captain. Kaeya observes Albedo’s mannerisms as Varka rambles on. He’s quiet, and though he doesn’t seem disinterested he’s clearly distant from reality. When they go to shake hands, Kaeya notices a familiar yellow star on Albedo’s neck, and his head starts spinning.

If getting a vision was some backwards protection from the gods in Teyvat, a sign that he belongs here, Albedo’s arrival feels like Khaenri'ah fighting back. More than ever Kaeya feels stuck in the middle of something much bigger than himself, the pawn in a silent fight between two worlds. He isn’t sure what any of this means, but the reminder that his homeland might be somehow watching is enough to shake him up.

Jean nudges him back to reality as Varka wraps up his introduction, and Kaeya snaps back to his usual demeanor. Jean is tasked with mentoring Albedo while Kaeya is instructed to escort him to and from Dragonspine as his camp is constructed. They leave Varka and Albedo to finalize some details, and when Kaeya finally makes it to the hall he realizes that he’d been holding his breath, that being in there had been suffocating. Jean gives him a weird look at the way he exhales but goes back to her office instead of trying to ask. He starts on heading back to his own office, but Klee bursts out of the library doors and barrels towards him before he can make it to the stairs.

He kneels down to her height, smile genuine this time, and listens patiently as she tells him about the book Lisa read to her that morning. He’s about to invite her to lunch when the sound of Varka’s door opening distracts her. Klee runs up to it, and Kaeya looks up to see it’s Albedo that catches the girl in his arms. His face shifts instantly from the aloof expression from earlier into something more animated and affectionate. Interesting.

Klee drags Albedo over to where Kaeya is still kneeling, bubbling with excitement. She introduces the two of them, unaware that they had met moments prior, but neither is in the position to stop her.

"Big brother Kaeya! This is big brother Albedo, guess what? He’s going to be working here now! Klee is going to see big brother Albedo all the time!” Okay, now Kaeya is really intrigued, but he puts his questions aside for the moment to humor the girl.

"Nice to meet you, Albedo.” he gives an exaggerated wink (if only to distinguish it from just a blink, what with only having one eye and all) and is pleased to find that Albedo offers a polite nod in return. "I was just going to bring Klee to get some lunch at Good Hunter, if you’d like to join?” 

"I’m afraid I'll have to decline, as I've still got some business to deal with here. Thank you for the offer, though, and I'm sure I'll be seeing you.” he then turns back to Klee. "Be good for Sir Kaeya, okay? I'll see you soon.” he extends a pinky, which Klee locks in her own as she says goodbye. 

Kaeya props Klee onto his shoulders as Albedo heads into the library. At lunch, he tries to get more information on Albedo, to mixed success. He learns that Albedo started living with Klee and Alice around a month ago. Alice seems to have adopted him into the family, if the way Klee treats him like a sibling she’s known her whole life is any indication. He’s also apparently a great cook and an even better flower crown maker, which is not information Kaeya necessarily needed to know but happily accepts. She goes off on a tangent about a recent adventure Alice took her on, and he knows there’s no point trying to push the subject, so he just listens to her ramblings and nods along.

-

On his birthday, Kaeya is forced out of headquarters. Lisa promises to meet him for lunch, but with all of the morning to kill and no paperwork to distract him he finds himself walking towards the winery. Birthdays hadn’t mattered in Khaenri'ah, just a date to keep track of your age, but Crepus had always emphasized their importance. On Kaeya’s first birthday with the Ragnvindrs, exactly ten years ago today, the winery hosted his first party. Winter was early that year, and the lake had already frozen over, so they skated and had hot cocoa, Kaeya surprisingly good and Diluc absolutely atrocious. Afterwards they had cake and presents, and Kaeya sat wide-eyed through it all, amazed that it was all for him. That was the first time he had ever felt so much unconditional love.

Ten years later and the sight of the winery stings more than ever. He avoids the main building for the most part, stopping only to steal a few grapes from the outermost vines, and instead heads down to the lake. Summer is holding on this year, so the lake is far from frozen, but his vision is more than capable of changing that. He plays around for a bit, freezing different lengths of water and watching them melt. While Kaeya has by now honed his vision for use in strategic battle, he hasn’t spent much time experimenting on the open sea. He presumes that cooler temperatures and a bit of practice could let him freeze a chunk of the lake solid, but for now he quite likes the feeling of freezing just the water beneath him and watching the footsteps behind him melt. 

He picks some of the Calla Lilies at the coastline on his way back to the Good Hunter for lunch with Lisa. They do this often, the two of them going on fake dates to feed Mondstadt’s gossip cycle. He brings her flowers, she pecks him on the cheek, and they both revel in how easy it is to be seen as something they’re not. They both get soup (or rather, Lisa orders soup and Kaeya asks to have "what the lady’s having”) and fall easily into their usual conversation. He teases her for her latest failed attempt to drop hints at Jean, as is customary these days, and she even spares him from the light shocking that usually follows. 

Lisa brings him back to headquarters under the guise of needing help organizing some new books, but upon entering the library Kaeya is greeted with a "happy birthday!” from a small group of knights. Among them are Jean, Varka, Klee, and most surprisingly Albedo. He sits to the side, head already turning back to the notebook on his lap, and Kaeya assumes that Klee dragged him along. He’s touched by the effort, especially that Lisa is allowing food other than tea time snacks in her library just for him. He points this out and gets whacked with a book. 

All in all, it’s a fine birthday, much better than he could have anticipated. As he flits around the library, he realizes he hasn’t needed a single drink.

-

The next time Kaeya encounters Albedo is on a December day a few weeks later, when he is informed that it’s time for their first trip to Dragonspine. At exactly 10AM, he knocks on the door of Albedo’s office. At 10:02, the door is finally unlocked. Kaeya steps in to find an absolute mess of a room and a slightly disheveled Albedo. The room, originally an office not unlike Kaeya’s, has been transformed into a miniature laboratory, with books and equipment that are far past Kaeya’s understanding. The standard desk has been shoved into a corner along with a seemingly untouched sofa, which the bags under Albedo’s eyes seem to verify. Kaeya has a lot of questions.

"My apologies about… this,” Albedo gestures to the room. "I got a bit caught up in a recent experiment. I just need to grab one more thing, and I'll be ready to go.”

Kaeya means to ask how he can help, if there’s anything ready to be taken downstairs in the meantime, but before he can get the words out he’s rendered speechless at the sight of Albedo lifting up an entire table, equipment and all, with one hand so he can snatch a notebook from underneath. All he can do is blink as Albedo moves on to grab his bag and the boxes by the door, which stack so tall Kaeya can no longer see the Albedo underneath.

“Sir Kaeya, if you could kindly get the door-” Kaeya regains his composure and remembers what he’s there for. They head down to the stables in silence, most unusual for the Cavalry Captain but seemingly typical for the Chief Alchemist. When Kaeya goes to get a cart for Albedo’s boxes he is surprised once more by Albedo creating a sturdy flower with his vision to hold the crates that follows him as he walks around.

"If you can do all this, what do you need me for?” Kaeya questions, by now absolutely baffled.

"I’m afraid I'm not the best with horses, and who better to assist me than the Cavalry Captain himself?” Albedo’s voice doesn’t change from his serious, matter-of-fact tone, but there’s some playfulness in his words that Kaeya notes in his internal files. Albedo seems fine with horses, considering he’s already turned back to petting Kaeya’s fondly, and Kaeya hadn’t prior considered Albedo to be a dishonest man. 

He says nothing more for now and goes back to work, grabbing some final supplies before mounting the horse. Albedo hesitates before Kaeya nods his head. Kaeya assumed the hesitation was out of fear, that maybe he really wasn’t good with horses or wasn’t sure that he was supposed to get on yet, but when Albedo steps up he realizes that he’s actually just not tall enough. Kaeya grins a little but reaches down to lift the other up, met with only a small ‘thank you’ and a smidge of blush. Again, interesting.

"All set?”

"I suppose so.”

With that they head off. Kaeya senses Albedo isn’t too fond of pointless conversation, so they sit in silence until they start to hit snow on the base of Dragonspine. Kaeya’s Cryo vision makes the cold air feel comforting, but he realizes suddenly that Albedo doesn’t share that immunity. 

"Aren’t you cold?” he inquires, turning a little bit to face him. 

"I have never felt too affected by weather conditions,” is all he offers, and Kaeya doesn’t press even though it’s insanely odd. The weather on Dragonspine kills people, yet here’s Albedo in his short-sleeved lab coat and thigh high boots. 

They reach their destination before the sun sets, which is a considerably good time given the conditions. The rest of the ride had been in silence, save for a few comments by Albedo about the environment. They hadn’t hit any monsters, which was unusual, but Kaeya presumed the sounds of construction the past few weeks had driven Dragonspine’s inhabitants off the main path. The lab is tucked into a cove in the mountain, right above the dragon-sized ribs that scatter towards the north. Kaeya always gets a twinge under his eyepatch at the sight of them, and he notices Albedo putting a hand to the star on his neck. He nearly let himself forget about that.

The lab seems to meet Albedo’s expectations, and he gets right to unpacking his things and reorganizing what’s already there. Usually Kaeya would help, but after everything he’s seen today he doesn’t even know where to start. 

After a few minutes Albedo notices him standing pointlessly. "I’ll be staying up here for a bit, Sir Kaeya. You can get going if you need.”

This feels more like a command than an option, but Kaeya can’t lose that easily. So even though he already knows the answer, he asks, "Is there anything else you need assistance with?”

"No, I'm alright.” as expected. But looking around, Kaeya realizes one more thing.

"Where will you sleep? Surely you can’t commute between Mondstadt and here every day, no?”

Albedo walks over to an out of sight corner, where there’s a couch not unlike the one back in his office at headquarters. Kaeya already knows it will be left similarly untouched. "I don’t get much sleep anyway. For visitors, I suppose.”

Kaeya raises his eyebrow but leaves it be. "I’ll be off then. Good evening, Chief Alchemist.”

Albedo simply nods in return before going back to his work. The whole way down the mountain, Kaeya tries to unpack everything he’s learned. Albedo seems blissfully immune to Kaeya’s usual ways of prodding and poking, of getting information from anyone and everyone. That’s never happened before. He leaves the mountain with far more questions than answers, and an insatiable need to figure it all out.

-

At the end of every month, the knights have a general meeting. In January, Kaeya is requested to be there 30 minutes early. When he enters Varka’s office, he finds the other 9 captains, Jean, Lisa, and… Alice? She usually doesn’t make it to their general meetings, and he can’t come up with a reason that she’d be here early. At the sound of the door, she looks up from her conversation with Albedo, and before he knows it she’s ruffling his hair.

"There you are, Sir Kaeya! That’s everyone, right?” Varka’s voice booms across the office, and he looks at Jean for verification. She gives a thumbs up and Kaeya makes his way over to the desk where she's seated. There's an empty spot next to her, but he opts to sit on the desktop instead.

"Thank you everyone for taking the time out of your day to get here a bit early. Alice has some important news to share, and we wanted to discuss it with a smaller group before bringing in all of headquarters.” Varka looks over to Alice to continue.

"As many of you know, my ambitions in life have always veered towards exploration and discovery. As much as I love being here with you all, I've been in one place a bit too long. Part of what’s bound me here is my daughter, Klee. I didn’t want to abandon our Spark Knight during the early days of her childhood, and though I am confident she’s more than capable of holding her own, it would be irresponsible of me to bring a child on dangerous adventures that can last for years on end. However, Klee has grown greatly as of late, and she loves being here with you all. With the knights recruiting her brother,” she gestures towards Albedo, who is listening attentively for once, "and the love and care I've seen you all treat her with, I now have no qualms in my decision to leave Klee in your care when I depart for my next expedition in the coming week.” 

A murmur of whispered voices travels across the room at Alice’s announcement. Kaeya watches Albedo’s reaction, a bit alarmed but not upset. Personally, he’s delighted to be able to help in raising Klee, the child he adores so much. He looks over to Jean, eyebrows slightly raised but smile still as polite and professional as usual. He knows she loves her too, but she worries about how destructive Klee might become. Before he can squeeze her shoulder to calm her down, Lisa has appeared on her other side to do the same thing. Kaeya raises his eyebrows at this, but Lisa ignores him.

"I don’t want to burden any one of you here with the sole responsibility of my daughter, so this’ll be a shared effort,” Alice continues after the murmurs subside. “Klee will have a room here at headquarters, but she’s welcome to stay with any of you for any period of time. In the event something happens, Albedo is listed as her legal guardian, but the life of an alchemist is not the safest for a pyromanical child, so I've put down some secondary guardians as well. All the papers are with Jean for you all to look over. I’ll send letters along and stop by every once and a while to check in, but for the better part of the next few years she’ll be in your hands. This isn’t a decision I've taken lightly, and I trust that she’ll be raised well here.” 

Alice starts going around to answer individual questions, and Kaeya takes the papers from Jean to look over. The first page has general care instructions, a list of ingredients for Klee’s bomb-making and a recipe for Alice’s favorite fire repellent. Klee’s favorite foods, places she likes to visit and the names of all her imaginary friends are listed on the second. Kaeya can see how much care Alice put into this, how much she wants Klee to be okay in her mother’s absence. He finally gets to the legal pages, and finds himself listed alongside Lisa as secondary guardians. He’s not surprised that Jean isn’t there. Alice knows better than to give her another responsibility, even if she swears she can manage. Lisa is a good choice, he thinks. She’s strict enough to keep Klee from destroying the city, but fun enough that Klee will actually listen. He puts down the papers and tries to envision their arsonist Klee growing into an arsonist teen before he dismisses the thought. Crepus had always talked about not growing up too fast.

-

Alice left that next week, as planned. Klee takes it remarkably well. Alice had always let her roam free in headquarters (and beyond) anyways, so it’s not like she’s unfamiliar with the freedom of being unsupervised. If anything, she’s under stricter watch now, because despite not being listed as a formal guardian Jean has taken it upon herself to make sure Klee’s bombings are kept to a minimum. 

Klee’s room in headquarters is perfectly lovely, filled with toys and crafts and a fluffy red and gold bed. By the second week of Alice’s absence Klee has already grown to despise it, probably because she only ends up there when Jean catches her about to detonate a bomb in range of unsuspecting passerby (or fish). Kaeya takes his job as secondary guardian very seriously, keeping spare crayons and paper in his desk drawer and candy stashed in one of his many pockets at all times. By the end of January he’s invested in a child sized bed for his apartment and a surplus of trinkets to go with it. He can tell that she doesn’t like staying in headquarters, stuck in ‘solitary confinement’ overnight, so he has her stay over at least once a week. When Albedo’s not in Dragonspine he does the same, letting her sit by his side while he toils on whatever experiment he’s focused on. 

Mid March brings Jean’s 18th birthday, which proves to be quite the celebration. Kaeya personally ensures she has absolutely no work the entire week, and Lisa does her part by forcing Jean out of headquarters so she can’t find something else to put on her plate. With how hard she works on the daily, Kaeya almost forgets she’s from one of the oldest and most respected families in Mondstadt. He is starkly reminded of this when he looks out of his second-story office window and finds the entire area around headquarters lit up with lanterns and streamers and tables overflowing with refreshments. It reminds him of the parties Crepus would throw at the winery when he was younger, but no one deserves it more than Jean.

The night goes off without a hitch, and he’s happy to see Jean have fun for once. She was taken aback at first, and Kaeya remembers how she used to go on small trips with her mother for her birthday, never having big celebrations. 18 is a big deal, though, so he’s happy she’s getting the chance to celebrate. He offers a polite greeting to Frederica, stern as always, and suspects that there was someone else behind the planning of this event. Jean usually visited the winery when they were all younger, not the other way around, so while he grew up with her he’s not overly familiar with her parents. He knows of their divorce, of the weight of family appearances always on Jean’s shoulders, but he feels more like their daughter’s coworker than their daughter’s best friend. 

That's unimportant, though. Jean’s having a nice time, and that’s all that matters. He teasingly asks her to dance with him, and they both finally get use out of the ballroom dancing classes their parents enrolled them in as children. The crowd parts for them until Lisa taps his shoulder and asks to cut in. He smirks but obliges, and gets even more joy out of watching her reaction in the moments that follow. The rest of the night is filled with dancing and talking and probably the best cake he’s ever had. When Kaeya catches Jean at the refreshments table towards the end of the night, she’s exhausted, but remarks that she hasn’t had a night like this in a while. 

A few weeks later is the Windblume festival. To the relief of probably every knight at headquarters, Jean and Lisa finally get together. No one is quite sure how it happens, but Lisa isn’t exactly subtle with her morning pecks, and Jean even less so with the way her face glows red in the time after. Albedo is away at Dragonspine, so Kaeya takes on Klee duty for the week. She’s every bit as excited as a child should be, and it brings him immense joy to take her to all the festival activities, watching her eyes light up with each one. It fondly reminds him of his first Windblume, when Crepus had taken the two of them into the city for the festival. He had been inside the city walls a few times prior, but seeing it all lit up and decorated for Windblume felt like the first time he had properly been introduced to Mondstadt, the first time he could see all of the love and light it offered. Klee now is the same, pure wonder in her eyes at every turn. They might not have the same meaning behind them, but the glee is identical.

-

April 30th comes back around before he knows it. It’s storming when he wakes up, uncomfortably reminiscent of the conditions exactly one year ago. Kaeya makes his way to headquarters earlier than usual, desperate to distract himself from the thoughts that are sure to spiral if he doesn’t. He gets to his office and starts piling up paperwork, even adding some of Jean's to the mix. By lunchtime, he’s nearly through the stack. When he finally regains sight of the wood on his desk, he’s met with a long-overdue file he’s been putting off for a month or two now. It’s a simple disclosure request to the Dawn Winery, and he doesn’t quite understand why overseeing its fulfillment lies within his duties as the Cavalry Captain, but it made its way onto his desk one day and hasn’t been glanced at since. He has half a mind to ask Varka if there are any new sightings of monsters that need to be exterminated, but something tells him he might as well get the winery commission over with. It’s not like it’ll be any easier tomorrow.

By half past one he finds himself on the walk towards home the winery. The storm has simmered down to steady rain, but Kaeya doesn’t quite care. The walk is long and the sound of rain surrounding him helps drown out his thoughts. It would have been wiser to make this trip via horse, but Kaeya doesn’t want to trouble any poor animal with the mental state he’ll probably be in when it’s time to head back. 

As expected, the actual job is simple. Adelinde greets him with a sad smile but starts on the forms. The rest of the employees must be off in recognition of the date, because it’s eerily empty. Not even Elzer is around. The discomfort of standing there silently is getting to him quickly, and Kaeya’s not usually an awkward person. After a minute or two he finds himself wandering off into the house in escape, and Adelinde doesn’t stop him. Before he knows it, he’s standing in front of Diluc’s door once again. Just as last year, the room is in perfect condition, surely kept well dusted by Adelinde but otherwise nearly identical. One thing is different, though - the vision is gone from its former spot on the bedspread. His mind goes haywire for a moment, trying to think of all the possible explanations for this, before he looks around and spots it glimmering atop one of Diluc’s old trophy cases. The storm in his brain calms down to the one very rational possibility that Adelinde moved it up there for safekeeping. It’s still vividly red, so Diluc’s definitely alive somewhere in Teyvat.  Kaeya’s not sure how long he expected Diluc to be gone - it’s a lot harder to estimate things like this when you have absolutely no information about the motive, goal, or destination. He’s alive, and that’s all Kaeya can afford to care about if he wants to experience any peace of mind.

Adelinde pulls him out of his thoughts with a call that she’s finished the forms, and it’s vaguely reminiscent of the way she used to call them down for dinner when they were younger. He shakes that thought off with the turn of his head and heads back to where she remains in the entryway. He is here on business, after all. He looks over the forms, which are perfectly in order in Adelinde’s neat script, and thanks her for her time. She looks like she’s holding back a thousand words that they both know she isn’t allowed to utter, so she settles for a carefully selected, "My pleasure, Captain. Have a safe travel home.”

Kaeya takes the back exit again, snatching a bottle of vodka this time. He picks a few grapes off of vines he passes on the way for the walk back home. The rain is down to a drizzle now, which effectively terminates his plan to once again use the sound of the downpour to drown out all the thoughts fighting for attention in his mind. Instead, he grabs a slim knife out of its slot hidden in his left boot, and uses it to uncork the bottle. Unlike the dandelion wine, which tastes of childhood and Crepus, the vodka is mild in flavor but high in alcohol content. He feels the singe of the drink at his throat after the first sip, and the rest of the trip slowly blurs together. He gets home and lands on his couch to finish the bottle. Kaeya doesn’t normally succumb to the effects of alcohol, usually controls his reactions for the sake of reputation, but he allows himself to pass out just this once. The files can be dealt with tomorrow.

-

Lisa insists on not having festivities for her birthday, so the next celebration is Klee’s. The July weather is brutally hot, but Klee hasn’t been bothered since she discovered the extent of Kaeya’s vision. He’s been on snow-cone and flurry duty since the day she found out, though he doesn’t exactly mind. For her birthday, Klee asks for a day with all of her favorite people, and Kaeya realizes he is absolutely helpless to any request she has. He arranges a knights meeting on the subject, and a Klee celebration schedule is put into order. She spends the night in the library with Lisa, has breakfast with Jean, and stops by Alice’s house with Albedo for some sort of surprise. By the time it’s Kaeya’s turn to pick her up, he thinks she must be worn out, but when he knocks on the door of Alice’s place it opens to a Klee so energized you’d think she just woke up.

"Big brother Albedo!” she calls back inside. "Big brother Kaeya is here!” she runs back inside, presumably to get something, and Kaeya takes that as an invitation in. It’s far from his first time at Alice’s, but it feels different now that she’s gone. The house isn’t really in use, since Albedo spends most of his time in Dragonspine and Klee can’t stay here all alone. It almost feels like a different house, with the lack of papers and books and half-drunken mugs that used to be scattered about. Albedo is on one of the couches, coffee cup in hand and sketchbook at his side. This is probably the most relaxed Kaeya’s ever seen him. He sets their picnic supplies onto the table as Klee runs back towards him with a small furry plush. "Look what mom sent me for my birthday!”

Kaeya kneels down to see the toy up close. "This is Dodoco!” she pulls on its tail, and a piece of fabric folds out, with a letter from Alice scrawled on. She outlines Alice’s signature and then hugs Dodoco tightly.

"Alice made Dodoco before she left and told me to bring Klee here on her birthday to meet him,” Albedo fills in softly for context. Then, to Klee: "Dodoco can join you and Kaeya on your picnic, Klee.” He pulls out a keychain to attach Dodoco to Klee’s backpack, and her eyes widen in delight once more. 

"Can you join us too, big brother Albedo?” 

Albedo pauses to think. After a moment, he responds. "If Captain Kaeya doesn’t mind, I suppose.”

"It would be an honor to have you, Chief. I’ve packed more than enough food for the three of us.”

The three of them head off shortly after, Albedo pointing out the names of different creatures as they pass them. Kaeya takes them to Starfell Lake, a Klee favorite for partaking in totally legal activities. Albedo raises his eyebrows in amusement when Klee grabs the bombs from her backpack, and again when Kaeya takes off his boots to join her. The two of them go on to terrorize the local fish population, and Kaeya looks back to shore to see Albedo leaning on a tree writing in that damn book of his. Kaeya’s seen Klee with her bombs many times before, but she never fails to surprise him with how pyromaniacal she can be. In under thirty minutes she’s blasted probably enough fish to feed a large family. Kaeya points this out, which sets her onto the idea of having their treasures for lunch. Klee informs Albedo of their great plan, and that "he has to contribute to the family meal”, so while they find sticks for fire making and fish skewering, Albedo goes on the hunt for edible fruit and vegetation nearby. Klee's vision should theoretically make starting a fire much easier, but with the precaution Kaeya has to take to make sure she doesn't set the whole forest on fire, he reckons it might have been easier to just rub two sticks against each other. 

Kaeya leaves Albedo to the cooking, for while he's great in a proper kitchen, he's certain this kind of woodland cooking is more Albedo's forte. The fish turn out remarkably alright given the circumstances, and the food in the picnic basket is quickly forgotten. After their foraged lunch, Klee goes back into the lake (to swim, presumably; there aren’t any fish left for blasting) but Kaeya stays back with Albedo.

"She’s quite the troublemaker,” Kaeya remarks.

Albedo offers a slight upturn of his lips, barely counting as a smile. "She takes after Alice in that way. She wanted to bomb Starsnatch Cliff to make it even, Alice did.” 

Kaeya chuckles a little. "I can see you doing the same thing, actually.”

Albedo looks mockingly offended but doesn’t say anything else, instead opening his sketchbook back up. They sit in a comfortable silence until Klee comes running back to their area with flowers in both hands for them. She’s absolutely soaked, so Kaeya pulls out a towel to dry her up before they head back. The picnic basket ends up being comically heavier on the way back - storing not only all of their untouched food but also every rock or shell Klee found pretty - but the potential for arm aches is absolutely worth how over the moon she looks skipping through Mondstadt’s gates.

Klee’s birthday concludes with a big surprise party back at headquarters. It’s redundant to keep remarking on how happy she looks, but the sight is one Kaeya can’t tire of seeing. The knights have really gone all out, with every dessert imaginable and presents stacked taller than Klee herself. Most excitingly is Varka’s approval for Klee to shoot her homemade fireworks off the roof, something she’s been dreaming of for a while now. The party travels up the flights of stairs, and Klee can hardly contain her excitement as she shoots the fireworks off. The explosions reflect in her wide eyes, and Kaeya would like to think she’s had a pretty awesome seventh birthday.

-

Albedo stays in Mondstadt for the majority of the summer, mostly at Klee’s insistence, but come late August he heads back up to Dragonspine for an extended research trip. Ironically, he learns more about Albedo while he’s gone than he ever did in his presence, by way of Klee babbling along. He has a sweet tooth, apparently, and an absolutely awful track record of remembering to take care of himself. Kaeya pockets the information each time, and when he’s sent up the mountain in mid September to drop up some new materials, he has every intention of utilizing it.

Albedo’s birthday is coming up, Klee tells him, so she begs to come along. Varka gives the go-ahead, so his trip up the mountain gains an additional set of luggage in the form of a child arsonist, her homemade cupcakes and card, and the week’s worth of soup that he snuck into their portable icebox. Kaeya’s horse is carting all of their goods, so he and Klee walk up the mountain instead. For a 7 year old, Klee handles the trip exceptionally well, and her neverending bomb supply comes in handy more than once. Towards the end of their trek she reaches for his arms, but even from atop his shoulders Klee animatedly chats away. 

Kaeya has the foresight to avoid the broken bridge by coming from the opposite direction, so when they start to see the trail towards Albedo’s camp he sets Klee back on the ground. He winks at her, and they move in exaggerated stealth, a performance that would yield no success in any other context. Kaeya hasn’t figured out much of Albedo, but he’s willing to bet that the man is hunched over his work, tuned out to the rest of the world. 

Kaeya is, of course, correct, as Albedo does not flinch at the sound of giggling invaders trudging through the snow. He’s worse than anticipated, considering even Kaeya leaning against the rock dramatically and knocking rather hard isn’t enough to pull him out of his trance. "Archons, Albedo, this whole mountain could be collapsing and you wouldn’t move until you finished your work,” is what finally does it, although he’s only met with a quick glance before Albedo looks back down.

"Captain Kaeya, a pleasure,” is what he gets in response. Albedo does not sound pleased. Klee sneaks up from behind and hugs him, and Kaeya gets to watch his face soften in real time at the action. 

"What brings you two up here?” Albedo asks, even though Kaeya is sure he’s the one who requested the materials. Klee runs over to the icebox to pull out the cupcakes, and miraculously doesn’t drop them when she runs back over. Parts of the icing are smudged from the trip, outlines of other containers indented in the already lopsided decoration. 

Albedo is surprised at the sight of them, and Kaeya has half a mind to believe that he actually forgot about his birthday. Klee was right about his sweet tooth, though, because the prospect of cupcakes effectively lures him away from his work. Klee makes Albedo listen to her artistic journey in every flower and explosive she iced on, and he listens attentively, asking her questions and complimenting her handiwork.

After cupcakes, Klee decides it is absolutely crucial that they make a snowman immediately. To Kaeya’s surprise, Albedo actually puts his work down to join them. Kaeya watches doubtfully as he puts on a scarf Kaeya would have never imagined him to own before zipping Klee’s jacket back up and walking the two of them outside. 

Between Kaeya’s harness over Cryo and Albedo’s Khemia skills, they could have a snowman done in the blink of an eye. Kaeya refuses to cheat, however, so he instead helps Klee with rolling her once tiny snowball into a suitable base for their creation. Albedo mostly stands off to the side and watches, likely unsure of how to help. To an outsider it would look as though he’s bored, but Kaeya knows his every action is being observed intently. He doesn’t really mind.

Once they’ve procured three boulders of snow in varying sizes, Kaeya stacks them up and Albedo steps in to help decorate. The scarf Kaeya knows he doesn’t need makes more sense when he takes it off to put it on the snowman instead. Klee decides that she needs to create a top hat out of snow, and Albedo helps her sculpt one to a surprising accuracy. Kaeya relents and uses his vision, only to make shaped pieces of ice for the face, nose, and arms. Klee directs the production, ordering the two of them around like a military general until everything is exactly to her liking.

Overall, Kaeya’s done most of the heavy lifting, but he can still sense Klee’s growing exhaustion. Once their masterpiece is complete, he scoops her into his arms as they head back into Albedo’s mountain lab. She insists that she isn’t tired and therefore should be allowed to stay for longer, but suspiciously refuses to get down from her place in Kaeya’s arms. When she predictably drifts off to sleep, he carefully removes his fur cape to wrap it around her. She shifts a little, tiny arms clutching to the softness, but doesn’t awaken.

"You’re good with her,” Albedo comments quietly, in that Albedo way that doesn’t particularly invite conversation. Kaeya senses Albedo’s social capacity is draining, so he simply nods as a way of response and moves on to collecting the rest of Klee’s things. Albedo goes back to his experiments, though he does look up and wave when Kaeya announces his departure. Kaeya considers this a personal win.

Klee sleeps the whole way down the mountain, only stirring for a moment when Kaeya has to dig through pockets to get his keys. He doesn’t bother waking her up fully to get her to change into pajamas, just tucks her into her bed, places Dodoco in her arms, and kisses her forehead goodnight. She’s back to sleeping within minutes, and as Kaeya watches he realizes he would kill for this child.

-

The morning of November 30th greets Kaeya with a bottle of Dawn Winery Vintage at the door of his apartment. Right. He can drink now. Legally. There’s a note attached to the bottle, and at closer inspection – it’s Crepus’ handwriting. He inhales sharply at the realization. It’s not a personal letter (Crepus had always been one for verbal affection over written), just a slip of paper with "For Kaeya’s 18th” scribbled on. Marked and set aside, probably shelved in the office closet where he used to hide all their gifts (Kaeya and Diluc both knew it, but looking spoiled the fun). Vintagebottles are the winery’s most elite, left aging for generations and only brought out for special occasions. Kaeya recalls that it’s tradition to receive one on a Ragnvindr’s coming of age, though Diluc’s had been accompanied by a matching bottle of ordinary grape juice. He sets the bottle down on his counter to mentally unpack later, and makes his way out the door.

He insists on working his birthday, despite Jean’s pleas to take off. He claims he can’t miss his first day of work as a grown adult, but truth be told he just doesn't know what he would do with himself otherwise. The traditional Ragnvindr 18th birthday he was raised to believe in is far past unattainable, and he has a feeling that without work to distract him, that reminder will leave him either spiraling in a ditch or drunk by lunch. Possibly both. 

He gets barely two steps into headquarters before he's tackled by Klee. "Happy birthday, big brother Kaeya!” She holds out a folded piece of paper with colorful crayon marks all over it. His grin grows wide at the sight of it: there’s a drawing of the two of them at the lake, with fireworks over their heads and dead fish in the water. Klee is a visionary. 

Kaeya picks her up and heads to his office, which is already covered nearly floor to ceiling in every drawing Klee has ever given him. People entering his office for the first time tend to let out a snicker or remark, but a stern glare and a glimpse of the knife compartment built into the underside of Kaeya’s vest is usually enough to shut them up. (He doesn’t even use those knives, really. Flamboyant intimidation tactics are just too easy to pass up.)

Klee stays with him in his office all morning. She likes to pretend to do ‘paperwork’ while he does his, so Kaeya gets out the sketchpad and crayons he keeps in his desk drawer for occasions like this. He works to the sound of her humming for a few hours until she tugs on his cape as a reminder for lunch. 

In her excitement, Klee reveals details of a "super-secret surprise party for big brother Kaeya” to Sara when they order. Kaeya kindly pretends not to have heard. She switches the subject quickly, and Kaeya feels a twinge of pride. He’s taught her well (in the ways of deception, at least). Klee entertains him (and absolutely not the other way around) for the rest of the afternoon, until she needs to leave for "a completely normal lesson with Miss Lisa”, and who is he to stop young minds? 

He goes back to his desk, rearranges some files and tidies up the room. As well-intentioned as she is, Klee’s flighty nature tends to leave a path of destruction wherever she goes. In this case, there are now crayons and half-colored drawings all over Kaeya’s office floor. At exactly 6:01, Jean knocks on his door with a request to accompany her in "investigating a minor report within the city.” More than aware of what’s coming next thanks to Klee’s slip-up, he takes care to grab his things and lock up on the way out.

As expected, Jean brings him not to any helpless citizen but to Angel's Share. The outside is decorated with balloons and string lights, and a good portion of headquarters is already socializing outside. Klee runs up to him again, this time in a party dress that gives her the resemblance of a cupcake.

“Jean, you didn’t tell me this was a formal affair! What’s the occasion?” he winks at Klee.

"Your birthday, silly!”

"Ah, how could I forget? This is quite the party, Miss Klee.” She grabs his hand and starts dragging him around the party, weaving in and out of conversations with that juvenile delight that Kaeya so badly envies. They’ve procured quite the crowd, with knights of all ranks and ages. Varka is animatedly talking to new recruits, Lisa is whispering something in Jean’s ear, and Klee bounces around with far too much energy for a child after 8pm. When she graciously helps Kaeya blow out the candles on his cake, he spots a rare smile on Albedo’s face from his usual seat in the corner. 

And though the day isn’t what he had been raised to expect, Kaeya’s starting to think he couldn’t have imagined it any other way.

-

Over the next months Kaeya becomes a more and more frequent presence at the tavern. He’s there almost every night, save for his days with Klee or out-of-city missions. His trips become a routine, and it's nice to have more structure in a life that's felt so uncontrollable. 

The tavern and he are business partners. Kaeya, of course, pays the Angel's Share in the for the cost of each drink, but their exchange goes further. Kaeya gives the Angel's Share publicity, lures in new customers with the desire of sharing the illusive Cavalry Captain’s presence. In return, Kaeya gains a plethora. 

Information, from friend and foe alike, words spilled over one too many glasses. His subjects always think that they, too, are participating in equal exchange with the captain - but no amount of drinks can let his guard down low enough to divulge anything truly sacred. 

Reputation, a chance to further the gossip cycle and let himself slither in and out of the grasp of prospective lovers. Another form of information, but more than that. The feeling of a relationship, the thrill of the chase, even when Kaeya knows it’ll all be over by the end of the night.

And of course, the drinks. Alcohol doesn’t quite blind him the way it does everyone else, but it’s an addictive substance nonetheless. The bittersweetness of nostalgia reminiscent of a past left behind is short but strong. In its wake, intoxication brings Kaeya the clarity of mind he so desperately desires, cooldown on a brain that travels at a hundred miles a minute. Kaeya jokes of writing his daily checks off as a work expense, seeing how many breakthroughs he has sitting at that bar with a glass in hand.

Jean worries, and he can tell, but she can’t say anything as long as Kaeya turns up to work every morning sober and on time. Besides, those tipsy revelations prove vital to their missions more often than not, and he doesn’t really think they can afford to sacrifice that.

The tavern also brings a new acquaintance, of sorts. Rosaria stands out to him the moment they meet, a nun in fishnets with a dagger leashed to her arm. Their bond grows from a mutual lack of trust and the unspoken knowledge that they’re the two smartest patrons in the room. She never gets drunk, it seems, though she always has a glass at her side. Rosaria does her own investigations, watches whoever’s on her radar from the corner of her eye. Kaeya finds the links between them, outsiders with an instinctive set of obligations that don’t quite fit Mondstadt’s design. 

The tavern, on paper, is Diluc’s, but it serves Kaeya well in his absence.

-

As April creeps around again, Kaeya predictably falls deeper into his cycle of unhealthy coping mechanisms. On missions he fights with the same ruthless vigor that he did at 16, when he was newly scarred without enough left in him to care. The wounds had healed with time, but every April they seem to reopen, and the new life he’s made for himself seems to crumble out of sight. 

With every day closer to the 30th, Kaeya seems to arrive to the tavern earlier and depart later. His trips grow less and less productive, and while Kaeya had always been grateful for the ability to keep his mind while intoxicated, he starts to crave the escape of being utterly drunk. He lowers his guard in an attempt to achieve such a feeling, lets Rosaria weasel some less incriminating secrets out of him just to mimic the stupidity he’s observed from others for so long. It feels more like giving up than reaching freedom.

The scent of liquor trails after Kaeya even when he’s sober. Papers on his desk begin to pile, his mission plans grow weaker. The work that once grounded him starts losing to the fog settling in his brain. He slips up once, misses a detail and sends the cavalry into a losing battle, and suddenly he can’t stop making mistakes. The oversights are minor, little mistakes uncharacteristic of one of the knights’ top thinkers. It kills him every time, knowing every failure was easily avoidable, quick fallacies that he’s absolutely better than. At some point, that recklessness in battle moves from a strength to a weakness, goes from the fuel that makes him so deadly to almost rendering him dead.

Kaeya is all but ready to hand in his resignation on the 29th, doesn’t bother showing up on the 30th. His first drink of the morning clears just enough fog in his mind to pull him towards the winery. He doesn’t know how or why, but it’s not like he has any other options. He gets to the estate, unlocks the back door and grabs a few bottles. If Adelinde’s heard him, she doesn’t show it.

He ducks into Diluc’s room, same pristine upkeep, vision still sparkling. Kaeya wonders if Adelinde keeps it like this in await of Diluc’s return. He retreats to his own room before that thought can go further. It’s just as well-kept, but it feels lifeless without the decorations and clutter that he’d removed when he packed his bags. Fitting, really - the hollow remains of a former room for the hollow remains of a former man.

He’s on the bed, suddenly, and then he’s crying over everything and nothing and the space between. The bottles are open but the relief they bring is fleeting, so he develops a pitiful cycle of drinking and crying and drinking some more. He spills some, and then he’s crying over that too, and now the weight of every mistake he’s ever made is toppling down on him at once.

He blacks out eventually, passes out soon after that, and wakes up to harsh rays of sun hitting his face. There’s coffee and toast on his bedside table, and he’s encompassed in the blankets that he fell asleep on top of. Kaeya cracks a small smile at it all - classic Adelinde. He scribbles a thank you note and doesn’t elaborate on it, downs the coffee and hurries out the back door. Adelinde, he trusts, won’t tell.

-

On Lisa's own birthday, to the relief of everyone close to her, she takes matters into her own hands and proposes to Jean herself. Kaeya considers this a win for everyone involved, especially himself. Being her most trusted co-conspirator, Kaeya has been subject to all of her woes about how her girlfriend is too busy unofficially running the country to spend time with her. Kaeya would remind her that a wedding would only make everyone more busy, but he knows better than to stop her. She’ll figure out a way to get past that regardless.

It turns out that Lisa’s way out of this one is by throwing all of the planning onto Kaeya instead! She eloquently explains that if he can mastermind month-long criminal investigations he can handle planning a small wedding, and he loves the both of them too much to decline. 

Lisa emphasized small and soon , so just a month later Mondstadt’s finest gather at the cathedral. Albedo makes it down the mountain for the occasion, primarily to check Klee’s flower basket for bombs before she causes a national crisis. He manages to get both of Jean’s parents in attendance, which is a separate feat entirely. He thinks for a moment what it would be like if Diluc was still around, but he refuses to let the thought ruin his best friends’ day.

There were many candidates for wedding officiant, but in the end the job goes to Kaeya himself. The one job Lisa keeps for herself is the attire. Few people are witness to Lisa at her greatest, but Kaeya thinks that today might be a rare example. She steps into the cathedral in a pale violet gown, adorned with delicate organza roses. Kaeya knew she was making the garments herself, is wearing a Lisa-made creation himself (‘so you don’t ruin my wedding with your stupid fur cape’ ), but had been forbidden from any peeking. When she gets to the alter he kisses her cheek, their last moment of faux heterosexuality.

Klee successfully fulfills her duties as the flower girl without blowing up any historical landmarks, and when Jean opens the cathedral doors Kaeya spots the first genuine smile on her face that he’s seen in a long time.

The wedding is, of course, a success. Barbara sings at the reception, Jean cries several times, and Kaeya smiles and observes it all. He properly dances with both of the brides before Klee steals him away, and he spends the rest of the night spinning her in the air and holding her on his shoulders. 

The wedding, in short, is a very nice day for everyone involved. 

-

November starts with a month-long mission focused on tracking new Abyss Order activity. Kaeya loves missions, every step from the first investigations to the last fight. They’re almost like a vacation for him, somehow. On paper it’s quite the opposite: assignments like these require complete dedication, an all-consuming focus that leaves little room for anything else. Something about that is freeing to him, though. There’s no time for gossip mills or idle tasks. That too-fast brain of his is put to use for once, latching completely onto the subject with a drive too fierce to get distracted. Solace in the inability to entertain thoughts of anything else.

So he doesn’t exactly mind when his 19th birthday opens to the dreary sight of damp grass and the late fall breeze. He misses Mondstadt, sure, misses Klee’s wide eyes and Jean’s subtle looks. His makeshift camp isn’t the most glamorous, limp sleeping bags and bare-bones meals aren’t the most desirable, but they come with a different kind of peace. He’s content here, scheming and fighting and actually getting use of the trophy skills he maintains. Really, he doesn’t have time for any more birthday reflecting today. He has an assignment to be getting to, after all.

-

March brings another of Albedo’s extended trips to Dragonspine, and Kaeya manages to get himself invited along. He claims he has some leads he needs to scout out, and he does, but his efforts are primarily due to his own ongoing mission to figure out Albedo. It’s been three years now, and he’s tried every one of his patented techniques to no avail. Albedo is his downfall, a wildcard in the face of someone so cunningly capable. 

To be fair, he’s gotten closer than most. He’s been extended the rare privilege of being allowed to enter Albedo’s lab when he’s in the midst of an experiment, where most others would be rushed out. They talk, about Klee and the knights and whatever philosophical questions Albedo is debating that day. To an outside account it might look like he’s won already - the alchemist has a reputation for being quite the recluse. But Kaeya knows he’s missing something, when there’s a star on his neck and a careful air that overtakes their conversations whenever things start to get personal. It takes one to know one, after all.

Things stay as they’ve been for a while. He finds Albedo toiling with the same experiments no matter what time Kaeya decides to drop by. He makes a habit out of draping himself dramatically over Albedo’s chaise every time he returns from a fight with the groups Kaeya is there to be following. The couch always looks exactly how he left it, and Kaeya is convinced the only time Albedo sits down is when he forces him to have a meal. The rhythm is nice, the conversation and companionship is comforting, but he’s no closer to the answers he came here for.

Kaeya wakes up on April 15th to the sounds of the owl of Dragonspine. He glares at the owl, which only cocks its head in return. They had owls at the winery growing up, and with a certain anniversary only weeks away, the presence of one is an unwanted reminder of days now so far gone. The owl keeps staring at him, and Kaeya takes it as a challenge.

In hindsight, he probably shouldn’t have let a woodland creature throw him into such a drastic state of mind. Instead of continuing on his investigations of treasure hoarders in the area, Kaeya decides to go after some Fatui camps he knows are nearby. Kaeya is one of the knights’ strongest, but provoking a group of war machines while alone is objectively a bad idea. He does it anyway, leaves bloodied and battered but victorious in his efforts.

He makes his way back to Albedo’s camp, throws himself onto the couch with a "Greetings, my dear alchemist” to pull his attention away from the notes on his desk. Albedo looks up, raises his eyebrows, glances at every stain of red on Kaeya’s attire. Kaeya can practically hear the cogs turning in his head, calculating. Then, he opens his mouth.

"Why does it feel like you’re trying to get yourself killed?” is what comes out, but in a language Kaeya hasn’t heard in years. He really doesn’t appreciate Albedo’s habit of catching him off guard. It’s bad for his reputation.

"Royalty shouldn’t act so foolishly” , Albedo continues in Khaenri'ahn, and Kaeya’s yellow eye burns. With anyone else, he could play this off innocently, laugh and make a joke and have it forgotten by the end of the knight. But there’s a tell-tale star on Albedo’s neck, and Kaeya knows there’s no escaping the truth.

"You’ve known all along,” is what Kaeya musters up as a response.

"I have.”

"Why didn’t you say anything earlier?”

"I had no reason to.”

Albedo turns towards his shelves at that, and their dialogue is effectively cut. He reaches for his first-aid kit, and Kaeya remembers that he’s bleeding. Albedo wordlessly bandages him up, and Kaeya thinks about what comes next. Albedo’s move might have startled him, but it was revealing all the same. Albedo has a history with Khaenri'ah that runs far deeper than their alchemical process if his fluency is profound enough for such casual interjection. 

He rehearses what he wants to ask in his head a few times, recalls the right words while Albedo finishes treating his scars. Even though it’s not his anymore, he whispers, "Tell me about home.”

-

They fall back into a modified iteration of their usual routine. Kaeya waltzes in at random, Albedo keeps to his experiments, and comfortable silence is interrupted at random by sudden statements on either end. Now, though, those interruptions flow between rivaling languages. Albedo is more expressive in Khaenri'ahn, lets out swears at his mistakes and mutters half-finished thought processes to himself. 

Kaeya hasn’t spoken the language to others since he was brought to Mondstadt all those years ago. When he was younger, he would sneak into the bathroom after the winery was asleep to practice in the mirror. He’s dug through the knights’ restricted sections for glimpses of Khaenri'ahn script, still pays close attention to the trivialized, bare-bones dialect that hilichurls speak. Nothing compares to conversation.

Albedo explains that his teacher and him left Khaenri'ah before he turned 10, but they continued to speak the language until it was time for him to come to Mondstadt. Their idle chats double as language practice for the both of them, though he carefully avoids subjects of Khaenri'ahs future. He can’t answer those questions for himself, let alone to others. 

Kaeya doesn’t bother setting up camp in the mountains anymore, just makes his way back to Albedo’s couch at all hours of the day. He would like to believe that this is for Albedo’s own well-being, because it forces him to stop and eat every once and a while, but the truth is that their bond of shared sins is the truest companionship he’s ever had.

-

On April 30th, the owl returns. It hoots until Kaeya shoots pellets of ice in its direction. Albedo raises his eyebrows but goes back to his work. 

“Kaeya,” Albedo starts at the table, once Kaeya has rallied himself off the couch. "What’s today?”

He sighs tremendously. “April 30th.”

"And what does that mean to you?”

Nobody knows the full truth, but if anyone would understand it’s Albedo. Still, he’s never offered vulnerabilities for free. An old Khaenri'ahn formality comes to mind. He places his thumb under Albedo’s right eye, so the curve connecting to his index finger traces Albedo’s face up. "Eye for an eye?”  

Albedo smiles in recognition and mimics the movement on Kaeya’s face. "Yours first.”

With that, their contract of sorts is sealed. Kaeya tells him everything, his short Khaenri'ahn childhood up to the day Crepus died and he dared to speak the truth. He speaks mostly in the language of the wind, mixes in Khaenri'ahn idioms and phrases as he goes. Albedo nods along quietly, understanding without need for words. Then, it’s his turn.

Albedo touches the star on his neck as he starts. "I’m afraid I'm not the best at storytelling. To put it simply, I am Gold’s creation.” he inhales, then switches languages. "I’m sure you’re familiar with her. Gold, or Rhinedottir as I know her, created me with Khemia after the cataclysm. She raised me as her student. We left the ruins when I was 9, traveled across Teyvat until I was 15. Then she sent me off with the task of finding the truth of the world and disappeared.”  

Kaeya can’t say he’s surprised, really. There’s been something nonhuman radiating off of Albedo since the day they met, though he’s sure he’s the only one that noticed. Albedo plays the part well, but faker recognizes faker. Albedo braces for a reaction, but Kaeya only nods him to continue. "I’ve noticed you touch your eyepatch in certain areas of Dragonspine, as well as your reaction when we were first acquainted. I suspect there are traces of Durin’s corruption in my blood, which resonates with your ancestry. If I may-” Albedo tucks his finger under Kaeya’s eyepatch, same motions as before. "Eye for an eye?”

Kaeya places his hand on Albedo’s neck this time, right on the star, and nods. His eyepatch is removed, and he blinks to adjust to the light. His yellow eye can see, but he doesn’t know who else is watching. The eyepatch is all that keeps his two worlds apart. 

"These stars are more than decorative,” Albedo finishes, and they spend the rest of the day in silence. Kaeya doesn’t replace his eyepatch until he goes to bed that night.

-

The Dragonspine trip wraps up in late May, but Kaeya doesn't get to stay in Mondstadt for long. Early August sends Kaeya off on another long expedition, this time a chase through Starsnatch Cliff. He’s excited, as always, roused to get back to the position where he shines most. And yet…

For the first time in a really, really long time, Kaeya has something to come back to. Something’s shifted since last November, when the desolation of missions brought him tranquility. He still fights with the same brutal force and sly grin, still devotes himself to planning and spends his nights poured over maps and letters with a pen shoved in his hair. But when he goes to pinch the flame of his candle every night, there’s a twinge of longing that wasn’t there before.

Kaeya misses Klee’s spontaneous trips to his office, her drawings and tales of Dodoco. He thinks about how many fish she must have bombed in his absence (and, subsequently, how many times Jean’s thrown her into solitary). He wonders what types of experiments Albedo is no doubt obsessing over, what new gossip Lisa’s delved into, which unfortunate bystander Rosaria’s marked as her latest suspect. The recklessness subsides a bit, and Kaeya spends more time than ever mulling over the best course of action at every fork in the road. His plans have never failed in the end, but he’s working for less injury in the process.

He's more conscious now, of the risk that comes with the job. It had never mattered to him, whether he lived or died on the field, but he knows for certain that there are people waiting for him now, and he’s not one for putting his knights in any more danger than he’s willing to put himself. 

In a way, this newfound humanity acts as a motivator. For as much as he still loves the thrill of the fight, with every passing day the longing gets a little stronger, and he starts optimizing their plans with more vigor than ever before. There’s a life he’s made waiting for him back in Mondstadt, a real one now. He’d had the foundations of one for a while, a job and an apartment and some sort of motivation to get up every morning. What’s taken longer is the slow and grueling process of letting people in again. After years he’s there, at least to some degree, and it’s proving to make all the difference.

Their mission wraps up in mid September, and Kaeya’s spirits lift immensely from the second he sends a knight back to Mondstadt with a letter to Jean regarding their return. He’s much more jovial with his cavalry as they pack up for home. His bolder subsidiaries poke fun at him, comment on how "Captain Kaeya’s gone soft!”, but he doesn’t have it in him to do anything more than laugh along. They’re on their way soon enough, and Kaeya is practically giddy at the prospect of going back to his tea times with Lisa and late night discussions with Albedo. He sees the city gates, and his heart rate speeds up. Such only gets faster when he spots his favorite arsonist atop a certain alchemist’s shoulders. If this is what ‘going soft’ entails, Kaeya will gladly take the hit.

-

Kaeya wakes up on November 30th to an owl at his windowsill. He can’t bring himself to be mad at its presence, not when there’s a nine year old down the hall that he suspects is already awake and bursting with energy. Right on cue, he hears tiny footsteps and suppressed giggles coming down his hallway. Klee knocks and waits all of three seconds before practically barrelling the door down. She jumps onto him, and he points at the window and signals for her to be quiet. Her eyes grow wide with joy as she walks over to the window to examine the creature. The owl, thankfully, is a patient one, and stays still as Klee moves around to get a better look.

When Klee grows bored, she remembers why she came barging in in the first place. "Happy birthday, big brother Kaeya!” she exclaims with a jump into his arms, and Kaeya decides that he doesn’t need anything else this year. She wriggles out of his grasp a few seconds later, telling him firmly to ‘stay right there’ as she runs out of the room.

When she comes back, it’s with a small gift bag. "For me?” he asks dramatically, and Klee nods excitedly.

"Open it, open it!”

The bag is filled with tissue paper, and he feels around until he grasps the item instead. It’s covered in another layer of the paper, which Kaeya carefully unwraps. His face softens when he sees what’s inside. It’s a small canvas, with a picture of him, her, and Albedo on a picnic. It’s painted instead of her usual crayons, so Albedo must have helped her make it. Still, the art is undeniably hers. Embarrassingly, he feels his eyes welling up, so he pulls Klee in for a hug and praises her on her work. 

Although it’s his birthday, he took planning into his own hands this year. After a breakfast of strawberries and slightly lopsided Dodoco-shaped pancakes (Albedo still hasn’t told him his secrets), Kaeya corrals Klee into her coat and grabs her backpack. As they walk through the streets of Mondstadt, Klee drags Kaeya around to inform everyone she sees that it is his birthday. When they exit Mondstadt’s gates, Klee asks where they’re going, and he tells her it’s a surprise. She huffs something about how it’s his birthday so she should be the one doing the surprising, but quickly forgets when she sees a cute fox scurry by.

As planned, Albedo is waiting for them when they get to the winery’s lake. He’d been up on Dragonspine for the past week, and Kaeya would be lying if he said he wasn’t concerned the man would get lost in his research and forget. He’s been doing better about that lately, Kaeya thinks. 

Kaeya remembers his first birthday after everything, when he went down to the winery’s lake and froze the water under his feet with each step and then watched as the path behind melted away. When his vision was a few months old, his wounds still fresh, his heart still closed off to the rest of the world.

It's colder this year. The lake isn’t quite frozen yet, but his vision can easily remedy that now. Klee watches in awe as he freezes the entirety of the lake with one firm step. He waves his hand over her head and basks in her giggles as she dances in the flurries he’s made. Albedo unpacks three pairs of ice skates from the bag he’d brought, and only then does Klee realize what’s happening.

Albedo is, infuriatingly, a natural at skating, despite his claims that he’s never tried before. He mimics quite a few of Kaeya’s elegant spins with ease, though he doesn’t attempt any of his jumps. Klee figures out how to keep her balance, but not much else. She discovers that by struggling she can get Kaeya and Albedo to hold her hands and tow her around and immediately stops trying. They amuse her, lift their arms at the same time so she floats off the ice for a second, and the absolute joy that follows is worth the fact that they have effectively been played by a nine year old.

An hour or so in, Kaeya notices a silhouette walking towards them from the winery. It’s Adelinde, with three mugs of hot cocoa and a container of cookies. "You really shouldn’t have,” he tells her, because it’s true, not when he’s been disowned by her employer. She pushes the treats into his hands and says that they’re a birthday gift to a captain of the knights, nothing more. He doesn’t fight anymore. Adelinde’s hot chocolate was always his favorite.

It is not at all what that first birthday in Mondstadt was like, not a huge party of people to honor him. Back then, the fact that anyone would want to celebrate him was monumental. Now, he’s content spending the day with the arsonist child he’d easily defend with his life and her enigmatic older brother that he seems to be linked to in more ways than one. Albedo comments that it feels like Klee’s birthday, not his. He doesn’t mind one bit.

When Kaeya gets home, he digs up the old family portrait from his days at the winery. It used to make him feel sick, he remembers. It doesn’t anymore. He props it up on his dresser, then puts Klee’s painting next to it. Two families, past and present, side by side.

-

As January bleeds into February, Kaeya watches Jean slowly descend into madness. She’s always been dedicated and driven, always put Mondstadt first and herself second, but this is different. She no longer drops by his office to make sure he hasn’t lost his mind, no longer checks Klee’s bag for bombs every morning and night. Kaeya pesters Lisa about it, and though the witch agrees Jean hasn’t been herself, she seems to be sworn to secrecy on why. Eventually, Kaeya resolves to cornering her after hours, since he can’t seem to find her any other time.

“Jean.” he doesn’t knock. She doesn’t look up. He steps in. "What’s going on?”

"Do we have business, Sir Kaeya? I'm rather occupied at the moment.” if everything else hadn’t been worrying enough, that seals it for him.

“Jean. It is nine in the evening. There isn’t anyone else left here. Now,” he snatches the papers from her desk, and she finally looks up to glare at him. "You are going to take a break and tell me what’s been up with you these past few weeks.”

She sighs, but looks out to the dark hallway and relents quietly. “Varka is going on an expedition.” 

That's all she says, though, and Kaeya is most definitely missing something. "Surely he isn’t overworking you with the preparations? He knows you’ve got better things to be doing than that.”

"No,” she gets quieter. "You don’t get it. He’s leaving for an expedition. A long one. And he’s leaving me in charge.”

Personally, Kaeya can’t think of a better choice for Grand Master than Jean. She practically does the job already. But if this is what being the Grand Master is going to do to his best friend, he’s not sure if he likes it. Still, he congratulates her. It’s a rather big deal, when you think about it. He implores her to take care of herself, and by some grace of god actually manages to get her to leave her office for the night.

In a few days, they all get called in to the general meeting 30 minutes early, just like when Alice left. Varka formally announces everything Jean told him, and he keeps his face carefully neutral. What Jean didn’t tell him is that Varka is taking the entire cavalry with him, sans Kaeya. When he questions this choice after the meeting, Varka informs him with a smile that he’s "too valuable to Mondstadt to be taken away.” A nice sentiment, if not for the fact that Kaeya is effectively out of a job.

The next week is one of their busiest, as headquarters prepares to depart with a whole unit of their staff. Kaeya does his best to assist Jean, which is significantly easier to do now considering the majority of his other responsibilities are dissolved. Lisa steps away from her library for once to try to keep Jean from plummeting into insanity, and to be put over Lisa’s books is no small feat.

After what is both an eternity and a mere hour, Varka’s merry band of knights and horses finally head off. Jean settles into her position fairly smoothly, having had more than enough experience with the position already. She likes it, he thinks, though he and Lisa still have to drag her out of her office every evening. As for his own job (or lack thereof) - he fills the time with odd jobs and errands, going on impromptu patrol and checking in to bother help Jean. He used to need the strict guidelines of his job to keep the rest of him at bay, but he starts to flourish with the freedom that the missing cavalry brings.

-

April 30th rolls around once more. Kaeya wakes up to the sun shining in from his window and a feeling of tranquility he certainly hadn’t felt the year before. After a moment of laying in its warmth, he gets himself up and going. He throws on all ten layers of his regularly ostentatious outfit, goes through his skincare routine, even has breakfast for once. He’s well aware what day it is. He thinks that maybe he’s finally okay. Mostly.

On his way to headquarters, he smiles politely at everyone he passes, but focuses much more on the strays through the streets. He’s grown to know each of them individually, kneels down to pet the cuddliest of them and converses with them idly. Once they’ve all had their share of pats and gone through the stock of treats he keeps in his bag, he detaches himself from the array of animals latched to him and bids them adieu for now.

When he gets to headquarters, he heads to Jean’s office to pick up his next batch of paperwork. Since Varka’s departure, he’s been leaning more into his role as quartermaster, trying to take off some of her workload. When she hands him his papers, she holds on for a moment longer, studies his face in her concerned motherly way. He pretends not to notice, smiles and thanks her and heads out her door before she can say anything else.

He gets settled in at his desk, puts everything in its place and then gets to work. He doesn’t look up again until what must be hours later, when he hears footsteps approaching his door. Albedo walks in, places a box of food on Kaeya’s desk, pulls up a chair, and plops down his own stack of papers. Kaeya’s lips turn upward slightly as he watches him go right back to his research notes without a word. 

It's ironic, really, when it’s usually Kaeya invading Albedo’s lab, Kaeya making sure Albedo eats. Regardless, he puts his reports aside and opens up the box. Inside are a set of his favorite skewers, alongside a cupcake. It is not until he takes the first bite that he realizes that breakfast was longer ago than he thought. 

Albedo stays for the rest of the day, though neither of them talk. It’s becoming a routine for them, to sit together and work on their respective projects. Kaeya never thought he could enjoy this type of silent company, but with him it just works.

Albedo leaves just after the sun has set, tapping the desk to alert Kaeya of his departure. He figures it’s about time for him to start cleaning up as well, and that’s when he notices it. On the desk, at the space where Albedo was sitting, lays a sheet of paper. On it is a shockingly accurate depiction of Kaeya’s own likeness. Albedo has ‘drawn’ Kaeya before, but only in the form of those silly three line drawings that Klee seems to love. It’s a pencil drawing, so there’s no color, but he still manages to capture all of Kaeya’s many shades. Including, he notices, the stark glow of his usually covered yellow eye. Albedo has, to Kaeya’s amazement, turned his cursed eye into something beautiful.

Neither of them uttered a single word, but somehow Albedo has brought Kaeya the most comforting April 30th he’s ever had. 

-

One particularly warm July day, Kaeya is sitting with Jean in her office discussing a recent expedition when an amateur knight interrupts with a knock. "There’s a visitor requesting a meeting with you, Grand Master.”

"Is it urgent?” 

The knight looks down at the floor, suddenly more squeamish than before. "It’s… Master Diluc.”

Jean’s face morphs into something Kaeya’s never seen before, a look of being absolutely caught off guard from someone so prepared for everything. Kaeya himself feels paralyzed. It’s not that he’s forgotten, not that he could ever forget Diluc or the decade of life where they were inseparable. But it’s been four years, and those memories have been compartmentalized and packed away into something very separate from the life he’s living now. He used to wonder about Diluc, check with Adelinde every so often if there had been any news of his whereabouts. He still thinks about Diluc, about the man that used to be his brother, but he doesn’t wonder anymore. He hasn’t for a long time.

They exchange glances, a silent conversation between the two of them. What the hell? she asks him. 

I have no idea. A response given in a slight shrug.

Will you be okay?

He gives a brisk nod followed by a more playful wink. I can take it.

Jean looks back to the knight, who is now fumbling with the seams of their uniform in anticipation. "Send him in.” the knight nods and hurries out. Kaeya sits up a little straighter, braces himself for whatever’s next as he comes to terms with the fact that this is actually happening, now. Jean moves her paperwork aside. And then there he is.

Diluc is standing in the doorway. Diluc is standing in the doorway. He’s real again, no longer just a faded memory. He hasn’t changed, Kaeya thinks. His hair might be a little longer, but it’s still pulled back in that unruly ponytail. He most certainly hasn’t grown. In fact, Kaeya definitely has a good four inches on him now. He holds back a smirk at that realization. Even his face hasn’t changed, still as baby-faced as ever.

If Kaeya tries hard enough, this sight could mirror his life at 15, back before it all went to shit, when it was just the three of them and a world of opportunities. But something’s shifted now, besides the obvious and the years in between. It’s him and Jean on one side of the desk, and Diluc on the other. Jean picked him. Diluc left the knights and Mondstadt and abandoned everything, and Jean and Kaeya stayed. 

“Grand Master Jean, I see you’ve made quite the name for yourself,” is the first thing Diluc says. "I’m just here to drop off some paperwork following my return.” Kaeya knows that Diluc sees him, can tell by the way he holds himself that his presence is causing some reaction under the surface. Diluc is simply choosing to ignore, choosing to coward away from his problems just like he did all those nights ago and -

"Thank you, Master Diluc. I'm sure our quartermaster here will be more than willing to assist you as you readjust to life back home.” Ah. Jean noticed too, and he doesn’t miss the bitterness in her usually diplomatic smile. 

Diluc is left with no choice but to face him now. Kaeya makes no effort to hide the amusement on his face as Diluc copes with the situation. He makes it, though it takes longer than it should, and a small grimace lies on his face that he can’t seem to wipe.

“Master Diluc! Welcome back. It’s been far too long!” Kaeya exclaims, his best smile on display without a hint of malice in his voice. It’ll sting more this way, he reckons, to act like this is just another obstinate diplomat and not the man who tried to kill him four years ago. 

He’s played his cards right, if the way Diluc struggles to speak is any indicator. The time he spends searching for a response far exceeds anything reasonable, but Kaeya and Jean kindly pretend not to notice.

After what seems like an eternity, Diluc swallows his pride and opens his mouth. "Yes. I suppose it has.”