Chapter Text
“So I’ll expect to see you again tomorrow, then?” Albedo smiled warmly as he watched Aether leave his camp.
Aether nodded, waving again. “Yeah, so make sure you have a nice breakfast prepared for me when I get back!” He half joked.
Albedo nodded dutifully with that same gentle smile.
Aether turned the corner, starting his trip back down to Mondstadt. They had been in a slight rush to leave the city the morning prior, and Albedo had only realised he forgot a few things in his Mondstadt lab once they had already arrived at his camp in Dragonspine. Aether said he would be happy to go back and collect them for the alchemist whilst he began the early stages of the experiment that didn’t require the traveller’s presence.
The sun had already set before Aether had even reached the base of the mountain, so he planned on spending the night in Mond and collecting Albedo’s things from the lab in the morning. The journey to the city was relatively quick, and once there the traveller had headed for the Knights of Favonius’ Headquarters.
The stairs up to the laboratory looked longer than usual — probably thanks to Aether finally feeling tired from making the full journey from Dragonspine to there without any breaks. He opened the door quietly, surprised to see the light on in the room. Sucrose was beside one of the windows in the corner, busying herself with a strange looking plant.
She squeaked when the door opened, swiftly turning to see who had entered. She gave a small sigh of relief to see it was only the traveller.
“Evening, Sucrose! Shouldn’t you be asleep right now? It’s almost 1am…” Aether asked, heading to the cupboards to try find items based on the list of descriptions Albedo had given him.
Sucrose turned back to her plant again. “I just want to finish this before I sleep — I-I wouldn’t want to lose where I was in my experiment if I take a break.”
Aether hummed. “Yeah, but it’s still good to sleep. You’d have more energy for your experiments tomorrow then.”
“What about you? You aren’t asleep either.” She stated, still idly using a pipette to drip a chemical onto one of the plant’s larger leaves.
“Albedo wanted me to get a few things, since he forgot to bring them with him to Dragonspine.” Aether stated simply, similarly busying himself with reading the labels on different racks of chemicals. “I’m gonna get them all out now, and then leave them on the table to bring back to him tomorrow.”
“Oh, okay.” Sucrose continued to fuss with her experiment.
Aether finished gathering a few corked vials of strange fluids, a specific book of alchemical arts, and Albedo’s journal, which he left on the counter by the door. “I’ll come back to collect these tomorrow; if you could please leave them where they are?” He asked Sucrose. The alchemist nodded silently, apparently too focused on what she was doing to answer.
With that, Aether left the laboratory once again, heading down the stairs to find Albedo’s quarters. He let himself in with the spare key he had been given by Albedo a while ago, before slumping down onto his bed. He was exhausted; he could’ve fallen asleep the moment he got back into the city, but he wanted to prepare everything first, so he could get back to seeing Albedo as soon as possible.
——————
When Aether awoke, he felt like he hadn’t slept at all. Not that the bed he was on was uncomfortable, but more so that it was a long, rough night. He rolled out of it blearily, reaching to open the curtains and let the early morning sun filter into the room.
Yet, in the light, Aether noted that the room looked different than usual. It was emptier — in fact, it was almost entirely empty of anything personal. The bookshelves were devoid of any books, the walls weren’t adorned with some of Albedo’s artworks, and the small art easel that the alchemist kept in the corner of his room was missing.
The traveller panicked, assuming he had fallen asleep in the wrong room. He hadn’t realised that there were many vacant rooms on this floor, but he guessed it wasn’t too surprising; perhaps they always kept a spare room incase of guest visits to Mondstadt, if the hotels were fully booked or something.
Either way, Aether still went about his usual morning routine, brushing through and braiding his hair, making the bed, and washing his face. He eventually came out of the room, returning to the lab in order to pick up the equipment he had gathered the night prior for Albedo.
The door had the ‘Experiment in Progress, Do not Disturb’ sign on it that it would usually have, so Aether knocked gently so as to not disturb whoever was inside.
“Sucrose, are you in there? I just need to collect my things from last night.” He hummed through the door, before letting himself in.
The green haired alchemist stood on the other side of the laboratory, a slight surprise hidden behind her large glasses. “Traveller! Did you need something?”
“Yeah, I just came to pick these up.” He said causally, walking over to the pile of equipment he had gathered the day prior. He paused, noticing the pile looked a lot emptier than it had done last night. “Did you move anything from this?”
Sucrose looked at him, confused. “Thats all you came in for yesterday, I haven’t touched anything. Did you forget something?”
Aether shook his head. “No, I’m sure I got everything on the list… where did his journal go?” He asked, noticing that the slightly worn book that Albedo always wrote the results of his experiments in had disappeared from the pile.
“‘His’? You mean Timaeus’? I don’t think he keeps his journal in here, you’ll have to ask him about that yourself. Why did you need all of this, anyway?” Her confusion grew.
Aether matched her perplexed expression. “I mean Albedo’s. He left it here yesterday, along with all this. That’s why I’m here; to collect them. I thought i told you that yesterday?”
Sucrose tilted her head curiously. “Albedo? I-I’m not sure who you mean, but if you’re taking that equipment for someone outside of the knights, please bring them all back in one piece soon, they’re rather expensive…”
The traveller paused, looking at Sucrose with slight concern. “You know Albedo, your teacher? Chief Alchemist? Short, blonde, pale guy?”
The green haired alchemist shook her head again. “Did you get enough sleep last night? I don’t have a teacher here; and there are no chief alchemists in Mondstadt.”
They both stared at each other, each with the same perplexed look as the other on their faces.
“…yeah.” Aether muttered at last, thinking this was Sucrose’s attempt at a prank. “Well, I’ll just take these; I’m sure he has a spare journal at his camp he can use instead. I’ll see you around, Sucrose.” He gathered the equipment into a satchel gently, before turning to leave the room.
She nodded after him, her gaze not leaving him until the door closed.
Aether stared at the closed door for a moment, before placing a hand on his bag as if to reassure himself. That was strange, but maybe Sucrose had just tried to play a practical joke on him, and hid the journal. The traveller was in too much of a hurry to play any games — Albedo could always just write his notes on some spare paper, and copy it into his journal another time.
He hurried down the corridor and stairs, entering the main hall of the Favonius Headquarters. He was glad to see more familiar faces there. Kaeya was taking Klee from the library, heading toward the main door before they, too, spotted Aether.
Klee excitedly let go of Kaeya’s hand, running into Aether’s side happily. “Mr Honorary Knight!”
Aether held a hand protectively over his bag, using the other to scruff Klee’s hat friendly. “Hey, Klee, Kaeya. How’s it been?”
Kaeya followed after Klee casually. “As normal as ever. I’m on Klee Duty today, so I thought I’d take her out on a small expedition. You look like you’re going somewhere?”
The traveller nodded. “Dragonspine. I just came back to get a few things from the lab.”
Kaeya’s eyebrow raised. “ Dragonspine ? What’s up in that desolate mountain that’s so interesting?”
Aether looked up at him with a small grin, “Albedo’s up there. Why else would I go?”
“Oh, is that another one of your adeptus friends from Liyue?”
The blonde paused, worry slowly seeping into his mind. “…no? Albedo .” He reiterated, thinking Kaeya hadn’t heard him properly.
The man scratched his ear awkwardly. “Yeah, I have no idea who that is. But you have fun, I guess. And stay safe up there, Dragonspine isn’t exactly forgiving.”
Aether straightened up, frustrated. “Albedo! You know who Albedo is! Klee’s older brother! Klee, you know who Albedo is, don’t you?”
Klee paused, exaggerating a deep-in-thought pose with her hand to her chin. “Older brother… do you mean like Razor? I guess Klee sees him as a brother!” She smiled happily up at him.
Kaeya immediately took note in Aether’s increasing frustration. “Aether, are you alright? Is there something I should know about?”
The traveller stood back from Klee. “No, everything’s fine. I can’t tell if you’re all trying to play a prank on me or not, but it isn’t funny.“
“Are you sure? We aren’t playing any jokes on you, I promise. You’re sure nothing is going on?”
“No one remembers who Albedo is!” Aether yelled in his frustration, a little louder than intended. He lowered his voice slightly. “The short blonde guy, doesn’t say much, really into alchemy, and spends a lot of his time studying in Dragonspine.”
Kaeya shook his head. “If he spends all his time in Dragonspine, I’m hardly going to know him. I don’t go up there.”
“Wait!” Klee interrupted, looking slightly excited. “Does he have blue eyes, with a looong flowing coat?”
Aether’s expression lit up, and he crouched down to Klee’s eye level. “Yes! That’s him! So you do know him!”
The child nodded her head enthusiastically. “Yeah! Lisa was reading a book about him to Klee a few days ago; I think it was called ‘The Spirit of Dragonspine’.”
Kaeya looked at Aether with a weird expression. “…you’re looking for a character in a fairytale? You know that’s all just fiction, right?”
The traveller glared at him. “No, he’s real, and we’ve all spoken to him plenty of times before. You really don’t remember him?”
“Nope. I know I’ve heard some adventurers say they’ve seen the Dragonspine spirit before, but I just guessed they were hallucinating something else, or mistaking some hilichurl for their fairytale characters.” Kaeya paused. “I’m not really one to believe in that sort of stuff.”
Aether paused, terror slowly gripping him. “What did you say that book was called again?” He tried to make his voice casual.
“The spirit of Dragonspine!” Klee exclaimed excitedly.
The traveller nodded wordlessly, watching as Kaeya took Klee’s hand once again.
“We’ll be going, then. Maybe you should take the day off, Aether. You look pale.” Kaeya noted with a concerned gaze.
When Aether hummed in a vague acknowledgement, the man turned and left the building with Klee. The blonde watched the two go, apparently quickly forgetting their conversation with him as they happily continued out of the door. How could everyone just forget about him so easily, and act like he had never existed?
Aether turned, quickly entering the library before starting his journey to the mountain. If he had learnt anything from his conversation with Kaeya and Klee, it was that no one knew who Albedo was, and any description of him were apparently taken from a fairytale. He wanted to find the book, and see if it were just a coincidence or if it actually described Albedo — just so he could finally know that everyone was simply playing some prank on him, and he’d have his closure.
There’s no way people could just forget about whole person like that for no reason. Sure, he would have wasted his time reading the book, but in the end everyone could laugh about it and move on. Perhaps even Albedo himself were in on the joke, purposely sending Aether back to Mondstadt alone so he could get everyone to pretend that he didn’t exist, like some sort of experiment or practical joke. It probably wasn’t outside of the realm of Albedo’s sense of humor, after all.
It took him a while, but once he had finally located the book he grabbed it and took a seat out of the way of anyone else in the library to read it alone.
The cover art was drawn with a sort of chalk pastel, showing a snowy landscape. There was a single dead tree and snow covered shrub, and a spindly figure draped in long white robes lined with gold and black on the cover art. Beneath the robes were small hints yellow and blue, and it’s hair was blonde and braided back. It was uncannily like Albedo’s outfit, albeit the hair looked a lot longer than the real thing’s as Aether remembered, and the lab coat looked oversized and over-adorned with gold and it’s huge sleeves that were almost entirely hidden in the robe’s flowing main body that itself melted into the snow floor around it. The being in the artwork held up a lantern in one black-gloved hand, and a pile of papers and books in it’s other. It looked as if it were peering right into Aether with two piercing teal eyes.
…maybe Albedo had been the one to give this character it’s current design, and with some artistic freedom had inspired it by himself slightly. Maybe he was the one who drew this. Or, if it were someone else, perhaps they had seen Albedo in or around the mountain before, and had been inspired by him. Aether was certain he hadn’t heard of this fairytale before, and he had read plenty of books and heard many tales along his travels.
He opened the book to the front cover, finding it to be a simple childrens book with a simple two-page illustration followed by short one-sentenced phrases for each thick card page. On any usual day, he would find it charming, but in his current situation it almost irked him that Albedo’s entire existence had been reduced to a single children’s book.
‘ Once upon a time, on a large, icy mountain two hundred years ago, ’ the book began in oversized cursive writing, and Aether cringed internally to think that he was truly intent on reading this to himself, as if he really believed the prank everyone was playing on him. He looked around, making sure no one else was there to see him reading it. ‘ A prince of mysteries roamed the snowy plains .’
The book went into detail about how nobody knew much about him, because nobody could lay their eyes on him and survive to tell the tale. But some people claimed to have seen him before, to have found his cave hidden by snow and ice. That he was known as the ‘Kreideprinz’ — although it was unsure whether the adventurers of the mountain dubbed him that due to his princely attire and pale complexion, or due to him introducing himself as that to people.
Aether scoffed at how the book portrayed the kind, loving alchemist as a cruel and malicious spirit. Yet, it had the title Albedo had claimed as his alone. The illustration that followed this proclamation of his name was of a close up of the ‘spirit’, with his back turned to the illustrator to show intricate gold swirls, loops and chains adorning his white robe that flowed past the borders of the artwork.
The book followed a legend or rumor, that this spirit was once a researcher like any other, who had found forbidden knowledge and was therefore cursed to immortally roam the mountain alone for eternity after, searching for a truth that was just out of reach. Aether was surprised at how melancholically poetic this interpretation of Albedo was.
The story then went into detail about its moral, that you shouldn’t look into things that you don’t need to know, lest you be cast into a cold and isolated existence; or more simply, don’t be nosy or you’ll get a slap on the wrist. And just like that, the book came to a close, claiming that this ‘spirit’ still roamed the mountains to this day, seeking out nosy children to kidnap and punish.
Aether closed the book, staring down at it in confusion. It described Albedo perfectly — or, almost perfectly. Aside from the embellished design and backstory that had been intertwined with a message for misbehaving children, just as many fairytales had. This must be some extraordinarily intricate prank, if everyone was really willing Aether to go on a scavenger’s hunt to rediscover Albedo.
The traveller closed the book with a sigh, slotting it back into it’s place on the shelf before leaving the library to head to Dragonspine.