Chapter Text
“An interesting approach…however maybe this one will be more suitable?”
Klee sighed at Albedo below her, still holding onto ‘ Cold Jumpty Dumpty ’ on the tree.
“But big brother!”
Albedo smiled warmly, although he looked a little tired. It was still early in the morning after all, when they came out of the Knight’s of Favonius Hall after Jean’s debriefing.
Klee realised Albedo was short on energy (oh why didn’t they have syrupy pancakes this morning instead of jammy toast?) and wiggled her legs, gently kicking and signaling for help from the taller Captain holding her.
A pale periwinkle coloured eye settled its sights on the wriggling Spark Knight, and a caring soft chuckle came from the Cavalry Captain.
“Oh come now Chief, surely we can demonstrate a mild exception to our Acting Grand Master’s ‘no explosions’ rule?”
“Sir Kaeya-”
Klee reached out for her toy once more and pointed. “This isn’t normal ‘Jumpty Dumpty!’ This is ‘Cold Jumpty Dumpty’ !”
Kaeya nodded, helping Klee plead her case as her ever loyal mischievous lawyer. “And Jean’s rules state no explosions, why I see no mention of ‘Cold Jumpty Dumpty’ . She’s exonerated for this event.”
“As clear as your case may be…” Albedo sighed, his golden eyes narrowing slightly in thought as he crossed his arms. “I cannot in good conscience condone the placement of any variety of Jumpty Dumpties on the Christmas tree—explosive, frozen, or otherwise.” He placed his arms out for her, reaching towards Kaeya to hand her over. With a small huff, Klee let herself be passed down from Kaeya’s arms.
“Bedo-”
Albedo held her close to his face and whispered in a hushed tone, but it was obvious the ever eavesdropping Knight could hear them from his step stool.
“How about this Klee? We save your bombs for a whole new experiment? Let’s test out a radius expansion of a flammable effect on some Treasure Hoarders?”
Most of the bigger words went over her head, but her eyes widened when she heard ‘flame’. “Wait so…” She tilted her head, eyes shining brightly. “We can go boom-boom?”
Albedo quickly shuffled her into one arm, bringing another hand to his lips and making a hushing motion with his finger to his lips. “Shh! It’ll be our secret!”
Klee giggled with glee and she covered her own mouth with both of her hands, hurryingly trying to cover the sounds of her laughter.
Kaeya cautiously held ‘ Cold Jumpty Dumpty’ in his hand as he crawled down the step ladder, taking a moment to pause and admire the tree the trio had been decorating before passing the toy back to its owner.
“Ah but don’t forget, ‘ Cold Jumpty Dumpty’ isn’t the same as the normal version - isn’t that right my dear Klee?”
Klee nodded. “Yup! This one will blast snowflakes! Mondstadt can be blasted and glow like a biiiiig snow globe!”
Albedo narrowed his eyes, and looked directly at Kaeya, while using the same tone of voice he used on Klee.
“Oh and how did you get your hands on new variants of materials for your explosives while being locked in Solitary Confinement?”
Kaeya didn’t even blink, but instead smirked like a cat. “-I have no idea-”
“Yaya snuck me out and we went to smack the silly Cryo Flower!”
This time Kaeya blinked.
“She means the small ones, the mist flowers, outside the main gates, I didn’t take her to-”
“The dizzy one at Falcon Coast!”
Kaeya closed his eyes and sighed, opening them to Albedo’s nonplussed expression. “It’s not like it sounds, I just needed some intel from one of the Knights there, ask Mack yourself if you don’t believe me! And I just wanted Jill and Will to play with someone else while waiting for Dr. Edith-”
Albedo chuckled. “It’s alright, I know you wouldn’t harm her.”
Kaeya placed his now empty hands at his hips, swaying slightly. “That’s right! That Cryo Regisvine just happened to come into our path while chasing crabs - and well, you know how our little Sparknight feels about those!”
Klee grabbed Albedo's cheeks and frowned. “I hate, hate, hate crabs! All of them!”
Kaeya nodded and continued. “What better output for her anger was there other than to clear out some monstrous fauna?”
Klee nodded firmly. “Yeah!”
Albedo shook his head and gave a soft laugh. “As long as nobody got hurt.”
Kaeya gave a quick pinch to Klee’s cheek. “I can handle the rest of the work here, why don’t you two head down to the lower plaza and finish off placing wreaths on the benches?”
Albedo gave a quick scan of the area, noticing a familiar red gliding pattern from the skies.
“Kaeya don’t be so hard on her-”
He grinned. “Oh come now! Do I look like such a grouch?”
“You look like you’re going to slack off work and get Amber to do your share-”
“Now there’s an idea!”
“Y’know she’s just checking the decorations from above.”
“And I’ll make sure she writes down a clear 2000 word report for me later!” When Albedo didn’t respond he continued. “-Over some hot chocolate of course, I’m not an abyssal monster!”
Albedo said nothing but smiled as he patted Kaeya on the shoulder, and headed off to the Lower Plaza with Klee.
~~~~
“Are you doing okay, Klee? You can go play with Diona and do some colouring, or spend the day with Bennett at the Adventurer’s Guild?”
She stopped poking at a pinecone on the wreath, and flicked one of the bells near it. “It’s okay, Klee’s a Knight. So I want to help Jean too!”
“Klee’s a little Knight. So it’s okay if you only want to help a little?”
She shook her head. “Then you’ll be all alone! Everybody has somebody in the winter! Even Razor is helping Lupical with hunting!”
He sighed. “Yes…that’s true…” He stared into the snowy floor beneath them. “Everyone has a family to spend it with…” He muttered.
“Mommy isn’t here again though. But that’s okay! Mommy works really hard, lot’s and lots! Maybe she’ll have time to write in the summer!” Albedo nodded, absentmindedly tugging on an askew ribbon, fixing it into place. “I guess I was too small, I don’t remember much, but I remember Mommy makes yummy chocolate from smashed up candy canes! Can we have that big brother!”
“Hmm…” Not hearing Klee, he ran himself endlessly into his thoughts. Remembering the same snow in his childhood, the same frost, touching the ends of the cave he shared with Rhinedottir on one of their expeditions. Nothing was special about the end of season, it was treated the same as any other day.
A day devoted to study.
Anything else was a waste.
“Big brother?”
When Albedo didn’t respond, Klee held his hand and made him sit down on the bench, crawling into his lap and pushing his face around.
“Waah!”
Klee stopped pressing his cheeks and huffed. “Big brother wasn’t listening! Now Klee has to start again! Klee’s only little! Klee’s gonna run out of breath!”
Albedo chuckled. “Ah I apologise Klee… I was… was just wondering how much things have changed since I came to Mondstadt.”
She tilted her head. “It wasn’t the same as Klee?”
‘His childhood? Like Klee’s?’ Of course not. Albedo thought.
‘Alice with her endless adventurous spirit and Klee with her essence of Mondstadt’s freedom. The few winters he had spent living under their roof and sharing their family name.
Of course his life had changed so much. With their winters filled with hot chocolate, and warm jumpers, and dazzling displays of lights and color.
The first Christmas he had even spent, just after a few mere weeks since arriving in Mondstadt, Klee had started her tradition of endless abundance of sharing her treasures.
That first Christmas was no exception. The little toddler not caring how this sudden outlander arrived not only in Mond, but her own home. Delivering a collection of papers plastered with the title of ‘Bip ꓭr0’ (she hadn't gotten the hang of spelling or holding her crayon correctly yet), glued messily with sticky chunks of pulled citrine coloured tinsel.
It was, and forever will be, Albedo’s most prized accomplishment. Displayed in his pyro resistant locker.
It was through Klee that he learned how to see gold in a warm light again.’
“I suppose I’m too small to remember my childhood also.” He answered, hiding the truth from her innocent smile.
“Then we’re the same! It doesn’t matter who we’re with, as long as we have each other!” Klee cheered, arms up in the air and waving about.
Albedo nodded, checking the last of their supplies on their bench, and hanging a bauble at the end of the post, wrapping a line of tinsel on the stand.. “You don’t mind if it’s just us?”
“Being with big brother is the best!” Klee sang to him as he placed the last decorations on a bench.
Suddenly, a crash was heard nearby, outside of Margaret's store, a cheeky cat had swatted at a hanging ornament, causing it to fall on the snow, red glitter pouring out onto the snowy pebbles underneath.
“Oh Prince! You naughty kitty!”
Klee giggled. “That kitty’s gonna be on the naughty list!”
Albedo stood his ground as he watched the contrast of red on the white, and was reminded of a similar scene that happened not so long ago in Dragonspine.
He felt a tug on his fingers, and faced down to spot Klee tugging on his hand. Looking back up, a member of the Adventurer’s Guild that was talking to Katherine had already made his way to Margaret, helping her scoop out the shards.
“Say… Klee?” He paused, making sure she was listening. He considered, just for a moment, if he should continue. He knew this decision to speak would bring about a huge change.
He watched as the two adults fumbled about.
“Is it okay?”
“Nothing a little glue won’t fix!”
“But the damage?”
“It’s alright! The later we leave it, the worse it’ll be!”
Albedo faced Klee once more, kneeling down to her height.
“Say… Klee? How would you feel if I told you I have a big brother?”
Though the sky was filled with a murky fog, and snowflakes barely froze as they reached the ground, Klee’s face was like sunlight, and her eyes shone with a crystal determination.
“I have another big brother!” She cheered, jumping on the spot and doing her victory dance. “Let’s go get them! Does he live far away? Can we write to him? Can he come play? Can-”
“Ah just a moment.” Albedo caught her and made her stand still, letting her catch her breath. “Let’s think this over-”
“Let’s go right now! ”
“But Jean told everyone-”
“Our bag’s empty! Let’s just throw it at Huffman and tell everyone we’re on a very important mission!”
“Klee… I know you’re excited but…my big brother he…well Klee…” He paused. ‘How do I tell her this?.... I stabbed my other big brother and we tried to kill each other? Ah by the way I’m not sure if he still wants to kill me.’
“We aren’t that close anymore-”
Klee nodded. “Like Kaeya and Diluc!”
“They don’t hate each-”
“Yes I know! They got meanies at each other but then they hugged and now they’re friends but only if Mr Grumpy let’s Yaya drink!”
“Klee it’s different than that.”
“So why can’t you fix it? Yaya says whenever Mr Grumpy is being mean and won’t let him drink, then I should throw an egg at Mr Grumpys face.”
“Klee this isn’t something an egg can fix.”
“Why?”
Albedo sighed. ‘Well for starters, one brother of mine is dead. The last time I checked, eggs don’t possess miraculous resurrection abilities!’ He thought.
“The last time I saw him was in Dragonspine! He might have moved away by now! How would we even find him?”
Klee ignored him and grabbed his hands, racing towards the Main Gates of the city. Lawrence and Swan guarding it, but smiled at them both. Swan curiously questioned them both after saluting them.
“Heading out?”
Klee nodded at Swan and Lawrence. “Yup!” She spotted Huffman tirelessly stumbling towards the entrance, clearly exhausted from his work. She tackled him as he got close, throwing the empty rattan material sack at him. “Hand this back to Master Jean! She’s waiting to count them all!”
Huffman stared at the young girl, then at the mountain of stairs leading up to the main plaza. He looked at Albedo for help while Lawrence and Swan giggled quietly.
“I apologise for Klee, you see-”
“I’m super busy today!” She yelled at Huffman. “Much more busy than you!”
Huffman sighed. “Oh is the Spark Knight heading to clear an enemy camp?”
This one question crashed a wondrous explosion of possibilities to the young girl. First and foremost however -
“We need to hunt for big brother!”
Albedo sighed, and shrugged his shoulders at the three Knights. “We’re going on a brother hunt?”