Chapter Text
Diluc, the first Ragnvindr heir, had made it exceedingly clear to Albedo the circumstances of his employment in his curt but impeccable letter; the visits would be private and the treatment would be peculiar. Albedo found it curious that Diluc would employ his help despite seeming to have a better understanding of Kaeya’s condition, but it would be rude to turn down the employment of one of Mondstadt’s most well to do men, not to mention financially ill-advised.
He had not seen the brothers since before he’d left for medical college – an exploit that had taken him all across Teyvat for the remainder of his adolescence. When Diluc answered him at the heavy doors of the winery’s estate – not the maid, Adelinde, he noted – he was taken aback by how much Diluc had grown. Not simply in height and age, but also in disposition. What reason would he have to be cheery even after reuniting all these years later? His father had passed the year before and his brother now lay in some hidden room of the estate, gravely ill.
It was not as if they had been particularly close, anyway, and even if they had, four years of no communication would have obliterated any intimacy. Diluc referred to him as “doctor”, not by his name. These were noblemen, Albedo had to remind himself, and it was only by his pursuit of knowledge that he had inadvertently catapulted himself to the upper stratosphere of Mond society.
When he entered Kaeya’s quarters, he found him curled up weakly under sumptuous sheets, and though Albedo could see that he too had developed markedly since their last meeting, the frailty caused by his affliction shrouded him. It seemed a pity to be surrounded by these signifiers of exorbitant wealth while indisposed. The intricate brocades of the light-blocking curtains, the exquisitely carved chairs, and the towering bookshelves flush against the wall – these were all already dizzying on their own, and Kaeya’s nausea was pronounced enough that he seemed unable to emerge from his bed or open his remaining eye.
Ah— the eye. Diluc had warned him of the gore, but Albedo had seen worse both in his time at medical school and on the field. He had assisted midwives and witnessed the way the body sought to turn itself inside out in times of transformation, so when he lifted the white gauze patch over Kaeya’s listless face, it was unsurprising to encounter a festering fire of flesh and nestled amongst it a singular sliver of ivory bone. He placed the patch back over the wound, pressing it so that the sappy adhesive would hold and prevent further infection.
“I’ll begin by taking his vitals,” Albedo produced several instruments from his black, leather case. Even in the relative darkness of the room, they shone under the muted lamplight and Kaeya, still partially hidden under layers of fabric, recoiled at their brightness. Albedo held the first instrument, a stethoscope, close to his body, letting only its black rubber hosing out under the orange purview of oil glow. He did not want to make Kaeya any more uncomfortable, and he was a guest.
Diluc watched diligently from his spot against the wall, arms folded and brow furrowed. The picture of a protective older brother.
“Please do not feel as if you have to stand in my presence,” Albedo said, sidling up beside Kaeya’s bed. “I am unsure of how long this will take. After I’ve recorded his vitals, I’d like to try a few topical anti-inflammatories to see if the swelling around his eye might be alleviated.”
“It’s quite alright,” Diluc said, adjusting against the bookshelf. He was spine to spine with all manner of literature, and as Albedo brought his fingers up to Kaeya’s neck to brush some indigo hair out of the way, he absent-mindedly wondered which of these numerous volumes belonged to the deceased master of the house.
When Albedo’s pale hand planted itself on Kaeya’s neck, both of the brothers inhaled sharply in unison. Kaeya’s single eye snapped open, his pupils blown wide to take in what little light shone in the room.
“The doctor? Albedo?” Kaeya said in a weak, raspy voice. “Diluc, I am not—“
“Continue,” Diluc commanded. Albedo looked between the two of them, trying to gauge what sort of unspoken conflict was brewing, and then Diluc coughed perfunctorily into his gloved fist, and spoke again. “Please, doctor. If you would.”
Albedo watched Kaeya sink in resignation into his downy pillow. He looked up the ceiling as Albedo pulled the sheets down by a few more inches to expose Kaeya’s chest. He noted that he was not in nightclothes. The impropriety of it should have made Albedo blush, but it seemed reasonable given the circumstances, because when he brought his bare hand to Kaeya’s chest, which rose shakily with each labored breath, he was overcome by both a sweltering heat and a disturbing cold. The symptomatic double bind of chills and fever were not uncommon, but never before had he witnessed it to such an extreme extent.
From his cursory, superficial observations, Kaeya looked to be in good health. He still retained the musculature necessary for a nobleman’s hobbies – fencing, horseback riding, foxhunting, though the two brothers likely hadn’t partaken in the latter since their father’s untimely demise during last year’s hunt. Albedo lowered the sheets a little further and took note of the few protruding ribs.
“Have you eaten?” He asked coolly.
Diluc and Kaeya cast dark, battling expressions at each other. Some silent fight between brothers. Albedo knew he would never understand, let alone decode the nonverbal exchange, so he busied himself with cleaning the earpieces of his stethoscope with a loose linen cloth from his still-agape bag.
“No,” Kaeya finally answered, and though Albedo detected no deceit in his voice, he did sense that there was more to the answer than that.
But he was here to check on a patient, and he was a doctor of the physical – not of the cerebral. The body had its own way of communicating, after all.
“Forgive my closeness,” Albedo warned before pressing the metal circle of the stethoscope to Kaeya’s sternum.
He listened closely, and although he could hear the rhythmic exchange of air in Kaeya’s lungs, he detected no sign of a heartbeat. Albedo adjusted his stethoscope, pressing it to various points in Kaeya’s chest. He did not surmise death, though the idea of it struck him. He continued to pursue a logical explanation, continually readjusting the stethoscope in hopes that it might reveal some hidden truth.
When Albedo pulled back, Kaeya must have noticed the puzzled expression on his countenance, because he responded with own – an embarrassed bite at his lip and knit brows.
“I hesitate to speak in diagnostic terms, but this is…” He trailed off. The idea of declaring a very much alive person as physically deceased felt like a failure of his own education.
“He’s dead,” Diluc released his arms from their contemplative fold and approached the bed. “Or rather, he is dying. And soon he will be dead.”
Albedo could feel his face project a sort of nonplussed disbelief. He wrangled the tubing of the stethoscope and placed it in his lap as a means of collecting himself.
“Sir Diluc, I pray this is not some attempt at reviving our childhood pretending,” his eyes burned into his trousers. “If you mean to test me, I can assure you I have proof of my qualifications—“
Apparently, Kaeya had enough strength left in his ailing person to let out an exasperated groan into the side of the pillow before sitting up.
“What point is there in involving the doctor?” Kaeya said in a huff, and Albedo wondered how that blush might creep across his face without a heartbeat. “I don’t need to be attended to.”
“When death inevitably overtakes you, that’s when we’ll need his assistance,” Diluc said as if it were the most logical thing in the world. “Consider this a preliminary induction.”
“I’m afraid I am completely out of my depth here. Perhaps it would be better if I came back tomorrow.” Albedo reached for his bag, starting to stand.
“No!” Both of the brothers exclaimed in perfect time, and Albedo settled back into his seat. If they could agree on at least one thing, it should make the visit that much easier for all of them.
“The blood clinic,” Diluc started, and Albedo leaned forward in anticipation of what other bizarre twists the conversation could possibly take. Kaeya began protesting from the bed, too riled for any dying individual, though the sheen of sweat remained all across his dark skin, and Albedo surmised from it that the man was still very much in pain, but that his disagreement with his brother was pronounced enough that he could push through it for at least a moment.
“When Kaeya is dead, he will still need our assistance,” Diluc continued, unfazed by his brother’s argumentation. “I wanted you to come here and draw your own conclusions about his state of being. Once he’s fully passed, he will still be able to move, breathe, and more importantly – eat. There are certain products only a physician like you could provide.”
“Please speak frankly,” Albedo said. “I’m anxious for an explanation.”
“Kaeya will need blood from your clinic.”
All of them stilled at the statement.
“I don’t believe I can perform transfusions on a person who lacks blood flow,” Albedo said, hoping that the obviousness of the assertion wouldn’t insult the new masters of the house.
“It’s not quite a transfusion, I—“
“To drink!” Kaeya exclaimed, skull knocking back against the headboard. Uneasy silence engulfed the room as the three parties exchanged edgy looks.
Then, all of Albedo’s etiquette training couldn’t prevent the small smile that cracked at his usually collected visage. “Like a vampire?”
Diluc’s shifted uncomfortably on the intricate carpet as if he might be able to gain some purchase on its paisley pattern.
“I suppose, yes,” He said, an odd embarrassment overtaking his pale face. “I know it must be a bizarre request to receive, and I promise you I am mortified to have to involve you, but the last thing I would want is for Kaeya to feed on—“
“I would not feed on—“ Kaeya started in a clamor, sheets rustling in sympathetic frustration all around him.
“—a guest, what with the social season fast approaching.”
Albedo stared back, face blank save a few pronounced blinks. They did little to help him process the information.
“Please elaborate on the terms of my employment,” he reached for his gloves, which had been lying in patient wait on the handle of his leather case. “It seems that once sir Kaeya passes over, for lack of better phrasing, he’ll need a steady supply of blood. Is this an indefinite arrangement? If so, I’ll have to change my price accordingly. Blood might be an infinite resource, but it is scarce when it comes to acquisition.”
“The end of the courting season,” Kaeya spoke up, though he seemed less frustrated and more so contemplative in his response. “My hope is to make a few last appearances before winter, which is when I anticipate leaving Mondstadt.”
The brother exchanged gloomy looks and Albedo inferred that the two of them had some tense, unspoken contract to uphold for each other. It was none of his business, frankly, and he had the sense that learning of its details might only complicate his contract with the Ragnvindrs.
“Are you sure you want to accept?” Diluc asked, uncertainty draining all color from his face. “Surely you must have questions.”
“I certainly do,” Albedo started, quickly fastening his black case with restrained resolution. “But the health and safety of sir Kaeya is my first priority. From the confident way in which you speak of this… condition, am I safe to assume that you have some literature on the subject?”
“Yes,” was Diluc’s abrupt response.
“I should like to borrow it. It might also be beneficial to have some further conversations about what I can expect.”
And so the contract was formed.
-
The information came in flurries with each subsequent visit. Kaeya properly died shortly after their first appointment, though everything about that statement seemed antithetical to the vivacious flamboyance with the younger Ragnvindr brother traipsed about his room when Albedo arrived the following day.
“How do you feel?” Albedo had asked, and the flashy yellow reflection of Kaeya’s animalistic pupils told him all he needed to know.
Albedo learned first that no matter how many leather pouches of freshly drawn blood Kaeya sank his new fangs into, he would always thirst for plasma dripping from its source. It seemed obvious to Albedo – who would choose fruit cut that morning over something ripe in a bough, no matter how exquisitely plated? Not only would the flavor be more appealing and satisfying, but the sensuous act of siphoning blood out from a warm body would be, for lack of a proper analogy, akin to biting into a peach still hot with summer sun.
It was a fact laid out in every dusty volume Diluc brought to him; vampires would always want to drink from humans, no matter how strong their moral code. It seemed the loss of mortality brought with it the dissolution of ethics.
He wondered how long it would take before Kaeya’s furtive glances to Albedo collared neck grew mad with hunger. Diluc must have been preoccupied with the dark fantasy of saving Albedo as well, because although he never intruded on his visits, he did always stay on guard just outside Kaeya’s bedroom door.
-
Albedo learned second that the Ragnvindrs’ knowledge on vampirism came not from some stuffy nobleman’s studies, but from firsthand experience. He did not seek out the information, despite wondering endlessly about their family’s history with it; the discovery was an accident.
He had found a spike of unpolished wood in Kaeya’s room one evening, and without much thought, picked it up to examine it. The wood was of poor quality – grayed and lifeless – and the manner in which it was shaped seemed less concerned with ornamentation and more so with utility.
“Careful,” Kaeya said from his seat, feline eye glimmering both yellow and blue in the darkness of his bedroom. “It’s quite sharp.”
The purpose of it became immediately clear to Albedo, and he promptly returned it to its spot on the cedar table, eliciting a caustic laugh from Kaeya.
“Why is it here?” Albedo asked, his eyes going between the wooden stake and its potential target.
“What other purpose might a weapon like that have?” Was Kaeya’s sardonic response, his loose, indigo hair fluttering at his collarbone even in the suffocating stillness of the bedroom. “Should the occasion arise that I cannot contain my thirst, and I lunge for your throat, you will have the opportunity to kill me.”
Kaeya’s fangs flashed, showy and bright, and though Albedo sensed how easily he could die there in that labyrinthine estate, he also detected an overbearing aura of self-hatred radiating off Kaeya. He has known Kaeya for enough time – albeit peripherally in the Mond social scene – to be confident in his deduction that the younger Ragnvindr son would sooner throw himself off Starsnatch Cliff than bring needless harm to another.
Still, the possibility was there, and in Albedo’s following visits, the two of them danced around the knowledge of it.
As he left that day, the lock of Kaeya’s bedroom door swiftly clicking into place behind him, Albedo stopped by Diluc’s study. The man was poring over some thick document, his red hair spilling out onto either side of his face like curtains of privacy. He was not dressed as formally as he had been on previous visits, and part of Albedo thought it might be a sign of their growing familiarity with each other.
“Come in,” he had said before Albedo could even knock. Those dark eyes looked up at him with an enigmatic quality. The expression of somebody who knew too much, but could only do little.
When Albedo sidled up to his desk, Diluc leaned back in his baroque chair, abandoning his inky pen and loose papers.
“Why would you leave a wooden stake in sir Kaeya’s room?” Albedo asked with his hands folded behind his back.
“I didn’t mean to alarm you. I simply thought it might be a useful resource,” Diluc replied plainly.
Resource. Albedo found that funny in a grim sort of way. An object to plunge into an unbeating heart would be no resource – it would be a weapon.
As if sensing Albedo’s trepidation, Diluc planted his hands on the stately desk and stood up. He was much taller than Albedo, though he didn’t overshadow him in the same sly way that Kaeya did. He had a more protective quality, Albedo noticed. Protective in the company of his brother, but fiercer when around Albedo. He didn’t know what to make of it; the situation was already perplexing enough.
Albedo hadn’t realized he was sighing until Diluc’s hand came to cup his chin and lift his gaze upward. It startled him, though he did not show it. He had not been touched in years, even if he was in the business of touching others – feeling for pulses and cracking bones back into place. But that was far more medical, clinical, distant. This was the touch of a companion or something adjacent. Diluc held him there, eyes passing over Albedo’s features in search of some inexpressible thing. Albedo got the sense that whatever it was, it was something he had not studied in his time away. Only after they locked gazes for a few, drawn out moments did that bare hand release Albedo’s face, and the instinct to bring his own fingers to where Diluc’s had been was not born of a desire to wipe the sensation away but to feel his residual warmth.
“You are very obliging, doctor,” Diluc said, looking through his auburn lashes at Albedo. “I would hate for that to be the death of you.”
“Have you killed before?” It was the first thing that came to Albedo’s mind. A question that would lead him to the answer of an entirely different line of inquiry.
“Hmm,” Diluc started, casting his eyes downward toward his shadow on the documents and sighing with such effort that Albedo thought he might dislodge his lungs. “Never a human.”
When Albedo came back the day after, Diluc left with him a stack of journals. They had belonged to Crepus, he explained. They looked thoroughly reviewed – worn from years of re-reading.
“These might explain the legacy of Ragnvindr better than I could.”
For how dilapidated and yellowed the journals were, their leather bounding battered from time and inconstant storage, Albedo could only find one entry that was marked in any way: a lone few paragraphs on an otherwise blank page.
The burden of the Ragnvindr clan is that of the hunter: to endlessly pursue an unknown enemy, hidden in the shadows of both high society and the untamed wilds. Is it possible to cleanse the world of a corruption this ancient? I fear what is coming. Their numbers grow fewer, but the air is heavy with something. I cannot detect it.
For this year’s social season, we were able to commit to a few diplomatic measures. They could take only mates who consented entirely to the title of consort; no unwitting citizens could be fed upon; and they had to follow Mond etiquette when courting. It took a bit of finagling, but the terms were set upon in writing.
My father would have simply killed them all. It certainly could have been possible; we had them gathered in one place. But the times have changed, and perhaps co-habitation is the only answer.
Albedo looked to the cursive date in the corner. It was a year before the head of the Ragnvindr house died under the gaping maw of a bear while out on a Windlbume foxhunt.
-
Albedo learned third that neither of the brothers could recall how Kaeya was turned. When Diluc or Albedo pried about the events, picking at Kaeya’s hazy memories, his reaction of obliviousness was exceptionally genuine, and the frustration it evoked from all parties was convincing enough to Albedo that he ceased inquiring.
The only existing information on the event was that Kaeya had gone out for an evening walk and did not return. A hunter from Springvale had found his battered body splayed out on a rotted stump, neck a mess with torn tendons and blood and eye dislodged from its socket. They did not find it.
Albedo was a doctor – trained in the ways of the body – and his business was with accommodating Kaeya’s afterlife. But a part of him – a more curious side – wondered what lay out there in the woods of Mondstadt, turning young noblemen and vampire hunters into the very monsters they detested.
-
When he wasn't busy nursing Kaeya with pouches of blood or pretending to not see Diluc’s concerned countenance, Albedo was tending to the nobility in preparation of the social season.
Mondstadt had no need for royalty, and so the efforts to increase one’s status or veil poor breeding were a heritage practice at best and myopic sentimentality at worst. It was a facade in all the word’s meanings, but Albedo’s return to Mondstadt required he partake — or face ostracization. Alice had made this clear to him after she took him in all those years ago; his behavior would forever reflect on not only himself, but also her and Klee. And if he were to travel beyond Mond borders once more, it would also reflect on the people of Barbatos. Albedo found it humorous. The city of freedom was so trapped in its own unspoken laws.
And yet, even with his clinic being so recently established, he found himself bombarded with eligible bachelors and bachelorettes, eager for a clean bill of health that could then be flaunted to prospects.
One such girl was the blonde who sat on the leather stool before him. Amy, though she only responded to Fischl – the main character of the book she clutched to her side – stared up at the ceiling, likely lost in some complex daydream. Her parents sat against the wall on a fir bench, exchanging concerns over the looming first ball of the season.
“You seem in good health,” Albedo concurred, setting his messily transcribed notes on the desk beside him. “It’s been years since I had to attend to you.”
“We are just so pleased that you returned to Mondstadt after your time in medical school. Surely, somebody as brilliant as you could have traveled to any place in Teyvat and found work.” Fischl’s mother spoke brightly, a feigned smile in her pinched features.
Albedo smiled gently at the insistent compliments, while Fischl, unaware of her surroundings and plying parents, began to recite some passage quietly to herself. She was young – fourteen according to her parents – and though it was customary for girls of her age to start attending the balls, it wouldn’t be until her late adolescence that any decent man would ask for her hand in marriage. She was still caught up in the saturated haze of childhood, and part of Albedo envied her for that. When Alice had taken him in, he’d had little choice but to dive into his studies so that he might retain their house when Alice and Klee left for sabbatical in Fontaine. He could not recall a time in his life that he was ever truly able to give himself over to freedom; he had always been shackled by the impending expectations of adulthood. No doubt his first master’s rigid requirements of perfection had also taken away his youth. Even try as he might, he could not locate any idyllic memories, let alone proof of his childhood.
Fischl’s voice woke him from his reverie, speaking in that inordinately complex manner she had adopted sometime between his departure and return to Mondstadt.
“My dear physician, would you care to illuminate my parentage on the importance of personal autonomy at such a developmental crux in one’s life?” She chirped, hands fidgeting at the hem of her lavender dress in only the way an overexcited child could.
Fischl’s mother sighed into a white-gloved hand. Albedo did not miss the manner in which people had begun to dress more formally in his presence. Being courted by the noble families was new but expected, and although cursory etiquette dictated that the bulk of it should happen out on promenades or on impeccably polished ballroom floors, it was inevitable that attempts to coerce Albedo into a sworn partnership would worm their way into his very office.
“Hmm,” Albedo pretended to look over his illegible notes. “It does seem that a bit more sun might improve your disposition. The Gunnhildr ball will be hosting on a few games of polo this week in anticipation of their upcoming ball. In Fontaine, ladies on horseback are quite popular. I’ve even heard rumor of a princess beating all of her suitors at it, earning the respect of the entire court.” It was a bold-faced lie, but even if Fischl’s parents knew of that, they seemed at least partially thrilled with the idea of getting their daughter’s nose out of a book and into the pollinated air of the social season.
“Amy, do you like the sound of that?” Then, quietly, to her husband. “We’d finally be able to get that mare out of the stable.”
Fischl bristled at the name, but the thought of reigning supreme – even at some novelty noble sport – lit up an incomparable excitement in her verdant eyes.
As the family gathered their things – pearl encrusted handbags, their woven hats adorned with lace and ribbon, and a basket brimming with recently acquired fantasy hardcovers – Fischl turned to Albedo, her parents otherwise distracted by some inane bickering, and said in a hushed voice.
“Wise sir Albedo, am I incorrect in assuming that a princess can lead a gratifying life without marriage?”
He bent down a little bit to align their vision, though she was sprouting at such a speed that she’d likely surpass his height in no time.
“I don’t see why not. I myself am a prince and I have no partner.”
Fischl looked him over with that psychologically penetrative gaze of a precocious child. He recognized it as the expression Klee gave him before he had relented and revealed his impending departure for medical college.
“What twist of fate would lead a prince, of all titles, to become a doctor?”
Albedo internally grasped at some reasoning that might resonate with her, though he did his best to not let the search show on his face.
“Perhaps you will understand when you attend your first ball and see how foolish this whole business is.”
Fischl’s freckled complexion brightened at that, and when she left through the clinic doors – held open by her impatient parents – she threw an exuberant and unladylike wave in Albedo’s direction.
-
Albedo woke to the sound of knocking at his clinic door. He had not realized he’d fallen asleep here, and the various vials of experimental drugs and pellets of Liyue herbal medicine cast about in disarray before him illustrated how quickly sleep must have overtaken him.
He had been researching something to stave off Kaeya’s hunger, he remembered. The knock came again. This time more insistent. He felt enormously thankful to his past self for having locked the entrance.
He began apologizing in polite, small words when he swung the door open, but stopped as the streetlight illuminated the lopsided, bright, fanged smile of his guest.
“Sir Kaeya?”
Kaeya stood at the entrance, wrapped up in a dark, wool overcoat. He looked every bit the part of a vampire, and if Albedo hadn’t recognized that sterile white eye patch beneath his parted bangs, he might have recoiled in fright.
“Aren’t you going to invite me inside?”
Albedo dithered in the threshold. If he were to extend the invitation, he could never rescind it, and if Kaeya were to ever lose control and come for his throat, he wouldn’t be able to hide here.
The potentialities of a dozen futures flashed in his mind – each worse than the last – but then Kaeya’s hand came to his tousled hair, first with a gentle caress. Albedo nearly leaned into the touch. It was comforting, even if a bit cold due to Kaeya’s poor circulation, but then the hand moved furiously in all directions, further mussing up his already untidy hair. It would have been a heartwarming gesture if it hadn’t rattled his tired brain about in his skull. It seemed Kaeya did not know his own strength yet.
“If it makes you feel better,” Kaeya murmured and pulled his tailored cobalt coat aside at the hip to reveal three wooden stakes, each honed to a perfect point. He tossed one to Albedo, who caught it reflexively.
It did not make Albedo feel better. He tucked it into his back pocket, and the point of it sat uncomfortably in the fabric.
“Come in,” Albedo relented.
Once Kaeya had settled in on the operating table – a strange place to select, Albedo thought, perhaps indicative of their doctor-patient relationship – the two exchanged courteous nods.
“Does sir Diluc know you’ve left the estate?”
“It is unlikely that he is aware of the circumstances,” Kaeya grinned, and Albedo coolly observed the way Kaeya’s entire person – flamboyant and flirtatious and sly – was at odds with his formal styling and outfit. The overcoat was heavy, perhaps too heavy for such a humid evening, but Kaeya looked perfectly at ease in it reclining on the clinical operating table as if it were a chaise lounge. It was not clear if he donned the coat with the intention of warming up or – he looked to the towering, stiff collar – for the purpose of hiding his identity.
“What my brother doesn’t’ know won’t hurt him, surely.” Kaeya said. Albedo’s eyes went to the shiny lock of hair that Kaeya twisted about his elongated finger.
“I would advise you to remain indoors until you’re confident in your ability to restrain yourself.”
It was still startlingly peculiar to Albedo that the man who had been wasting away in his bed not two weeks prior was now posted up in front of him, radiating charisma and energy as if he were at his prime.
“A physician warning against fresh air?” Kaeya scoffed. “Just because I’m afflicted with vampirism doesn’t mean I have to breathe in dusty darkness day in and day out.”
In an odd way, Kaeya was at his prime, and when Albedo accepted that fact he was overcome with guilt for ordering him to stay locked up in the estate. If he were still human, Kaeya would likely be selecting a wife at the upcoming balls. He could have been preparing to have a family, but instead he was stealing about in the night, hiding away from prying eyes.
“In the case that you do wish to go out, it would be best if you were accompanied.”
“If I have to spend another minute with my—“ Kaeya’s hands went to his head, gripping at the hair in exasperation, but Albedo stopped him with his own steady grip.
“I would be happy to be at your side if it means you can have that much more freedom.”
“Truly an outstanding physician.” Kaeya’s muscles relaxed all at once, and he fell against the hard table with a theatrical thud. His hair laid about in perfectly posed pieces around the crown of his head. “You go above and beyond for your patients.”
“Only the ones who I couldn’t save from death,” Albedo said flatly, and Kaeya laughed raucously at it.
As they walked along the dusty dirt path from Mondstadt’s gates toward the Dawn Winery’s grounds, the two of them finally spoke as two ordinary young men might – calmly and without the threat of death and violence and the perpetually unknown afterlife looming over them.
Without much plying required, Kaeya explained to Albedo that he had gone into Mondstadt proper because he wanted to see Rosaria. Albedo struggled to recall her face. “Gray pallor”, Kaeya repeated, and as he continued with her gothic description, Albedo wondered aloud if she might be a vampire.
“She’s a sister of the church,” Kaeya said with a low chuckle. “How ungentlemanly of you to accuse her of anything otherwise.”
Everything about the way Kaeya moved was feline and a bit menacing since he’d gone through vampiric puberty, Albedo had to admit. It was as if his own ancient, primal instinct was always screaming at him the reminder that he was prey and Kaeya was predator – especially as they entered the woods outside of Springvale.
“I must apologize. You go to such lengths to describe her and yet no face comes to mind.”
“She arrived in the city shortly after you left for school. Her family resides west of Dragonspine in some small village. Ah, how did she describe it? No better than a common barnyard. Full of pigs and shit.”
Albedo said nothing of the discourteous language, and instead chose to look down at his once polished black shoes, now clouded with the omnipresent dust of their path.
“The lady must have quite the bond with god if she was impelled to travel so far north,” was the most respectful response he could conjure.
Kaeya let out a sardonic hum, growly and teasing. “I’m not sure that’s the case.”
A man ahead of them on the path, adorned in dark brown and white robes, fluttered out of sight like a moth.
“Now look,” Kaeya motioned vaguely in that direction. “He is out and about in the night. Would you accuse him of being a vampire as well?”
Albedo tsked at that, though he did wonder where the lone stranger had gone off to at such an hour. No matter. Even if there was another vampire, he had only been tasked with Kaeya’s care.
As it was with many encounters with Kaeya, Albedo was left alone on the other side of that heavy bedroom door with more questions than answers.
-
Diluc had invited him out for lunch – a rare occasion – and when they sat down to eat, guided by a blushing woman in a wrinkled blouse, Albedo adjusted his high, starched collar with discomfort. Diluc seemed as content in formal wear as he did in casual clothing, though he wore both manner of dress with spotless propriety, no doubt honed from years of etiquette instruction. He’d tied his long, auburn hair back into a loose, wavy ponytail with a black, silk ribbon, and the softness of it all made him look rather, well, pretty, though Albedo knew from catching him late night in his study – furtively looking away from a loose, open night shirt – that Diluc’s beautiful face belied his learned, toned body. If Kaeya was a picture perfect vampire, then Diluc was the epitome of nobility.
Both Albedo and Diluc knew it was unseemly for men of their status to be eating at such a prosaic establishment in the daytime. Had it been the evening, they would have been free to come here and drink and flirt with the barmaids, but at noon, everything was supposed to be black tea and flaky pastry and noses held high. It was odd, Albedo thought, that noblemen were expected to behave with an unfailing upright attitude when the sun was out and then to engage in debauchery under the purview of moonlight. Not much different than vampires. It was a trapping of the upper-class etiquette that he could not bring himself to reconcile with, but he found comfort in the fact that Diluc, though unconventional in his own ways, was also respectful and open-minded regardless of the sun’s position in the sky.
Diluc worked even when there was food in front of him. The golden-toasted ham and cheese sandwich sat unattended – reduced to a decoration for the table – at the edge of various sheets of paper, each abundant with its own unique numbers and acronyms.
“What are you doing?” Albedo finally asked after his various polite inquiries had been fended off.
Diluc set down his pen, which had previously been scribbling spidery notes at the margins of the paper, and looked up at Albedo with a bushed expression.
Albedo took note of how even when frustration overtook Diluc, he rarely let it get the visible best of him, even if he was simmering white-hot on the inside. He admired that about the young Ragnvindr heir. It was not that Albedo often found himself overwhelmed by frustration, but rather that he simply could not bring himself to feel it. It was a problem throughout much of his time at university, for when unsolvable problems posed themselves to him, he would work tirelessly, not noting the thinning resolve of his very body. It had resulted in several hospitalizations for dehydration and over-exhaustion, and Albedo had never forgotten the peculiar sensation of waking upon an uncomfortable cot with his classmates looking down at him in curiosity.
“After my father passed, there was an unspoken understanding that the Ragnvindr estate would be unable to host any of the balls. But this season we are obligated. A year has passed and now the responsibility rests upon my shoulders to prepare one of the three main banquets.” His eyes flickered back to the papers as if he could not stand to disengage from their contents.
“I have the impulse to insist you take another year to recuperate, but just seeing that smoldering in your eyes, I get the sense that it would only further complicate your situation.”
“Yes, quite. The Gunnhildr and Lawrence clans have been more than generous and patient. The unfortunate truth is that both families only have daughters to their name. There is pressure on me to select a wife – and with expedience. Mondstadt requires male nobility to uphold its self-appointed importance, however antiquated that practice may be.”
“Forgive me if this is out of step, but for all your good temperedness, your disposition regarding this dilemma is—“ Albedo fumbled with his words, and he could feel himself growing exceedingly verbose in his attempt to address Diluc with respect. “That is to say, you do not seem pleased with the prospect of marriage.”
When Diluc looked up at Albedo from his notes once more, his face showed no sign of being insulted. Perhaps, instead – relief?
“It is not a fact I enjoy admitting.”
“I myself am not looking forward to the season. I cannot imagine what sort of thoughts are going through your head.”
As if not wanting to expound on those thoughts, Diluc instead asked, “What do you make of the aristocrats from Liyue?”
“Oh, I rarely stop to consider the nobility of Mondstadt, much less those from neighboring nations. I have let myself be consumed by my studies, even since returning from university.”
“I envy you,” Diluc sighed. Albedo considered tallying all the times he deflated just so. It was one of his poorer habits, though he could imagine he would be able to restrain himself in the presence of other nobility. “For as complex as the cultural exchange can be, I am grateful for their presence. Without them Mondstadt’s bloodlines would braid into some ugly creature.”
“The purity of a family is a bygone concern,” Albedo interjected, more a question with a period than a statement.
“Or perhaps it has simply grown over the years to accommodate our globalized world? Regardless, it is important to factor in their presence when planning for the balls. Not just a head count to match the number of plates but also to ensure they feel welcomed here. Learning of the well-bred families who make the journey to Mondstadt is another one of my duties.” He paused, perhaps flipping through his mental catalogue of names, both local and foreign. “The librarian here is quite helpful in providing me with texts from Liyue.”
“Who benefits more from the arrangement?” Albedo asked. Diluc’s glowering expression gave him an idea of the answer before he could even respond.
“Mondstadt, certainly, but only because we stand to lose more without the intervention of Liyue, though I dare not say so in front of other nobility. Liyue is prosperous all on its own, and it’s a breed of wealth that I predict will far outlive the accrued affluence of dying Mond nobility."
Albedo’s head swirled with a tumultuous storm of questions. The matter of medicine and treatment of the body seemed now far more effable than international politics. It was no wonder that young nobles like Diluc began studying at such a tender age.
“How then do—“ He dared not speak their name in public, but Diluc’s faltering face implied his understanding. “How might they factor into the social season?”
“I see you read the journals. You are studious.” Diluc surprised Albedo when he let out a low chuckle. “Perhaps you can be of more use to me than simply caring for my brother.” He shifted in his creaky wooden seat and cast a neutral glance toward the sandwich, now cold and limp on the plate. “I won’t reiterate what my father laid out. Little has changed since last year. The majority of them won’t arrive until the day before the first ball. Their kind has forgotten the flow of human time, and those that do remember are too busy brown-nosing their sires that they purposefully choose to disrespect such things as invitations and schedules.”
“If the social season is for scouting out potential marriage candidates, what use do they have for it?” They exchanged blank stares, each gauging the expected flow of the conversation. “They require no partner for reproduction, after all.” Even having spoken so little, nervousness erupted in waves of gooseflesh across Albedo’s clothed arm at the thought of somebody overhearing their conversation, but Diluc carried on, unfazed or perhaps uncaring.
“Within Mond borders, they are not permitted to feed without consent. That doesn’t stop them from coercing people into strange contracts, enlisting their blood labor without much say, but there’s only so much I can do. What they’re looking for might be better described as consorts, rather than spouses.” He scribbled something at the bottom of the page, maybe making a note regarding their conversation. “It would be impossible to kill them all, and Mondstadt is a nexus of eager single folk each year. My duty is to do away with the ones who make clear violations of the Ragnvindr contract.” A weary sigh. “Ah, I digress. The thought of it all is overwhelming. If Kaeya recovers in time to attend a ball, perhaps he will have some input before he leaves.”
“Will sir Kaeya join them when he departs, then?”
“That is for him to decide,” Diluc said and his voice projected the same sonic finality as a heavy book closing.
Albedo resigned himself to finishing his watery soup in contemplation, but then the usual din of the crowd came to an abrupt halt as an unfamiliar carriage entered the main gates of Mondstadt proper – not far from where they had sat in the open-air café. The pitch-black landau, shiny with polished paint and wood, pulled up to the guards who had not moments been lounging about in the shade and tugging at their collars to let in some circulating air. They promptly adjusted their posture and stood dramatically upright to greet the new arrivals.
Albedo recognized some of the motifs from his general studies: stylized snowflakes and spindly pine engravings along the edges of the coach. The landau showed no signs of wear, and Albedo racked his mind to remember what foreign power would put so much effort into maintaining the mere method of transportation.
“Snezhnaya?”
“Fatui,” Diluc spat.
Albedo knew the name, not from the newspapers, but from the gossip that pervaded every Mond street. As if to match its unforgiving climate, Snezhnaya had appointed a small group of former high-ranked militia to their diplomatic delegation, causing much upset amongst the neighboring nations. The move had been seen as a threat of war by many, but the queen of the snowy city-state, formerly known for her compassion and philanthropic efforts – some called it love – insisted it was a preventative measure, issuing a now-infamous statement that only those who had “witnessed the cruelest depths of humanity could advocate for true peace”.
As much as the series of events made him bristle to consider, Albedo had to wonder if it was entirely truthful. With no true monarchy to strike fear into them and a bloated leisure class, Mondstadt was a nation of ceaseless gossip.
“What dispute do you have with them?” Albedo found himself asking. The guards dallied around the landau, perhaps hoping to frustrated the diplomats and send them off – back through the gates to whence they came. But aside from a few displeased whinnies from the white horses leading the carriage, the Fatui seemed to show no sign of moving. Albedo watched the impasse unfold as Diluc shook his head disapprovingly, a single loose lock of red moving with him.
“I—“ Diluc faltered and his eyes fluttered shut as if to blink away some unwanted thought. “The Snezhnayans have a right to be here for the social season as much as any other nation does. This is the rule of Mondstadt. I only find it strange that betrothal is on the minds of diplomats, as opposed to the nobility.”
“I suppose this is the way of the new, globalized world. You yourself said that the nobility are an antiquated class. If their officers are here to scout out potential wives…” Albedo trailed off, searching for the end of his sentence. “There is no doubt that whoever takes their hand in marriage will enjoy wealth beyond even what the average aristocrat here has.”
Diluc growled low in chest at that, but he nodded in agreement. Albedo knew he was right; Snezhnaya was equally prosperous as Liyue. Even if their methods of obtaining it came not from public contracts, but by hidden deals between invisible individuals.
Then the landau’s door opened, and out stepped the first of the diplomats.
Albedo and Diluc stilled in their seats, as did the rest of the crowd.
She was no doubt extremely gorgeous. Dizzyingly tall. A shockingly icy head of blonde hair that she’d restrained into a tightly braided bun, and the thickness of it signified to any onlooker that it was in fact quite long.
Albedo’s eyes first went to her onyx necklace, which hung in large droplets as if trickling from her prominent décolletage. Her dress was far too formal for daytime – and even less so for what Albedo imagined was a boringly long carriage ride – but she wore it with such convincing pride that he found himself accepting it nonetheless. Starting at the seam of the empire waist, the brocade fabric tumbled to her feet in a grandiose diamond pattern. When she glanced over at their table with a humorous upturn to the edges of her red lips – no doubt taking in Diluc’s smoldering expression – the dress caught the wind and moved stiffly. It was the sort of fabric for colder weather – for holding in heat. She seemed to realize this because she began to shrug off her black overcoat, but before it could fully part from her pale, sloped shoulder, she looked back into the carriage expectantly.
Albedo predicted that the other diplomat could not possibly measure up to their colleague’s ostentatious appearance, and he was proved correct when a tall gentleman dressed in respectable Mond attire exited the cabin and took her coat in hand.
That was not to say that he was not also handsome. He wore a well-tailored gray jacket that properly emphasized his broad shoulders, a pale blouse’s collar spilling out over its lapels, and white riding breeches. He looked younger, however, and though Albedo’s rational mind knew this man had once been in Snezhnaya’s military, the other, less convinced half of him could not understand how somebody with such a youthful bounce in his step could have dominated the battlefield in border skirmishes.
Though, perhaps he would have said the same of the young master Diluc before he’d learned of his vampire-hunting heritage.
Although the other diplomat’s light, coppery hair was partially visible under his black, silk hat, its brim partially obscured his features, and Albedo wondered why one of the Fatui might hope to conceal their identity while his partner would draw so much attention. Just as the female diplomat had, he turned briefly to survey the captive crowd, and though his hat shielded Albedo from ever truly tracking his gaze, it was impossible to not notice the way he stalled for the briefest of moments when he faced the direction of their table.
It was only for a moment, and then he held his arm out for his colleague to place her delicate, gloved hand upon, and the two disappeared under the elaborate eave of the Goth grand hotel.
-
In the weeks leading up to the social season, it was not uncommon to see the nobility of Mondstadt turn to the various public boxing rings throughout the city as a way of diverting any building social tensions. What better way to blow off steam or solve a long-standing familial feud than to throw the two second eldest sons – the ones who didn’t have to use their good looks to capture the hearts of the feminine elite – into a ring to break each other’s noses? Bets were claimed, bones were broken, and Albedo made a few quick mora off of the inevitable – “All you can do is let it heal and pray that the bone fuses before next weekend’s ball.”
In anticipation of social harmony, much like the love-oriented celebrations of the Windblume festival, work fell to the wayside for the aristocrats. Leisure reigned supreme. However, people like Albedo, whose wealth was earned by their labor, were not so easily able to abandon their work.
Especially, Albedo mused as he wrapped the last of a sterile bandage around a young man’s bruised cheekbone, if the noblemen didn’t stop polishing off jugs of dandelion wine and punching each other bare-fisted. Better than a pistol duel, anyhow.
Once the man had left – no doubt to the next match – Albedo sat himself prettily in his chair, though his body cried out with the desire to collapse.
Then the door swung open once more, bell jingling with far more excitement than he could ever muster, and Albedo wearily stood back up with proper form.
“Ah—forgive me,” the man said from the threshold, his arm extended outward to hold the door in place. “Am I intruding?”
Handsome was the first thought that came to Albedo’s mind. A very handsome man stood before him. Long, dark hair only partially held up at the back of his head in a style he recognized from manuscripts of Liyue. He wore a brown silk hanfu, elegant in its simple silhouette and impeccable golden embroidery.
“No, please come in,” Albedo managed. “Are you ailing?”
“Not particularly. I’m afraid any condition I have could not be assuaged by a cursory visit,” he said with a stern but doleful shake of his head, which dislodged a few long strands of hair from where they’d been suspended.
Albedo wanted to take offense at the accusation of his inadequacy, but part of him thought better of it – that perhaps this man spoke plainly in the interest of not wasting their time.
“How might I help you, then?”
“Forgive me for my lack of knowledge, for I have not been to this clinic before—“ His voice lifted at the end of the incomplete phrase, full eyebrows climbing upward as well, and Albedo realized that he was providing an opportunity for him to introduce himself.
“Ah—yes. My apologies. Please call me Albedo. It’s an honor to meet you.” Albedo nodded his head in lieu of a bow.
“Zhongli,” he mirrored the gesture with a calm confidence. “I have traveled up from Liyue Harbor the last two years for the social season. Over these the previous seasons I’ve had the pleasure of meeting a majority of the nobility and tradesmen. I was wondering if I had simply neglected to introduce myself to you or if this clinic was a new service in the city.”
“I do not purport to provide better healing that the sisters of Favonius, but I have had the great honor of training with doctors across Teyvat.” His eyes wandered upward and over to the wall beside them where his certificate hung. “I am not Mond in blood, but I spent the first half of my adolescence here before my studies demanded I travel. I recently returned and established this clinic. My family home is above us.”
“Ah, you are well-traveled?” Zhongli’s eyes lit up a bit.
“Only in so far as I’ve seen disease and death in many places.”
“As have I,” Zhongli bowed his head, perhaps in remembrance of some unknown person.
“Are you also a student of medicine?”
“A student?” Zhongli made that same surprised expression again – humored despite some ineffable world-weariness – and chuckled into his long sleeve. “You flatter me, young doctor. A student,” he repeated into that fabric once more, still amused. “No, I am a consultant for Wangsheng Funeral Parlor in Liyue Harbor.”
Whatever Albedo had expected, that certainly was not it. He half-wondered if this man had encountered any undead in his time there, but if he was simply providing consultation – perhaps on traditions and rituals, or maybe embalming methods? – then he likely was not interacting with the bodies.
Either way, it seemed an excessively morbid question to ask a practical stranger.
“So we are in a similar business,” was Albedo’s mild response.
“You tend to the living and I to the dead.” Zhongli’s low, attractive voice illustrated the obvious dissonance between the two.
“If I have learned anything in my time it’s that the two are not so different,” Albedo said, thinking to how even the undead Kaeya was as demanding as any other patient.
If Albedo’s ego hadn’t been fluffed enough by Zhongli’s subdued, rumbling laughter, it certainly was after that statement, because it seemed to amuse the man enough that he stepped up closer to Albedo to offer his hand. It seemed an odd time to shake hands, Albedo thought, since they’d already introduced themselves by name, but when he went to place his palm in Zhongli’s, he noticed that he was actually holding something. Zhongli turned his hand over and dropped a little amulet into Albedo’s hand.
It glowed amber even in the dimmed interior light of the clinic. Albedo had never encountered anything like it, though he wasn’t well versed in the study of precious stones.
“Sir,” Albedo started, looking between Zhongli and the set gemstone with a blank curiosity.
“You amuse me, young doctor. Please assure me that I will see you at the Lawrence banquet? Surely they have invited a man of your pedigree.” Zhongli’s voice was intoxicating, Albedo decided. It mattered not that he was a man.
Albedo’s chest puffed up at the compliment, but he maintained his signature cool composure.
“You can expect it.”
When he left, his robe trailing behind him in sophisticated shapes, Albedo mused on how much simpler the world might be if all men were as perfectly curt as this Zhongli fellow.
-
“Zhongli?” Diluc echoed Albedo, his head lifting a few mere inches from his paper. His hair had all but fallen out of his half-hearted attempt at a ponytail. “I met him last year, but I’d seen him at the balls the year before.”
“What is your opinion of him?”
“He’s polite, well-mannered, and exquisitely educated. The bachelorettes adore him, but he rarely seems to reciprocate their advances beyond a surface-level flirtation. By the end of the social season, he seems outright drained of life. One can only socialize for so long, I suppose,” he punctuated the end of his explanation with a little joyless shrug before he returned to the Dawn Winery’s accounts – a stack of papers that only seemed to grow in height each time Albedo returned for an appointment with Kaeya. “Perhaps he will find his betrothed this year.”
“Sir Diluc,” Albedo started, his gloved hand coming to support his face as an awed expression blossomed across it. “How impressive that you are able to remember so much. Even a passing guest in the Mond social scene. Your observational skills are second to none.”
Diluc let out a stifled scoff, hardly becoming of a man of his ilk, and hid his – blushing? – face behind the nearest folding parchment.
“Doctor,” he muttered into his work. “Shouldn’t you be attending to my brother?”
-
The knock came just after he’d locked the doors, but when he saw the magnified portrait of a bleeding nose and drunken gaze through the peephole of his door, he knew he’d have to let the nobleman in, lest he be berated him through the door all night as some other man had the previous evening.
It was with great hesitance that he invited the stranger into the clinic. He was tall, and though his face was bloody, his breeches had only the barest of scuffs. When Albedo’s eyes traveled up the length of his new patient’s person, he stalled at his face. The hair. Coppery. Mussed.
He retreated to his desk, shaking his head slightly at his preposterous luck. Diluc would be incensed if he caught wind that Albedo had treated one of the Fatui.
“You are one of the Snezhnayan diplomats,” Albedo said, flipping through a series of documents. Each new patient would have to sign a few waivers – nothing out of sort for the profession. When he had inducted Kaeya into the clinic’s services, he had debated whether to have him sign any that regarded loss of life, but Kaeya insisted on it - if not for the authenticity of the records then for the comedy.
“And you are a doctor,” the man replied with moderate surprise. Did he know where he was?
“You may call me Albedo.”
“Childe,” was all the man said before he sat on the patient’s table.
“Did you win?” Albedo sorted the necessary papers into a small stack and plucked a pen from the desk.
“Win?” Childe’s head tilted to the side as if he might be able to understand the situation from a slightly different angle.
Albedo stared blankly at his strange patient. “The boxing match?”
Childe smiled, and his teeth shone bright and straight under the lamplight. “Yes.”
What an odd man, Albedo thought. Part of him was entirely repulsed by his strange behavior and the other half was inexplicably drawn to him. He cast the thought away, adopting his usual collected expression before pulling out the chair at his desk and motioning for Childe to sit in it.
“I’ll need you sign a few documents before I can assess your injuries. I must warn you that if it is indeed broken, the recovery is mostly out of my hands. Should you want to return to the rings before two week’s time, I encourage you to do away with the impulse,” Albedo completed his dispassionate spiel. He was quite tired, and he was motivated only by the leftover ratatouille in his apartment upstairs.
His patient scoffed from where he sat on the sterile cushion.
“Please, my nose is fine.” Childe’s voice slithered out of him in a way that made all of Albedo’s cells light up in alarm. “After all, I caught your scent halfway across the city.”
“Scent?” Albedo swallowed his stammer and stepped a few paces backward until he was flush with his small desk. His strange patient stood up, and all the lamps in the clinic seemed to quaver in his foreboding presence.
“Yes. You reek of rhododendrons,” Childe encroached upon him. “Have you ever seen them? Beautiful flower. Ivory with little pink throats. Not quite unlike yourself in this moment.”
Childe planted his gloved hands on either side of Albedo, not touching him, but dominating him nonetheless. Albedo brought his hands in closer to his torso, and his hand brushed against the wooden stake Kaeya had given him.
The action was instantaneous. He unhooked it from his trousers and plunged it into the vampire’s chest in one swift motion without hesitation.
Childe cried out in an inhuman shriek before backing into a shelf. His arm flailed, hand grasping for some purchase, but the fragrant cedar plank yielded too easily, splintering like a twig when his fist clenched around it. He released a few strained, panting breaths and brought his other hand to the wooden stake in his breast. His long fingers wrapped around it, and with only a slight wince, he pulled it out from his sternum. The unmistakable sound of cracking bone filled the clinic – loud enough that it even overpowered the blood rushing in Albedo’s ears.
“Mondstadt is terribly antique, isn’t it?” Childe laughed. “Why, even their doctors have resorted to such primitive practices!” He moved forward languidly, the blood already clotting at his gaping chest wound, and now that he wasn’t crumpled up against the shelf, it dawned upon Albedo just how tall the man was. “Your knowledge of anatomy must be lacking. You entirely missed my heart.”
He was up against Albedo again in an instant, his staggering height only further proved by the way Albedo had to crane his neck upward to meet those feline eyes. Then he was leaning down, and Albedo’s mind blinked in and out of existence. He had never been in such close contact with another person – ever – which Childe seemed to pick up on because he nestled his face in Albedo’s loose hair, a wet tongue licking at the curve of Albedo’s jaw and long fingers parting his collar from where it lay flat at his neck. It was all too much.
His heart threatened to burst in his chest from fear, and Albedo hated how Childe could without a doubt feel his feeble human organ fluttering where their torsos were pressed together. That tongue made its way across his skin again, and his body told him to run, to recoil – except for the part that said he should tilt his head back further and yield – and that petrified him more than the prospect of Childe sinking his maw into his unblemished skin – the idea that on some primitive level, he wanted it. Childe’s red scarf pressed against Albedo’s face as he turned away from the encroaching bright teeth, both to avoid looking at them and, subconsciously, to open himself up. Childe’s canine came to rest upon his skin, so threatening and so tempting and so unbearably sharp that he knew it could cut into him at any moment, but all Albedo could see was red wool.
Red.
Diluc.
The words came out of him like a prayer rite.
“The Ragnvindr contract dictates that no vampires shall feed within its borders without writ permission.”
Childe withdrew a bit, paused, and lolled his head to the side. The playful laugh that tore out of his chest both startled and comforted Albedo.
“I’m mistaken, aren’t I? This pretty little physician knows far more than I’d anticipated,” he said, backing up to take in the mussed sight of Albedo, who still held fearfully onto his work desk.
“One would think a creature as ancient as you might have learned to not underestimate people by now.” He said, hoping that he might convince himself. He had seen death many times, but never had it come for him.
“Ancient? Look at these teeth,” Childe reached a bloody finger into his mouth and pulled his lips away from his vicious maw. Albedo shuddered at the sight. Not moments ago that elongated fang had been prodding at his jugular. “Are these baby teeth the fangs of an ancient? If I was one of them, I would have shrugged that stake off like a splinter.”
Albedo placed his free hand on his chest, both gauging and calming his pounding heart. Just knowing that its wild beating was likely egging on the beast in front of him made him want to stop it altogether.
“You’re quite clever, though,” Childe started, leaning contrapposto against the patient’s table once more. “You have a lovely clinic full of bagged blood and fleshy patients and all manner of novelty surgical instruments. It’s quaint, yes, but with a few hundred thousand mora, it would be able to accommodate a few more bodies.” And then, as if the thought had occurred to him over the course of his proselytizing, proposed: “Say, how would you like to get married?”
Albedo wanted to balk. Instead he moved his hand to a loose pencil on his desk. Would it count as a stake? His guess was without proof, but he did know he would not miss if the chance arose again.
“I’d prefer to take my chances at the ball, where innumerable women more appealing than a brute like you await.
“How terribly human of you. Mortals truly are in an eternal infancy, aren’t they? What a pity that I’m disposed to favor you as of this instant,” Childe sighed. “I would not be able to bear you children, no, but the brood I could produce for you—“ He inhaled sharply as if the thought of it transported him to some fantasy. “It would certainly be a size that no mortal could push out without breaking a few bones.”
“What concerns do the Fatui have within Mondstadt’s borders?”
Childe gave a few tuts with a disapproving wag of his finger.
“Snezhnayans are as welcome at the social season as any other people. Why should the Fatui be exempt from such a rule?” It chilled Albdeo to hear Diluc’s words parroted back at him. So not only had he been able to smell them, but he could hear them too. Kaeya’s abilities were nowhere near this level – not from Albedo’s observations – so he had no frame of reference for how powerful this vampire truly was. Better to not try to take him on in combat again.
“If the Ragnvindr clan were to learn that a former military officer turned vampire tried to feed from a human not only in Mondstadt, but within the city’s walls, there would be hell to pay. War, even.”
“Ooh, you tempt me,” Childe said cheerily, the violent delight in his eyes illustrating a chilling sort of authenticity that sent chills through Albedo’s limp limbs. “But perhaps you should bring up that sort of threat with the Ragnvindr clan – which I should note has been reduced to its sole heir – before you make a promise you cannot keep.”
“Your hat,” Albedo realized. “Is that what kept you from festering in the sun?”
“Ah,” Childe sighed with feigned woe. “My colleague does not know how lucky she is that she can traipse around in that fleshy human form. Sometimes she makes me regret being turned.”
“If your fellow Fatui officer is human, then your entourage isn’t here to find a consort. There’s some other reason.”
“Continue your incessant prying and I will kill you.” Childe grinned, though it showed no sign of humor. “And properly this time, my little flower.”
“Spill one drop of blood and every vampire here for the courting season will come running.”
Childe hummed in a relenting sort of fashion, though Albedo suspected that the diplomat was not one to ever truly back off.
“I have a proposal.”
“I will hear it out if it means you will leave.”
Childe laughed into his fist, which was still colored rust with dried blood. Albedo remained in place, statuesque.
“For each piece of information you desire, I get one minute at your throat. Consider it a prenuptial of sorts. Once I’ve had a taste of you, I’ll be able to determine if your intoxicating scent is as indicative of your taste as I hope it is.” He smiled as if he might further sweeten the deal. “From there, we can write out any addendums you desire.”
“You’ve given me no evidence that you are trustworthy.” Aside from that, the proposition was still ridiculous; Childe had to know that.
“No evidence? The fact that you are still alive, standing and breathing with all your blood still thrumming in your veins – is that not proof enough of my loyalty?”
As much as Albedo wanted to surge forward and stick his pencil into Childe’s broad chest, he also had to admit that the man was right – that he’d been playing with him the entire evening and never had the intention of actually killing him. It was a mind game, and Albedo had no experience or learned strategy in this sort of battle. He was floundering, but as long as Childe thirsted for his blood this fervently, he had the upper hand.
“Mm,” Childe hummed. “That discontented expression makes no secret of your distaste for me.”
“No great loss,” Albedo said, not meaning for it to come out in a whisper. The air resisted his lungs.
“Should you need me, you need only call out my name with that same pained cry as when I lapped at your pink throat.”
Albedo managed to shoot a stony glare in Childe’s direction, and as nonthreatening as he may have looked, collar undone and shirt dislodged from his trousers, Childe seemed to take pity on him.
“Or, rather – simply ask for me by name at the concierge desk.”
-
Fischl came in the next day for another checkup. She’d fallen from the highest branch of a cuihua tree while exploring the whispering woods, and for every yowl of pain she choked back when Albedo dabbed bleached cotton and astringent at her, frankly, minor wound, her mother had a complaint to fill the sterile silence.
“Amy, how many times must I warn you to stay away from that Bennett boy? It seems that poor luck follows him and his company wherever he goes.” Then – an aside to her dour husband and Albedo – as if the matter concerned him in any way. “Not to mention he’s an orphan with no fortune to his name. If anybody were to see her in the woods – alone! – with a man. By the gods, we’d lose so much face.”
It did not go over his head that Fischl’s mother referred to Bennett as a boy and a man interchangeably – all depending on whichever was most convenient to her in the moment.
“Mother, Bennett is a brave adventurer, and thanks to his fearless exploits, we have managed to save the feral boy-wolf not once, but twice from the deliberate traps of Springvale hunters!”
Fischl’s mother stammered weakly, incoherent noises of frustration dribbling out from the corners of her mouth, before she burst into a flushed fit of rage. “Amy! You will stop with this nonsense at once! How many times must I tell you that there is no wolf boy in the woods?”
“Whatever is that?” Fischl exclaimed, pointing to the wooden stake on the ground.
All present parties exchanged confused looks – Albedo’s more postured than theirs. He internally scolded himself for missing it. He wasn’t the tidiest person – that he would admit to – but to leave such a bizarre object out for all to see…
“Why, miss Fischl,” he started, it all coming to him at once. “That is a wooden stake. For slaying vampires, of course.”
Fischl’s round eyes lit up with unadulterated, childlike glee. “Vampires!”
And in a fraction of a second, Fischl’s mother, purple as a valberry, stormed over to her daughter and grabbed hastily at her narrow wrist, brusquely pulling her from the patient table.
“We really must be going,” she insisted, though Fischl cried out instantaneously in protest.
“But mother, vampires!”
“Doctor,” her father gave him a barely courteous bow of the head. “I expect we will see you at the upcoming banquet?”
Albedo smiled softly and nodded his affirmation, giving Fischl a little half-wave as her bouncing person vanished beyond the swinging clinic door.
-
With each day that passed, Kaeya’s initially exuberant attitude seemed to settle into a banal contentedness with his predicament.
Although his supernatural abilities had allowed his right eye socket to heal at an astonishing rate, the eye had been obliterated before his vampirism, and thus was unable to regenerate. Kaeya claimed to be unworried by it, and Albedo noted that his nervous energy seemed to leave him whenever Albedo elected to change out his facial bandages. It was likely the only time he received human contact. Albedo wondered if he might be able to craft some sort of ointment – something that could encourage cell regrowth. Really, that sort of thing was beyond him, but both he and Kaeya seemed content to pretend that the possibility lay on the horizon. It gave them something to look forward to beyond failed experimentations and baseless theorizing.
In general, Kaeya was receptive to Albedo’s visits, though he had long since grown tired of being locked away in his room. It was no doubt his only social interaction besides his routine bickering with his brother. After Diluc had heard of Kaeya’s impromptu adventure, he’d become unreasonably stern about their arrangement. It wasn’t as if Kaeya was unable to leave the estate, but rather that he didn’t want to burden his brother with another responsibility before the season settled into full swing.
“Should I request a doctor’s note or am I able to attend tomorrow's ball of my own volition?” Kaeya’s voice came from above.
He had been experimenting with the strange abilities that came with his vampirism, and although he hadn’t quite gotten the grasp of levitation – and likely wouldn’t for decades – he found the practice of walking along the wall in defiance of gravity to be extremely entertaining. Albedo had yet to adjust to it, and when Kaeya would speak to him from his perch on the ceiling against the frame of the window, it never failed to startle him.
Albedo’s eyes darted around the room until he located Kaeya’s shadowy person on top of the bookshelf – behind where he’d posted up with his various treatment plans. He felt very much like Diluc with all the papers spread out before him.
“You still can’t retract your fangs yet. And if somebody sees you in a room that’s too dimly lit, they’ll be terrified by the inhuman glow of your eyes. We have no idea if your thirst will be intensified in such a massive crowd,” He paused, taking in the preposterousness of his circumstances. “Really, it’s a shame that the previous Ragnvindrs didn’t at least study a few vampires before killing them.” Albedo sighed. He was as weary with his own research as Kaeya was with being kept in his room. Over the last week he’d come to complete standstill in his research and treatment plans. “Not to mention there’s the matter of sunlight, so you’d have to arrive after sunset and not alongside your brother, which would be rather unbecoming.”
“It seems no less unbecoming than my complete absence.” Kaeya sat on the wall and his ponytail dangled like an indigo cord. “My adoring fans, doctor. I can hear their desperate cries. Just a touch, they say. Just a passing glance!”
Albedo’s ears perked up at that, and thoughts of Childe’s violent grin flashed in his mind. “Can you actually?”
“No,” Kaeya rolled his eyes and descended the wall. When he reached the moulding where it connected to the hardwood floor he hopped off and landed neatly on the Sumeru rug. Albedo blinked at the scene. It would never make sense to him. Kaeya’s very existence disproved the universal truths of the world, and the more time Albedo spent around him, the less sure his foothold in reality became.
An unethical thought occurred to him.
“Do you think you would be able to detect other vampires if you were in their presence?”
Kaeya moved his neck around on his shoulders in some strange, topsy-turvy shrug, and Albedo wondered briefly if his blatant flouting of gravity had disrupted his internal balance.
“I don’t see why not.”
“I would happily sign off on your coming to the ball if you are willing to do some legwork for me. There are a few guests I’d like to know more about. I’m hoping with your newfound skills you might be perform a bit of reconnaissance in between glasses of dandelion wine.”
Albedo expected Kaeya to lunge forward and trap him in a joyous embrace, but as he neared the table where he sat, the young Ragnvindr merely lifted his nose into the air.
“What are you doing?” Albedo asked, releasing a leaden exhale. The answer would likely be yet another thing to catalogue.
“You smell different.” A sniff.
“That’s to be expected. Your senses have developed to an exceptional degree,” Albedo replied flatly.
“Yes, but—” Another sniff. Albedo considered swatting that wriggling nose away, but quickly recalled how his fist had felt against Childe’s hard chest when he staked him. “It’s different than the musky odor of other people.”
“If the words to describe it come to you, I suppose we should write them down for posterity’s sake.”
“Sweet cloves,” Kaeya finally said, tucking his chin into his chest and looking through long, indigo lashes at Albedo. “Like the flower bushes in the garden. That’s what it is.”
Albedo hummed quietly to himself, revealing nothing except the fact that he had heard Kaeya. He would have to give his apologies to the Fatui diplomat when he saw him at the ball tomorrow.