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Albedo never saw himself as one who enjoyed parties. He did not dislike them, he could easily tolerate it for a few hours, but considering how often Albedo found himself secluded on the mountain by his own choice, he was fairly confident in saying that he was far from the most sociable person.
It wasn’t that he found it hard, however - he had long since learnt the rules and social etiquette required to fit in, even if there were still many that he was still learning. It was more so that Albedo found the soft sounds of the winds helped him focus on whatever experiment he was conducting more than any other noise than he could in the Knights of Favonius headquarters, whether that be conversation outside the windows or his pseudo-sister coming to ask for his attention. The “secret code” swayed her, but not enough to give him the focus he would prefer when it came to his experiments.
At the thought of experiments, Albedo looked up to lay eyes on his most successful one to date. Klee was giggling, talking about something that Albedo couldn’t quite hear from where he was on the other side of the Angel’s Share, but from Jean’s expression, it seemed to be something explosive. He watched as Durin just laughed, his wings fluttering at his waist as Diluc wordlessly slid over two more glasses of lemonade. The tavern felt alive in a different way than it usually did, at least as far as Albedo was aware of from his infrequent visits.
Durin seemed at ease as he conversed with Klee, then Jean, then Lisa, and Albedo could not help but think about how far Durin had come since he was first created. Albedo would liken Durin’s first hour to a newborn baby deer - staring at the room of his laboratory with wide eyes, dressed in a spare set of Albedo’s clothes that were just a little too big on him, his wings twitching awkwardly against his back as he tried to get used to the new muscles. The alchemist remembered how Durin had stumbled around, the weight of his wings on his back sending him off balance several times and almost definitely sending him onto the floor had Albedo himself not been there to steady him. Durin had laughed so loudly when he had taken those first shaky steps - almost as loudly as he was right now, laughing at something that Varka had said with a drink in hand.
All of this to say, Albedo was pleasantly surprised at how far Durin had come. From awkward conversations with stumbling over the correct words and trivial things like hand movements to being able to navigate an entire party with minimal help, it was clear that Durin had come a long way from that first day.
When it was time for the cake, Albedo finally abandoned his notebook and joined everyone else around the table, standing quietly next to Durin as the Traveller brought out the cake, a large smile on their face as they placed it in front of him. He watched as Klee and Durin’s faces simultaneously lit up, and he could see Wanderer tilt his hat down slightly further over his face as though to hide the amusement. Albedo couldn’t blame any of them - the cake itself was unexpected, a near-perfect rendition of Durin’s “mini form”, so to say, and even he couldn’t help but chuckle quietly.
Jean seemed slightly concerned, and Albedo immediately deduced why. It had been decided weeks ago that Durin and Jean would share a birthday party, though he was sure that Jean had no real intentions of ever bringing up her half of it. Despite that, Albedo was certain there was a second cake somewhere in the tavern, and he was convinced from Jean’s expression alone that she was also very aware of that.
It was easy enough to distract Jean from that when Diluc (after expertly sweeping past Klee who seemed a bit too entranced by the match box) lit the single candle on top of the cake, and although everyone else was singing, Albedo couldn’t seem to make himself open his mouth.
One candle. That single candle gave him pause before he could even start. He watched the flames dance as the cacophony of voices muffled themselves, his gaze moving back to Durin. He watched Durin laugh, the only sound he could focus on as his brother’s wings flapped happily. Hat Guy made an expression as one of them slapped gently against his side, but he didn’t say anything.
There was only one candle on this cake since- well. Durin’s age was complicated. The boy was, in a sense, spiritually five hundred years old, and bodily somewhere between fifteen or seventeen. Albedo wondered how many candles were too many to fit on a cake, at least when you were doing the tradition of adding a candle per year of the person’s birth. Perhaps the limit would be eighteen, but Albedo was thinking far past eighteen.
One of the reasons that Albedo considered Durin to be his most successful experiment is because he created Durin with the intention of being entirely human, unlike himself. While he technically could partake in sleeping, eating and breathing, that wasn’t a necessity. It was nice to indulge in, but in theory, Albedo could hole himself up in the highest peak of Dragonspine for a decade with no food and water and come out unscathed.
On the other hand, Durin was human. Well, human enough if you ignored the horns, wings and tail. Despite that, Durin was as human as everyone else in the room. He needed food and water, he bled, slept and he breathed. In theory, these were the results that had been desired from the beginning. Durin had longed to become a human to gain connection and learn about the world, and Albedo had sought to prevent the old Durin from resurrecting himself.
In practice, however, Albedo was near certain this meant that he would outlive Durin by a sizable margin.
Perhaps it was through practiced objectiveness that Albedo didn’t feel too strongly about this, or perhaps it was just that Albedo had known this since the beginning. It was simply logical - Albedo’s lifespan was already quite lengthy, reaching at the minimum four centuries, and still he showed no sign of decay or aging. Contrarily, an average human lifespan was about eighty years with no severe health issues or tragedies.
Albedo couldn’t stop thinking about it as the cake was divided and passed out. He watched as Hat Guy raised an eyebrow as Durin practically shoved a plate in his hands, his tail wagging happily like a dog instead of a dragon. Perhaps Durin had been spending too much time with the stray dogs recently.
As he watched Hat Guy take a small bite of the cake, clearly just to appease the dragon, Albedo tilted his head. He was certain that if he ever brought this sentiment to Hat Guy, he would metaphorically rip Albedo’s head clean off of his shoulders. Hat Guy’s lifespan seemed to have extended past his own, though he wasn’t sure of the details. Even disregarding that, Albedo didn’t need to know the full story to understand that while he himself had simply accepted this fact, Hat Guy would be much less accepting of this fact.
And Klee, he noted as he watched Klee tug at Durin’s sleeve, pointing at what was left for the cake as though asking for a second slice, would be very likely to outlive Durin as well. Alice was of elven descent and was certainly over five hundred years old. Considering Klee’s ears were similarly pointed, it wasn’t unfounded to assume that at least some of Alice’s elven lineage was present within Klee. Whether that meant her lifespan was extended or not, Albedo wasn’t entirely sure, nor was he aware of exactly how long this would in theory extend her lifespan for, but Albedo wasn’t going to be the one to have that conversation with her just yet. Perhaps that would be worth asking Aunt Alice about when she arrived later that day.
Still, he let himself think further, the only real way to estimate Durin’s life span would be to wait. And, Albedo supposed as he picked up his notebook again, continuing to work on his sketch of the room and its inhabitants, that was what most humans did. The vast majority did not get the luxury of knowing when they were going to die. They only had the luxury of knowing that they were alive in the moment, and it did no good to wonder about how long one might live.
“Oh, look, Hat Guy! It’s us!” Durin’s voice shook him from his thoughts as he tugged Hat Guy over, peering over Albedo’s shoulder with a wide grin.
The Hat Guy in question just let Durin drag him, looking at Albedo’s rendition of himself and Durin talking, with Klee not quite being outlined just yet. For a moment, he was silent. Then he dipped his head, the brim of that wide hat falling over his eyes as he made a noise. Durin just laughed, and Albedo couldn’t help but smile - they had both come to learn what certain noises meant, and that one in particular meant I think that this is halfway decent, but I will refuse to say so.
Albedo went back to outlining Klee, letting the shape take form into his sister. Maybe he, Hat Guy and Klee would outlive Durin, but perhaps a tragedy would befall them all tomorrow. In the grand scheme of things, mulling over who would die first added no bearing to his experiments or his results. It made no difference to consider factors that weren’t even in anyone’s control apart from fate’s - if he did that for every experiment, none of them would even be started. Living in the present moment would yield much more beneficial, and pleasant, results.
And besides, what was the point of worrying about how the book ends when you’ve only turned to the second page?