@songscrawled : “ i will do whatever i can, as i am right now. this is the thread that i have been following all this time. “ (Albedo)
Yuu wonders, not for the first time, at the people of this world.
Not so different from the last one / two in a number of ways. People are people — most are good, or trying to be. Most are full of love, of desperation, of want. That’s all as true in Teyvat as it had been in the world they’d come from. But there are differences. In the first world, maybe, it was not so easy to separate its inhabitants into villains and heroes, black and white. Here, though, the rules are well - defined and clear and simple, or at least ——— the people here want them to be.
Yuu wonders, not for the first time, at Albedo.
They’re a strange person, and Yuu had met them only a handful of times with their work with the knights. But he’d seemed kind, if reserved — Yuu understood. They can be unexpressive with strangers, overly blank in a way that makes others thing they don’t care. So Yuu hadn’t judged. But they’ve been speaking more lately, if only through the traveler, and Yuu wonders which side Albedo falls on. Hero, villain.
Yuu wonders if Albedo knows that’s his choice. Sometimes, it doesn’t seem like he does.
The outworlder hops off the table in the lab they’d been sitting atop, waiting for Amber to get back so they can head out, and moves closer to them when they speak. Their head tilts, dark hair against their cheeks. Following this thread. Doing what they can. It doesn’t exactly sound like it’s something he chose, does it?
Silence hangs heavy in the air, and Albedo’s attention returns to his work. Yet, attention cracks alongside the quiet when Yuu asks, voice simple and flat, “Why?”
They look to them, seeming sincerely confused even past the dull expression of perpetual disinterest. "Excuse me?”
“Why follow the thread?" Yuu’s hands shove in their pockets. “Just because you always have been? That’s stupid.” The words are terribly blunt, but Yuu doesn’t mean to cause harm. They just want them to wonder. The scienstist, always curious, always asking. Wonder. Wonder. Their head tilts back. “You don’t have to do something just because you’ve been doing it for a long time. Or because somebody told you you have to.”
When their head tips back down, his expression is unreadable, but Yuu thinks they guessed right.
Their mouth parts again to push further, to heal with the identical tools of force and love, but — “Yuu!” Amber’s greeting crashes through the room as the door slams open, and they both wince at the volume. The smile Yuu offers Albedo as Amber prances in and grabs them is apologetic — it’s also a promise. That they’ll be back, and they won’t let this conversation drop.
They’re at the door, Amber tugging on their wrist, when Yuu’s head tilts back over their shoulder to add, “the story goes how you choose, Albedo, even if it didn’t start that way.” And then, they’re gone.
