In which Albedo plays hide and seek with Klee (or rather, Klee forces Albedo to play with her)
disclaimer: all the characters and most other things belong to Mihoyo, not me :DD
"10...9...8..7..6,5,4," Klee counts cheerfully, holding her gloved hands over her eyes while taking a sneak peek from between her fingers.
"No speeding up...and no peeking!" Albedo says, his voice coming from somewhere behind her, accompanied by the faint thump of footsteps on snow. Klee tilts her head, frowning as she tries to pinpoint his location but to no avail. Not giving up, she turns around carefully, eyes still covered, and takes another peek through the gaps between her stubby fingers.
Nothing.
She peeks for a moment longer, even removing one hand to take a better look. Nothing moves in the bleak lifeless landscape, but for the single flame burning brightly on a torch in the distance. There is no sign of life, no comforting figure waiting for her by the flame, or peering out from behind a pile of snow, from beneath a wooden crate, not even a fox or a slime, just an endless stretch of ice and snow.
No voice calls out to her, telling her to stop cheating, to stop peeking, to turn around and continue counting. The game has started.
Rubbing her hands together and shifting her feet, slightly numb from the cold, she begins her hunt, running through the designated area, throwing bombs at random piles of snow, her eyes lighting up with satisfaction as they melt in a flurry of sparks and fire.
The designated area is small, and she soon finds herself running round and round the area, searching every nook and cranny, behind the rocks, beneath the crates, only to turn up empty handed. Uneasiness creeps up her spine, over her skin, seeping into her blood and veins. She stops beside a torch and casts another furtive glance around the snowy cave. Icicles hang like stalactites from the stone ceiling, like the menacing crystal teeth of an unknown predator. The snow seems to shift in the flickering firelight, mysterious shades of blue and orange and gray. She shifts uncomfortably, rubbing at the bare skin on the back of her neck, shivering as a chill runs through her. She shouldn't be cold, she is standing right beside a torch, she can feel the warmth of the fire, on her cheek and arm, spreading over her body, yet her teeth still chatter, albeit minisculely.
She suddenly doesn't really want to play anymore, though it was her idea in the first place. She had gone to his workshop and waited outside, clinging to him once he was done with his experiment and begging him to play with her.
"I saw Amber and the Traveler playing hide and seek today! The traveler even turned into a box! It looked so fun, let's play!" she had exclaimed as he picked her up and gave her a much-deserved piggyback ride, smiling in exasperation as she tugged at his hair. Albedo had such fun hair, the way it stayed poofy even though he tried to keep it neat by tying some of it up. She had occupied herself with his hair, twisting the strands into braids, only to look up to find herself in the snowy mountain Albedo liked to spend his time in.
If only they had played in Springvale, like the Traveler and Amber, or around Dawn Winery, the pair had said they would be playing there tomorrow. She would have had so much more fun, running up the windmills or through the fields. She doesn't like this cold unpleasant place a single bit, it is chilly and quiet and so very empty.
She holds Dodoco in her hands. "I can't find Albedo, Dodoco," she says, fiddling around with his ears, "Do you know where he is?" Dodoco says nothing, though she supposes she didn't really expect a reply.
She gives Dodoco another hug, holding him close and cuddling him in her search for comfort. She doesn't want to play anymore, she wants to go home, to eat her comfort food, Woodland Dream, then listen to Albedo tell her stories. She wants to watch him fiddling with his weird bottles of coloured liquid, wants to rest her chin on his shoulder as he sketches, to ask him for advice on how she can make better bombs. But he is nowhere to be found and she doesn't know where he is.
She needs to find him first.
Yes, she needs to find him, she needs to find him, so they can all go home.
She leaves the warmth of the fire, still holding Dodoco close to herself, to complete her umpteenth round through the area, going in circles around this huge mountain in the middle. She has searched this place no less than ten times, but she is certain she will find him. After all, he must be here somewhere.
Running another round around the mountain in the middle, she plops herself on a rock next to a torch, exhausted. Resting her elbows on her knees and cupping her chin, she stares desolately at the bleak landscape, scrunching her face up to form a frown.
"Klee! Watch out!"
She jumps at the sound, turning around to look at the mountain. Something strange is happening to it. Her eyes widen as a strange white cloud forms around it, covering the peak and making its way down. Like smoke, but much cleaner, and doesn't smoke always go up?. Did one of her bombs somehow get up there? And what's that thing sliding down?
She gets to her feet and squints. A chunk of something white is sliding down, gradually growing bigger, the way icing on a cake does when she runs her finger over it. And, amidst the chunk, an oddly shaped object is flailing, desperately trying to stay on top of the chunk. Something flies form the figure, a thin, stick-like object. Klee squints harder.
As the unidentified object, or rather, collection of unidentified objects approach, she realises with a start that the white blob is a chunk of snow, and the human-like figure is none other than Albedo.
Her brother is desperately clutching onto his sketchpad, sitting on one of his isotomas and frantically trying to stay upright, his already-poofy hair seeming wilder than ever. Klee opens her mouth to laugh at him, only to slam it shut as she is overwhelmed by a wave of snow. Her vision fills with the colour white, then black as the snow goes over her head and she is buried within.
She barely has time to take in the new world around her before she is hauled out of the snow. Gentle hands frantically go over her, turning her around to check her before pulling her close and engulfing her in an embrace. Klee sinks into it gladly, enjoying the warmth of his skin pressed up against her, making up for the feelings of loneliness she had suffered previously. She snuggles up to him, resting her head on his shoulder, tempted to just close her eyes right here and fall asleep.
"Hey, don't sleep yet, we need to get home," Albedo says, pulling away from her. She glances at him and realises he is still buried up to his shoulders in snow, having ploughed through the powdery snowdrift to get to her. Pieces of snow hang of his hair, giving him a bedraggled look, and before she could stop herself, Klee started giggling, her shoulders shaking from her fit of laughter.
Albedo frowns, folding his arms. "What is so funny?"
"You...you look like a...a drowning...snowman," Klee manages to say between bouts of laughter, and Albedo reaches out to grab her before she falls over. He sighs, then reaches out to pick up the sketchpad, which he had been clutching on to, passing it to Klee. Blinking curiously, she holds it up close to her face and scrutinises it.
"Hey! It's me!" she exclaims, attempting to jump only to fail because she is buried up to her knees in snow. Multiple sketches of herself are spread across the paper, sketches of her burning the piles of snow, of her peering under crates, of her crawling between rocks. She realises, with a start, that Albedo must have been up there on the mountain all along! Drawing her!
She turns to look at the mountain, then asks, "So what happened up there?"
"Ah, I was...too engrossed in my sketch, I failed to notice that the fire I had created was melting the snow..." he says sheepishly.
"Whoa! That sounds sO fun! Can I go up the mountain and slide down too?"
"What? No, Klee, no, come back!"
Yep, Klee has no idea what the word "danger" means, I mean, she does throw bombs around for fun ;-;
Albedo sure has a hard time taking care of her.