Aether finishes off the last monster crowding around the leyline outcrop and waits for the blossom to slowly rise. After it does, he quickly scans his surroundings to find them empty – this particular patch of land between Dawn Winery and what used to be Springvale being even more deserted than usual.

Under the cover of darkness, Aether takes out the… he can't call it a Vision anymore, and not just because it's cracked and greyed after it got pushed through its owner's heart–

'Death here means returning to the leylines,' Albedo said. Indeed, the gem seemed to grow warmer and darker the closer it got to the outcrop. Now, moments away before unfurling the blossom to release the pent-up energy, its colour is almost completely black.

Aether channels his power through the blossom, causing it to burst then wither. The area is bathed in leyline energy, the surrounding grass perking up as if being watered and the stone…

The stone loses what little colour it has left, becoming pitch black. The leyline energy converges around it, its flow altered so each dust-like plume is absorbed by the gem, while it emanates its own ephemeral glow, spreading out from the stone and to the ground, building up until–

Until a familiar shape manifests.

Aether almost drops the Vision. "Albedo?"

"... Aether?" comes Albedo's voice, distant and disembodied, but it lightens Aether's heart to hear that calm inflection once again. "I take it my plan worked then."

Aether tries to speak but finds himself unable to. What stands before him resembles a shade, only instead of just seeing a muddled outline he can see all of Albedo, from his soft features to the details of his weather-inappropriate outfit.

Except Albedo's face now sports cracks, rising from his neck and moving up his cheek, across his eye alongside many more hairline cracks.

"Is everything ok?" comes Paimon as she manifests right behind him. "What spooked you- Aaah, a ghost?!"

"Good evening to you as well, Paimon."

Paimon, currently hiding under Aether's cape, takes a furtive look at the apparition. "Wait, is that…?"

Aether ignores her, rushing forward to embrace Albedo. However, his hand passes right through him. He doesn't feel anything, no resistance, no change in temperature, nothing.

Albedo stares at Aether's hand with an unreadable expression. "My corporeal form is gone. Typically that should spell my end, but I was able to turn the very thing that betrayed me into a lifeline," he says, speaking casually as if they were having one of their late night chats.

"What…" Aether gulps, blinking to reassure himself he's not hallucinating. "Is that really…? What did you do?"

Albedo looks up to Aether and his expression softens. "You're lucky to lack a Vision," he says, "That way Celestia can't spy on you."

Aether looks back at Albedo's Vision alarmed. Is that how Celestia found out, is it still–?

"Don't worry," Albedo speaks up at Aether's alarm. "My Vision has been... deactivated for lack of a better term. What you're holding has been transformed into something much more curious."

Aether looks between the stone and the apparition. He remembers stabbing through where Albedo guided him. His chest caved around it, where a thick red substance oozed out and was absorbed through its crack, like water in a sponge. The star, the infusion marker on Albedo's neck, glowed for a brief second before eternally dulling after the last of the liquid retreated inside the greyed Vision.

"Yourself," Aether says. "I'm holding you. Or rather, your... soul?"

Albedo smiles. "Thank you for calling it that. And yes, more or less…" He holds up his hand with a forlorn look. "One of the advantages of my monstrous form is its ability to be moulded to extremes impossible for a human body–"

"Don't call yourself that. You're not a monster."

"You saw the destruction I wrought–"

"That was Celestia. Not you."

Albedo stares at him for a long time. So long that Aether, increasingly uncomfortable, looks off in the horizon, a whirlwind of emotions bubbling inside him, a terrible mixture of joy and guilt, sadness and anger.

"I had other options," Albedo eventually says.

When Aether moves to look at him in protest, Albedo raises a hand to his cheek. Unlike when his gloved hand passed through him, Albedo's ghostly touch is accompanied by a strange sensation, like an elemental-infused breeze gently blowing by. Aether wants to hold on that feeling the evidence of corporeality that Albedo is present and alive in some strange way, so he holds still, his face turned away.

"The only requirement was my death. 'How' was irrelevant. In all my selfishness, I asked for three days. One was spent vainly trying to come up with a loophole, the second with Klee, and the final with our outing, before…"

He pauses and Aether remembers their last picnic with newfound dread. Back then, Albedo was trying to… Even if he is nonchalant about it now, did he try to call out for help in his own muted way? Aether didn't think much of the occasion, didn't notice anything wrong…

Hell of a friend he is.

"It would have been so much simpler if I'd just thrown myself off a cliff," Albedo continues, unperturbed. "Dragonspine does not lack them and the impact would have been strong enough to shatter and kill me."

The nonchalance in Albedo's words makes Aether's hair rise. "Why didn't you?"

"It would have been a lonely death," comes Albedo's answer, too quick and practised for Aether's liking. "And perhaps… even after everything, I was holding out for a miracle."

Aether rubs his hands against each other for some warmth. Some of the monster's blood has splattered on them, and it is strange how this sight doesn't bother him, but the memory of the bloodless stone-like corpse keeps haunting his dreams. "I hope you got one."

Albedo lets out a small laugh. Aether looks back up to see him smiling, moonlight passing through an incorporeal form. "I'm still here, aren't I?"