When Albedo opened his eyes next, he was sitting on a beach.
His feet pointed towards the water, murky and pale. He watched the waves beat against grainy sand, eyes flicking to the cloudy sky bearing above. This was not any beach he had seen before, bright and teeming with life- it lacked the heat of the sun above, the rapid beat of the water, the intense saturation of the blue and gold and silver, like trifles of royalty fashioned by nature herself. This place was cold and dull, yet it shone with quiet beauty still. This, Albedo reasoned, must be death; a passageway between painful, overstimulating life, and the dark bliss of oblivion.
Soon, he would pass through and rest. Before that, however, a familiar voice rang out behind him.
"My, what a show."
"Is this your doing?" Albedo asked, studying his surroundings idly. The beach was pristine, crafted with loving care, but muted. It was as though color was a mere memory here.
He heard Wilhelm chuckle softly. "No, Mr.- Piazzolla, was it?"
"It hardly matters now."
"No, Mr. Piazzolla." Wilhelm continued easily. "I have shaped many places in this world, but not this one."
The beach itself felt distant, and Albedo distant within it. It was as though life itself was fading, forgotten in this still, flawless place where Albedo's heart slowed and his emotions quelled. He hadn't felt this peaceful in years- over a decade. He only felt such tranquility while sleeping at Rubedo's side.
"It is quite beautiful." Wilhelm agreed.
"What irony… once I finally arrive at a beach, it is without my Rubedo." Albedo's eyes glazed over the waves, seeing, but not perceiving. Of course, he knew well the irony of such a statement.
This was death- a shore Albedo had long believed he would never visit. He longed to visit the beach with Rubedo, yet he hoped Rubedo would never find himself at this particular one, although it was well and truly impossible for him to live forever. Even Albedo had found a way to die.
It didn't matter. They would never share such respite now.
"Do you intend to join me as I await my oblivion?" Albedo closed his eyes. "I must warn you, my last thoughts will be of Rubedo."
"Oh, I wouldn't expect anything less."
Albedo couldn't see him, facing the water like this, but he could picture Wilhelm as though he stood just before him- standing straight and poised, as he always did, with amusement in his eyes as distant as this beach itself.
"I told you what was to happen to this world, didn't I?"
"Eternal recurrence. I remember." Albedo sensed that he should play along, much as he always did with Wilhelm. There weren't many beyond Albedo's understanding- he was incomprehensible to most, after all- but Wilhelm radiated a strange and ancient power.
Albedo wasn't afraid of him. He merely knew it might benefit him to listen.
"Yes. That is my duty as the custodian of our domain." Wilhelm's voice was always soft, yet never yielding. It was much alike him- deceptively powerful. "The pieces are falling into place."
"The maiden and her key," Albedo mused. He remembered well the woman who followed Rubedo.
"I cannot do this alone, Mr. Piazzolla."
Albedo laughed, then- sharp and short, a bark.
"Our interests no longer align, Custodian." He said. "If you think I helped you out of any belief in your cause, you are mistaken."
"Of course not. I am not a fool." The words might have been harsh, from anyone else, but Wilhelm just seemed amused at the very notion of his own stupidity.
"I can tell you only as I have told you before… I shall have Rubedo, or I shall have oblivion." Albedo lifted his hand, letting the sand slip through his fingers.
His other half eluded him. Save for those few haunting moments- care flickering in his eyes, the way he begged when Albedo faded away- Albedo and his other half had been torn asunder.
Albedo would not suffer this pain for all eternity. He couldn't bear to be forced separate from Rubedo, to wander the universe mortally wounded forever.
"Yes, I remember." Albedo could hear the smile in Wilhelm's voice. "What dramatic sentiment, delivered so assuredly."
"There are no words to describe my feelings." Albedo said simply.
"I do believe that. I like it, you see- that intensity. I thought it was a shame someone as fervent as you should be a mere tool in this plot."
Albedo couldn't possibly care what Wilhelm had planned- couldn't care what the universe had in store. "Call me what you wish, use me as you wish. It ends, Custodian, that I have everything I dreamed… you would be wise to leave me to my oblivion."
Wilhelm was beginning to fray his nerves, now. His goodbye to Rubedo had been beautiful, poetic, like the end of a grand story. Perhaps Albedo was a meaningless extra to Wilhelm, but he was just the same to Albedo.
Certainly not worthy of the last words in Albedo's story.
"Not everything."
Albedo's blood chilled.
He spoke of Rubedo. He spoke of the impossible.
Albedo refused to be lured by empty promises. He wouldn't be a lovesick child, led on by a phantom prize. "No one has such power."
"Are you sure, Mr. Piazzolla?"
No. He wasn't. He had no idea what Wilhelm was capable of.
"I could give you everything you ever wanted."
The ocean flickered in the distance, and a breeze brushed by Albedo. It tousled his hair.
"I could deliver you Rubedo."
The name felt as real as if Wilhelm had struck Albedo outright, and Albedo bowed his head. What unholy power the mere name held over him. Was this to be the leash he was eternally bound to?
"I don't mean to manipulate you. I only want you to know your options… I would hate for you to die here when he could be yours after all."
Albedo still didn't believe it- couldn't believe it. He had set his heart on death, and come quietly to his end. This was to be his peaceful sleep, forever resting by Rubedo's side.
He was too weary for emotion, something that felt dull and far away here on this beach, yet in Wilhelm's words he found feeling once more. That need for Rubedo, the fire within his soul, suddenly burned bright again.
Albedo was a man aflame once more.
"It's not that I need you." Wilhelm said coolly. "Don't get the wrong idea. You are free to do as you wish, and I will lose no sleep. My concern is for you, Mr. Piazzolla. Will this end truly satisfy you? Yours is a soul with… enviable ardor."
Albedo didn't know Wilhelm slept.
"…though I suppose there are no regrets in oblivion."
Albedo had set aside his regrets. This was to be his final moment, his death at Rubedo's side- by his hands. His final breaths belonged to Rubedo, his lifeblood spilt for Rubedo's sake. This was what Albedo always wanted.
Could he sully those wishes? Could he see Rubedo's pain and fear once more? Rubedo considered himself an enemy of Wilhelm's, after all. They would certainly clash should Albedo take this offer.
Albedo hardly wished to demean himself, acting as Wilhelm's attack dog.
It was as though Wilhelm could read his very thoughts and doubts. "His world, the lower domain, is collapsing as we speak. Your father remains at large as well."
"I warned him." Albedo's protest fell deaf to his own ears. He knew Rubedo wouldn't listen, blindly loved Nigredo too much to, the little fool.
A warning was a paltry bit of help, only so much that Albedo could die nearly without guilt stinging at him. It stung all the same.
Rubedo was in real danger. Would Albedo be happier with them united in death, in oblivion, in unknowing unconscious companionship, than living in harmony?
He had always dreamed they might be reunited. He had always loathed the threat those interlopers posed, Nigredo and Citrine, the puppets of Yuriev.
Albedo felt more and more that he had never had a choice at all. Wilhelm surely knew he would arrive at this conclusion, prodding him forwards with serene words. He spoke as beautifully and blandly as the world around them.
This was death, sublime and empty. An old fear began to well in Albedo. Oblivion was peace, but it was also uncaring nothingness, separation until the universe's end.
There was only one way to truly be together with Rubedo.
He finally turned to face Wilhelm. His face was precisely as Albedo had pictured it, statuesque and pristine. His was not a simple beauty, nor a vigorous one like Rubedo's, but instead pointed, like a threat.
"Ah, merciless love, is there any length to which you cannot force the heart to go?" Albedo asked, though his words rung in a hollow sort of way.
It was a surrender.
Wilhelm chuckled. "Your madness was such a shame. You were always well-spoken."
"I expect my prize soon, Custodian. If I am to lend myself utterly to you, I will have you uphold your promises."
"One year." Wilhelm said simply. His smile deepened at Albedo's frown of disgust. "Good things come to those who wait, Mr. Piazzolla."
Albedo smiled then, long and wicked, frustration turned to a mere memory on his face. "My patience is running thin these days."
"You will have power too, of course. Normally I say beyond your wildest imagination, but I'm sure U-DO has conferred much upon you."
"My imagination is dedicated to one thing. Would you care to guess what?"
"Not particularly." The glimmer of recognition in the sea of red told Albedo he already knew- for who wouldn't know? Subtlety played no part in Albedo's affection. His was a raging, selfish love.
Perhaps that was to be his downfall. Perhaps his need for Rubedo would see him dance on a string. Albedo could control his desire so little he hardly cared.
Any chance, no matter how slim, to have Rubedo once more was one he needed desperately.
"I expect the Y-data shortly." Wilhelm said, turning to leave. "It was a pleasure doing business with you, as always."
Albedo nearly balked at the finality of it, knowing that he was to work at another's beck and call once more. His hopes of peace were gone too soon, like grains of sand sent flown in the ocean breeze. It seemed he was always to be a child, led by promises of Rubedo to carry out the will of others.
He exhaled, and with it left the death in his lungs, the cold setting into his extremities. When Albedo breathed again, he was alive- cloaked, masked, but alive.
It was for Rubedo, he reminded himself, the ember tucked within his heart. Just as always, he lived only for Rubedo.