Kaebedo || Where The Cold Doesn't Touch

Time is Ticking - 21

Albedo's mind is foggy, he's been working himself to the bone. Day in and day out. Sometimes going so much without a break, no eating, and drinking. Tirelessly so.

"The gods forbid," he mutters under his breath.

His mind is someplace far from his work though, but his guilt is preventing him from basking in his dreams. But even so, the Captain seems to sneak into his dreams so easily. Dreaming of Kaeya should not be on his mind but he can't seem to escape him.

He needs to focus.

There is no time left for him. He needs to work faster, harder if he wants to live.

His back is seeping with the markings of the dragon that has fallen within the mountain's depths, Durin. It may engulf his entire body until his skin isn't even his own anymore. It frightens him. He isn't in pain but the markings show that he won't be able to live as an ordinary citizen of Mondstadt for long. But what's to say he was ever a citizen to begin with?

His eyes feel heavy and his breathing is shallow. He needs to eat, but he needs to work. He needs to drink, but work needs to be done.

Wincing at the pain in his wrist as he drops his paintbrush from his hand. His hair is messy and aloof.

"Curse the heavens."

He goes to pick up the brush only to sense a presence in his isolated cave.

Something is off.

"Who is there?" Albedo questions, standing up now, to alert the other being that he can be a threat if put in the position to do so.

The ominous being is swift, fast and stays out of sight. And since Albedo has been lacking in sleep, he can't quite tell what or who it could be. He's still on guard though, he should always be prepared for anything.

"Prince, of soil and chalk." It speaks, it sounds very human, eerily so. It sounds low and somewhat cold, a bit of a studious nature. But it's not a person Albedo can recognize by voice.

Albedo is now on high alert, "That is I, and who are you?"

The person now appearing before the Alchemist, tall and slender. Wearing a cloak of black and blue, his hair blonde just like his own. A mask that looks like it's been broken that sits on his face, with eyes shaped like diamonds. A little like a certain Cavalry Captain he knows.

"I am Dainsleif."

The name sounds all too familiar.

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Kaeya fumbles with the papers laid out on his desk, Jean has been stressed lately as the abyss has been quite aggressive.

Klee has had to stay inside the library as the rest of the knights had to disperse after an incident occurred just outside the city gates. Rosaria prefers to work alone, so she leaves easily. Amber keeping watch, and even Diluc pitching in. Though he does it in the dead of night.

So Kaeya had to cast his unwanted thoughts of the Alchemist aside, though he can't help but wonder what he could be doing up upon that terrible mountain. He shakes his head as he accidentally makes a mistake in his writing.

He is frustrated and tired, crumpling up the paper and throwing it in the trash. He walks outside, having been alerted of sightings of numerous Abyss mages clustered near Mondstadt's gates. He unsheathes his sword and motions his men to follow suit.

He can't afford to dwell on the things that eat away at him. His dream probably doesn't mean a thing....

Only if it didn't feel so real.