Time and Being || Albedo

30 - Sentient Sediment

"Ouch-- owowow," Kaeya winces as your hands slip at his words.

You didn't know how to respond to the knight, instead, you simply pursed your lips and continued to apply his bandages.

Once he's done wincing at your mistake, the knight peers at you through a squinted eye. Your silence wasn't unnatural, but he had expected you to call him a liar of some sort.

"You're not questioning it," Kaeya says, "Did you already know?"

You shake your head and the knight sighs, realizing what you were doing, "You weren't supposed to find out like this, but now that you know you shouldn't avoid talking about it."

"The hell am I supposed to say about something like that?" you grumble.

"Well, for starters," Kaeya points, "'What do you mean by that'?"

You knit your brows together and reach for his wounded hand, "What, are you going to tell me he's actually part hilichurl? Or a whopper flower that gained intelligence and disguised itself as a human?"

Kaeya laughs as you carefully peel the torn and bloodied glove off his hand, "No, not at all." He takes a moment to examine your expression before resting his head back, "He's Khaenri'ahn."

"Khaenri'ahn? You always told me that all the Khaneri'ahns--"

"That's not what I meant," he slowly sits up, careful to not undo the bandages on his waist, "He's from Khaenri'ah, but he wasn't Khaeri'ahn born," His eyes are fixated on your gentle fingers that carefully tend to the wound on his hand, "I told you stories when we were small about a powerful magic, do you remember?"

You nod, "You called it 'Mihuyebaba'," you laugh,"Only the archons know how you came up with that."

The mention of the name Kaeya had come up with made him crack a smile, but he quickly glosses over the meaning of the name and continues his explanation, "That 'magic' was actually called 'The Art of Khemia' it was the means of creation in Khaenri'ah,"

The name pulled a few strings on your memory, but you couldn't put a pin on where you had heard it before.

"My people used it for simple exchange. There was no life in the underground city so we found a way to make it, we would create what we didn't have," Kaeya's fingers tug at the strings of his eyepatch as he speaks, "A few tried to master the art. They were able to draw life from--"

"--'the abyss and create life out of virtually nothing'." you speak over Kaeya as you remember the notes you read from Albedo's notebook, "It was all in his notes-- Albedo was studying it before he took interest in my delusion."

"He was created from that very same art. He has every reason to be interested in it." Kaeya tugs his hand back as you wrap the bandage a bit too tight. You loosen your pull on the wrap and he allows you to continue. "I don't know all the details, but his master was the same person who created and corrupted the dragon Durin."

"Gold?"

"He calls her 'Rhinedottir'. The story of Durin perhaps can shed some light on why I had my reservations toward Albedo when you first started meeting with him. Being a creation, he can just as easily be corrupted."

You furrow your eyebrows, "But it's not the same. Durin was a created beast, Albedo was created to be like us, was he not? He has intelligence."

"Yes, but-," he sighs, "Y/n, it's not as easy as that. Corruption isn't something that a creation complies to. It erodes the soul and poisons the mind. Even humans are corrupted but creations are even more susceptible to it. As human as Albedo may seem, in a blink of an eye he could become a ravaging beast. A shell of the person you once knew. He's --"