#that was a fun week that held my burnt-out ass together haha

[risustravelogue]

Something I wrote and doodled to finish my storyline in @zhongrin's EBG afterparty.

Enjoy~ 💚

cw: blood, creature death

“Albedo.”

The blond alchemist solemnly looks up from his sketchbook to the source of the thundering voice: a brown-haired tall man in white-gold attire floating in the air, his presence alone causing the earth to quake.

Albedo’s lips curve into a smile. “So you’ve come at last.”

Zhongli chuckles. “So I have. You should’ve known better than to run into my territory.” Black-gold polearms manifest from thin air. “Now, are there any… friends you wish to send to their deaths?”

“You mean sending you to your death, ex-archon?” taunts the voice behind him. He turns around and sees a dragon—if it can be called a dragon, considering its mangled shape—with someone who looks exactly like Albedo riding on top of it.

Zhongli’s lips form a calm smile. “Oh, are you the Dorian people have been talking about? My, my. You’re so… rash. Reminds me of my younger days.”

The polearms flit through the air toward the creature as Zhongli’s form shifts into one of a brown-gold dragon. “Now let me show you the power of the Prime of Adepti.”

Dorian scoffs. “Good decision, ex-archon. You’re no match for our chimera otherwise.”

The two dragons exchange blows in the air, their focus locked onto each other. Albedo chuckles and walks to the hut where his “beloved” is sleeping. Suddenly, a lone arrow pierces through the ground in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. A looming figure approaches him from behind.

“Not so fast, alchemist,” Alhaitham says, sword pointed toward Albedo’s back.

The blond scoffs and turns. “I suppose this stick is a gift from your wife. So much for ‘we intend you no harm,’ scribe.”

Alhaitham lowers his sword. “We haven’t actually harmed you, though.”

“True.”

“And you have been so engrossed in preparing for the confrontation with Zhongli, you didn’t realize that a certain moth had taken Rin’s Vision off your personage.”

“Wha—”

A loud boom echoes across the air, interrupting their conversation. The chimera lays still under Zhongli’s talons, its black blood gushing out of its fatal neck wound. Dorian lies unconscious beneath the larger body, having been knocked out by the sheer force of the larger dragon’s blow.

“Now stay,” he growls.

“Zhongli!”

He huffs and turns to the source of the voice.

“Alhaitham.”

“Kurisu has Rin.” The scribe gestures to the alchemist. “What do you want to do with him?”

The dragon shakes his head. “He can’t win against me, and he knows that. We don’t need to do anything anymore.”

He raises one of his talons and wipes the black blood off his face.

“As a show of mercy, I’ll let you say your goodbyes.”

Albedo picks up his abandoned sketchbook from the ground and begins imprinting the magnificent sight of the Geo Archon’s dragon form onto the paper. Even if I’ve lost, I can still gain something from this, he thinks.

The frantic scratching of pencil on paper stops when two women come out of the run-down hut, the sound of their feet shuffling through the yellow-green grass breaking the sounds of nature. The short-haired woman nods and lets the long-haired woman move forward on her own. Albedo catches a familiar glint of a Vision from behind her shawl and the glitter of the silvery dust on her fingers.

Ah. I’ve been thoroughly defeated.

But he’s nothing if not resilient, so—

One last smile. One last time—

He waves his hand at her, forcing a small smile on his lips. She smiles and waves back at him. Then as her vision clears, her gaze grows sad, with tears now threatening to spill from the corner of her eyes.

“You’re not… him.”

“No, I am not.”

“Where is he?”

Albedo gestures to the archon, who’s now back in his human form.

“Mei.”

“Li! You’re here!”

With a nod from the scribe, Albedo carefully slips away as Zhongli and Meirin run into each other’s embrace. He pulls Dorian from beneath the dead chimera and treks back toward Dragonspine. His steps come to a halt as he looks back at the four’s reunion before disappearing back into the snowstorm, a fond smile growing on his lips.

It was good while it lasted.