Our Ill-Fated Magnum Opus

Chapter I

I: Nigredo (Confession)

Sucrose frowns, glancing out at the busy streets of Mondstadt. Dragonspine looms just beyond, towering ominously over the city walls. The clouds swirl and the wind whips around the mountain, and it makes her stomach turn.

"So you really haven't seen the Traveler lately?" Sucrose asks nervously, turning to Timaeus at his normal place by the front of the alchemy workshop.

Timaeus shakes his head solemnly, arms crossed. "Last I heard, they were heading for Inazuma," he says with a shrug. "Probably won't be back in town until Windblume. Why?"

Sucrose forces a quick laugh, averting her eyes and turning back to her research. "I was just, uh, wondering if they could help me gather some samples. T-that's it."

Timaeus hums in acknowledgement, and Sucrose hurries back to the lab as quickly as her legs can carry her. She sets down her crate of materials at her desk, and breathes a sigh of distress.

It's been nine days since Albedo left for Dragonspine, and her concern grows hourly. It isn't that she fears for his safety—though she does, on occasion, have to remind him to pack enough rations for his trips. No, this time it's an entirely different issue.

His last trip to Mondstadt had lasted barely a day, with Albedo showing up in the early morning, haggard and drained, then disappearing in the dead of night. For all his insistence that Sucrose take care of herself, he himself had barely remembered to eat amidst his panicked preparations. And when she headed to the lab bright and early the next day, he was gone, leaving only scattered papers and discarded coffee mugs in his wake.

It's been like this persistently. His trips linger longer, and each time he returns he seems more impatient, more disturbed.

After all this time, Sucrose liked to think she knew him well. Apparently, she was sorely mistaken.

Usually she'd ask the ever-helpful Traveler to investigate... but it seems that's no longer an option. Sucrose counts off options on her fingertips, mumbling to herself distressedly.

"Master Jean is busy, as always... she can never catch a break, can she? Captain Kaeya and Captain Eula are off on missions, and this can't wait much longer... could I ask Amber? Ah, no... she's been busy clearing hilichurl camps."

Each time she adds a finger, she quickly flips it back down. Sucrose sighs. At this rate, chasing the Traveler to Inazuma would be faster.

Oh, well. When the chips were down, Sucrose was never one to shy away from field work.

"Off to Dragonspine it is, then..."

It's a long journey from Mondstadt to Albedo's snowy campsite, and Sucrose hasn't the faintest clue how he endures it so often. Even as she arrives at his makeshift laboratory, swaddled in woolen coats and scarves, Sucrose can't help but shiver. She sets down a wheelbarrow of materials—her convenient excuse to make the trek in the first place—and her jaw nearly drops at the sight of his workspace.

The snow near his campsite is half actual snow and half ripped-up papers, fluttering in the wind, strewn carelessly across tables and the books laying on the hard-packed ground. The rest of the bookshelves are untouched, and the campsite is empty. Dragonspine is quiet save for the faint whistling of icy wind and Sucrose's heart hammering in her chest.

Her hand flies up to her vision, and Sucrose clutches it defensively. Was Albedo attacked? Where is he now?

Her gaze snaps to the ground, old footprints forming shallow dents in pristine ivory. Who else could it be? Sucrose silently thanks Barbatos for the snow as she chases after the trail, leaving a matching line of clumsy craters behind her.