#doin art requests for context ^

[intotheelliwoods]

Kintsugi but its like, a cool looking prosthetic on sprout! Like, shiny golden lines on it bc it looks sick asf

woag

I did NOT have to put that much effort into this but here you are

I did young Sprout since I felt like the old prosthetic design would work better with the idea :)

[yostresswritinggirl]

hello, i love your writin'!! seriously, it's so cool to read and im just ajdhsish and this is the first thing- second thing, would you be comfortable with writin' albedo x gn reader (headcanons are cool yknow!) who dislikes goin' outside alone? like, they worry that somethin' bad will happen to them or are a bit scared of doin' things that might go wrong around people, so they prefer goin' outside with someone? (they also want to get rid of their fears but have no ideas how) i will understand if you don't want to so dw!! 👉👈

First thing, thank you so much for requesting! This took a while, I'm so sorryy! This was supposed to come out yesterday but I got sick and barely had the brainpower to even stand :(( feels better now tho so yey? And yess ahhh thank you for your kind words, you guys have been wonderful too, give yourself some credit too!

This is the last Albedo request in the inbox and woohoo, we ended this streak in one of the hard prompts I've come by so far ahaha

I'm not sure if I interpreted anon right but this shall be a fic as originally requested? I'm apologizing in advance because I don't think I've captured this scenario well enough hehe,,, but I hope you still enjoy this!

Keep Me Intertwined

Albedo with a gn!reader that's scared of going out alone (Mild Social Phobia?)

Albedo is a genuis, everybody knows that, even beyond the walls of Mondstadt. Praised and sought out by scholars to ask for his wisdom and a majority of the time they receive their desired enlightenment.

Indeed, the Kreideprinz is a genuis even if he says otherwise, but he's a genuis in the art of Kemia. And only that. Truth be told there are a lot of things he lacks when it comes to knowledge, as his focus is only in the science he wants to explore. Beyond that, he comes close to a child's understanding of the world.

When he bumped into you when he was strolling through the stalls during a market fair of travelling merchants, he'd thought it would be something he can shrug off easily, but as he moves his head to look at the perpetrator he'd hear a squeak of a "sorry" and a running figure. What?

Albedo silently pats himself down as he continues to watch as the silhouette disappears farther, with a calculating gaze to memorize all their features for... future references.

After he made sure it wasn't a thief that bumped to him to pickpocket, he immediately moves on without another thought.

"Ah, you're the one from the marketplace yesterday." In all honesty, your second meeting was quicker to come than he expected, and at the most curious location of all places. In the Knights of Favonius HQ. How had he not heard or seen of you before?

Your shoulders tense at the sound before you even closed the door of which you came from. This was a room he's never seen anyone use, he realized. Was this where you've been residing all this time? What an oversight on his part but it seems that you two share the common practice of barely leaving your quarters.

When you turned around, behind those surprised eyes lies a gentleness of relief he has not seen a mixture of in the ones he'd observed before. "O-Oh, Chief Alchemist! I'm really sorry about that, I was- I'm really sorry!" He hums in contemplation before shaking his head, assuring you it was a matter that caused no harm.

There was more to it, but his thoughts are distracted with his current task at hand, and with a short goodbye he made his way out down the hall where the stairs resides.

His heavy boots clap on the carpeted floor...

Paired with shuffling light ones to try and match his stride.

Huh? "Are you perhaps going outside?" He confirms with a soft yes as he continues his walk. What are you implying? "Is it okay if I join your company? I uhm also need to get some stuff from outside." He just nods, not one for small talk or questioning. It's nothing much to think about really—

Your loose and subtle grip around the chains hanging by his coat seem to ground him from his musings as you two traverse through Mondstadt in a normal gait. He tries not to think about it too much, but the way you look around with unease when you near other people or your desperate strides to stay a respectable distance to him were things he observed during the walk. Albedo was no man of science focusing on human personality and it bothers him.

It was like a game of cat and mouse between you two running errands, he'll detour to the side and you'll follow him, and if you need to drop by to a building then he'll have to follow you.

And he doesn't know why. Is it because of his mannerism towards taking care of Klee? Or his feeling of responsibility for bringing you along?

During this whole ordeal the Chief Alchemist has brought himself a bright idea (it is not) and went into his scientific mode. He watches you talk to one of the citizens about a commission you had finished yesterday and after confirming your undivided attention, he quietly slips away from the area to visit the Alchemy stall where Timaeus would surely be working on.

It took about an hour before he was allowed to use the table, because Timaeus took so long working on his forgery. Goodness that man needs to work on his studies more.

Ah, speaking of— Albedo realized he'd just up and left you for an hour. Without a second thought he retraced his steps to where he had last seen you. Surely you would have gone off to do your own thing, probably finished up your errands by now and had gone back to the Knights headquarters.

An unmoving force made him tumble forward as his coat seemed to have been caught. If you were there, it would be a sight to see, a rare moment of the Kreideprinz so uncomposed and shocked as he catches himself with a sputter. What the hell? His head snaps to look over his shoulder at such incredible speed, you'd thought it really would have snapped—

The clutch on his chain accessory tightens. With your head down low he couldn't see what expression you were, but your tense shoulders shake with a tremor similar to that of an on-going earthquake. His guilt was more obvious as your knuckles turn white from the deadly grip.

"Albedo-!" You exclaimed in what seems to be a cross between a whine and a whimper. "You disappeared, I couldn't- I couldn't leave..."

He hides a sigh as you refuse to look up to show your face. And in a comforting manner he has 'mastered' with a certain someone, he gently pries off your tight grip (with some urging pats to get you to loosen) before interlocking your fingers with his gloved ones. And he smiles as genuinely as he can, "I'm sorry, I won't do it again. Are you done here? It's almost night, we should get moving."

Your nod of agreement was a breath of fresh air to him.

▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱

Days after that were pretty much as uneventful as uneventful it could be for Albedo's lifestyle.

Holed up in his laboratory for days without rest like the madman he is. Master's alembic and grounds of scarlet quartz able to keep his mind occupied to not wonder. Hyperfocused, no one has seen him out, only Sucrose dropping by with an 'assistant pass' despite the experiment on-going sign hanging by his doorknob.

When he finally stepped out to the hallway, three days already passed. The door behind him clicks as it locks, a sound that echoed with the door four rooms apart to his.

Kaeya looks up from your doorknob when he noticed the approaching silhouette. "Oh, Chief Alchemist? Finally came out of your cave." He quipped as he leans his shoulder against your room's door, visible eyebrow raising slightly after noticing the fleeting gaze Albedo passed at the door.

"Cavalry Captain, good evening. What were you doing there?" Straight to the point.

The taller man's eyebrow rose higher before he composed his amusement. "I didn't expect you to be into rumors, Albedo." The Alchemist's brows furrows in response. "No harm done, worry not. I just accompanied them on their trip outside before retreating for the night."

Humming to himself, Albedo's eyes wonder back to your doorknob before it was protectively shielded by the man's... white fur cloak?

"I also heard you left them alone when you two were out. I didn't expect you to be such a cruel man, amping up their fear after the progress they've made." Fear? Progress? More questions swirled within the genius' mind the more he talked with this.

Kaeya had noticed his faraway look and pieced together the context. Finally, he offered to explain the background of the issue and Albedo was ecstatic to listen in, a first with the blunette.

"Do you understand it now?"

"Mhm."

"Then I'll leave them to your care, I'm sure your genius mind can come up with something."

"Huh?"

And thus you find yourself standing at the bottom steps of the Ordo Favonius HQ the next morning, hand in hand with the Chief Alchemist you've last seen four days ago. Doesn't he have better things to do? No, he reasoned the solution he worked on will take two days to formulate the desired sediment, and so he has that timeframe free for the taking.

You would have been confused and wary he'd abandon you again—

Were you not forced to listen to the two dummies talk about YOU right outside your ROOM.

"You uhm, you don't have to hold my hand during this whole trip, Master Albedo."

"Albedo." He corrected. "And this is necessary, much more convenient and predictable than pulling on my chains really." A touch of a blush framed your cheeks with embarrassment.

"I have nothing in my itinerary today, so feel free to tug me along. It is, after all, the most I can do for what happened."

Despite the rough texture from the long use, the leathered hand in yours brought about more comfort than you would have thought.

Bonus:

The solar isotoma sparkled in pure golden beauty in front of you, but it didn't prevent the anxiety bubbling inside as you watch Albedo hop over the ledge with the help of his geo construct. "What- what are you doing?"

"Experiment. I'll be up in the roof looking over you so you'll know I'm still here, if it makes a difference if your company is far from arms length or not." He replied as he casually hopped over to the roof of a housing unit.

"Albedooo!"

I didn't get to capture all the aspects of the request that I wanted to focus on ahhhhh, I got so conscious of the length I had to stop it! Still ack I hope I captured his personality and context well— and I'm sorry if I amped up the fear more than you gave, I'm not really sure how bad it was supposed to be skskskks

But hey, this being the last Albedo req in my inbox, I am now free from this man *happy sigh* //:Albedo smut leading the leaderboard for the followers event looms over from behind:// *sweats*

[shipburner]

For the past week (or perceived week, she had only her watch to go by), Iris Henson had been using the ［ＬＯＮＥ  ＳＴＡＲ］ as a base of operations. The room was easily refindable, the food was edible, the beds were safe, and the staff wasn't inimical to human life.

Iris just wished that it wasn't so aggressively Texan.

Her partner, Stheno, lacked the cultural context, and treated it as just another one of the Memory Palace's cavalcade of oddities. And to be fair, it was plenty odd, since none of the animal or plant life implied by the ［ＬＯＮＥ  ＳＴＡＲ］ was native to Texas, or, in most cases, Earth. But the name – the intent of the food – the overall aesthetics – made Iris cringe harder than anything she'd seen yet.

To be fair, it wasn't all bad – the most requested jukebox tune was a passionate ballad of a truck's love for his man by a singer with a voice like a glass guitar, followed by a lot of mooing that allegedly translated to a song about rustlers having stolen all the singer's trucks. The staff appeared to understand human gender better than most humans did, and the Daisy-Dukes-and-close-tied-flannel uniform showed off a full spectrum of cheesecake, beefcake, cheeseburger, yeast block, singing mouth, and chassis. In fact, Iris couldn't remember ever having heard a mean word said in the place.

The biggest problem, flagrant Texaninity aside, was the floor show.

Stheno held a clear plastic umbrella in two arms, sporadically wiped it clean in a third, and held Iris' chocolate mousse behind them in a fourth, shielding Iris and her sketchpad from the spurts of blood and gore as the showpeople tore each other to bits. Iris was busy recording the anatomy of the most human-approximant staff members – glass skeletons intricately whorled to support their hydraulic muscles, nine cervical vertebrate clearly revealed whenever one got their skull pulled out, four stomachs in a familiarly ruminant arrangement … "Ooh!" remarked Stheno as something bounced off the umbrella; Iris shot out another arm and grabbed it before it fell to the sawdust floor. She turned it around and examined it. "Their hearts are wasps' nests? Huh. Not what I was expecting." "Just wood pulp," Stheno corrected, pulling it down to Iris' chest so she could see. "I'll be damned if wasps were involved in this." "Hm. Ooh, Nutella!" A hazelnut eye had ricocheted off a neighboring table and landed in the glass, shattering into fragments as it hit the adamantine pole of the tiny fancy umbrella. Iris handed her sketchpad to Stheno and stirred the fragments into her dessert, spooning it into her mouth. "I don't know how you have the stomach to eat this." "Like you know what it's like to have a stomach, Stheno." "Get fucked."

"YEEEEEEEE-ALLLLLLLL-RIIIIIIIIGHT, PARDNERS!" blared the sound system. "THAT'S A DE-CI-SIVE – AN' IN-CI-SIVE – WIN FOR MX. OPHELTEK! LET'S GIVE EM ALL A BIIIIIIIIG HAND! OOPS, LOOKS LIKE E'S ALREADY GOT ONE, AHAHAHAHA!" Mx. Opheltek held up the severed hoof-hand of eir last opponent over eir head. "WE'LL BE BACK AFTER THE BREAK! GET UP, GET ANOTHER DRINK, GO POWDER YOUR –" the last word sounded like "NOSE!", "MUZZLE!", and "GRILLE!" layered on top of each other. Stheno folded the umbrella gingerly as Iris got up to head over to the bar. "Jes' water fer the li'l misses, 'sright?" squawked the bartender. They were perhaps the least aesthetically consistent person in the place, being a swarm of parakeets inhabiting an articulated wire cage that Iris thought looked a little like Jimmy Buffett. "Mhm." Iris nodded, rubbing under her glasses. It had been a long day, especially when they'd had to brachiate through the ribcage of a Spearmint Hound carrying an unconscious lumberjack. Stheno squeezed her hand supportively and accepted the drink. "Heeeeeeeey y'all!" There was a heavy thump as someone slid onto the bar next to Iris, along with the squishy sound of body parts pushing themselves back together. "Whoof, I got splattered out there! Top me up, thank y'kindly …" A quiet snick noise accompanied the retraction of six glass claws as their owner held out a glass skull to be topped up with bloodwine. Iris turned to see a showgirl sitting on the bar, tall, tan, young, handsome -- Iris quelled the rising strains of "Girl from Ipanema" along with some unhelpful gay thoughts. The woman's hazelnut eyes took in the mutualistic partnership, flicking between meeting Iris' gaze and Stheno's. "Hey, how y'all doin'?" she said. "Saw the host here doin' some sketchin'; we puttin' on a good enough show y'wanna capture it?" She downed the bloodwine and wiped her lips, which Iris could now see were just lipstick painted around her mouth. Iris swallowed, voice suddenly ragged. "More … scientific interest. We're not … not from around here." "Ooh, you a bio nerd? I'm psych, myself. Workin' this job t' put myself through college." She took another long gulp and held out her hand. Iris shook it cautiously; Stheno circled a arm around them. "Annie-Mae, pardner; what're y'all's monikers?" Annie-Mae probably didn't notice the bit of Iris that died inside when Iris put together what her name sounded like. "Iris Henson." "Stheno." Iris reflected belatedly on the lack of differentiation between their voices -- clear enough to her and Stheno, but since they both had to use Iris' vocal chords, she wondered if Annie-Mae could tell who was which. "Nice t'meetcha! Am I gettin' y'all's grammar right?" Iris looked down at Stheno, who shrugged a pair of arms; Iris said, "… No, we think you've gotten the right take on our partnership." "Sweet! So what brings y'all around here?" "Stumbled through the wrong hole in space, both of us," said Stheno. "Now we're both stuck on this crazy-train of a castle." "Whoof! Sorry t' hear that, but y'seem like y'all're enjoyin' the show here." "I am," said Iris. "More … energetic than I'm used to, but I am interested." "Personally, I'm disgusted," said Stheno. "Well, ne gustibus te disputandum'n'all that!" Annie-Mae kicked a leg high in the air, which probably meant something like nonchalance in whatever body language her species had, but which caused Iris to suddenly become very interested in her water. "Y'all hangin' around here for the night?" "Think so, why?" said Iris. "Wonderin' if we can continue this conversation or if I'm keepin' y'all! Y'all're becomin' a regular; figure it's worth meetin' y'all, proper-like." She slithered down off the bar onto a stool besides Iris, resting her angular chin in her broad hands. "You two an item?" she asked, suddenly, voice sugary. Stheno's arms coiled, half under her own power and half under Iris', who stammered, "We're … uh …" "As romantically entangled as two people this physically entangled have to be, I guess," filled in Stheno. "We're a … package deal, at any rate." "Is this a deal y'all're offering?" Annie-Mae licked one of her eyes, grin glassy. Iris' throat stalled for several seconds.

Annie-Mae recoiled quickly, face falling. "Sorry, I can never judge how fast is too fast with visitants. I made y'all uncomfortable an' that ain't the ［ＬＯＮＥ  ＳＴＡＲ］ way." Iris shrugged. "I think we're both filing it under cultural relativity, and I gotta say -- the 'Lone Star way' where I come from is a lot less courteous than it is here." "I ain't rightly sure if I should feel good about that." Stheno rolled her eyes. "Trust me, you'll need a lot more of that bloodwine if we're discussing Iris' homeworld. Or mine, really, but we already went through the section of the castle that's got my cultural baggage attached. All the evil in this place is dramatic. Overt." Annie-Mae hung her head. "I ain't no damn good with y'all plausibly evolved folks." Iris patted her shoulder. "Better than we are, ma'am." Annie-Mae laughed. Well, let loose a horrifying screech, but Iris had heard enough of her species laugh before. She took another swig of her bloodwine. "So! How's bio life?" "Art life, actually," said Iris. "Anatomy studies, y'know? I mean. I hope it's art life. I don't know how 'getting sucked into a memed-up Borges novel gone metastatic' is gonna affect my major." "I'm just a tech," said Stheno. "Biological, but I went into trade." "Oh, ain't that jus' a zmood. Time's a fluid; y' should get back fine, if I remember anythin' from physics when I was a scrap." "Thanks, that's … comforting." "May I offer a restrained yet supportive 'yeehaw'?" "You may not," said Stheno, the joke clear enough in her tone, and bumped Annie-Mae's proferred fist. "Yee haw!" Annie-Mae said, the bisection of the word groaningly obvious to Iris' ears. "Thanks," said Iris, "I hate it." Annie-Mae sprayed bloodwine out of her mouth, Stheno opening the umbrella just in time to deflect it humorously. Iris couldn't help laughing too as Annie-Mae contorted, dislocating several joints with the force of her screeches. "Your – your deliv'ry – ho-leee fuck, Iris – hoooooooo dawg-geez, I needed that." Two minds trying to speak in unison through one set of vocal chords tended to produce a fairly good Voice of the Legion. "What can we say, except, you're welcome …" The reference didn't appear to land with Annie-Mae, but that was par for the course; frankly, Iris (and Stheno, in the case of her references) was more surprised when one did. Annie-Mae wiped her face and leaned back. "So, how's the art and/or trade life, funnybones?"

They ended up chatting far longer than any of them had in truth expected. Iris and Stheno described their own consistently-weird homeworlds and attempts to break into the art world/museum scene, respectively, and as the subjective night wore on, pipe dreams, like unseating Mike Mearls and claiming his skull-throne, or winning the Abomination Foundry Ceremonial Brisket for excellence in species design. Annie-Mae described her inconsistently-weird homeworld – the ［ＬＯＮＥ  ＳＴＡＲ］ and related rooms, and her efforts slowly working towards a psychology degree, and, later, her own pipe-dreams, about wandering through the mind of a long-dead god she'd found a few floors greenward and healing its hurts, or maybe just getting to rip her back off on Hellevision. The parakeethead behind the bar eventually had to shoo them upstairs, citing concerns about them turning the mops all "Sorcerer's Apprentice snuff film".

They told more stories, upstairs, of the time Iris and Stheno had faced the Xenomorph version of Billy Bob Brockali in rock-combat, of the time Annie-Mae had gotten a glimpse into what turned out to be an erotic baking show from Stheno's homeworld, and of loves lost and dreams deferred and huge old things seen when the viewers should have been asleep.

It would be nice to draw a curtain over the room, and praise darkness and creation unfinished. For indeed, Iris and Stheno had foes to face, friends to find, and, eventually, a way home, although for now we should perhaps send our well-wishes to Iris and Stheno not for homefinding but for overcoming the dour tentpole ghouls of Barthes' Necropolis, and for the assistance of the Warden Sueish, the only author who enacted his own narrative death. But before we send Iris and Stheno to go out deconstructing and to deconstruct, well-fed, well-rested, well-comforted, we have one stumbling block to place in their way.

Annie-Mae's hat hung on the bedpost atop Iris' pea coat; cowboy boots and sneakers lay jumbled together on the rug that might be called cowhide by someone who had never actually seen a cow. The room was dark, the air warm with breath and things that worked like breath. Stheno began to speak –

A squat, humanoid skeleton-creature poked eir cumberously-hatted head out of some fourth-dimensional space, hissing, "Niiiiiiiice…….." The words "CORPSE-GRADE QUICKLIME" flashed into Iris' eyes from eir shirt. Stheno lifted her bodily off the bed with all ten arms and sent Iris' feet plowing right into eir face. E made a noise like an EDM opossum and vanished with a puff of sand. "What'n tarnation was that?" Annie-Mae said, dazedly. Iris groaned. "That's … not far off. Eir name's Darnation, with a D. E's a skook. Skooks are the … Dante's Vergils of the Palace ecosystem, at least in our experience. E is a horrible little neman and we're probably being taught a really heavy-handed lesson by eir presence." "Yeesh. I can recommend a de-curser, if y'all think that'd help." Iris and Stheno turned all four eyes to her. "We don't." "Well, I can help y'all forget em." "We'd like that."

[This is my overwrought birthday present for @titleknown, inspired by the anon message posted above. What character, after all, is more a character than the fantastical Memory Palace?]

[Also, in the spirit of the thing, Annie-Mae, Iris Henson, Stheno, and Darnation are all free to use under a CC-BY 4.0 Vanilla License as you see fit as long as I, Nausicaä Harris, am credited as their creators when you do so. The Memory Palace, and the species I call skooks, are under the same license, as long as Thomas F. Johnson is credited as their creator. ETA: The anon on whose ask I built her character graciously gifted me with credit, and open-sourceness, for Annie-Mae.]

[And, while I don’t have designs for Iris or Stheno worked out yet, I do have a design for Darnation. Eir cheap trick is pocket sand; eir hat is meant to represent that e was born on a mountain, raised in a cave, and craves nothing but truckin’ and fuckin’.]