Chapter Text
A young girl with short lavender hair pushed aside branches as she glanced around the forest. A breeze picked up leaves lazily and threw them up into the air. She was 6, nearly 7, and was still getting used to the new environment she had moved to. Fontaine would rain at least once a week and was colder than Mondstadt. The weather in Mondstadt was always sunny and windy, well, at least the week she’s been there has been. The wind didn’t annoy her though, it was nice and relaxing.
She walked tentatively across the dirt path, looking at the butterflies that darted across the trees. The buzz of the forest reminded her that she was just another amongst the thousands in the vast trees. However, she was the only human nearby and was starting to get worried that she would never see another human again. She had only meant to take a quick look, but she wandered off and was now trying to find her way back.
“Hello?” the young girl named Noelle whispered, her voice caught on the breeze. “Is anybody here?”
Her voice was so quiet that even if there was another person nearby, they wouldn’t have heard her. Her hands trembled as she strained her hearing, trying to see if she could hear anybody else. But, no response, as she had to accept the unfortunate fact that she was indeed lost.
Noelle had sworn she was only going to take a look, but when she turned around the path she had entered on had disappeared amongst the bushes. Every crack of a stick and rustle of leaves caused her anxiety to shoot up and for her to frantically look around in terror.
It’ll be fine, Noelle thought to herself. Monsters don’t come near the city, so there shouldn’t be anything dangerous nearby….unless I’ve wandered far enough away. Noelle’s brain soon turned to panic at that thought. She needed to get back, fast.
Noelle suddenly got an idea and looked around at the trees, seeing if there was a low branch she could grab onto and pull herself up. She saw a tree with a large rock next to it, allowing her to get onto it easily. She jumped onto the rock and clumsily made her way up the tree, nearly falling once. Eventually, she reached a point where she could spot the tall windmills of Mondstadt in the far distance. I really wandered off…
Her thoughts were quickly interrupted by a loud BANG! Noelle spun around in her tree and saw a ruin guard approaching. Noelle almost shrieked but covered her mouth to prevent it from hearing her, which then proved useless as she lost her footing and fell from the tree, pain spiking throughout her body.
Its head jerked in her direction, and she saw an orb, which she assumed to be its eye, glow brightly. A memory popped into her head about a time when she heard a Fontaine inventor that focused on ruin guards say. He said when the eye brightens up like that, missiles would soon follow. She followed her instincts and dived to the left, just barely avoiding them.
Her body ached as she tried to raise herself from the ground while the ruin guard continued towards her. She managed to shakily rise to her feet, just in time to duck a swing of a fist from the machine. Noelle turned, beginning to run away from the ruin guard as best she could in her state. She had to quickly move to the side or duck frequently to avoid a punch.
Noelle suddenly felt her foot slide on the dirt floor causing her to quickly lose her balance. She crashed onto the floor face first and struggled to try and lift herself off the ground. Fear consumed her, until she felt footsteps on the ground, running towards her. She heard someone jump over her and ram into the ruin guard, pushing it away from her.
“Hah!” the mysterious person yelled, stabbing their weapon into the ruin guard's eye.
Noelle was able to sit herself up and look back as the ruin guard fell over. She could see now that her savior was a tall girl dressed in armor, holding a sword. She slashed at the paralyzed ruin guard until it fell over and dissipated into dust, only leaving behind some mechanical parts.
“Are you okay?” she asked, turning around and crouching down next to Noelle.
“Who are you?” Noelle’s eyes shone with wonder.
She smiled softly. “I’m a knight, in the Knights of Favonius. Now, will you answer my question please?”
“Oh! Um- I’m a little hurt- but I think I’m okay…” she mumbled, suddenly shy.
“What town do you live in?” she asked. “I’ll walk you home and get you medical assistance.”
“Font- sorry, Mondstadt. I just moved here,” Noelle explained, as the knight helped her up. She wobbled a bit but the knight caught her.
“Here, you can lean on me, or I could carry you there?”
“No! No, I’m fine,” Noelle didn’t need to arrive in Mondstadt being carried by a strange knight, she was already in enough trouble.
“Okay, then,” the knight gave another patient smile and the pair started off toward the city.
“What’s your name?” the knight asked the young girl.
“My name is Noelle,” Noelle said. “Um, if you don’t mind me asking, what do the knights do?”
“Well, usually we guard Monstadt, but sometimes we patrol out into the wilderness- like I was just doing- to clear out monsters to keep people safe.”
“Do you save people often?”
“Here and there, usually only when I’m patrolling.”
“Do you patrol often?”
“It's my preferred duty, I enjoy the fresh air.”
“What else do the knights do?”
“I didn’t know the youth was so invested in the knights,” the lady chuckled. Noelle’s face burned with embarrassment. “It's nice to see people so invested in my career choice.”
“How did you become a knight?” Noelle asked.
“There’s a test every year for new knights,”
“I want to go!”
The knight laughed and patted Noelle’s head. “I’m afraid you’re too young, but when you’re older you can join. I’m sure you’ll get in, you seem bright.”
Noelle beamed at her and she smiled back.
-
Noelle rushed to the board and looked up at the list of names of people who had passed the knight's entrance exam and had joined their ranks. Noelle scanned the list through once, then twice, as she felt a despairing feeling overwhelm her. Her throat turned scratchy and her sight became blurred.
She failed, again.
-
“We should start considering new options for the 8th placement for the Fatui Harbingers.” A tall aged man with a mask obscuring part of his face walked towards the gathering. “The people of Snezhnaya will start to feel unsafe if we don’t put in a new replacement soon.”
The lady with short white hair responded with a sound of annoyance. “She only just died a week ago, yet you already seek a replacement? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about Scaramouche and the gnosis?”
“Arlecchino, you know as well as I do that the Tsarista will expect one soon,” the man calmly responded. “And Dottore has the situation under control as he has already stated.”
“The Fatui have promising recruitments, but none have the leadership skills that we need.” a mysterious black-masked man responded.
“Are you suggesting that we just conjure up someone from out of dust, Capitano?” Arlecchino stood.
“I wasn’t suggesting anything, merely commenting on a fact,” he said back calmly.
“The implications are that we find someone outside of the Fatui,” Arlecchino grumbled. “And I don’t know about you but I don’t think we can get someone powerful enough to immediately just assign them the harbinger role without even becoming a member first.”
“They have to be willing to leave behind everything in a heartbeat. That’s not something most people would do.” the ginger called out from a corner of the room.
“I have a candidate,” someone raised their hand, and everyone turned their heads.
“Dottore? You have a candidate?” a petite girl perched atop the hand of a ruin guard said in shock. “Is this candidate one of your experiments? Because that’s not allowed, you know this.”
“No need to worry Sandrone, it's a girl from Monstadt. Her strength surpasses that of any mortal I’ve ever seen, well, besides you Capitano.” Dottore remarked. “When I passed through a few years ago, I watched her decimate a ruin guard with a mere slice of her weapon.”
“There's still the question of leadership skills and the fact she would have to leave her family behind that Targalia brought up,” Sandrone shot a quick glare at him, leaving Tartaglia to wonder what he did. “Pierro, I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to ask the Fatui at the goth hotel to observe her,” Pierro said. “We have no other options as of now unless people have other nominations?”
The room fell into silence, as heads turned, looking for another raised head. All hands stayed still in their laps. Sandrone had a disapproving look on her face, but stay silent nevertheless.
“Then we will monitor her for a week. If she demonstrates all capabilities necessary, we will go from there,” Pierro looked towards Dottore. “Dottore, you never said her name, care to share?”
“Her name is Noelle Loronn.”