Work Text:
“...Rosalyne is dead.”
The snow gathered on the windowsill, filling the corners of the panes so that the sharp edges were filled in, softened. A candle was lit at her desk, and its reflection flickered against the glass, the light nearly lost in the snowstorm. Arlecchino did not ask to be let in, nor did she offer any words of condolence. Sandrone did not expect this of her, of course, but she couldn’t stop herself from thinking—had Rosalyne or Columbina been at her side, maybe things would be different.
The doorway was cold and empty when she finally turned her head. The first sign that everything in her life would be changed by this.
She would not cry. No. With Alain, it had been different, like losing a father. Rosalyne, however, had not been like a mother to her, not even remotely. If anything, she behaved like a pretentious aunt, always offering Sandrone her unwanted opinions in that affected tone, as if her aesthetic tastes were the most important in all of Teyvat.
That yellow fabric is simply hideous. ... What is this ugly little contraption? ... I’ve brought you a pair of heels from Fontaine. I expect you will wear them to our next opera.
First Alain, now Rosalyne. The human body was so fragile, imperfect. It withered so quickly that she was certain she could watch it decay with her own eyes if she sat still enough. She wouldn’t, though. She had far more productive ways to use her time.
Something dripped onto the open page of her journal, and she glanced up at the high ceiling, half expecting to find a leak in the roof. ...... Snow on the window panes, water in the corners of her eyes. She swiped it away with her sleeve and finally picked up her pen.
Rosalyne is dead.
┈┈
The light of day did not see her for two full weeks as she sequestered herself in her workshop beneath the palace. Upgrades to the Katheryne model. There was nothing to upgrade, really, unless she was to disassemble the whole thing and rebuild it from scratch. She knew this. But she always found herself digging through the cogs and wires of the stupid machine whenever particularly unpleasant thoughts refused to leave her head. Perhaps, if she couldn’t fix one thing, she could at least solve another, this disappointing replica built by hands much clumsier and much less clever than the ones that had made her.
Of course, this never succeeded. If anything, her failure to make Katheryne anything more than the reception bot that she would always be only frustrated her further, souring her mood until the Fatui messengers that were sent to coax her out of her workshop became too afraid to cross the threshold. Well, it served them right. They should have known better than to disturb her.
It wasn’t so much Rosalyne’s death itself that troubled her, but the Rosalyne-shaped hole in her life that everyone else seemed to be excellent at ignoring. Stretches of silence where pretentious advice and the click of heels used to be. An empty chair in the banquet hall, a vacant rank left unfilled. She wasn’t expecting much from the people who had decided that her life wasn’t worth even a full day of mourning, but she at the very least had expected the tea parties to continue. But no, in the month after her funeral, as Sandrone numbly moved through each day, Arlecchino returned to Fontaine without so much as a farewell, and Columbina.... She had also made herself scarce. Which was what Sandrone usually wanted, of course, but without her annoying singing to fill the silence, her thoughts were quick to steer her into terrible tempers.
Sandrone sighed loudly and swiped the back of her hand across her forehead. Only then, when she noticed the dark smudge of grime that transferred from her face to her hand, did she realize that staying down here any longer would do her no good. No one, not her subordinates, nor her colleagues, and least of all Her Majesty, should see her in this state, smudged with grease and soot and archons know what else.
“Pulonia,” she said, wiping her hands on a clean rag, “go fetch a dress from my room and bring it to the baths, would you?”
The giant machine lumbered across the workshop as Sandrone cast a glance across the place. She could screw the Katheryne model back together some other time; her focus had already moved on to getting herself cleaned up as swiftly as possible.
Her internal clock informed her that it was the nineteenth hour, twenty-second minute, seventh second. Eighth. Ninth. She crossed the room and stepped onto the private lift that Pulonia was much too heavy for, which brought her up to her dark office, then slipped into the chilly hallway and hurried in the direction of the baths. Moonlight was the only thing that illuminated her path, and as she turned the corner, she barely managed to stop herself a split second before she could collide with...
“Oh ho, Sandrone! Hey, what’s the rush?”
“Eleventh.” She stepped to the side to pass him, but Tartaglia matched her movement.
“Whoa, what happened to you? You look like you lost a fight with a steam engine.”
“Hmph. Of course you would know what that looks like,” she grumbled. “I’m fine. Let me through.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Or what?”
“Or... I’ll permanently ban you from all future tea parties,” she huffed, crossing her arms.
He laughed, the sound so easy and natural that it irritated Sandrone even more than his attempt to start a fight. Still, he stepped aside, but as she passed, he said, “Hey, think you could point me towards that steam engine? You think it’s ready for round two?”
She made a decidedly unladylike gesture back at him and shoved open the door to the baths.
┈┈
Her garden had grown a little wild in her time away. The clusters of mint had dozens of new sprouts, the sage was up past her knees, and a few honeysuckle vines had nearly climbed to the tops of the walls. Several weeds had also managed to pop up, crowding out the delicate crocuses that lined the gravel path.
“You like it when I’m away, don’t you,” she muttered as she leaned from the top of a step ladder to trim back one of the larger vines. “Bet you can’t wait to be rid of me so you can take over the whole palace, huh?”
“I think that would look beautiful...”
The breathy voice of the third Harbinger caught Sandrone so off guard that she stumbled and dropped her pruning shears, which disappeared into the rosebush below. Ugh! How many million times has she told her not to sneak up on her like that?
“Columbina,” she growled. “Get. Out!”
When she reached the bottom of the ladder and turned, Columbina was not there. She was alone again with her flowers.
She peered into the rosebush, but the leaves and brambles were too thick, and she couldn’t immediately see the shears. Pulonia couldn’t fit through the greenhouse doorway, and there was no way in hell she was going to ask anyone else for help. So, with a huff, she undid the buttons of her sleeves and pulled off her gloves, then placed them neatly on the little wrought iron table to her left, put her hands on her hips, and glared down at the bush once more. She tried to recall exactly where she had been holding the shears, and the speed and height at which they had dropped, factoring in the weight... they had probably been caught in the middle of the bush, somewhere near the wall.... She moved a few stems out of the way with one hand, then extended the other and carefully felt around. Her fingers curled around the handle, but she pulled back too quickly and dragged the back of her hand across a thorn.
“Aah! Damn it, ugh... should’ve just made Columbina fish them out,” she grumbled as she took her handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed at the wound. She frowned at her own words, realizing that she didn’t even agree with them—Columbina probably wouldn’t have known exactly where to reach, and if she’d ended up scratched....
She shook her head, forcing the thought away. The vines. She was cutting back the vines that were creeping up over the window panes. Tending to her garden that had become unruly in her neglect.
Like me, said that stupid little voice from the depths of her mind.
“Shut up,” she muttered back.
┈┈
At last, it was her turn to be sent from Zapolyarny Palace. First it had been Rosalyne, ..., Tartaglia. Then Dottore, Arlecchino, Capitano. Of them, only Tartaglia and Dottore have since returned to stay—the absolute worst possible outcome. So few Harbingers now remained here in Snezhnaya, and the halls had become cold and empty. Not that Nod-Krai would be much warmer, of course, but at least she could do away with her massive coat for a while.
In only two days, she, Columbina, and the Doctor would be sent there on the same ship, a journey Sandrone dreaded with every minute that brought her closer to it. Especially since she would be working with Dottore once they arrived. Her only comfort was that Pulonia would be at her side throughout the whole ordeal.
Tickets for the Korolevskiy Troupe’s opera performance that evening were clutched in her hand, the last show she would attend for the foreseeable future. Before, Rosalyne was always the one to hand the tickets off to the other Harbingers, so when Odette called on Sandrone to give them to her, a knot of unexpected anger twisted inside her. Why was she the stand-in for Signora? It wasn’t like she was her mentee, or even her friend, really. Because she was the only one who visibly mourned her, everyone seemed to think she was happy to carry out Rosalyne’s every task. Why not give the tickets to someone like Pantalone, who seemed to enjoy the theater’s productions far more than she?
And, even more annoyingly, this meant that she now had the responsibility to deliver them to the other Harbingers. She counted the tickets in her hand. Five. Pierro and Tartaglia hardly ever attended, and Arlecchino was still abroad. Rosalyne, Capitano.... The only Harbingers left were herself, Columbina, Pantalone, Dottore, and Pulcinella. Five. Their preferences and statuses, it seemed, were well-known to the prima ballerina.
“Pulonia, take this to the Veche and give it to the Rooster,” she commanded, placing one ticket in his hand. He pinched it between his giant fingers and lumbered away dutifully.
“Right,” she said to herself. “Treasury, lab, and...”
She realized she wasn’t sure where she might find Columbina. That girl flitted about the palace like a ghost, though she did seem to particularly favor Sandrone’s garden and her bedroom. She would save that for last, then. She was certain she would end up distracted and delayed by Columbina doing something obnoxious like pulling the down from her pillows or braiding dandelions into her hair.
The palace treasury was large and cold, and it always held the lingering smell of cigarette smoke. Pantalone sat right where she expected him, in that stupid upholstered chair beneath the massive bear skull that was mounted to the wall behind him. He pretended not to notice her arrival, so she pretended not to acknowledge his presence and instead approached the table to her right that held a gigantic scale. Its fulcrum was fixed with a large gear, and when Sandrone placed a small stack of coins on one side, it made a delightful little ticking sound as the plate dipped a few centimeters lower.
“Ahem.”
Sandrone measuredly turned to face him. “Ah, Ninth, I was looking for you. It was so quiet, I assumed you stepped out for dinner.”
“Indeed.” He folded his hands, silver rings catching the light as his eyes flicked briefly to the scale. “How can I be of service, Lady Sandrone?”
“Actually,” she replied as she approached his desk, “I’m here to do you a favor. Your ticket for tonight’s opera.”
“Oh,” he said, peering over his glasses as she handed it to him. “...Do you have one for Zandik as well?”
“Take it.” She flicked a second ticket onto the desk and turned on her heel. The reminder that the two of them had some sort of quid pro quo situation going on, which earned the Doctor much more funding for his projects a million times faster than Sandrone’s, was enough to piss her off entirely. Her only consolation was that now she wouldn’t need to subject herself to setting foot in Dottore’s revolting lab.
“Thank you, Lady Sandrone,” he called after her. “‘The pleasure is all mine, Lord Pantalone!’”
Three down. Columbina was not in the garden, nor was she in Sandrone’s bedroom, nor her own. She frowned, racking her brain to determine where else she might find her. She went round the entire interior of the palace, then pulled on her coat and walked the perimeter as well. She was about to give up and just throw out the extra ticket, but then she saw a dark spot against the white roof near her garden, and she squinted up.
“Columbina!” she called out. “What the hell are you doing up there?”
“Sandrone?” Her small voice was almost carried away by a chilly wind.
“Get down from there!”
She stood, then slowly approached the edge of the roof.
“No, wait, not like that, you’ll—”
She fell slowly, like a snowflake drifting to the ground, and landed softly in front of her, head tilted. “I’ll what?”
Sandrone wasn’t sure she’d ever seen Columbina do that before, but she shook her head quickly, deciding she’d rather not ask. “Nothing. I’ve got your ticket for the opera tonight.”
“Oh...” She took the piece of paper and lifted her head towards the sky, though her eyes remained closed as always.
“What were you doing up there, anyways?”
“Hm? Oh, I don’t know... I sensed that there was... something beyond my reach, and I wished to be closer to it.”
“Closer to what, the clouds?”
“No.”
Sandrone sighed. Clearly, this conversation was going nowhere. “Whatever. Let’s get back inside, I’m freezing. And don’t do that again, okay?”
“Okay.”
She wanted to leave it at that, but in the back of her mind, she was worried that Columbina might climb up onto the roof again before the show, and there was no guarantee she would fall as slowly as she just had. Anyways, it would probably be best if she kept an eye on her for the next few hours. When they stepped inside, she said, “Come with me.”
Columbina silently followed behind as she walked the halls to her bedroom.
“Don’t mess with anything,” Sandrone said as Columbina flopped onto her bed. She turned and set about starting up a fire, and when that was done, she made tea for the two of them. Columbina seemed more distant than usual, hardly offering a word as she took the seat across from her, and though Sandrone tried to ignore it, she finally found herself saying, “What’s wrong with you today?”
“Nothing,” Columbina said.
“You’re a terrible liar, you know.”
She turned her head towards the window and was quiet for a while. “...Sandrone, are we friends?”
Sandrone, taken aback by the question, nearly choked on her tea. She cleared her throat and quickly analyzed the question; she must be asking this for a reason. Had she made some curt remark recently that had genuinely hurt her feelings? Was she hoping to confide something to her? She thought back to her little stunt on the roof earlier, and her assumptions took a darker turn. Had she known then that she would land so softly when she jumped?
“Ahem. I suppose. Of all our colleagues, I do prefer your company the most.” She meant it, though her face felt hot as she said it. “Why?”
Columbina was quiet for a moment. “I think I’m going to leave the Fatui.”
“What?!”
“Don’t worry, Sandrone. I’ll still go to Nod-Krai. The Tsaritsa has a task for me to complete. But... after that, I want to be free.”
A bitter taste filled her mouth. For all the grief she gave her, she was still the closest thing to a friend or family that Sandrone had after Pulonia. But Pulonia couldn’t speak, and though Columbina often annoyed her, she still sometimes appreciated the relief from her own internal monologue.
And she was leaving, and these empty halls would be even emptier when Sandrone returned. She looked away, their names and faces reeling through her head. Alain. Rosalyne. Arlecchino, in a way. And now Columbina. This endless cycle of loss. Soon, it would be only her and Pulonia, alone again, as it seemed it would always return to.
Ugh. How melodramatic. She would be fine. She would just do the same thing she always did: throw herself into her work, cranking and soldering and crossing wires until there was no room left for anything else in her head. And, at least she still had Pulonia.
That thought soothed her. At least she still had Pulonia.
“...Okay, then,” she finally said. “If that’s what you want. That’s fine.”
“Good,” Columbina sighed. “I knew you would understand.”
Sandrone turned towards the clock on the wall and was relieved to find that it was already getting late. “We should probably leave,” she said. “If we make it there before those two, we can have Pulcinella sit between us and them.”
Columbina laughed a little as she stood, and the two donned their coats and set off for the theater. The wind from earlier had picked up and was blowing the top layer of snow every which way, and for the first time all week, Sandrone found herself looking forward to her departure from this frozen nation.
Unfortunately, the two of them were the last Harbingers to arrive, and Sandrone was forced to sit between Dottore and Columbina, as the latter refused to take the seat beside him.
“Good evening, Lady Harbingers,” he greeted with that obnoxiously pretentious lilt. “I do hope these seats are to your liking.”
“My foot,” Sandrone muttered, but she removed her coat and took the seat nonetheless.
“Pulcinella,” Columbina was saying to her right, “has Báfurr been getting enough treats?”
“Hm? Oh,” he huffed, “mark my words, if that damned beast eats one more bite, he’s sure to burst. I don’t know who’s been sneaking him extra goodies, but it must be costing them a pretty penny. Hm! They ought to keep that money and spend it on something useful.”
“Like, a donation to the Snezhnograd Veche?”
“Pah!” He turned his head sharply. “Don’t go around saying things like that, little girl. Mark my words, the wrong person will have your head for such an insinuation!”
Columbina giggled and turned towards Sandrone, who tried very hard to pretend she hadn’t been listening. She cleared her throat and said, “Did you catch the name of tonight’s performance?”
“No,” Columbina replied, but she pulled a pamphlet from inside her coat. “I picked this up. What does it say?”
Sandrone took the program and turned it over. “‘Vissi d’arte’,” she read. “Starring Vodyanitsa.”
“I love her singing,” she sighed. “Oh? I think it’s starting....”
As if on cue, the lights in the theater went dark and a spotlight focused on the stage. As the music swelled and the performance began, Sandrone wondered for the millionth time how Columbina was able to perceive things without seeing them. It was mostly, it seemed, in line with a normal person’s eyesight, but there were those small differences—she had handed her the pamphlet to read it for her, but had somehow sensed movement backstage all the way from their box seats? It was another oddity that made her such an enigma, an unsolvable equation. Except, Sandrone knew that no such thing existed; they only needed the right person to come along and solve them. But Dottore had once tried, and now Columbina avoided him like he was the plague. She glanced to her left. It didn’t seem to bother him, but Sandrone wasn’t sure she could bear Columbina’s cold shoulder if it came to it.
She found it difficult to focus on the opera, even as Vodyanitsa’s enchanting voice carried through the theater, as her thoughts circled back to their conversation over tea. Columbina was leaving the Fatui. After hundreds of years. What had changed? Why now? It was the surest Sandrone had ever seen Columbina be about something since the day they met, as if leaving meant she would find the meaning of life, and it puzzled her to no end.
“Hey,” she whispered near the end of the first act. “Can I ask you something?”
Columbina tilted her head. “Hm?”
“How can you be so sure that leaving the Fatui is the right decision?”
She was quiet for a while, listening to the aria as it reached its climax, before she finally said, “Have you ever wanted something, Sandrone?”
“I guess so.”
“With every bone in your body?”
She stopped herself from making some remark about her clockwork nature, and instead said, “...Well, not really, no.”
Columbina turned to face Sandrone, the facets of her veil glittering in the low light. “I hope you find that feeling someday. Perhaps that will help you to understand.”
Part of her was annoyed that she of all people, naïve and oblivious as she was to the world around her, would speak as though she was imparting some profound wisdom to Sandrone. But it was also uncomfortably reminiscent of Alain’s words to her—What do you wish for? ... You’ll think of something someday. Those emotions that had been shoved aside started to bubble up again, and she frowned down at the stage. What did it matter that she wasn’t completely devoted to some endgoal? Was it not enough that she simply liked making machines and enjoying tea with her acquaintances?
“Whatever,” she said as the curtain closed. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
The audience cheered loudly as the lights came on to signal the intermission. Sandrone remained in her seat, but Columbina ventured off, as did the others. She returned a few moments later with a plate of cheese and crackers and offered some to Sandrone as they waited for the second act to begin.
Eager for a distraction, Sandrone wanted to know what she had missed in the first act, and what was about to happen in the last half, but when she asked Columbina, she only smiled and shrugged. “The last aria was beautiful, but full of sadness and desperation.”
Unfortunately, this left her with Dottore. As much as she disliked him, she was aware that he held an appreciation for the arts, as evidenced by the way he and Pantalone would discuss every performance they attended, both during the show and all through the journey back to the palace—and, on special occasions, they would still be locked in discussion over the course of the evening’s banquet. It was obnoxious, but as it was, it was her best chance at understanding the plot, so she turned her head very slightly to the left.
“Ahem. I think I’ve gotten a bit lost. What exactly is going on? And please be brief.”
“Oh, it’s caught your interest now, has it?” He chuckled. “Well, it begins with a painter who is inspired to depict a young blonde woman she meets at a church, which displeases her dark-haired lover, a singer, played by Vodyanitsa.”
The lights dimmed, and Dottore lowered his voice so that Sandrone had to lean slightly closer to hear his synopsis.
“The young woman is a political fugitive and the painter agrees to hide her. When the chief of police arrives, he finds only the singer, and convinces her that the painter is having an affair. Later, he brings in both for questioning and tortures the singer’s lover until she reveals the fugitive’s location. He has the painter taken away to be executed but promises to free her if the singer will lay with him. The final song of the act was a reflection of her life as it seems the gods are punishing her without reason.”
Sandrone felt a sudden chill down her spine, though the opera house was quite comfortable, and realized she didn’t want to hear another syllable come from Dottore’s mouth. She straightened. “I see.”
“And now—”
“That was sufficient,” she interrupted.
“Ah, well, then, you are most welcome, Lady Sandrone.”
She ignored the opportunity to thank him and instead found herself leaning closer to Columbina as she refocused on the performance. Dramatic plotlines usually did not bother Sandrone, but there was something unsettling about the Doctor explaining it to her, something that darkened the shadow of the upcoming journey to Nod-Krai that loomed over her head.
The opera continued. The singer, faced with that terrible choice, agrees to the chief’s proposal in order to save her lover. He orders a mock execution then, promising the painter will live, as the singer takes a glinting knife from the dinner table. When the chief approaches to embrace her, Vodyanitsa cries out and stabs him, and fake blood pools around his body as she lights a candle.
The singer reunites with the painter moments before the execution, and she tells her of the plan—the bullets are fake, and she will need to feign death so they can flee.
Columbina wrapped a hand around Sandrone’s arm. Her first instinct was to shake her off, but when she glanced over, she saw that her eyebrows were pinched with worry, and she realized she wasn’t the only one unusually affected by this. Anyways, the grip on her arm was a bit of a comfort, at least.
When her lover collapses at the gunshots, the singer finds to her horror that they had not been fake, and the painter is dead. As she cries over her lifeless body, the police begin to shout that the chief is dead, and that Vodyanitsa is the killer. They chase after her, and she cries, “We meet in hell!” before she leaps from the stage and into the darkness.
The music ended with a flourish. The curtains closed. The lights came on.
Dread flooded Sandrone’s heart. She blinked, shook her head, took a deep breath, and looked over at Columbina, whose blanched cheeks were streaked with tears, and though she said nothing, her hand was still tightly wrapped around her arm.
“Hey. It’s just a show,” Sandrone said, ignoring the shakiness in her own voice. “It’s over. It’s just an opera.”
“...Of course.” Columbina let go, swiped her eyes with her sleeve. “I don’t think I liked that very much.”
She shook her head and got to her feet, pulling her coat over her shoulders. “Me neither. Come on, let’s get back to the palace.”
“Can I stay in your room tonight?”
“Fine.”
“Girls,” Pulcinella said then, “by the gods, tell me you aren’t walking back! In the freezing dark? Wait for the carriage with the rest of us!”
Sandrone threw a glance over at Pantalone and Dottore, who were already discussing leitmotifs and Fontainian instrumentation, then turned back to Columbina. Addressing Pulcinella, she said, “I think we’ll pass. We’ll be fine.”
He shook his head, sending his hat bobbing back and forth. “Suit yourselves.”
As the theater emptied and the two of them stepped back out into the biting cold of the evening, Sandrone looked up at the sky. The wind had blown most of the clouds away, and the expanse of stars glittered above, a pinpricked blanket wrapped around the world. She focused on the peacefulness of the night sky, putting the events of the opera out of her mind, and was secretly grateful when Columbina started to hum a tune. Side by side, they passed through the streets, together for now, at least for now. It would all fall apart soon, as everything did, but right now, the stars were shining overhead, and Columbina’s song was carried ahead of them by the wind, and the lights of the distant palace burned against the night.