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La Signora, Eighth of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers, surveyed the miles of wreckage now occupying the space where a city had once been, her gaze cold and clear. She was looking for the epicenter of the destruction. That would be where she would find him, she was sure. Where she would find them.
There was a row of fallen pillars, all toppled in the same general direction. That was as good a signal as any, in this chaotic mess. She followed the line they traced, then continued along that path, picking her way through the rubble with measured steps. Her dress dragged on the ground, but she paid it no heed. It was ruined already from the battle, muddied and stained with blood that was not her own, and sweat that she would only reluctantly admit was. She'd been in the thick of it, snarling commands at the Fatui troops whilst throwing as much power as she dared into freezing attacks, as the Eleventh acted as their one-man cavalry, ripping through the enemy lines with a careless ease that had been exhausting to behold.
Childe had been laughing, just before it happened, the sound incongruously joyful and carefree in the midst of all that bloodshed. The memory weighed on her. She wondered if she'd ever hear that sound from him again.
She was getting maudlin in her old age.
Or maybe she was just… tired. Too tired to keep her usual regimented distance, to shore up the walls of ice that kept her safe from such cares. Their war had lasted so very long, and all the work that still remained to be done stretched ahead of her with no end in sight. Was it any wonder that her strength had been drained so? Years of covert efforts had culminated suddenly into open clashes between the Fatui and their foes. She'd been fighting all day, all week, with hardly a moment to rest, and then to top it all off, she'd spent the last few hours mopping up the remaining enemy combatants—the ones that hadn't turned and fled when they'd seen the city they were defending get leveled behind them by the Sixth.
The Sixth…
Signora walked out of the shadow of a stone plinth that had been shattered down the middle, and finally spotted what she'd been searching for. Her lips tightened at the sight.
Childe was kneeling on the ground, cradling Scaramouche's crumpled, bloodied form to his chest. His eyes were closed, and his face was pressed to the top of Scaramouche's head, buried in his hair. She was still far enough away that she might have been able to convince herself that Scaramouche was simply unconscious in Childe's arms, but she entertained no such delusions. Self-deception had never appealed to her much.
Even so, it was… hard to look at them. Childe was nearly as still as Scaramouche was. And with his ridiculous hat set to the side and his whole body curled towards Childe as if seeking comfort, Scaramouche seemed… smaller than he ever had before. More vulnerable. But, then, he'd never once let himself appear vulnerable in life, not as far as La Signora knew.
Perhaps it was fitting that death should pierce that facade.
What a mess. She'd known it would come to this, from the moment she'd seen what was happening to the city. Expending that much power… that would've been the Balladeer's last resort.
She'd watched Childe's face fall from across the battlefield as he'd had that same thought, watched his violence-kindled grin drop away. She hadn't attempted to protest when he'd turned and started running, abandoning his post, his duties. It wouldn't have done any good to try to stop him. And the part of her that still clung to her humanity had hoped, in that instant, that he would make it to Scaramouche's side in time to have a few final words. Maybe get some closure on that tempestuous relationship of theirs.
She looked at how tightly Childe's fingers were clutching Scaramouche's body, digging into a narrow shoulder and a bony hip with a white-knuckled grip. Whatever closure he might have gotten, it evidently hadn't been enough.
She wondered how many more hours Childe would let himself just kneel here, holding Scaramouche's corpse in his arms, if he were to be left to his own devices.
Well, she had no interest in letting this go on any longer, not if she had any say in it. They'd already lost one Harbinger today. The rest of them needed to stand ready to pick up the slack. All of them. They had a war to win, after all.
She approached the pair, stopping a short distance away. Childe didn't open his eyes or look up, but she was certain he knew she was there.
"He went out the way he would've wanted," she said. "Left his mark on the world." Her voice came out firmer than she'd planned it to. She'd never been very good at being gentle. "They'll write songs about the Balladeer, and they'll be singing them decades from now."
Childe wasn't responding at all. She needed to make him respond.
Signora breathed out, let a smile arch across her face, let it seep into her voice. "Even as they spit on his name," she said.
Childe twitched. Good.
"So defensive already," she chided. "I heard you say worse to his face only yesterday. Let's not rewrite the past so quickly. He's never needed to be protected from harsh words." She watched Childe's reactions carefully, trying to find where best to push. "And he'd have called you pathetic if he ever saw you like this."
"I know," Childe bit out, squeezing his eyes shut even harder, his arms tightening around Scaramouche. "I know," he repeated, more quietly.
Signora let her shoulders slump a little in relief before forcing herself back into her usual impeccable posture. She'd gotten him talking. Now she needed to get him to let go.
She couldn't do gentle. But maybe she could manage… musing. Thoughtful. "He liked you the best, you know," she said.
Childe snorted, a harsh, disbelieving sound. He opened his eyes to dart a glance at her. "Pulcinella—"
Signora waved the name away with a flick of her wrist. "They worked well together. You drove him to new heights. He always wanted to impress you."
Childe shook his head, and looked back down at Scaramouche. He shifted Scaramouche's weight in his arms, freed one hand to stroke through Scaramouche's straight, dark hair. "He thought I was an idiot," he said, distantly. "He shouted at me or insulted me at every opportunity, when he wasn't actively trying to kill me."
"Yes," Signora replied.
Childe's jaw tightened. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked, flatly.
Signora shifted her weight. She'd been trying to provoke him, to stir him from this funk. But she was playing with fire, and she needed to take care not to get burned. She took a moment to gather her thoughts. "He was a stubborn pain in the ass… but he was ours," she said. "And if I thought for a second that any of the people who caused this had survived what he did to them, I'd be baying for their blood."
She gestured at the wreckage around them with one gloved hand. "But they're all dust now," she said. "All that's left to us is the war he died for."
Childe's expression hadn't changed. "That's all you care about," he said, in a monotone. "The war."
Signora didn't flinch, but it was a near thing. She'd been prepared for him to be angry. She'd wanted him angry. He was more predictable that way. It was when he buried everything deep like this instead that he was at his most dangerous.
A denial wouldn't serve anyone, whether it was true or not. A deflection, then. "He cared about it. Would you like him to have died for nothing?" she asked, archly.
She saw the fury that she'd been watching for flash in his eyes, recognized the violence he could unleash with a second's notice, likely held back only by the precious burden he still held in his arms. The look he turned on her might have induced a lesser mortal to fall to pieces, but it calmed her in an instant. Why wouldn't it, when it meant she knew just what to do next? She didn't need to fight him, after all. She just needed to stoke the fight in him again, and direct it to better use.
She held out a hand, beseechingly, with an open palm.
"Come, Childe," she said, entreating him to stand and take his leave with her, to carry Scaramouche away from this place. "It's time to take him home. We'll lay him to rest, with all the honors due him."
They both knew what that would entail. A grand state funeral in Snezhnaya, the land Scaramouche had started to call his home. A mandated day of mourning among the citizenry. A prominent burial place in the palace crypt. Everything that a war hero was owed.
She could picture it in her head already. The crowds. The procession. The flowers. She'd have to make sure there were wreaths upon wreaths of that delicate little Inazuman bloom, the one whose scent had always caused Scaramouche to suppress a nostalgic smile. And, of course, they'd need to convene the surviving Harbingers for the interment ceremony. They would all come together to give the Balladeer the send-off he deserved.
"And then after that, we'll return, and finish his life's work," she promised. Coaxed.
His gaze had gone distant. That was fine. That meant he was looking forward, past the present he'd been trapped in. The anger in his eyes had faded as well, morphing into a more recognizable kind of grief—one that twisted his features with anguish, rather than the nearly blank mask he'd been wearing all this time.
And then he bowed his head again to look at Scaramouche's face.
Signora watched his hand move to cup Scaramouche's cheek, watched him run his thumb over that ridge of bone, carefully, like he was touching something terribly delicate and very, very sharp.
It looked like a goodbye. And it looked even more like one, a final one, when the corners of Childe's lips curved up into a wavering, watery smile. That… wasn't right. Childe shouldn't have that look on his face, not here, and now. It was too soon.
Signora only had a few scant moments to realize that things weren't going as she expected before Childe shifted and, cradling Scaramouche's head with one hand, moved to gently lay his body down on the ground.
She watched Childe reach across Scaramouche's corpse to grasp the near edge of his discarded hat, watched him drape that hat over Scaramouche's chest, concealing the worst of the wounds. Her stomach had dropped out from under her at the sight. He'd released his hold on the thing that had been anchoring him in place. So she feared, in that moment, that she would need to fight Childe after all. Why else lay Scaramouche down and arrange him thus? Like this, there was nothing holding Childe back anymore.
But that wasn't a fight the Fatui cause could afford, not right now. A dozen contingency plans popped into her head, each discarded instantly, one after the other, in the time it took Childe to stagger to his feet on legs numb from hours of kneeling.
Streaks of burgundy covered his front, telling a morbid story of how closely he'd clung to Scaramouche's blood-soaked form, when that blood had yet to dry. His gaze lingered on the corpse at his feet, taking it in, his body preternaturally still.
Signora's heart tightened in her chest. Her hand twitched toward her weapon.
Childe turned.
And he began to walk away.
So it had been a goodbye. Not one of parting, but of abandonment. Abandonment of everything. Their purpose, their war, all his responsibilities. To the Fatui, to Scaramouche.
She felt her own anger and powerlessness rising like bile in her throat. They couldn't do this without Childe. They couldn't. Not with Scaramouche gone, on top of all the other losses they'd taken. They needed Childe on board. Everything was at stake.
"Turning your back on our cause, Childe? Already?" she lashed out, seeing red. She wouldn't let him just walk away, not without acknowledging the inevitable consequences, and Childe's part in them. "Did you ever tell him he was the only reason you hadn't yet? Did he ever know, even at the end? Maybe if you had told him, he wouldn't have done this." She screamed the last words with all the frustration she carried in her, all the grief she hadn't been certain she was capable of anymore.
He froze, looking down at the ground in front of him, blinking hard. He looked unbearably young, all of a sudden, and Signora had a moment to regret her harsh words. She opened her mouth to say something, she wasn't sure what. But Childe was the one to speak first.
"I…" he said, then swallowed. "I'll be there, at the next battle. I'll fight his war." His war. "I just need…" Childe's clenched fists spasmed at his sides.
That wasn't… "You're… not going to come back with him?"
He turned his head a little, but not enough to face her. Not enough to face him.
"He deserves all of that." Childe's voice was far, far away. "The pomp and circumstance. But… I can't watch them put him in the ground."
Signora drew in a measured breath through her teeth, and then she shook her head, slowly. Something in her chest had started to ache. "You'll regret it, you know," she said.
"I regret a lot of things," Childe replied.
That was… an admission. One she hadn't expected to be privy to. She couldn't think of anything to say. What could you say, to that?
After a moment, Childe's feet stirred into motion again, mechanically. She didn't stop him as he departed, and she didn't watch him go.
She looked to Scaramouche instead, at the burden Childe had relinquished that was now hers to bear. She stepped forward, knelt down, and reached out a hand to touch Scaramouche's forehead. A rime of cryo energy began to spread across his skin.
She would carry him home, if Childe could not. Stay with him, until the very end of his journey. For the sake of two men she'd grown to… care for, over the years. And for the sake of the cause they'd all given up so much to advance.
Their lives, their loves…
She prayed it would be worth it.