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Before the silver and gold coffin of the La Signora, the Harbingers listen to Columbina’s mournful melody, a hymn to the late Harbinger.
“We are gathered here today to remember our dear comrade. In honor of her sacrifice, all work should halt for half a day as the nation mourns her passing,” Pulcinella says over the coffin of La Signora.
A mere formality, as the Musou no Hitotachi of the Raiden Shogun didn’t leave a trace of her body behind.
Arlecchino shudders at the thought, her breath fogging in the bone-cold chill of the church consecrated in Rosalyne’s honor.
Her face looks like it is carved of the finest porcelain. Not a single blemish graces her white skin. Her eyes are inhuman; red crosses within a sea of black, sheltered by her white hair that is flecked with a single band of black.
And yet her breath stuttered, sounding like cracks in porcelain, as she looked upon her former lover’s coffin.
The Fatui is not a brotherhood.
No, it’s only united by their devotion to the Tsaritsa and their shared resentment for one another.
Especially the Harbingers. The spotlight that shines upon them wilts the kind, the caring, leaving only the cruel and the most bloodthirsty. They are not brothers. Brothers do not murder one another.
Except for Rosalyne and Arlecchino. They are different.
Were different.
Long ago, the Knave found the Fair Lady in the grand library of the Tsaritsa’s domain, silently crying over a glass of fire water before the fireplace.
It shocked her to see tears roll down La Signora’s cheeks. Arlecchino always saw her as cold and austere as the archon they both served.
Arlecchino tried to slip past the door with quiet footsteps and towards the bookshelf that held the tome she wanted to read for the night, but she accidentally bumped into an ornate desk on the way over.
The room became cold, the fireplace snuffed out by the chill that infiltrated the library. La Signora turned towards the intrusion, her glass of firewater frozen solid from her active Cryo Delusion.
With only the moonlight that cascaded from the windows behind her, she looked like an archon herself, her ebony crown and azure eyes shined with rage.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered hoarsely.
The thought of her tome and her annoyance at her fellow Fatui faded away before the sight of Rosalyne’s tears, which made her cheek look decorated with drops of diamond.
“I…” She struggled to form a thought. “I was trying to grab a book on child management, but I was surprised to find you here, Rosalyne.”
Her limbs moved of their own accord, quietly walking towards Rosalyne, and she sat herself at the chair beside her.
“But if I may ask – why are you crying?”
Rosalyne looked surprised and vaguely suspicious, but she found no deceit in the red crosses within Arlecchino’s black eyes.
Pantalone chuckled, crossing his ringed and gloved fingers together.
“Merely half a day… People say the Northland Bank’s true currencies are blood and tears. But, Mayor – even speaking as a banker – that sounds a little unconscionable.”
It is that innocent yet smug look upon Pantalone’s face that forced Arlecchino to speak out against her fellow Harbingers.
“Rosalyne died in a foreign land, but you heartless businessmen and dignitaries always have a convenient excuse to remain in the comfort of your homeland – You couldn’t hope to understand!”
The Harbingers are surprised by her reaction, measuring her blank face for any sign of weakness.
They find none. They only see her perfect, doll-like face staring back at them blankly, without even the imperfection of the rage they heard just moments ago in her voice.
Arlecchino keeps her heart close in her palm.
A single crimson butterfly of Rosalyne’s that keeps her warm, reminding her of her Fair Lady.
Her Fair Lady, who showed the first shred of humanity among the Harbingers when she tearfully revealed her first love to Arlecchino.
Rostam, the Wolf Pup of Mondstadt long ago.
Her darling, her guardian knight against the schemes of the nobility of the Wind-Swept city. Who perished nearly half a millenia ago.
Seeing her tears, hearing her sorrows, feeling her Cryo Delusion slowly fade away, bringing warmth to the library once more, awoke something in Arlecchino.
An instinct long dormant. One that didn’t even show itself to the children under her care in the House of the Hearth. The instinct to care, to protect, to guard and cherish.
Her Fair and Delicate Lady deserved a Knight against the predations of the Harbingers of Snezhnaya. She deserved warmth in this cold place.
“May I be your Rostam, my Fair Lady?” she said quietly.
Arlecchino got upon her knee and bowed before La Signora. She reached for her black, silk-gloved hand and brought it before her lips.
“May I be your guardian knight in these grueling times?”
Rosalyne’s eyes widened. Her cheeks slowly flushed behind her other hand.
“Yes, you may,” she whispered.
Arlecchino kissed the back of her hand with reverence.
And when she backed away from her hand, Rosalyne delicately took her hold of her hand and brought it to cup her cheek.
They sat there, quietly, as Rosalyne’s sobbed once more.
Arlecchino brushed away the diamond-like tears and cupped her other cheek, bringing Rosalyne mere inches away from her.
“Don’t cry, my Lady,” she said, brushing the bottom of Rosalyne’s lip. “I’m here. I’ll always be here for you.”
The distance between them closed, until their lips brushed together in a soft kiss.
Arlecchino felt comfort in the cold steel of her crown and the warmth of her lips.
Before the coffin, the Harbingers give their last vigil to the late Rosalyne.
Pierro, the First of the Harbingers, is at the head of the coffin, looking over his fellow Harbingers.
He clears his throat and speaks.
“Let every worthy sacrifice be carved in ice, and with this, our nation shall endure for all time…”
The skies above Snezhnaya are dark, yet alight with the aurora borealis. Bands of turquoise light dance in the night sky, lighting the path for the Harbingers to shuffle away from the church.
In the midst of the Harbingers, chatting away like they have not just left a funeral, Arlecchino feels a crack
Arlecchino stays behind, deliberately walking slower than the others, hearing them fade away in the distance.
The winds bite at her throat, making it harder and harder for her to breathe.
Her breaths came as gasps, which sounded like the chipping of porcelain.
It is when her cheeks started to feel like ice frozen over that she numbly brushes her gloved hands over it.
The tips of her black leather gloves are wet, wet with tears.
She looked up again to see none of the Harbingers.
Finally, her mask shatters under a torrent of sobs.
She crouches down, curling the hand that held Rosalyne’s butterfly close to her chest.
She couldn’t see the church or the Harbingers which clearly didn’t care for her Fair Lady. She could only see the crimson butterfly that perched upon her finger before her, the last remnant of Rosalyne left in the physical world.
Except for her memories.
Rosalyne and Arlecchino were careful lovers, only daring to meet each other late past midnight, when the Fatui were asleep or scheming under the shadow of the Tsaritsa.
They meet in the library where their love was first set ablaze. Arlecchino always worshiped Rosalyne’s skin before the fireplace, peppering kisses beneath her collar, along her neck, beneath her collarbone, extracting sighs of pleasure from her Lady.
They only made love once before Rosalyne left for her final mission in Inazuma. One time Arlecchino was in Rosalyne’s bedroom, spread over Rosalyne’s bed, looking in awe at Rosalyne half-naked, straddling her, looking upon her with love .
They continued to make love into the morning, until the morning sun rained down upon them past Rosalyne’s curtains. When Rosalyne finally came to Arlecchino’s ear and whispered that one line she waited so long to hear: “I love you.”
Rosalyne was beautiful that final night, her long whitish-blond hair running down her clear skin like a wedding veil, crowning her azure eyes and flushed cheeks.
“I wish you could see your face right now…” Rosalyne said lustily.
Arlecchinno knew she was blushing furiously at the sight of Rosalyne and the sound of her words, but the memory seemed wrong when she heard a voice ask, “Why don’t you say anything at all…?”
She realizes it is her voice, desperately pleading to the crimson butterfly perched upon her finger, asking past the tears which flooded down her cheeks.
“I love you! Please say anything !”
The butterfly stared blankly back. Its warmth feels cruel now, taunting her with the memory of her lover.
It looks back at the church where its master rests and back at Arlecchino.
She understands what it can’t say.
She shakily stands up and turns back to the church which was slowly encasing itself in ice and raises her hand up to the heavens.
The crimson butterfly looks back one last time at Arlecchino before turning back and flying away.
“They couldn’t understand your sacrifice, my love,” she said, watching the butterfly disappear from her sight, “but I do.”