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Once upon a time there was a young maiden born into a family of inventors. She was a lonely child - whose family had dwindled as the years went on - and spent her youth in the care of her grandsire, as her father galivanted across the seven nations.
Though a healthy child, she preferred to spend her days underground, accompanying her grandfather in his workshop and learning all he had to teach her. Many happy days were spent there - surrounded by the scavenged works of even older masters and filled with stories of an age long passed, from which she would build the beginnings of her own legacy. Even if there were times she yearned for others around her age, or siblings she could play with and teach, these were still the most joy filled times of her life.
They were simple, pleasant days.
They would not last forever.
Heralded by winter her father returned - emerging from the frozen waves and foreign snows with promises of something grander that awaited them. A patron who was keen to sponsor his work; an offer of titles, riches and prestige beyond what they ever could have dreamed of, and the only price they needed to pay was that of their home.
[in the name of your family betray them, blood is thicker than water after all]
-----
The journey was long and harsh. Her grandfather never made it to Snezhnaya.
Taken in the night by common ailments, from moving into unfamiliar climates - that was what the healers said. Her father refused to slow, not when they were already behind schedule, and denied her requests for a funeral. Even as her soul fractured behind the veil of her tears, he did not relent, nor did he falter. His word was final, and they would depart once more after sunrise.
In the haze of the next morning, she sought out a worker and pressed a bag of coins into their hands, asking that they bury her grandsire near a water-facing ore deposit, imploring with her gaze as her father seized her wrist and hurried her away.
They did not speak much from then on. Even when the silence chaffed and isolation grew suffocating, she refused to acknowledge him beyond questions of function and efficiency.
She was the last of her grandfather's legacy. She would not sully his name, nor the knowledge he imparted to her.
[the blood of the covenant runs thicker than the water of the womb, though one should be aware of waters who themselves cradle blood]
-----
There was no revelation, upon meeting his patron, aside from the knowledge that he had signed their lives away to a woman who would use all that she could take from them. Blinding in her radiance and frigid in her soul - glittering snows belied sheets of treacherous ice - they were destined to fall at her command.
-----
For the first time in her life the young girl was truly alone.
The man who sired her had no time for a child in the midst of his work, nor did anyone else in the cold expanse of the palace, and so she was left to her own devices in a room adjacent to his new workshop. She was fed and watered, given room and board, but kept no company and received no visitors. In the rare instances that she spoke, her words were clipped and her gestures sharp - with the only one who would've cared enough to see and understand long dead.
But isolation and lack of surveillance were tools in their own right for the burgeoning mechanic, even more so with the materials available to her - piles of scrap and decommissioned Ruin Machines filling every corner of the room - and the final plans of her beloved mentor which were held securely in her mind.
The realisation of their legacy, born equally of spite and loneliness. Her grandfather would have loved and hated it in equal measure.
[it was a beautiful day, from which the heavens rained blood]
-----
Time passed, the man who sired her grew steadily in favour, and the materials available for her use expanded.
On the cusp of her adulthood, years long passed from the idyllic days of her youth, the young woman smiled for the first time since arriving in Snezhnaya.
Anticipation lightened her expression, the barest tremble present in her hand as she reached out, placing two fingers on the temple of the humanoid figure before her. The beats of her heart grew louder as her fingers rested on the metal, condensing the world down to those two points of contact.
Her stomach lurched as she tapped twice, the two fingers just a hair out of sync, and the metallic figure shuddered. A low whir filled the room as the young woman stepped away, and something in the figure's face shifted - copper coloured panels opening to reveal two gleaming amber spheres, which vaguely resembled eyes.
"Y-you... You are... Op-perator?" a modulated voice intoned.
"No, not an Operator" the young woman replied, eyes softening further as the being before her made an aborted vocalisation, "My name is Manette, and I would like to be your sister"
"S-sister?" the whirring returned as they processed what had been said, sorting hurriedly through their database in an attempt to understand.
"We would be family" Manette explained, her voice taking on a particular cadence on the last word.
"Fa-amily... I would-d... I wou-uld like t-that" they replied, approximating a mirror of their operator sister's smile.
"Sist-ter," they continued, cataloguing the widening curve of Manette's lips, "Do I hav-ve a name?"
"Would you like me to choose one for you?" she asked in turn, warmth and surprise blooming in her chest as her new sibling nodded.
"Marion" she declared, after a few minutes of silence.
They hummed softly, flicking through the banks of data on etymology and nomenclature, with a particular focus on names originating from Fontaine - as they had identified their sister - and felt something in them warm at its meaning.
[for the pact of blood is equal in its bindings, to all forms in life and death]
-----
Their group of siblings would expand over the years, their forms shifting and evolving as Manette's skill continued to improve, until they caught the eye of the Tsaritsa herself.
Under the Archon's command they took on new names and forms, but would never forget their original. Manette kept a piece of her siblings close, even under the mantel of Sandrone (ever weary of the fierce gleam in the Tsaritsa's eyes as she called for her Marionette), and Marion and the rest of their siblings became known by the moniker of "Katheryne" (another reminder of their home, equally a threat and taunt in its meaning).
The eight of them have settled for now, scattered across Teyvat in the name of the Tsaritsa, but theirs was a bond unbroken.
[a family built from the ashes of civilisation once lost, far from the waters which may have once held them, for in each other they have found the meaning of living]