Chapter Text
I.
The clicking of heels on stone, echoing across the sleepy halls.
The clattering of wooden crates, being stacked high enough to ascend to Celestia.
The baffled gasps of onlookers, as a young girl no heavier than two of those boxes prances past, carrying the entire pile with ease.
These are just some of the sounds one might overhear whenever Noelle happened to be on duty.
As she was conscientious, kind, and muscle-bound all in equal measure, all manner of Mondstadters had grown to know, love, and rely on her over the handful of years she’d been working as the Knights’ maid. Peerless in every measure, to the people of Mondstadt there seemed to be nothing Noelle couldn’t do.
”Ah, Noelle?! Could you give me a hand with lifting this?”
Of course, I’ll be right over..!
”Miss Noelle? Could you deliver this to Miss Lisa, please?”
Certainly.
Everyone knew her. Everyone liked her. Everyone relied on her. Yet, as the weeks kept turning into months and months into years, the silver-haired girl felt the distance between her and others grow to impassable lengths.
People came and went, all of them relying on her all the same. People came and went, treating her like a friend even if Noelle knew nothing of them. Sometimes they’d come and give their goodbyes, sometimes they’d just be gone one day. Either way, the stinging feeling in her heart that she couldn’t quite understand felt worse and worse each time.
The first time she’d have that feeling ease up was one chilly spring day.
23rd of March
As a confident knock rung from the door, Jean raised her gaze from the endless paperwork piled upon her desk, and called the solicitor to enter.
”Yes?”
A silver bob adorned with roses peered around the half opened door, staring at the acting grand master with a kind of expectant glint in her eyes.
”I was told you had something to ask of me?” Noelle inquired.
”Ah, right... There’s some kind of a mess happening at the alchemists’ wing.” Jean sighed.
”One of Albedo’s apprentices left dejected once again, and his stuff is all still there. Apparently it ended up being mixed up with the new apprentice’s belongings, and they’re in need of a hand sorting through it all. Could you go and help with that today?”
Noelle nodded, bowed, and closed the door leaving Jean to immerse herself into the endless dull bureaucracies of the knights.
Wrapped up in a woolen shawl, she stepped into the morning air that still carried a bit of that stinging cold of the ending winter. The streets were still hushed and sleepy, most of the citydwellers choosing to stay in the warmth of their homes until the sun rose a little higher. A few of the people already working gave Noelle quick greetings, which she of course returned all the same. As a proper maid should.
As she descended a set of stone steps, and began to near alchemical wing’s buildings, Noelle thought she could catch a strange scent hanging in the air. Nothing offensive, just… an odd sweetness. This wasn’t the first time she was working with Albedo’s disciples, and as such had already grown to expect certain things of them. Many of them were so eager to prove their skill that their experiments tended to have a certain flair for unpredictable results. Wonder if this scent was one of them?
Some idle thoughts of what this new apprentice might be like began to float in her mind.
”Maybe they’re someone like that last boy Johannes..? Oh, I hope not, his experiments were always so terribly dangerous.” Noelle shuddered, memories of those half-demolished rooms still fresh in her mind.
She knocked politely on the small side entrance of the building. A moment passed, silence. She knocked again, and this time there was a hurried soft voice from somewhere deeper inside.
”C-coming, just a moment!-”
As Noelle stood there waiting, it became definitely apparent to her that the source of that sweet smell was indeed here. It reminded her a little of the sugary scent of pastries that hung in the air of the kitchen every time the knights held a banquet of any kind.
From inside the building, an almost worrying intensity of clattering and and banging could be heard as the occupant hurried to the door. As it opened, from behind it a head of frizzy green hair and a pair of round-rimmed glasses peered at Noelle. The girl’s appearance was somewhat messy, with crooked glasses, hastily brushed hair and a handful of stains, no doubt of alchemical origin splattered on her clothes. Adorable, Noelle thought.
”Can I help you?” She asked the unfamiliar visitor.
”My name is Noelle, and I’m a maid of the knights of Favonius. The acting grand master told me you were in need of extra hands here? And uhm, is everything alright in there? I heard a great deal of noise just now.” Noelle asked with a mildly worried tone, glancing inside behind the girl.
”A-ah, yes, sorry. All of my equipment is scattered all over the place right now so getting to the door was a small challenge, but I don’t think anything broke..? Please come in though, I could truly use the help right now.” said the messy girl as she gestured for Noelle to enter.
Noelle flashed a brief look of concern over this girl’s priorities lying on the safety of her equipment sooner than on herself, but quickly switched it to a polite smile before entering. As she did, the sheer scale of the mess only began to set in for the first time as wherever she turned, stacks upon stacks of various crates, boxes and bags lay there. It was as if the new apprentice, cleaning her glasses at that moment, had taken with her every scrap of paper and miscellaneous curiosity which she happened to own.
”Ah, I didn’t introduce myself. My name is Sucrose, and I’m a student of bio-alchemy. I-I’m sorry about all the stuff, but there’s a lot of specialized equipment needed for bio-alchemy.” She explained, in a somewhat embarrassed tone.
It was then that Noelle also for the first time noticed, that Sucrose’s hair wasn’t just fluffy, but also concealed a pair of even fluffier ears. They seemed to droop back ever so slightly, as she explained her seemingly excessive amount of luggage. Again, adorable.
”No need to apologise, cleaning messes like this is a great part of a maid’s job.” Noelle reassured her.
”Shall we get started?”
Though the complete mess would’ve looked demoralising even for the most seasoned of the knights’ maids, it quickly began to clear up as the pair began working. Seeing Noelle in action for the first time, Sucrose’s concerns over if the two of them would be able to manage such a workload quickly dissappeared into awe over the sheer amount of strength being hidden in such a petite girl.
As the streets outside grew livelier, and the morning chill seemed to never have existed once the sun rose higher, the cramped and cluttered hallways of the laboratory began to grow spacier. Idle chatter and the laughter of the young women could be heard by passersby and those wasting their night away as the sun in turn now began to go down, and the seemingly unending task drew towards a close. Their faces now lit only by a dim candle and the waxing moon, the two of them sat opposite one another cradling cups of something warm prepared by Sucrose.
Amidst them carrying boxes and sorting through their nebulous contents Noelle had managed to learn quite a lot about Sucrose. How she’d lived most of her life so far in remote corners of Mondstadt, how she’d taught herself basics of alchemy by a collection of books abandoned by a strange traveler, and how she was both tutored and eventually recommended to Albedo by a friend of her father’s.
As she listened to Sucrose talk about her newest experiments and ideas like an excited kid, Noelle raised the cup she’d been holding to her lips and took the first sip. The scent had been warm and earthy, like the roasted nuts sold on that one street stall she’d visited a handful of times with Alice’s daughter. Yet, as the warmth spread on her tongue it was so, so bitter. Much more so than she could stomach. Noelle tried to be courteous and bear it, but the crisis undergoing on her tastebuds was evidently too hard to hide as Sucrose paused for a moment, before speaking in an apologetic voice.
”O-oh, sorry. You don’t like coffee?” She asked.
Coffee. Noelle had heard of it before, but this was the first time she tasted it. Noelle set down the cup, and flashed a smile at the somewhat dejected-sounding Sucrose.
”Ahah, was I really hiding it that poorly?” She laughed.
”This is the first time I’m tasting it. The flavours are comforting, but I’m not very used to bitter things.” Noelle explained. Sucrose’s eyes lit up, and those fluffy ears Noelle had been fixated on earlier also perked up betraying her excitement. She rummaged through a little pouch she had on her belt, pulling out a small phial of something white.
”You know, one of my pet projects in alchemical research is the modification of sweetflowers. I’ve been working on this sweetener for drinks exactly because I don’t really like bitter things either.” Sucrose explained, having already returned to the same fixated excitement she held earlier.
She poured a tiny amount of the white powder on the tip of her index finger, and held it extended towards Noelle.
”Please, give it a try!”
Noelle looked in turn at the finger and back at Sucrose a few times, dumbfounded. Was she telling her to just… lick it off the finger? Noelle’s confusion clearly didn’t take very long to become apparent, as Sucrose’s face suddenly went bright red and she yanked her finger back in a flash.
”S-sorry, sorry..! I- I just… did that on reflex! It’s j-just, how I tasted it while working on it…” She stammered out, her face continuing to get shades redder. Noelle sat completely unmoving for the briefest of moments, trying to stifle her laugh but quickly finding that impossible. As she flew into a laughing fit, all Sucrose could do was hold her face in her hands to desperately cover up the embarrassment of the situation. A moment later, and both of them were mostly calmed down. Noelle giggling and wiping away the tears from her eyes, Sucrose’s embarrassment having died down to just slightly rosy cheeks.
Sucrose’s drink sweetener really did work wonderfully in the end though. With just a pinch of it, the unbearable bitterness of that dark drink was turned into a candylike sweetness. The taste of it affirmed what Noelle had been thinking earlier as well; the source of the sweet scent had indeed been Sucrose’s experiments. Luckily they were of a more benign nature than most of the apprentices’ experiments.
As the moon shone high in the sky and the streets were becoming quiet once again, it had become time for Noelle to return home. Sucrose showed her out, and thanked her for all the help she’d been. Once again wrapped in that woolen shawl, Noelle stepped out into the street and turned towards Sucrose to bow politely. As a proper maid should. As she started walking, Noelle didn’t have time to make it more than ten steps away before she heard a voice calling to her from behind.
”Um, Noelle? Take care getting home. I-I’ll see you around, okay?” Sucrose called out to her in a soft voice. In the dim moonlight, her hair seemed as if it was glowing silver, same as Noelle. The maid waved back, and started to make her way home through these quiet and chilly streets.
Yet, despite the biting winter winds returning with the moon, Noelle didn’t feel any colder. In her chest, a resounding warmth. On her cheeks, a rosy red. In her mind, just one thing.
Sweetness.