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"It would seem I owe you a debt, Lady Moonchanter.”
Lauma jumps out of her skin. Her ears are keen, and the forest usually warns her of anyone’s approach — but the moon is high, now, most animals on Hiisi Island are long asleep, and this… interloper is a shadow.
She rises from her meditation in the cool, moon-bathed pool and turns, scanning the grove until she spots the two red coals burning in the darkness. The hair on the back of her neck stands on end.
“Please, step into the light,” she calls, hoping her voice does not shake overmuch.
The Knave obliges, preternaturally fluid in a way Lauma is accustomed to associating with only Kuutar. Despite herself, Lauma falls a step back, the water in the pool rippling, casting lattices of refracted light on the trunks of the hemming trees.
How long has the Knave been lurking here? Lauma had heard nothing. Even now, though her ears tilt and flick, she hears nothing. Not the weight of the Knave’s shoes on the grass. Not the rustle of her clothes. Not the breath in her chest. In her experience, fatuus has always been somewhat synonymous with machinery, and noise, and grating manners. The Knave, however… she is unsettling in her own peculiar way.
“Forgive me for my rudeness,” Lauma manages at last, “But if you are here to see Kuutar, you have come to the wrong place. The kuuhenki will show you the way, if she desires to see you.”
“I have already visited Columbina. My business is with you,” the Knave answers, striding toward Lauma’s pool in an even, deliberate gait. “It seems you have taken good care of her. Thank you.”
Off-balance, Lauma breathes: “It’s nothing. Kuutar…Columbina,” she corrects, for though Kuutar insists she has little preference for what she is called, it seems that she gravitates more toward this name, and Lauma wants to do everything she can to make her happy, even in such a small way. “—is family to me. I had hoped to make her feel welcome.”
“‘Family’,” the Knave echoes the word, drawing it out like a blade. “A curious choice of description.”
“Is it?” Lauma bristles, “I thought it rather apt.”
The Knave looks away from her, crossing her arms and cocking a hip. “Family can mean many things, Lady Moonchanter.”
Her tone is cool, but beneath it Lauma sees a dream of a dream of something that aches.
She does not have a script for this. Lauma is used to relying on one in situations when she is at a loss for words. It leaves her awkward and unsure, as she often is with the Traveler, but she trusts the Traveler. The Knave, however… What would Nefer make of this? Lauma has no talent for anticipating ill-intent. She trails her fingertips over the water to steady herself, focusing for a moment on the gentle moonlight kissing her skin. Even if the light is facsimile of the real thing, it is still a comfort.
The Fatui have been turning Nod Krai upside down, tearing it apart in their search for their missing Harbinger. From what Lauma has gleaned, Kuutar had every reason to leave. She worries… the Knave and Kuutar seem…close. Kuutar is wise, but at times she reminds Lauma of a little child in the way she interprets others’ motivations. Lauma…worries…
“She has no wish to return,” Lauma says softly. “I would stop you.”
The Knave laughs.
“That’s quite admirable. You’d try.”
Lauma bristles again, her spine snapping taut. She takes a step for the Knave, who merely studies her, unblinking, and goes on: “I have no intention of taking her freedom away from her. I told you that I came to help a friend, not in my capacity as a harbinger.”
“You must forgive me for my mistrust,” Lauma answers unapologetically.
“On the contrary, I find lack of vigilance inexcusable. That you mistrust me is another mark in your favor.”
This conversation feels like slipping on wet clay. Lauma wants out of it. “Why are you here, Lady Harbinger?”
“Arlecchino,” she insists icily, baring her teeth. “I have said why I am here. Ask me a different question.”
Lauma steps out of the pool and onto the soft grass, spongy from dew. “Why are you still here, then?”
“Debts must be repaid. Thus, I will pay mine with a warning. Do not bring the child suffering from this…kuuvahki affliction to Nasha Town.”
Taken aback, Lauma stares at her. “Kaarina?”
The Knave brings a finger to her lips. “Columbina told me the tale. She is quite concerned for you, in her own way. I have my concerns as well. Keep a close watch over this child, and keep a close watch over yourself. Who in Nasha Town is aware of this predicament?”
Lauma shakes her head. “Only a few.” And she trusts Nefer implicitely. But… “I told her mother to seek help from the doctors there. They are better equipped—”
The Knave makes a displeased noise in the back of her throat. “It’s unfortunate that some word of it has already escaped Hiisi Island. You must keep her here, and watch her at all times. You, likewise, with your abilities, should not be alone, and you must not trust anyone who offers treatment.”
A pit forms in Lauma’s stomach. What, exactly, had Kuutar told her? “I am not quite sure I follow.”
The Knave… Arlecchino…sighs, sounding irritated and tired. “What do you know of the Second of the Fatui Harbingers?”
Until quite recently, Lauma had not known anything about the inner workings of the Fatui at all. She rarely troubled herself with the matters of the outside world. Even Nasha Town still felt foreign. If she had questions, she knew where she could access answers. She shakes her head. “Nothing.” A pause. “Lady— Arlecchino, you must understand: Kaarina will die without treatment. I can only ease her symptoms, not treat them.”
Arlecchino turns from her, head tilting up to stare at the cold face of the false moon peeking through between the canopy of leaves overhead. “There is one of our number, a Harbinger called ‘The Doctor’, who would take great interest in Kaarina. He is already interested in you.” She casts a glance over her shoulder at Lauma that sends a chill speeding down her spine. “Should he hear of this, he will offer treatment. It will likely even be effective, but he will make Kaarina wish for death.”
Lauma presses a hand to her heart. Hatred, contempt drips from Arlecchino’s voice. Its roots sink deep.
Silence drapes over the grove. Neither of them speak for a long time.
Quietly, Lauma says: “This man is your colleague?”
Arlecchino sniffs in disdain. “Fortunately for him. Were we not, I would have put an end to him and all of his detestable little ‘research projects’ long ago.”
More silence passes as Lauma digests this. Much like Kuutar, the Knave is an enigma. Perhaps…even moreso. For a fatuus, she seems to care little for protecting the Tsaritsa’s interests, and she seems to care even less for those she is in league with. The Fatui do not appear to be as united in their love for their archon as they claim. Kuutar bears the same hatred. The same…pain. That was why it had been such a shock to see her trust the Knave so easily, when all she had wanted prior to this was to stay as far away from the Fatui as possible. Her time with them was not kind to her. Kuutar does not speak of it plainly, but Lauma has made her deductions.
“If you have so little loyalty to the faction you serve, how is it that you came to be a harbinger?”
Another sound escapes Arlecchino’s throat — something that is…not quite a laugh, but close.
“Why indeed.” She turns, then, to look at Lauma fully, eyes seeming to glow an even brighter, luminescent red. It’s eerie — how it’s nearly the same color that the flowers in Kuutar’s sanctum glow with in response to fury: half of kuuvahki’s binary. “How is it that you became Moonchanter?”
“I—” it’s Lauma’s turn to look away. “I was born to it.”
It is simply something that is true, that has always been true: Lauma, Moonchanter. Synonyms. One in the same.
“A role you were shaped for,” Arlecchino agrees. “By your ‘family’.”
Again, the word is so cold in her mouth: a small silver blade biting into Lauma’s skin. It’s Lauma’s turn to wrap her arms around herself.
“They taught you what to say, how to move, how to think so that you would become ‘Moonchanter’ — to fill this role for them. A singular path that they believed only you could walk. Fate, if you will. Am I wrong?”
Lauma dislikes this phrasing. She also dislikes that Arlecchino is closing the distance between them, studying her the way Lauma has seen Nefer study a contact she’s plying for information. “You make it sound so sinister,” Lauma protests. “They never wished me harm.”
“Maybe so.” Arlecchino concedes, her tone oddly soft. “Maybe they only saw what you might become and wished for you to live up to your potential. That does not mean it did not cause you harm.”
“You did not answer my question,” Lauma snaps.
“I am answering it. Now, let me ask you a question of my own: why do you stay, Lady Moonchanter?”
Isn’t that obvious? In the antlers growing from her head, the color of the blood in her veins, her sensitivity to the ebb and flow of kuuvahki? “If not me, then who?”
A ghost of a smile slices across Arlecchino's face, sly and knowing. “I find that often, the best way to protect something is to be at the helm of it. Tell me, if you had the choice to seize your freedom, but that meant your responsibilities would fall to someone who wished your ‘family’ harm, would you?”
“Of course not!”
“Of course not,” Arlecchino echoes. She takes a step back, giving Lauma space again. Abruptly, she says, “I have no doubt we’ll see each other again before all of this is over. For what it’s worth, Lady Moonchanter, I voiced strong reservations to Columbina against returning here, and when I arrived at her behest I had every intent of persuading her to seek refuge somewhere else. Yet… your care for her puts me at ease. ‘Family’ is something a person must define for themselves.” She pays Lauma a nod. “I think I like your definition.”
This entire encounter has been so strange that Lauma is still reeling somewhat. It feels like Arlecchino has plunged a fist into her chest, closed her fingers around something that hurts, and squeezed, and Lauma does not know where to begin putting that back into its box. Even so, marked respect fills Arlecchino’s tone which had not been there at the beginning of the conversation, and Lauma now finds it difficult to imagine that she harbors any ill intent for Kuutar, or for Hiisi Island. Fearsome as she may look and be, Arlecchino is a friend of the Traveler, and she seems to be a dear friend of Kuutar, too. That counts for something.
“Thank you,” she says, “And thank you for your warning.” A breath, an exhalation, a truce. She offers Arlecchino a tentative smile. “Come night or day, may the moonlight connect us.”
Arlecchino tilts her head up to the moon above, closing her eyes against the glow with a hum. Then she slips back into the forest, silent as mist.
They are much alike, Kuutar and Arlecchino. Two halves, like kuuvahki, like the moon itself. Lauma has always felt as if she were living on the dark, unseen side of the moon’s surface. It occurs to her: perhaps, in her own way, Arlecchino is too.