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"I truly am sorry."
Marionette hmphed. Gentle though the words were, she could still hear the amusement in his voice. "You could stand to act more like it, then," she said, still not turning around to face him.
"Come now, don't sulk. You know I can't stand to see you so upset."
She rolled her eyes but reluctantly obliged. "If you don't want to make me upset, then you could start by actually sleeping in your own bed for once. Or do I need to have Pulonia hover over you like a child?"
Alain Guillotin actually laughed at that. The sound was as rough as the deep, calloused lines criss-crossing his weathered old hands, but not at all unpleasant. It was also a warm sound, warm like the hearth that she'd just stoked in the other room, or perhaps like a cup of black coffee cupped together between one's hands on a cold winter's eve.
On the whole, she liked making Alain laugh. It was a rare enough sound, one she heard seldom enough that whenever she did manage to elicit one from him, it felt like a hard-won victory. But that didn't mean she felt like admitting as much right now.
"It's not funny," she insisted, turning up her nose at him.
"Right, right you are," said Alain, though the corners of his mouth were still upturned. "I simply found it ironic—normally, I should be the one fussing over you, no?"
"No," Marionette said plainly. "I'm not a child, after all. I've never been one."
Alain's eyes crinkled up at the corners, though whether he was feeling sentimental or stifling the urge to laugh again, she couldn't tell. "I am sorry," he said again. "Will you forgive me for falling asleep at my desk again?"
Marionette stared at him long and hard, trying to decide whether he meant the words or not—though it likely didn't matter. Trying to keep Alain away from his work was like trying to keep a dog away from a bone; even if he stayed away for a week or so, she had no doubt he'd startle awake in the dead of night, totter over to his desk to find something to occupy himself with, and fall asleep again regardless.
"I'll put on the kettle," she said with a sigh.
Twenty minutes later, they had two steaming hot mugs of coffee and a whole smorgasbord of desserts laid out before them. At this hour, tea would have probably been a better choice, but as far as Marionette was concerned, the damage was already done. Alain was wide awake and not likely to fall asleep again any time soon, and a little extra caffeine wouldn't change that. As for the snacks, Pulonia had interpreted the kettle on the stove as an invitation to tea time and had insisted on arraying the leftovers from Marionette's earlier endeavors on the coffee table.
Despite the fact that Pulonia had been built without a voice module, the meaning was clear: a tea party wasn't complete without a sweet treat.
Well, Marionette wasn't about to object to that last part, despite the fact that they were neither drinking tea nor having a party. Sweets did go well with coffee.
She had already polished off two scones and a handful of butter cookies before she realized that Alain was staring at her. He was now sat in his favorite chair, tucked under a thick, woolen blanket and warming his feet by the hearth, but he hadn't touched his drink yet. He just kept his eyes fixed on her, his face inscrutable.
Her face flushed, and internally she cursed her fickle inventor; there was no reason for him to have built her with outward indicators of her embarrassment, but here she was regardless. "What?" she snapped, as though daring him to make fun of her.
Alain seemed to know better than to laugh this time. "It's nothing. You just reminded me of someone."
At those words, Marionette's irritation faded. She suspected she knew where this conversation was going, but she couldn't help the sudden uptick of curiosity that she felt.
She was well aware of the circumstances of her own creation, and that she had been partially based on the appearance of one Mary-Ann Guillotin, now deceased. That she resembled someone else didn't bother her; humans often resembled their blood relatives all the time, and resemblance in appearance had no bearing on how one's personality might turn out.
But it did surprise her. Alain rarely ever made the comparison from his own mouth, and to hear him bring it up now was unexpected, to say the least. "Is it because we're having a tea party like this? You did say Mary-Ann was quite the tea party connoisseur."
But Alain just shook his head. "Not her, although she did love her tea parties, yes. No, I was thinking… of him."
There was only ever one person for whom Alain reserved that tone. "You mean Rene?"
"Yes."
This was almost more surprising than the idea of him comparing her to Mary-Ann aloud. Oh, he talked of Rene often enough, to be sure. Her first few years adapting to her newfound lifestyle and their cohabitation had been filled with stories: stories of every kind imaginable, though primarily of his days growing up with his sister and their friends at the Narzissenkreuz Institute, where they had played at being heroes and dragons before life had complicated things and torn them apart.
From what she knew, Alain had often butted heads with Rene. Their time at the orphanage had been full of petty arguments and disagreements that she frankly found hard to reconcile with the level-headed, even-tempered man who sat before her now. He had always described his friend with the wistful longing of someone wishing to return to childhood, and the better days that had accompanied it. That she and Rene de Petrichor might ever be compared hadn't once crossed her mind.
"You said Rene took an interest in the occult," she said accusingly, as though trying to poke a hole in his logic. "I would never concern myself with something so frivolous."
"Oh, really? The occult is one thing, but what about dessert? I'm sorry to be the one to inform you, my dear, but you are the only other person I have ever seen rival his sweet tooth to such a degree." Alain paused. "Well, his brother was much the same, but Jakob would often complain that he had a stomachache after the fact… you and Rene, on the other hand, never seem to have had any such problems."
The heat came rushing back to her mechanical face again. "H-Having a sweet tooth isn't all that strange! Plenty of people do! I bet Mary-Ann loved sweets just as much as Rene did—more, even!"
Alain took another sip from his coffee, no doubt to cover up the smile that was tugging at the corners of his mouth again. "My sister did love sweets, yes… but not as much as Rene. When it came to everything sweet, he could eat her under the table, I'm afraid."
Marionette turned her nose up at him. "Then I will never touch another pastry again, just to show you."
"Please don't avoid them on my account," Alain told her. When she peeked one eye open at him, he was leaning forward in his chair slightly. "It would be quite the waste. I built you with all the senses that an ordinary human might have because I wanted you to experience everything this world has to offer.
"I used to see food as little more than a means to refuel the human brain, providing us the energy we need to puppet our bodies around, but I know now that I was wrong. I think my friends saw that much sooner than I did. You have to enjoy yourself, for this old man's sake."
Marionette uncrossed her arms, feeling suddenly uneasy. "You're not that old," she insisted, despite having said the exact opposite not so very long ago when urging him to take better care of himself. "You'll be around for a while longer, won't you, Alain?"
He was silent a moment, staring into the depths of his half-drunk coffee as though he could see something beneath the surface that she could not. Silly though it was, Marionette wondered for one brief moment if he might have caught sight of the Fell Dragon slumbering within its depths.
"Of course," he said at last. "I will… be with you for as long as I can. It's the least I can do."
Instinctively, she reached out a hand until he slipped his own into her grasp. The familiar whorls and rough, wrinkled edges of the skin assuaged that pang of anxiety that she'd felt. "Then you have to listen to me. No more falling asleep at your desk, alright? It's too cold for that sort of thing. You'll ruin your health if you keep this up."
Alain stared back at her, but the look in his eyes was still as faraway as it had been when he'd looked down into his cup. "I am sorry," he murmured, "for making you fuss over me so. It really should have been the other way around."
It was half past one in the morning when Marionette heard a knock at the door.
She froze at the sound immediately, her hand halfway to the screwdriver which she'd been using to tinker with her latest invention. It was only a surveillance drone, nothing like the hulking landcruisers that she'd already built for combat purposes earlier—but that didn't matter. That the work was technically rather dull, that she hadn't been asleep, even the fact that her mind had already been wandering before the knock had sounded, none of those things were important.
It was about the principle of the thing. Here she was, hard at work in her own room, late into the hours of the night, and someone had had the gall to come knocking on her door without a care in the world.
She was fairly sure she knew who it was, too.
Marionette set the drone aside gently, then leapt to her feet with an equal lack of grace. "I already told you, quit parking yourself outside my bedroom door!" she growled, flinging the door open. "I don't want to be a private audience to your little concerts anymore, Columbi—"
Her words cut off abruptly. On the other side of the door, staring impassively back at her, was not Columbina, but a far less anticipated visitor.
Arlecchino.
Well, to say that it was just the one visitor wasn't entirely honest, either. No sooner had Marionette taken in Arlecchino's ever-stoic, tall, sharp figure than she finally registered that La Signora was with her. Marionette almost hadn't noticed her, given that the woman was slumped over and half-unconscious, her head nestled against Arlecchino's collarbone as the fourth of the Fatui Harbingers held her effortlessly in place with one arm.
"Can I bring her in?" Arlecchino asked. Her eyes, unnerving as ever with their strange, x-shaped pupils, flicked briefly to the sofa in plain view behind Marionette before fixing on her again.
"Wh—I—how—" Marionette stumbled over several question, each quite fair in their own right, and found herself unable to voice any of them. She was not quite sure where to begin, which only left her to decide whether to acquiesce to Arlecchino's request or not.
This wasn't the House of the Hearth. The other woman might be her senior in rank among the Harbingers, but that didn't mean she could simply force Marionette to give her access to her personal quarters whenever she felt like it. Unlike the children of the Hearth who followed Arlecchino's orders to the letter, who never dared to call her anything other than Father as they clung to her shadow, Marionette wouldn't let herself be intimidated into doing as she asked.
…In the end, she still let Arlecchino in, though. It was less hassle that way, and more importantly, she was worried that prolonged conversations in the wide, echo-y hallways of the Zapolyarny Palace might actually catch Columbina's attention in the end.
If that happened she would have to deal with the girl's incessant, eerie singing the whole night anyway. Better to limit tonight to two unanticipated guests instead of three.
"She's drunk." Marionette let out a disdainful sniff over her cup of coffee—black, just as Alain had taken it all those years ago. Unlike him, she wasn't averse to milk or cream in her beverage, but tonight she didn't feel like such pleasantries. Instead she glanced ruefully towards the half-unconscious Rosalyne now draped unceremoniously over her sitting room sofa; calling her by Harbinger title seemed wholly unnecessary now that she was here in such a state.
And unlike Arlecchino, Rosalyne was not her senior. Marionette could call her whatever she pleased.
"She is." Arlecchino sipped at a similarly pitch-black cup of coffee without even waiting for it to cool first, seemingly unbothered by the heat.
"And your first thought, for some reason, was to bring her to my room."
"Indeed."
Marionette tried desperately to rein in her temper. Conversations with Arlecchino were often like this, whenever it was just the two of them: she was a woman of few words, never keen to let on whatever she was thinking. "Can I ask why you brought her here of all places? You could've just dropped her off at her own room."
From her place on the sofa, Rosalyne groaned a soft no.
Arlecchino inclined her head ever so slightly in the other woman's direction. "She didn't seem to want to be alone."
"Well, you could have stayed with her then. Just the two of you," Marionette added through gritted teeth. It was probably for the best that Alain had built her teeth out of such durable ceramics, for she was sure that otherwise she would've broken one in frustration long ago otherwise.
"I thought she might prefer your coffee. That it might help her… sober up."
Both of them glanced towards Rosalyne again, who had made no moves towards the cup of coffee placed within reach on the nearby table. Instead she was face-down in a pile of pillows, snuggling one close to her chest as though it were hers. Marionette wrinkled her nose and made a mental note to wash the lot of them tomorrow; she had done the embroidery on those pillows herself and wasn't keen on the idea of them being drooled on.
"Why were you out so late, anyway?" She was so appalled at Rosalyne's behavior that she decided to change the subject entirely.
"She had tickets for the Korolevskiy troupe's performance tonight," said Arlecchino. "And afterwards she was so moved that she insisted we go out for drinks."
Marionette sat up a little straighter in her chair (not that her posture wasn't always perfectly lady-like, with the clockwork key in her back). She couldn't help but find her interest piqued. That the Korolevskiy troupe had put on a good show was nothing new. That Rosalyne's heartstrings had been tugged to such an extent, on the other hand, was. "It must have been some show, then," she prompted.
"Quite. You know she has a soft spot for tragedies about lost love."
From the sofa, Rosalyne let out a gentle snore, then startled half-awake. "It's a shame you couldn't come, Sandrone."
"Indeed," Arlecchino said again.
Marionette put down her cup and saucer with a little more force than necessary. "Honestly, Arlecchino, I don't know why you spoil her so. We may work together, but she's a grown woman—older than you, in case you forgot."
For a moment she thought of threatening to bring up Rosalyne's behavior with the Tsaritsa, though she quickly discarded the idea. For one thing, Rosalyne was usually much more competent than this: as the Fatui's resident La Signora, she went about her work with equal parts elegance and lethality in a way that Marionette couldn't help but respect.
Much more importantly, it just wasn't worth the trouble. The idea of having to give a report on one of her fellow Harbingers before Pulcinella while Pantalone smiled knowingly and tutted about salary cuts and reprimands in the background repulsed her. On the whole, she thought she'd prefer the drooled-on pillows to losing hours of her life over that, thank you very much.
Arlecchino said nothing and simply finished the dregs of her coffee. If she'd taken offense to Marionette's words, she didn't show it.
Marionette sighed. Perhaps she'd overstepped. "What I mean is… she's not one of your orphans at the Hearth, you know. You don't have to take care of her like this. She should be more than capable of taking care of herself."
Not so long ago, she would've said that Arlecchino was far too aloof to bother with such things. Marionette might be a living, breathing clockwork doll, but of the two of them, the Fourth of the Fatui Harbingers showed far less emotion.
Now, though, it was as though Arlecchino had decided to let down her mask, if only by a centimeter or two. She folded her hands in her lap, the same dark, murderous hands she'd no doubt killed hundreds with by now, and said something that sounded almost… wistful. "In my experience, those who seem like they can care for themselves need a little reprieve from it all the same as anyone else."
"Does that apply to you, too?" Marionette asked.
She had heard all about what happened to the previous Knave—about the years of mistreatment and abuse she'd put her 'children' through. Crucabena had always said that such things fostered a spirit of 'self-sufficiency,' but given that Arlecchino had clawed her way out of that hell and taken the position for herself, it was clear who'd gotten the last laugh.
"Who can say?" Arlecchino met her eye levelly. "I have my children to keep me company at the Hearth, so loneliness is something of a stranger to me. But for someone like Rosalyne, who's lost everything? I thought… perhaps she could use the company."
For a moment, Alain's face flashed through Marionette's mind. She began to wonder if there was more to why Arlecchino had come here than that weak excuse about the coffee sobering Rosalyne up. She clenched her first, looking down at the flickering shadows the fireplace cast across the floor.
As if Marionette could ever be so weak. As if she would ever need anyone's pity.
She stood up abruptly, almost knocking against the coffee table as she did so. "Don't forget to wash the cups when you're done," was all that she said as she turned and went back to bed.
When she opened her eyes, it took Marionette a moment to remember where she was.
She had thought sleeping on the floor of Silvermoon Hall would be uncomfortable—for all the Frostmoon Scions' talk of it being a holy place, it was still a glorified cave, after all. But she'd been wrong. As she woke lying on her side, she realized that the blanket of flowers spread out beneath her were far softer than she'd given them credit for.
"Good morning, Sandrone," said a voice from behind her, equally soft as the flowers themselves.
Marionette slowly turned around to face the source of the voice, one eyebrow raised. "Is it morning already? Just how long did you let me sleep?"
A pause. "No, it's still the middle of the night."
"Then why did you say 'good morning'?"
Columbina tapped her chin as though wondering the answer to that herself. "You were sleeping so soundly. I wanted to be the one to greet you when you woke up."
"You could've just said 'good evening,'" Marionette pointed out, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "You know I have to leave in the morning. If I didn't know better, I'd have thought you were trying to rush me out of here faster."
"I wouldn't do that," Columbina insisted. Her bottom lip began to jut out into a pout, reminding Marionette suddenly of a bird trying to puff up all of its feathers in order to make itself look bigger. "I just thought it sounded more natural that way."
Marionette knew this much, but she hadn't been able to resist the urge to poke a little fun at the other girl when the opportunity presented itself. In some ways, it felt like payback; not so long ago, Columbina had always been the one giving her a hard time instead. It was like she knew exactly which buttons to press to rile her up the most, to get the loudest, most exaggerated reactions out of her.
As though reading her thoughts, or perhaps trying to see if there was some literal button she could press, Columbina began to poke at her cheek lightly. "You're teasing me, aren't you Sandrone? Why would you do something like that? I've always been so nice to you, but—" The other girl stopped, her mouth opening slightly as a realization seemed to hit her. "Oh. You were just embarrassed before, weren't you? Whenever I tried to wake you up before, you always got mad at me, but this time you didn't."
And there it was. Marionette felt the heat rush to her face and looked away with a hmph. "I got mad at you because you were always singing right outside my door like a lunatic. Anyone would get annoyed by being woken up like that!"
"But I only sang to you because I knew you liked my voice."
The words weren't a question, but delivered with the utmost certainty. Once again, Marionette felt all her algorithms and computations fail her as she was left at a loss for words. Despite the fact that Columbina kept her eyes covered more often than not, it was like the girl could see right through her, straight into her very core.
"I never said any such thing—"
Columbina smiled. "It's okay if you're still embarrassed to admit it even now. I won't tell the others."
Marionette clenched her fist. So much for getting payback. No matter what she said or did, Columbina always seemed to get the upper hand again eventually.
"Good morning, Sandrone," Columbina said again, her smile brilliant. "Did you sleep well?"
Deep breaths, Marionette reminded herself. She was here spending the night with Columbina because she wanted to be, not because she'd been strong-armed into it. And most importantly, it wouldn't be very lady-like to lose her temper over such a small disagreement. "…Well enough," she said, shrugging. "It's warmer here than I thought it would be."
"That'd be the Kuuvahki. The moon's rays always keep this place nice and warm, even on the coldest nights."
For a moment, Marionette considered retorting that that couldn't possibly be true—the whole reason she hadn't known the time was because this cave had no skylight or view of the outside, after all—but she decided against it. Columbina had always been cryptic and mysterious, and she knew the lands of Nod-Krai better even than the Fatui who'd come here to study it for years. If she said it was so, maybe she had a point. Maybe she was shining her own rays on this place; she was the moon goddess, after all.
In a way, even these small disagreements between them were almost nostalgic. The old her wouldn't have thought it possible, but had she actually missed them?
…No. She knew better than that. It wasn't the arguments that she'd missed, but Columbina herself. The dove-like girl, her gentle voice, the strange clarity with which she seemed to see the world: she'd missed all of it.
For the first time since Marionette had sacrificed her life to bring the Frost Moon back and been reborn in the process, here they were together again at last. Just the two of them.
"Sandrone?" Columbina's head was tilted to the side questioningly. Behind her, several Kuuhenki spirits tilted their heads along with her, as though imitating her every move. "You're very quiet. Normally, you'd have yelled at me to stop being silly by now."
"I don't always yell at you." Marionette insisted on pointing this out, for her own honor if nothing else. "And when I do, it's usually because you deserved it. I was just… thinking."
"What were you thinking about?"
The idea of admitting to her own sentimentality was downright nauseating; as much as she'd missed Columbina, she couldn't just admit as much to the girl's face. "About work," she said instead. "Some of us are still Fatui Harbingers, you know."
It wasn't a complete lie: as she had already been too away for far too long, she had promised to set out for Snezhnaya the following morning. Many miles away, the Zapolyarny Palace awaited her, and the Tsaritsa with it. She would have a lot to explain in person, especially where her own contributions to the events that had unfolded in Nod-Krai were involved.
Columbina deflated visibly, that same pout from before already tugging at her lips again. "I wish you didn't have to leave. You should just stay here with me instead."
"What, forever?" Marionette was so surprised that the words had already left her mouth before she had a chance to even think about what she was saying.
"Or you could come to the moon with me, if you'd like. It's nice up there. Peaceful."
Marionette considered this. It wasn't every day that someone was offered a chance to come see the moon for themselves, let alone by the deity that lived there. If she went with Columbina, she'd have a chance to investigate one of the foundational pieces of Teyvat's creation for herself, to see real dragon-made technology up close and personal. And none of her other coworkers would ever interrupt her research again.
Well, none of them save one.
"I'll pass," she said after a moment, trying not to let on that she'd been quite as tempted by the offer as she was.
"Oh." Columbina puffed her cheeks out. Despite the fact that they had no real 'faces' to speak of, Marionette would've sworn that the Kuuhenki behind her were trying to do the same. "Will you come visit me, then?"
Marionette could've said, who would want to visit your great big rock in the sky? She could've said ask me again after you've cleaned it up, dummy.
Instead, all she said was, "Of course."
The effect those words had was instantaneous: Columbina's face lit up in a way that made Marionette suddenly very sure that the moon did shine inside Silvermoon Hall. She cleared her throat and looked away, feigning a yawn.
"I'm still very tired," she lied. "I should probably try to sleep a little more before morning comes."
"You don't look all that tired, though. I actually thought you seemed quite well-rested."
Urgh. Did she have to point it out so directly? "W-Well I am! I've needed more rest lately to repair the damage that was done to my core," Marionette insisted. "I just, you know… I don't know if I could fall asleep again right away. Do you think…"
She trailed off, suddenly hesitant. Briefly, she thought of Alain dozing off at his desk, of Rosalyne draped on her sitting room sofa. Of the hundred little acts of kindness she had participated in and been offered without ever fully registering them before.
Marionette forced herself to say the words that were stuck in her throat. "Do you think… you could sing to me while I sleep?"
Columbina opened her eyes for once. Rationally, Marionette knew that the girl could still see and sense the world around her with her Kuuvahki, but it was always something of a surprise nonetheless to see her with her eyes wide open. It was as though she wanted to see for herself whether Marionette meant what she'd said.
Then, slowly, she nodded. Marionette had wondered if the other girl might tease her again, the way she so often did, but instead she did something far more unexpected: she patted her lap.
"Here," Columbina said. "Lay your head here, and I'll sing you to sleep."
Marionette wanted to balk at that, but seeing as this had been her suggestion in the first place, she really didn't have any other recourse but to scoot closer and do as she was told. At least there was no one else here to witness her embarrassment, aside from the handful of Kuuhenki floating through the flowers.
Under her head, Columbina's lap was soft. When she opened her mouth to sing, her voice was even softer.
"Good night, Sandrone." Columbina's singing broke off just long enough for her to whisper in Marionette's ears, running her feather-light fingers through her hair. "May the moon watch over your dreams."