#also a note: “as bruised thorn wilts” happens before “monsters” :3c

[chucapybara]

—as bruised thorn wilts.

some thoughts on innamorati and arlecchino's first few meetings.

the arlerati brainworms really wouldn't let me rest until i get these ideas down 😭 it just kept going... it's 1.8k words...

no particular cw just a lot of mindless, rambly brainrot and inna vaguely dishing out her "love" (hint: murder)

the duty of a ferryman is to guide a voyager from one point across the river, to wherever their destination beckons them. through snow and rain, the unfettered innamorati abides not by weather, but by the calling of her passengers and the calling of her majesty's mission.

and so, when she finds a lost snezhevich in the wilds of elynas—young still, no taller than her hip—inna knows she must safeguard his return.

the child, having been separated from the rest of his siblings, was compelled to wander by tales of the beast whose bones now lay slumbering, fused in grass and soil. one of such youth had no purpose there so far away from his "family", and had gotten himself into trouble with the local creature population.

bearing fistfuls of hail and frostwind comets, innamorati had descended then upon the breacher primuses assaulting him, to the little snezhevich's amazement. a knight clad in armour dark as the twilit sky—yet with a kind touch in spite of their harsh scolding, kneeling down to speak in lowered tones and inquire what would bring him thereabouts.

innamorati knew this place well, could taste the taint of abyss even through the sheet of her helm. it was no place for a young boy.

she escorts the snezhevich back to the rest of his group, then back to the court of fontaine. they speak to her about the things they found amid the marrow, the curious plague upon the earth turning the grass as sundered violets.

rainbow roses, the rare sprout, had been the eye of their venture: a gift, they said, for their elder brother, before their sibling had wandered astray. to pick the carefully cultivated roses near the fount of lucine and within perimeter of the court might warrant trouble, and being the spry imps they were, had dared to brave the sea and to cross into the beryl region on their own.

for the most part, inna counted herself impressed by their courage (and their audacity). she made it known so, as their boat crossed the waters where it would be safer, still. she had the least liking for children, but it did not escape her the endearing quality to their spoils: a small bouquet of rainbow roses, clumsily held within a table napkin. a modest gift, to be sure, but one of great heart.

her odd kindness was not lost upon the children, either. where innamorati made to depart from the court—she was not particularly welcome in many cities, due to the nature of her profession—the snezheviches and lone snezhevna tugged at the cool, almost icy metal of her gauntlet, pulling her with them.

(children of snow ought not have any qualms in touching this frostbitten elegy, as is their birthright; and even little favours such as this deserve utmost thanks, as it was how they were raised.)

it wasn't long before their residence came into view: the hotel bouffes d'ete, headquarters to the house of the hearth, where a familiar duo stood speaking by the door.

a notable magician's hat, and a pair of quaint cat ears. their voices are hushed, a secret spoken between brother and sister.

as they received the gifted flowers and welcomed their lost siblings, who then in turn introduced the obsidian knight that had led them home, eyes fell upon innamorati. but of those eyes came a pair not present in their midst—the gaze of baleful scrutiny.

as she tilts her helm in its direction, innamorati almost believes a pair of crimson crosses had flashed just by the second story window, before vanishing like a spectre.

arlecchino hardly ever went uninformed by matters of consequence both dire and miniscule. after all, as a diplomat and fatuus, every morsel of information did not come without its value, however minute.

thusly so, it was not lost to her, the identity of that armour-clad figure. every harbinger ought to know the movements in relation to their ranks, and when an addition had been made upon the lowest rung, she'd thought little of it—another pawn to the tsaritsa, and no more.

so who could draw blame at her suspicions, when the abyssal spawn adopted by her majesty had personally seen to escorting her children back to the hotel? she had heard wind of the flesh that creature had torn apart with bare tooth and nail, of how they had feasted upon the denizens of the tsaritsa's domain; and how the tsaritsa had glimpsed the sane wedged in their madness, and thought hopefully of the nourishment those lives had offered to a potential servant of hers.

“even a collared devil must surely, too, have its benefits to keep.”

no more than a chained beast, made to amend for those troubled villagers she had fed on. arlecchino almost pitied the poor thing.

albeit so, the children—arlecchino could see—were nary scratched or nicked in their return. they seemed almost joyous, in fact, perhaps sheepish as they offered lyney a bouquet of rainbow roses held together at the stems by a tablecloth. a crude gift, but a gift nonetheless. so, perhaps, let the children be.

the knave's gaze would return once more to that armoured veil. the way they stood, almost timid in the throng of her fosters, uncertain. it seemed almost...

human.

innamorati had very little need for accommodations: a boon to the finances of the fatui. having dug her way out of the recesses of the earth after five abyssal years meant there were few conditions inna could not survive in, maybe none at all.

after completing an excursion of her own into sumeru and handling affairs of some stragglers (affectionately, in that morbid way of hers), innamorati received a letter from a scout that spent quite some time seeking her.

work to be done in fontaine, once more. more affections to ferry across the seas, and with it, a peculiar offer: an invitation, as guest, to board for a time at the hotel bouffes d'ete, as extended gratitude for returning those wayward children.

as she sits with the letter, her armour still stricken with red, innamorati thinks then of the little ones she had found traipsing around elynas, the magician duo.

the crimson x's from the window.

there would be no purpose to it. her work did not need to involve the house of the hearth or its director, but perhaps there was no undoing the ties she had woven on that day. the memory of that family’s “warmth” still lingers, tantalising, tempting—a moth to a flame, an invitation sitting on parchment in her hands.

the sweet tang of iron wafts through her visor. a limpid growl churns in her frigid soul, the rousing of another within.

she'll consider it, later, once she has quieted her little beast.

the day innamorati arrives is not the bloodstricken hour—that is to come yet.

she doesn't quite know what to do with herself in the lobby of the bouffes d'ete. the air is sweet with the fragrance of flowers—almost too sweet, she thinks—and cinder from the ever-flickering hearth, lending a warmth to the room that almost drew dew across her armour. cold, versus heat.

the children welcome her, and they speak of a "father" who is yet to arrive. inna vaguely recalls. they have not met in person, but she has heard of the woman: the lord they call knave.

one cursed, knowing another of similar ilk. but as innamorati stands in the presence of the knave's children, she couldn't help but find them pure as the untouched fire, with a lingering shade to them—the shade, perhaps, of the acts their life has led them to do.

there is an offer of a hearty meal, but innamorati politely refuses. she does not remove her helm, after all, in the presence of others; her visage is a mystery, even to inna herself.

(she almost fears what she might see, at this point.)

in return, she offers a chest of trinkets and baubles, toys and other useful things, treats and foods: items she’s procured during her time in sumeru. a guest, of course, musn’t come without bearing gifts—to do so would simply be rude, and innamorati was anything but rude. a callous lifetaker, perhaps, but certainly not rude.

as the fosters begin proclaiming which of the gifts are theirs, that familiar looming presence once more returns to haunt her. not the one that resides beneath her skin, but the other.

the “father” has arrived.

when the children rise to greet her, innamorati does the same. the sharp resounding steps, a distinguished gait, a cold and calculating gaze sharp as the gleam of a scarlet blade—there was no doubt that she was the fourth of them, indeed, an indisputable fact. in comparison, innamorati may as well have been nothing.

neither of them speak, for a moment, merely trading stares of acknowledgement. the recognition of one fatebringer to another: murky shadow beneath a visored helm to baleful crimson x’s.

“a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, innamorati.” she speaks the name with tempered intrigue, enough to make the discernment of tone difficult. neither a threat nor a welcome, but a measured neutrality.

innamorati tilts her helm, ever so slight. “a sentiment i share, lady arlecchino.”

it is the first they ever meet in person, and the first of many others to come.

for someone dubbed a chained beast, arlecchino found great interest in the manner by which innamorati interacted with the hearthfolk. the lovers seemed almost timid in the way freminet was known for, content merely to observe, her responses to queries quaint and modest—soft, almost. it felt nothing like the vicious bite she had expected out of a muzzled taskdog.

perhaps arlecchino had been too quick to conclude anything about the knight.

inna’s words held an underlying melancholy to them, even as she spoke of other things: the meaning of this sumerian gemstone inlaid upon this brooch, the background of the artisan who crafted that vibrant spinning top. she spoke with respect, which could hardly be said for many other fatuus, especially among the other harbingers.

but her tales—ah, innamorati’s tales. the knave had no shortage of stories all her own, but she was oft content to lend the stage to others, to let them speak; for in speaking can one reveal aspects of who they are to those who listen. a most apt technique indeed for information gathering, and one that brought to her some surprises.

what had taken possession of innamorati, then, to have raised her to just below tartaglia’s rank? what had she glimpsed in the depths of the abyss that she would hide away from all the world, veil her countenance, and become as another? perhaps it is the softness she shares in him, that childe; the softness unbecoming of the tsaritsa’s most dangerous.

it felt almost like reverence for the world, a love for the life that went into every little thing she brought to the hearth that day.

needless to be said, of that first visit, the children lacked for nothing by way of stories to carry regarding the gifts they chose for themselves.

somewhere, somehow, a feeling stirs in arlecchino. a burning curiosity, she finds, to gather all that she can on this beast parading within metal skin.

would she still be a knight, then, at the end of those flames—virtuous and upstanding in the ways decreed by the tsaritsa? when the veil has been turned to ashes, what ever shall remain in her wake?

she cannot help but sense a pulsing eagerness to find out.