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Something about Ajax's tendency to behave stronger than he is is cute, always trying to be the best for his younger siblings like he doesn't have older siblings who do that for him. he is always running off to get into trouble, but when he was younger the trouble was at least manageable enough that you could go get him. There are many times that though he does not call on you, he secretly feels safer having an older figure to hide behind when you come to his rescue in the face of whatever trouble he got into.

At his age, he can barely believe it when you somehow find him every time he gets himself in danger and have no problem getting all up in the face of whoever he pissed off enough to put him in danger. Yes, he gets a stern talking to and a smack on the head for putting himself there in the first place, but the way you would endanger yourself for him...it makes him hug you on the way home every time and often lies as he promises he won't do it again.

He thinks you're just the coolest thing sometimes, but Ajax also likes when you care for him in other ways, like when he comes to you with a book well past his bedtime and begs you to read 'just that one' to him before bed. You grab a blanket for both you and him to hide under and tell him the story he picked, a simple pleasure, but he likes how warm it is when he snuggles up to your side, and you wrap your arm around him. he likes when he falls asleep there, head resting on your chest where he tries to watch the pictures as the pages turn.

He gets tingles up his spine when you stroke his hair as he listens to your voice speak softly next to his ear, calming yet memorising him. It's easy to fall asleep there, hard to wake up wrapped up, snug in a blanket but without you there anymore. He tends to drag himself out of bed with his blanket to see where you went and refrains from whining about it when he finds you tending to one of the younger ones at the request of your Mother. You always make room for him to curl up in your lap anyway and hand the baby off to someone else.

But that's not his favourite thing. His favourite thing and when you and your Father scoop him up and take him out to go ice fishing, carrying him along on your shoulders to the lake your Father must've picked out, thick with ice that he tries to help you chisel out though he provides little in the way of help, as you tell him some story you had heard about and even gossip of your own Father's adventures knowing he finds them exciting.

He wants to hear about 'what you do all day anyway' as he waits for his fish, and you usually tell him some story he thinks is boring and asks to hear about something better, but with little else to say, you have to laugh it off and smother him in your lap in his puffy coat to keep him warm. Until something bites, and he excitedly hops up to get it like the cold doesn't bother him, like the ice isn't slippery and like he won't slip and fall on his butt like he always does.

Something about your little trifles changes as he grows, and something about him becomes less and less like little Ajax, though you coddle him all the same. You always have, he feels so cold in your arms after going missing for three days, hugs you so tightly like you think he'll fall apart even though he says he's fine. He lets you carry him home and scrub him clean in a warm bath, fuss over him like you always do.

And again, you will run to him to protect him when he runs off to start fights far worse than before.

But a little Ajax has to grow into a big Tartaglia someday, doesn't he? Tartaglia doesn't need to call for your help, though the moment he does, you will find him—wherever he ventures.

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Sandrone is not the fondest of her family, and I really don't think she ever has been, but there are exceptions, as with everything. She still holds you dear to her even now.

She misses your affections, really, like being sat in front of you while you would fix her hair. She likes how it feels as you brush the knots out of her hair, gentle enough not to hurt too much and overly apologetic to every noise she makes so that you know she's not too hurt by it. She doesn't know how you did it, just that she would recreate it in a heartbeat.

There were also the times you'd carry her around on your back, body tired and walking becoming too difficult. While her parents didn't want to hear of it, you were on your knees in a heartbeat, offering she gets on. Sandrone liked how close she got to be to you, snuggling up to your back, arms loosely around your neck as she looked over your shoulder and watched the streets go by. Your parents never liked you doing that, but you never seemed to care, laughing it off and carrying on, refusing to put her down.

You didn't care if she denied her liking for things or hid her overexcitement. The moment she wanted to go somewhere, you would take her if you could. Festivals, stores, events, the theatre if you had the money. You would save up every single mora you worked for to be able to take her to the theatre for her birthday and let her watch the performance. She was only vaguely aware of how little your parents contributed toward that, thinking they had been a part of it just as you told her it was a gift from all of you.

She'd go on talking about it for weeks, then start again by the time her next birthday came.

She loved the snacks you'd sneak her, buying her things while the two of you were out and feeding them to her over your shoulder, even your own snacks, which she claimed not to want but would gobble up without a hint of hesitation before admitting they were only "Ok".

Along with these trips she remembers, Sandrone treasures every doll you made her. Even the wonky ones you tried to make by hand when you were a little short on cash. They weren't particularly pretty in a conventional sense and didn't have the same flawless charm as many dolls, nor were they made of porcelain.

Your handmade fabric dolls are imperfectly perfect. The eyes are a bit misaligned, and maybe the mouth is crooked. The arms aren't the same length either, but it hardly matters to her. It was your gift to her, and though she couldn't sit with you and marvel at how beautiful she was like your other gifts of dolls, she could certainly do that herself.

She could sit those dolls among her collection and treat them like priceless works of care and passion because they were. You may not be and probably never will be a famous dollmaker, but they're the most valuable in her heart.

No famous artist would make something that unprofessional, but something about that makes it better. It was made with your love for her.

Besides, she's still sleeping with the first one you made her. Porcelain dolls don't make very good bed buddies. Especially not when trying to sneak into your sibling's bed in the middle of the night to cuddle them where you feel safest. Somehow even if she's so sure she can go back to sleep after she wakes up, she will lay there for what feels like hours (it has been five minutes) and try to sleep only to concede that the other way to sleep is to go get in your bed and cuddle you.

She usually wakes up without you, wrapped up in blankets to keep her warm, and to you shaking her awake after leaving her to sleep in, probably because she stayed up too late. Sandrone's presence is not always unwanted, but you wish she'd stop staying up until ungodly hours of the night to do whatever it is she's doing at that hour, but at least you cover for her. You always tell your parents she's off playing, all the while knowing that you've concealed her in your bed and wait until there's an opportunity to drag her out of bed, clothe and feed her.

It's nice to sleep in sometimes.

Every time you try to leave, there's a child-sized growth attached to your leg, begging you to stay and play with her, usually because she's bored and has no one else willing to entertain her. You wish you could, but know you have to pull her off, kiss her head, and set her back down on the floor.

She wishes you would kiss her forehead in that way even now.

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Transferring to a different sector of the Fatui at the request of a Harbinger is either a sign you're doing a really horrible or a really good job. Yours is the result of an excellent job, it seems, as the Balladeer has taken a liking to you and, with no use for you, your previous supervisor gave you up to him at his request.

It was nerve-wracking at first, unsure of how to adapt to such a different work environment. The way things used to go, even look, changed, and you tried to adjust, but you found yourself confused more often than not. Even worse, it was making you fail in your work, but you tried to fix the issue quietly and turned to fellow underlings for help. It helps a bit, and you become more familiar with this. With a couple of pointers from his old assistant, you learn his preferences. It doesn't go unnoticed, apparently.

Scaramouche seems more pleased with you, surprised at some of the things you know. He's particular and not in the same way as Pantalone. He's a bit fussy, but being a bit fussy is better than being rich man fussy.

The more you became accustomed to him, the more he would open up to you, slowly but surely. It began with little things, entrusting you with jobs he usually wanted to be overseen by nobody but himself. Then came the willingness for an ounce of vulnerability, followed by him hardly wanting you to leave his side under the excuse that he might need you to do something.

Of course, he can't keep this up and relaxes a bit to let you do your work a little easier. He's not trying to smother you or give away that he's worried you'll get into trouble, after all.

Scaramouche asks for your help with things he doesn't even need help with, asking that you either sit and watch or take a menial job in whatever he's doing. Hold the supplies, supervise, anything he can justify. He's just becoming comfortable with having you around and uncomfortable with being apart. It's lonely in a way.

In a sense, he is vulnerable, allowing you to do things he wouldn't allow anyone to do, even just work. Scaramouche lets you cross his guard, push his boundaries, and he gets nervous when you seem unhappy with something until he finds out what. He's touchy with you, not openly, but privately. He lets you do the same, too, as he's less put off by you touching his shoulder or patting his head. It's purely by habit at first, and the first time you did it, he looked shocked that you would dare, but he shook it off and didn't say a word.

What's more, you get to question his orders and assign yourself jobs if you want. Scaramouche doesn't lecture you for that part, only sometimes changing the person doing it if he doesn't want it to be you. However, he will readily lecture anyone who tries to do the same and will not accept being babied by anyone else either. He doesn't want someone else to see him fall asleep doing his work or to calm him down when he gets worked up, and he doesn't want anyone else to have the same hold over him. He thought he wanted the love and care of anyone who would give it, but now he'd...really like it if it was you.

It's not the desire to be with you romantically or want for you sexually. Scaramouche would just be willing to spend all day with you and fight with you sometimes, only to make up the day after. He would be inclined to see you as many days as possible, let you see him like no one else is allowed. It's not about the time but the gentle and caring kind of love you show him. It's about the fact that you stay.

It's about you somehow managing to make him comfortable enough to cry in front of you, which he does not want to do around another person, and you quietly hold him and let him make a wet spot of his tears in your clothes. You stroke his hair and calm him but show no sign of leaving or running off. Many years have been spent treasuring you, and many more will be spent this way. He is so desperate for someone to remain with him, whose life is not fragile, who he is able to trust, and it makes him happy to know that you will stay.

Many find him off-putting, rightfully, but he feels like he cannot push you away but only bring you closer. He doesn't want to be so snappy or crass.

He wants to enjoy the things he felt he couldn't, to let you care about him and tend to him. He doesn't want to stifle your tenderness toward him, having seen it before, and now he wants it. He wants to pretend you've always been there and always will be, that the two of you were meant to be this way since he was born.

He's not going to shake his callous attitude, still denying these things and not eager to share them publicly. He doesn't want people to know that he lets you get away with far too much or that he lets you throw paper back at him after he throws a scrunched-up ball of it at you. Something about these things makes Scaramouche feel giddy, as if the two of you are children playing around in a classroom. He's not sure why. It just makes him playful and far too tolerant until someone knocks on the door or, in some cases, walks right in, like the teacher turning around that makes you both scramble to look like you're working as usual.

He likes to take you out to places outside of work, dragging you off to go with him to various events and taking you out just about everywhere he thinks you'll enjoy when you both have to travel abroad, especially in Inazuma, which he is most familiar with. He wants to dress you up and picture you that way in his fantasy where you have always been with him, a fitting image for the place and time. It's fun to him, making him feel excited even more to be around you now and to take you to see what has become of the places he used to wander.

Scaramouche wants to imagine you knew even Kabukimono, then Kunikuzushi and have been with him until now, even knowing you haven't been there all that time. It's nice to just pretend, though he knows it isn't real. He wants to imagine it when you were younger, helping you navigate the land with him and protecting you. Scaramouch likes to imagine a world in which he used to look after you, even knowing you are the one who tends most to him.

He's very aware that you call him Scaramouche and always have, but that doesn't matter.

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Capitano's fondest memories come mostly from you agreeing to teach him things you shouldn't. Running off into a part of the woods far enough away nobody will see or hear and finding a clearing to teach him how to use a sword. Should you have been doing it? Absolutely not, and especially not so far from your house, but his only exposure to fighting can't be hunting forever.

You started slow with him, cautious. You probably didn't expect him to pick it up as well as he did, because you weren't putting that much effort in at first. You taught him proper form and how to swing it but not much else. There was no technique until he ran around bothering you enough times you got tired of shoving him off.

Unknowingly, you had ignited quite a passion within him.

You were much better than he was, able to maneuver and adapt to your opponent, solely because you had to experience to do so. You were no longer worrying about things like form or how you held your sword. They were memory to you while he was still having to focus to get it all right.

At first, Capitano was embarrassed by your corrections, but they became pointers of where to improve, and he decided instead to treat them like homework every time you'd reach around from behind him and adjust him a little, shuffle his hands a bit and fix his posture, finally tilting his head back to tell him to focus.

He focused so hard, to impress you and persuade you to come back instead of leaving him to practice alone until he irritated you enough about it to make you give in.

Did he enjoy doing that? No. You'd shoved him so many times he'd memorised what hitting the floor felt like. Capitano was desperate, however, to have something he could do with you. He idolised you so much, and finally, he was getting your attention and favour. You were so busy and perhaps cared a bit more for people your age than your little brother, who was immature and reminded you of your younger self, but you were paying attention, and that was what mattered to him.

Strangely Capitano didn't mind every time he hit the ground this time.

At the end of it all, you would sit Capitano down and clean any nick and cuts he'd gotten, whether from your recklessness or his unsteady way of handling that sword. He was not to move or tell your parents unless he didn't want to receive another lesson.

You couldn't teach him as well in the winter, too busy with all the extra chores, but you did take him hunting. You never quite coddled him as much as he might've liked, but you took him to do something fun and spoke to him instead of running off to do it yourself. The only problem was that Capitano never actually got to do anything.

Animals don't linger for the winter, and unwilling to let him and everyone else in the family go hungry, you didn't want him trying. This wasn't a teachable moment. It was time to get food when there was not an abundance of it. Even if all you could get were birds, that was ok. Birds were still something to eat so that he didn't go hungry in your mind.

Ice fishing was the other option, and he was better at that, even when he was young. You'd walk him out to the lake, frozen over and carve out the hole for him to sit and fish in. If Capitano complained enough about the cold, you might lend him your coat and let him sit a little closer. If you got cold, you'd ignore it, but he was smaller and more fragile. He needed those fingers of his to fish and hunt, so losing them to hypothermia was not an option. Maybe that was how you justified letting him sit in your lap while you encased his smaller hand in your own to warm him as much as you could. It wasn't much, but the intention of it all made him giddy.

Of course, when he got overexcited as a result and tried to get you to carry him back, he was hit with a whiplash as you told him to walk. He should've expected that, though.

You collapsing into bed the second all work was done and sleeping like a baby for the next three hours despite it still being afternoon probably should've given away that you didn't walk as much as him. Winter was always too busy for you, and he never fully registered that at the time, only thinking he should wait impatiently.

Your mother asking him to check on you once or twice probably wasn't helping, as he'd always find you just as asleep as he left you. You never covered yourself with the blankets, though. There was no way you were hot, but maybe you were just that exhausted. Regardless, he would always climb onto your bed to fix the blankets for you and cover you up so that you wouldn't wake up from the cold.

Every time he'd tell you it was him who did it to make sure you were warm, he'd get a hug and a pat on the back.

He better not find his way into your bed, though, not unless you were already awake when he climbed in and asked you first. Otherwise, Capitano would wake up cold and on the floor. It wasn't uncommon for him to try to convince you by saying the two of you should pile all of your blankets together and share a bed. He was hardly subtle about the fact he just didn't want to sleep alone and sometimes even got scared when he did.

It was so strange to you when he up and decided he was joining the Fatui one day. Maybe he thought you would be proud or something. You definitely weren't. The exact words you said were something along the lines of how he wouldn't get far because they don't want pansies and wimps among their ranks. Capitano was neither of those things, and it stung a little, at least until it took him all of five minutes to realise you didn't want him to leave.

Of course you didn't, even though he got massively upset at the time. He'd been seeking your approval for years, it was no wonder why.

But in a way, it makes sense. Everything you did, as much as Capitano may not have liked it then, was ultimately because you wanted to protect him in a way that would allow him to protect himself eventually. You never wanted to coddle him too much but guided him and had a shocking amount of patience for his incessant whining and pestering. This was not part of that, letting him wander off to a place you couldn't teach him at a time you thought he wasn't ready.

How would you sit him down by the river and rinse his wounds before walking him home to clean them properly? You hadn't taught him that yet. His food? How would he align his bow perfectly if all he'd done for months was sword practice? Did he even know what it was like outside of your little world?

You were worried for him greatly, understandably, and that was not the kind of reaction he wanted. He wanted you to smile because you thought he was ready, but you didn't, and you might never.

Of course you would show it in that same crass way you always did.

Of course you would beg him, now tall enough to have to look down at you, not to go. The only time he has ever made you cry, as he was always curious if you did, was when you were faced with the prospect of your baby brother possibly getting in over his head and endangering himself with his ambition. He realised then that was what you really wanted, for him to be safe, and he cried with you.

Mind made up, Capitano wanted you to take care of yourself for a while without worrying about him. All he could do was assure you that he would be fine. Eventually, he would make you proud.

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As a child, Dottore's interests were seldom accepted. He was shunned by teachers, avoided by his peers and scolded by his own parents. It's not hard to see why, but he would not simply give up on his curiosity, especially not with you backing him. Admittedly, even you find it a little strange, and he can see that, but the way his eyes light up whenever he tells you about it and his excitement to be able to talk to someone finally has you pushing that aside very quickly.

How much of it do you understand? Not a word, but the point is that you listen at all. He clings to that and treats you like his only friend, which considering how unpopular he is with kids his age, is just about true.

Zandik would sit down with the one or two books he managed to scrounge for information and practically recite their contents to you. It is well beyond what you were able to follow, but if he notices, he doesn't tell you. Why would he want to? Having someone smile while he shares all of his hard work and perseverance is all he wants. He wouldn't sabotage that.

He's quiet when idle, however, with years of being shut down showing through as he stays swinging off of you. Your arms and legs are basically a hanging post to him, no matter how heavy he gets and how close he is to feeling like he could dislocate your arm right out of the socket. It's his way of making sure he doesn't get lost from you and playing around. Like a puppy, he never seems to realise he got bigger until you physically can't pick him up.

It upsets him to find he is now effectively permanently grounded, as his father will hear none of it when he asks him to be picked up, but he can't get stuck on that forever. Zandik doesn't want you to hurt yourself trying to get him off the floor, and pestering your parents only makes trouble for you.

He will not at any point allow you to stop playing with his hair, the other idle action between the two of you as you wrap his loose blue curls around your fingers. Zandik likes to read while he deals himself over your lap like an intrusive cat, mostly because he wants to get your attention and sometimes wants to annoy you. He spends half his life griping for your attention, pulling on your clothes and waving his hands around in your face until you ask him what he wants, quite irritated. He's always giggling about it too.

You always make time for him, especially when he wants to see the Aranara he gets so excited about. He might burst a blood vessel if you don't take him. Your parents don't want to hear of his childishness, though they prefer it to everything else he does. However, they won't take him themselves, so it falls to you. It is a special trip that takes several days of you experiencing life in the rainforests, glimpsing into the luxury of Sumeru City. It is then he proves to you that regardless of whether you take him or not, he'll burst a blood vessel anyway because his excitement is immeasurable. You're pleased enough to see him so happy, however.

Your love is unfortunately not enough to get him friends or the approval of everyone else. Usually, people think of you as polar opposites because of how 'troubled' he is, even if there's not that much that's different about you at all. You are Zandik's only person to confide in as he's grown so resentful of everyone. Somewhere in his mind, he still believes all that they say about him no matter how many times you wipe his tears and tell him you love him.

He doesn't believe that could be true. He believes all the things people say about him and how horrible he is. Nobody could really love a person like him, right? Zandik asks you as much, if you really love him as you say you do. Of course you do. It's just hard for him to accept that's real when he's so isolated.

Really, you haven't seen him for years now. You visit him while he is attending the Akademiya, and bring him food that you used to make him as a child. Even for only a few days, your company is exactly what it always has been. Zandik spends those days telling you everything he's learned and about how everyone else is repulsed by it and believes he's nothing but trouble. The difference is that he became used to it and began to believe what you would tell him about them being old-fashioned.

You cry when you find him there, having not seen him in so long and having spent all of the time since looking for him. Zandik is taller, older and has a scar that tapered down his face. You cry when you see that too, and it startles him into thinking you don't love him anymore if he isn't as cute as he used to be. That is untrue. He quickly learns the reason you were crying was something as minor as not being able to protect him from it, not being there to care for him.

That's so silly, isn't it? He doesn't need you for that.

He really wishes you'd never come back, in fact, that you'd given up and gone home content to live your life without him, but you couldn't, and it has you seeing him be expelled from the Akademiya. Zandik doesn't want to come home, so you don't make him.

Again, he drapes himself over your lap like an attention-starved cat and allows you to play with his hair while he wallows in his misery.

Zandik will figure something out eventually. He always does. If figuring it out entails abandoning himself and accepting an offer to go to Snezhnaya to move to a place where he will have the facilities to do whatever he wants, then that's what he'll do. If figuring it out requires that he leave for a time, then it'll be fine, as you tell him. He'll mail letters to you.

He'll wait for you to find him, no longer Zandik but no less your little brother.

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Many nights spent snuggled up in blankets together for warmth cannot simply be erased by money, nor can the years of malnourishment and sickness. In his mind, that's ok with him, as there's a fondness to it. It's just irritating when others can see it in his face and whisper. Whispers everywhere from those who know he is not an old money aristocrat.

Strangely he wouldn't wish for anything else. He wants the cheeks you used to kiss, the imperfect skin you ran your hands over, the frail boney body you would hug tightly. He treasures the memories he has of you, tracing his features, telling him how much he looks like his Mother. He cherishes that you shared those features with him.

He much prefers you now, healthier weight and beautiful clothes to flatter you that he could spend all day spoiling you with. You have the luxury to do what you want and he wouldn't want you to have to go back to living any other way, even if you're still cautious.

Pantalone does still adore his childhood memories, the times you provided him food and cared enough to feign sickness just to make sure he ate as much as he wanted, all without him realising what was going on. He wishes you hadn't, in retrospect, but making sure you had eaten enough didn't matter when he was right there, always hungry. You took him out to fish with him in the afternoons, and the two of you would share whatever you could catch. You never got to go out, and food was few and far between sometimes, but it was alright.

He loved all the stories you had to tell him, all of which you could make up on the spot, and you'd spoil him in your own way. Pantalone doesn't remember, but he knows you took care of him as a baby while his parents worked, then again as a toddler continuing on until he was a child, and you were still dressing him and making sure he ate during the day and kept him entertained. You tell him the many stories of how you would sleep with him even in infancy to keep him warm and gave him all your blankets as a toddler because he was always cold, with cold hands, a cold head and cold feet, which you would tuck into the bundle he would be wrapped in to go to sleep.

You claim you really had no idea what you were doing when he was barely a few years old, but he lived long enough to become the richest man in Teyvat and spoil you to death despite your objections. He considers it to be treating you as the treasure you are.

Supposedly, the only heartbeat he was willing to hear was yours, not even your Mother's, and he remembers he would fuss for you and cry whenever you had to leave. He wanted to play with you constantly and clung so severely that you sometimes took him out with you. Of course, you weren't perfect and admittedly left him home alone several times once he had reached an age that felt right enough, but it was usually an unavoidable thing. You never particularly wanted to and barely wanted to leave him either.

He doesn't hold you to any of it because, at the time, Pantalone was happy to wander around with you and run to you when he got scared or upset. He loves his parents too, but you were more special than that, somehow. He's not sure why or even what prompted it. He just picked you over everyone and stuck to that for as many years as you would let him, and you let him for a very long time.

Even his clothes, which you would sew with him in your lap, were fixed by your hand. He tried his hardest not to damage them, but whenever he did, you'd tut at him and wander off to find your needle and thread before pulling him into your lap. It was an awkward arrangement, letting him watch from your perspective to try and get him used to what correct looks like. You valued his ability to care for himself.

He would watch the careful stitches into his garments and the way you'd shake your hands when you'd accidentally prick yourself. The final clothes, fixed and back to new, were always so enamouring to him because it seemed like the world was ending just minutes ago before all was fixed by his older sibling.

Constantly he would want your attention and approval, and you would give it to him in droves. Everything he did was so impressive to you, and it pushed him to do even better to make you proud of him. He wanted you to smile when he showed you how far he was getting and to feel your hands run through his hair and congratulate him.

It was part of why he went to Snezhnaya, thinking he could find a job there and save a bit to send his spare money back to you, or move you out to live with him there. For years, you wrote letters to him back and forth, and he would include what little money he had only to find it sent back to him with extra in the following letter that reached him. Every attempt was not only sabotaged but also beaten, and he knew he needed you even if he didn't want you to give him your money. He wished you were spoiling yourself instead of having to support him.

Then suddenly, he had the best possible job in Snezhnaya and made the dumbest decision of his life, sending the whole of his first paycheck to you, telling you to spoil yourself. He hadn't considered how he was going to eat. He was just delighted to think that you might finally be able to eat in luxury and go out to one of those fancy restaurants you could never afford to visit.

Buy a new outfit, eat the food you always wanted from the chef everyone always fawned over, have dessert, go out, buy yourself new sewing supplies, and treat yourself nicely because the moment you're in Snezhnaya he'll be taking you to the best place he can find and buying you anything you want regardless of the price. You leave with a bunch of little trinkets and gifts that he wanted to give to you.

He loves the way you stroke his cheek with those hands that are starting to look like his again.

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Rosalyne was, as children are, young and interested in learning, eager but never quite aware. She loved to trail along by your side as you took her up the mountains to find a patch of flowers, at which point she would plop down in the grass and get to work making herself a flower crown with an extra one so you could match. Since your mother taught her the secret, she had happily taken to it and off to the races she was, linking flowers and matching colours in pursuit of the prettiest arrangement she could make to be her crown.

She long ago decided that Windwheel Asters are among the best, with an interesting shape and fiery red to contrast her blonde hair. Calla Lilies have a similar colour but a bad shape for flower crowns, and Cecilias are too pale to stand out the way she’d like them to. Windwheel Asters are bold and show off her hard work better than any delicate flower could.

Of course, that means she must also find the perfect flower for you, and that’s hard work, but she’ll never stop trying. Rosalyne read in a book about an extinct flower called the Padisarah, a beautiful purple flower that even the Dendro Archon couldn’t perfectly replicate, and decided it would’ve been perfect for you if it still existed. You suspect that it’s only because she can’t have it that she wants it, the allure of something mystical that exists only in the imagination.

She settles instead on the legends of a Liyue flower that blooms at the sound of beautiful music—Glaze Lily or something to that tune. Each time Rosalyne makes a flower crown for you with the next best thing she can find, she claims that one day she’ll travel to Liyue, and when she does, she’ll bring you back one to see how pretty they are as if she has some greater understanding looking at the same picture in her book as you did. Maybe she does.

There is no dream too big, not for Rosalyne. She is desperate for your approval at every turn and wants you to think she’s as cool as she thinks you are. She wants to hear you smile with her despite seeming so far away at times. Her phase of being petty and squabbling with you is over at last, and she seeks the comfort of the one person she looks up to more than anybody for a guiding star to turn to—you.

Your parents are both far away future ideals for an older Rosalyne to aspire to be, maybe with that boy she likes, but you are not so distant. You’re like her, if only older and barely wiser. She sees all that she wants in you, and it makes her look up to your guidance above all else. Her parents are the annoying rule makers who preside over her life and ruin her fun; you’re the fun troublemaker who sleazes the both of you past the city guards and takes her headfirst into the danger of the mountains just so she can play.

Rosalyne thinks of an ambitious future, and your parents tell her to be careful; you tell her to chase it. Become a scholar and do as she pleases. She’s more inclined towards your indulgent way of thinking. You have yet to stifle the burning passion she holds but recognise it, and in your mind, it’s about as cool as dragons could ever be. It is not the worrisome uncertainty of instability and hardship that your parents think it is.

Her heart is set in a far-off place—Sumeru, the Akademiya, where she feels everything will fall into place like a fairytale. Rosalyne has it all figured out, down to the number of boys she’ll reject in pursuit of that boy she has had a crush on since she was twelve.

Even you’re not privy to that, subject to Rosalyne quickly closing her diary or turning away from you, hiding the gifts she managed to get him and letters she wrote out but never could quite work up the nerve to send. It used to be only one of the many instances that would have her yelling at you not to snoop, though it has dwindled to being only one of the very few instances, save for accidentally discovering her in the process of procuring your birthday gifts.

It used to be that you would be searching for your missing things, a few of which had disappeared suspiciously close to your birthday and were found the moment you were proudly presented those very items as gifts from your little sister, sometimes with a daring tale of how she acquired it for you. Most of the time, you acted surprised and grateful, maybe even added a comment about how you were glad you didn’t have to get a new one since Rosalyne had gone out and done it for you. You hid your annoyance at her habit of stealing your things behind thoughts of how cute your mother thought it was that Rosalyne didn’t want to be left out of getting to give you something.

Rosalyne does, however, realise the possible benefit of asking for your help with this boy once she gets over the embarrassment-driven beet-red cheeks and yelling at you. You cannot find her boy and drag him by the ear to her, but you could help her write a letter to him or teach her to wrap that gift she was holding onto. You can do any number of things to help her chances— except talk to him. You can’t do that, or you’ll give it away with that big mouth of yours.

You’re not quite sure how she came to that conclusion.

Her acceptance to the Akademiya came all too quickly. Years seemed to fly by, and her quirks evened out into a young woman your parents were more comfortable sending away to another nation. Their fears of her immaturity and fiery passion dragging her down settled as she did. By the time you were ready to send her away, the encroaching elegance you had seen forming in her younger self blossomed until she carried herself with more confidence and grace than ever. 

Like your parents, you are ready to watch her pursue that dream and come home to see the boy she likes still waiting for her. You make sure she knows you’ll be there too, maybe even come visit every now and then and see Sumeru for yourself.

As she leaves, you reveal what you’ve been hiding for her—a single red flower. You’re not as practised at the art of making flower crowns, but you found her this. This is all you can offer that she can carry with her until it wilts away.

Chapter Text

Biologically speaking, the two of you are not related in the slightest, but it’s not uncommon for children in the House of the Hearth to choose their siblings and stick by them until the inevitable moment they either remain together or are parted by responsibility. You have been there and guided Arlecchino through the orphanage since she first arrived from Fontaine. Arlecchino might’ve been lost and confused for much longer if not for you.

Instead, she had you, a little older and wiser, to walk her around and teach her how things worked.

The moment she arrived, your guardian, the Knave—now her guardian as well—pulled you over to meet her and asked you to show her around and make her comfortable in her new life. Your new little sister, she called her, and she stared at the woman dumbly before you stole her opportunity to ask him what she was talking about, whisking her away.

You took her to see everything, showing her off to as many people as you ran into and introduced her as you went. She felt like a shiny new toy in an overcrowded playground, and you let her revel in it until it tired her out. 

Once the fanfare died down a little bit, you took her to find an unoccupied bed to put her things on. There weren’t many, but you offered to help her find a place for them nonetheless. You got a sheet and blanket from the linen closer to make the bed for her and helped her stand a few things up on the headrest to make it her own. Despite her apprehension, you almost managed to make living here seem just a little less bleak; looking over her bed, made and decorated with her stuffed toy and a few personal belongings she’d brought, it felt a little more like home. 

You assure her all will be fine, the only thing even close to soothing in the whirlwind that was coming here, and point her in the direction of your bed not too far away. The one with the overcoat laid on the end of it. You always put it there when you’re not wearing it, apparently.

She refrains from asking why you’re not wearing it and why you own one of the grey and red coats she recognises from the fatui footsoldiers she saw wearing them.

Most importantly, you teach her the rules: behave yourself, clean up after yourself, bedtime is nine pm, and not a minute later, finish your dinner— 

“Even if you’re full?”

“Even if you’re full.”

and the most crucial rule: never make the Knave mad.

“Why?”

“Just don’t, ok?" 

Arlecchino doesn’t dare question why again. You know best, and something in your eyes tells her she should trust that.

Through tense, dreary halls, you lead her with a skilled hand and the favour of the Knave. She runs to you in the middle of the night when the far-off screams scare her awake, yet despite your promises, you are nowhere to be found, and neither is your coat. It’s a suspicious absence you explain away with housework and chores. The children jump at the chance to see you, and you greet them much more warmly than the stoic Knave. Everyone tells her you have something the others don’t, and she should stay in your good graces for as long as possible. The Knave likes you, and you can get anyone out of anything as a result. It’s why she calls you to do everything for her, including taking Arlecchino off her hands and showing her around. You are her best. 

It’s as if you have a sense for every time she breaks the rules. She stays up late one night and sneaks out of bed to keep playing. She is not tired in the slightest and restless beyond belief; she is a child filled with energy and naive to the consequences of her choices. She is caught, of course, the Knave looming over her to ask what exactly she believes she’s doing. She stumbles for an answer. It is just as she thinks the worst has come to pass when you appear in the doorway with a broom in hand. You asked Arlecchino to help you clean up. She’s picking up the toys for you to sweep the floor.

The Knave hardly believes it, but what the others say is true—she favours you. She relinquishes Arlecchino to your care, and you walk her back to bed with the tightest grip on her arm she’s ever felt. Through gritted teeth, you scold her harshly, "Don't ever do that again!”

She almost fears disappointing you more than the Knave.

You make the House feel safe. With you, it becomes a place where one day she may thrive and return to the world a well-raised woman with much promise. You teach her to play the games the others made for themselves and perfect the chores the Knave demands of her. Arlecchino could wish for no greater sibling than you, and you walk her through it with the patience of a saint as if you have done it a million times before.

She runs to you for everything from hurt knees to finding her lost stuffy, where it has run off to. You respond in kind by cleaning and bandaging the scuffs in her skin. You even show up well into the night past bedtime to return her dearest stuffed toy so she can sleep easily. You were happy to stay when she asked you to sit with her until she could fall asleep and stroke her hair to settle her. It is one of the few tastes of home she savours, even though home did not have you there to take care of her.

You are the closest she will ever have to a parent. You are happy to have her wake you up in the middle of the night when she’s scared and needs help, assuming you’re there at all. Most nights, you’re busy cleaning up the messes other children made that would get them in trouble, and you take her back to bed whenever she finds you.

However, it does not take long for Arlecchino to realise why you warned her against angering the Knave. She decides that Arlecchino, at her tender age, is well and truly ready to complete a mission on her own. A terribly simple one, but it scares her nonetheless.

What scares her more is that you bargain your way into going with her under the guise of showing her the ropes.

You are the best guide she can ask for and nothing less as she comes to understand what that coat is for. You’re not just a child of the House; you’re a fatuu. You put it on before you leave and lead her off wearing it, making sure she’s warm and advising her to wear gloves before the Knave practically tosses the two of you into the harsh winter of Snezhnaya to complete the task thrust upon Arlecchino as her first test.

Before anything else, you make that much abundantly clear to her: what Arlecchino does determines her future within the House, and you don’t want to see her fail. You shed your coat to give to her when she gets too cold and hold her hand to force her to continue even when she feels like giving up would be much easier. More than anything, you are loose-lipped and cynical in a way she’s never seen before. Over hours, you drill everything into her head that has been kept from her, the source of the screams she’s heard that everyone seems to ignore, the reason for the abundance of fear permeating the House.

Every part of the carefully crafted wonderland you had been trying to make her falls to pieces before her very eyes as you walk through the snow with a backpack so heavy she begged you to take it from her shoulders. The Knave is a tyrant reigning over the only thing she can control with an iron fist. Whether she likes it or not, there is no escape, and the Knave will hold anything she can over her head.

You dodge the question when she asks what the Knave uses against you.

Arlecchino quickly realises you have seen many children walk the path she is now on, and she dares not ask how many of those you still waste your breath on. You’re sorry. You tried to protect her, but there are some things you can’t do.

The journey is bleak, and the trip home is even bleaker as you’re late; it’s well past bedtime. You enter quietly and run a bath to warm her up, slipping your coat from her shoulders and leaving it by the fireplace. Her only comfort is in you crouching by the edge of the bath with a rag in your hands to scrub her clean with the help of the meagre few inches of water you could afford to spare her.

Your apologies have subsided, as has your tough love attitude, spoiling her with affections and gentle reassurance she didn’t expect after seeing how you acted only hours earlier. You pull Arlecchino close and stroke her hair. The wall of the tub becomes little more than a nuisance as it blocks her from fully hiding away in your arms, where she hopes to disappear. She is afraid, but you manage to settle her fears to a nagging whisper tucked away in the deepest corner of her brain.

Apologies give way to promises, grand promises you know you cannot keep, promises of protecting Arlecchino for as long as you can.

You wrap her in a towel, help her dress herself in the night clothes you retrieved from her bed, and send her off to sleep with the reassurance that you’ll handle reporting all of what the two of you were doing to the Knave.

Content and soothed by your words and promises, Arlecchino wanders back to bed, where she makes herself comfortable, staring across the room at your empty bed. Perhaps you have said those things to many children before her, but it doesn’t occur to her as you quickly fall back into the role of being her only comfort in this house of horrors. You’ll protect her from anything in your power, keep her safe, and watch over her.

Sleep coaxes Arlecchino to relax, give in, and rest, and she almost does. She is seconds from being out like a light when she hears those screams again—those that used to send her bolting to look for you in your bed. You were never there when she tried to find you, and now, as she stares across the room at your vacant bed, she suddenly realises why.

The screams that had woken her all those nights had been  yours .

Until you could no longer stay by her side, you would protect her from anything.

Chapter Text

Life was never easy in Khaenri'ah, a nation devoid of a god and built on flesh and blood, but such was the way of the world when no alternative existed in his mind. It is strange how something so constant could so quickly become foreign once the world became bigger. Teyvat was a continent fought for by the gods rather than the hands of humans and their machines.

The land was never to be tilled with farming tools but rather was to be fought for with iron and blood. That principle doesn't apply anywhere else.

It was not so violent when you spoke those words to him, despite having watched you try to tinker with one of those machines before. You got your hands on the first thing you saw and promptly took to tearing it apart in search of what makes it tick. Watching you is mesmerising.

First, it was alchemy, as you tried in vain to teach him the art. He just didn't have the touch for it, but you assured him it was fine and left it at that, allowing him to watch you fumble your way through whatever your latest interest happened to be. If not alchemy, then it became mechanics; if not mechanics, then it was life itself and its creation. Neither of you thought to question your childhood spent in a wasteland so long as you had life at your fingertips.

You were something he thought he might never be.

The future where he grew into being anything like you felt to him was a dream and nothing more. He'd calculate the years and imagine they'd never come because, at the time, they felt like they wouldn't. 

More than anything, you sought to haul him up to the top with you. You were not by any means leaps and bounds ahead of him, a comfortable gap of power between you; however, you saw merit in teaching him anything you learned. Wherever you were going in life, you were going to make sure your little brother got there with you, and to such end, Pierro spent his years as a toddler being carried on your shoulders when he didn't want to walk to see the husk of a field tiller you found, or up the hill that was so high he could see the palace over the rooftops. 

At the time, it was, to you, the consequence of your parents forcing you to watch him when he wanted to play outside. To him, the forming of cherished memories that would lead him to linger at your side for as long as they were at the forefront of his mind.

The luxury of being carried around on your shoulder died as he outgrew it. He was too heavy for you not to tire yourself out in the first minute of walking, and it hurt more than it used to. It didn't stop him from fussing until you'd flick his forehead and call him some mean name.

He found his calling in the idea of becoming a mage. He's not sure where it came from, perhaps something you'd shown him sparking as thought that settled in his brain and never got around to leaving. Either way, it seems to be the one thing that doesn't absorb your undivided attention through your ever-changing interests. Nonetheless, through enough begging, whining and irritating you, he managed to convince you to at least try to learn with him.

Someone was always better than him, and you were no exception. You could easily outclass him in many facets of life, yet you preferred to help him despite it all, even in this which bored you to tears. He supposes it came from the fact that you had grown up with your parents shoving him at you and telling you both to work it out. 

You were older than him, stronger than him, wiser than him—though only barely—and had more expectations than him. Your parents asked things of you because you were the oldest and the one who would be their legacy. He had less responsibility regarding the things they wanted, though it never kept him from yearning for approval. Yours, theirs, he wanted what felt like the greatest gift—the chance to make you happy.

If you could look at him and smile and tell him that you were proud of him and liked what he could do, then it didn't matter who was better than him. There would always be someone, but your shows of admiration could make him feel like the strongest boy Khaenri'ah could offer.

You should have resented him for being forced to tolerate him as a child, but there remained a soft spot for him all your life that you couldn't shake no matter how willing you were to fight with him. It makes it easier for him to practically dangle off you in search of the things he wants, down to asking you to go scare some kids he didn't get along with or read him bedtime stories under a blanket on his bed well past the time both of you were supposed to be asleep.

You make exceptions for him in his eyes because you love him enough. 

At some point, you convinced yourself that the only reason you were willing to keep doing the things he begged of you was because Pierro was annoying and needy, but you were unable to say no to him. It was not for a lack of trying. You tried over and over to shake him off when he'd run up behind you and beg for you to carry him home or shove him away and shoo him to bed when he shook you in the night with a book in his hands. 

On nights he was emboldened by disregard, he'd try to sleaze his way into your bed and wriggle under the covers to sleep soundly by your side. Pierro was convinced that no matter what existed out there, you could somehow protect him from all of that, and the safest place available was asleep under your arm.

You drew the line at his audacity to try and crawl into your bed and threw him out.

You had not fallen asleep by his side since winter when you agreed to read stories to him when the cold kept him restless, though your eyes would try to close, and he would feel your head relaxing beside him. It wasn't uncommon for him to witness and take advantage of your exhaustion rather than wake you, snuggling by your side and under your arm. It was more comfortable there than anywhere else. 

He spent his youth by your side like you were salvation.

He wants nothing more than to find his way back to your loving arms, where you will spoil him with the luxury of ignorance.

Chapter Text

Your little sister's return to you has dredged up memories you were sure you had forgotten. Taking refuge by your side seems expected, though you have hardly seen her in some years, perhaps decades, maybe centuries. All you recall is her leaving to fall in love with the lies of a god who lacked the same love for her people, all in the name of sympathy for her woes and the hope for a cause that won't place nothing but wants at her feet in hopes that she can muster the power to solve the world's problems.

Kuutar came home to you as she always used to, overwhelmed by her own realisations and naïvety and startled by the cruelty humans are capable of, as if it were her first time learning of their want to take what they can. The gods are just as cruel. Though she should have learned by now, you realise you perhaps sheltered her. You always had.

Upon her birth, she was a goddess in the eyes of those who saw her, and Kuutar was raised as such. She learned to be a god, but never a girl. Always the Moon Maiden before she was a person, and perhaps that's what makes her keep the name of Columbina—a longing to turn away from what Nod-Krai attempted to saddle her with.

With you, there is…comfort. You were younger when Kuutar met you, though you have not exactly aged five hundred years. You have not aged a single day, in fact. You came to Nod-Krai as an outsider, and you welcomed Kuutar as a girl, defiant to the gods and their will.

Kuutar always looked at you strangely, expected demands and wants from your lips, but you tempered her loneliness with company and held no expectation of her power in return. She clung to you, whined for things from you. She was needy, and that fell on your shoulders, but you almost tended to like her neediness. There was an endearment to it.

You'd notice how she almost seemed hesitant to bother you, her comfort needing to grow when it came to interrupting your day to spend it with you. She'd linger in doorways and a comfortable distance from where you stood when you'd wander, yearning to join you. In her head, you were far closer to what she wanted to be than the Moon Maiden. You had meager ability and no glory to speak of, your only achievement being to survive when most did not and settle in a place you thought no one would find you.

She was more than they expected of her. She was a child enamoured by song and dance and pretty flowers. The graceful flight of white doves and the perfect feathers they would litter like treasure across the land, delicate as a spider's thread and twice as pretty.

Some of those belonged to common pigeons, but she hadn't realised that yet, and you were certainly not going to be the one to ruin her dreams and tell her.

You never cared to tell her that the birds couldn't understand when she'd sing back, a little out of tune as she tried to match their chirpy songs and talk to them. You did, however, as gently as you could manage, tell her that the reason they flew away when she ran up to play with them was because she scared them away. Anyone would be startled if a giant suddenly ran at them.

"But I want to play with them," she'd always whine to you, hands held tightly around your arm in some feeble attempt to make you do something about her world-ending woes, to which you can only shrug your shoulders at her, still not quite the supreme overlord of the bird population no matter how much she would like that to be true. As much as she liked to believe so, it's not as if you could magically return them to her.

"Only cats chase the birds around," you'd tell her on your boldest days, a smile daring to tug at your lips. That would get you a staunch upturn of her nose and a smack on the arm if she felt offended enough, prowling little cat bearing her claws to punish you for your transgressions.

To be herself was to smile as she dangled off you, little arms squeezing your stomach to force you to pay attention to her, as if using you as her personal climbing frame wasn't attention-grabbing enough. It was to beg you, without end, to set her on your feet and dance with her while she sings her nursery rhymes as if they were meant to be dancing songs. She'd begin to mumble the melodies when you'd point it out to her, as though whether it had words or not was the problem.

What she wanted was you. In some capacity, she wanted you to pay attention to her, to pat her head when she made you listen to her songs despite their awful lyrics, concocted from the mind of a child. Kuutar wanted you to hold your hand out for her to take when you'd notice her lingering, offering yourself up to be tackled in her excitement.

She wanted the godless outsider to turn to her as their god. She did not understand that that was incompatible with carrying her home after a day spent exhausting you. The Moon Maiden Kuutar can hold no siblings. She is disconnected from humans, something ethereal and untouchable. The little girl born of the shattered moon with a smile from ear to ear can. That girl they all ignore is sitting beneath the fine robes of the Moon Maiden.

Each day she slipped away to spend with you felt like an adventure. She shook off whoever was set to watch her all to find you, your name lost to the title she gave you. Nobody else gets to be her sibling.

Kuutar wanted stories of your life before her. She wanted the dances of your homeland and the power you earned from it. She wanted to know how to do the things that seemed to come naturally to you, all blamed on being older rather than practiced. One day, she could do those things too if it were only that you were older. It didn't matter that she was far more capable than you at even her young age. Her hands could weave power beyond your potential, and she would use it for trivialities as simple as healing scratches you'd earn from your clumsiness. Just as you cared for her, she'd cared for you.

As if she could dismantle it for you, pieces of her heart would pass to you like gifts that she finally gave willingly, knowing that they would belong to someone who would treat them as if they belonged to someone. She offered you love, awful songs, pretty feathers, annoyance, a weight on your arms, and a burning gaze scorching holes in your back. The gaze of a girl who felt safest when she was far from her people, with only your hand to hold her steady when she'd fall.

Like old times, Kuutar— Columbina curls against you, quiet as a mouse and almost shy to touch you again, even so gently as she does, careful to set her head against the dip of your shoulder, avoiding the tickle of her feathered headdress threatening to smother into your collar. She inhales, breathing in the comfortable air of you, barely changed since she last saw you. She can envision her meeting with you, picturing someone so disinterested in her that she felt a longing for them to look at her and need her the way all others seemed to. She has come to understand that she is not your god, nor was she ever meant to be. She is too sympathetic for her own good, and if she would just listen to you—

"It's fine," you bring yourself to tell her. You don't feel it's fine. You feel an anger that she left, and you fell into the past like some bad memory for as long as her gaze turned to something new and shiny. She visited. She insisted you come with her. You remember it. You will bow your head to no god. She was always gone before long, however. The balance of her life stuck here, chained to a land filled with people who wanted all of their problems solved, yet made brighter by you, who has always waited for her, and the draw of a life where she finally held purpose with a voice of her own. It wasn't easy. You begrudgingly understood that it was necessary for her to get hurt to understand what she needed to.

Gods can never make mistakes, but sometimes…sometimes girls do. Sometimes Kuutar does, and no matter how many she makes, you know that even if the Fatui succeeded in finding her, you won't hand her back to them. You will protect her from the people who seek to fashion a girl into something to be placed on a pedestal and never taken down, like a doll left to rot on a high shelf as nothing more than an ornament.

You may even stake your life on that promise.