SERAPHIC. g i

The Harbingers ↬ A Funerary Smile

yandere!fatui harbingers (minus pierro, capitano and pulcinella) x gn!reader

The Harbingers are cruel.

With their prowess and influence they were as infamous as they were well-known. As such, their methods of acquiring what they desired were no secret to Teyvat, because, as it is often said ; the walls have ears. But you alone have been doubting that ever since your feet were bounded in shackles-the shackles of their power, resources and adoration to be precise. Because, if the walls truly had ears, why were they rendered deaf before your pleas for freedom?

Word around Zapolyarny Palace travels surprisingly fast as there are always bored guards and agents who were more than happy to ignite the sparks of gossip. Yet, there's not a single syllable uttered when you're seen strolling by, dressed in lavish garbs and jewelry so obviously gifted by Pantalone. The guards don't even raise their masked eyes as the banker pulls you closer than what should be appropriate for public display. Or perhaps, they don't even seem to be breathing due to the exact reason of his presence.

You offer no struggle either having already learned your lesson. Even still, the Regrator makes sure to tighten his possessive hold, a warning to bahave and the aching marks on your neck statue you to obedience. How you would've loved to slap that God-forsaken smile that tortures you even in your dreams.

Even as Arlecchino is more or less ripping Pantalone's gifts from your body and dressing you into newer, finer garbs (as she likes to say), garbs that were owned by her ; you don't feel the least bit of comfort. Even as the Knave delicately caresses you, showers you in feather light kisses—gestures that felt more possessive and meant to comfort her instead of you ; you feel no warmth. Your heart no longer skips a beat at her princely charms, not when her demands are on par with the Balladeer's.

Ah, Balladeer. An implacable bastard. You know a fraction of his eventful past from the once-in-a-blue-moon moments of quietude, vulnerability. When he would cling to your being like a drowning man to a wooden log, making you swear to not betray him, leave him—an ironic contrast to daylight, when he would toy with you like the sadist he was. A pitiful creature he might be but you can't bring yourself to offer him that remorse.

Sometimes, you place your palm utop your heart to check if it's still beating. Your brows crease to the unfortunate thumps and you wonder, if so, why do I feel nothing? Why is it so cold? The boreal winds froze everything in its wake. You muse if you should accept Dottore's offer, perhaps then, you could feel happiness again? You're no stranger to the Doctor's eccentric ‘ideas’ and ‘experiments’, not anymore when he offers you a front row seat to them. You're forced to sit through his passionate fits and although you don't understand half of what he says, you know the gist and, it's as horrifying as his exclamations of love.

Despite knowing Dottore's unhinged nature well, you still entertain such morbid thoughts with a blank face. Perhaps, Damselette's dark humor has rubbed off on you. But you know there's another one after your anatomy. When it's her turn to lock you in her laboratory, you silently take a deep breath to face the incoming madness—can it even be called such when The Marionette says those things with the most innocent face in all of Teyvat? You don't know anymore.

Even when the moon would replace the sun, snowstorms becoming deadlier outside and chalendiers would be lit, you had no rest. The sun's fall signalled respite for the others in Zapolyarny, but for you, it rang like the midnight bell signalling Lady Columbina's turn. Her songs that once lulled you to sweet dreams, now sound more like requiems. It's still much preferable to her mind games and playful threats, although. You'd only wish her embrace wasn't so suffocating.

Even the weakest of them spares you not. Seeking to be a silver-adorning knight in a sea of blood. You welcomed his sympathy at first, when you were still clinging to the last scraps of sanity. You didn't push him away from mock embraces of comfort when you still had the chance to. You thought you had a chance, an escape route ; oblivious to the fact that you had just nurtured a new impediment. You're a fool, an idiot. Because you forgot, weakest of them Tartaglia maybe but he was still stronger than you.

Their individual toxicity is still nothing compared to the theatrics that played in those damned dinner-parties. The environment of when the Harbingers gathered are so tense that you wonder if the knife would break if you tried to slice it through the air. All it takes is for one of them to make a comment on you and boom, it feels like a second Cataclysm has broken lose. If Lord Pierro or Pulcinella aren't there to stop them in time, you might as well start praying.

The Harbingers are cruel, so so cruel. Their cruelty extends further than just their treatment to you, their dear little doll. It implicates itself through their provocative whispers against each other, it hides itself betwixt the bloody remains of those who were foolish enough to interject and the only thing that's keeping them from lunging at each other is probably the Tsaritsa's sentence.

But did you deserve to be caught between this crazy charade? This game of being thrown from one lion's den to the other, reduced to nothing but a stress toy for them? And they, the starved beasts they were, had made you understand very well that in this lifetime, freedom would not be a privilege you could have. Your soul, so deprived of warmth, of life. Your heart that continues beating pathetically, rendered incapable of true emotion—just like they wanted.

Even now, as the moonlight shines upon the Fair Lady's coffin surrounded by fake mourn ; you feel nothing. The Fair Lady, or Rosalyn, had a share to your misery, too. If you closed your eyes, you could still recall her vice grip and that strange mixture of warmth and cool ; something you used to be curious of until they threatened to consume you. She was as heartless as she was someone with one and like all of these souls under the Tsaritsa's decree, she too, was a pitiful soul. But you're no less selfish than them, maybe that's why Rosalyn's passing had no effect on you.

Lady Columbina's songs truly do feel like requiems now, you felt a chill run down your spine ; from the cold or from the eery sound that travelled all around the hall you didn't know. You can hear the other Harbingers' voices in the background, an ensuing squabble over La Signora's passing or something. You don't really pay it any mind, seeking comfort in the fur coat that Arlecchino so graciously draped over you earlier.

“—But Dottore, what of Scaramouche and the Gnosis from Inazuma?”

“Conventional wisdom holds that Divine knowledge cannot be rationally comprehended. After conquering the Divine Gaze, he'll make his next move.”

The Doctor's masked eyes leave the blue vile to your laying figure by the coffin's side and a twisted smile creeps up next.

“Besides...he has a reason to return, after all.”

When you open your eyes next time, a scarlet fire moth descends upon her coffin, one so familiar. You watch unblinking as it slowly dissipates in the moonlight, becoming one with the icy winter. You can't help but wonder if Signora's doom had been a result of her karma, the thought surprisingly pleasing. If that were to be true, then surely, surely the other Harbingers' would catch up sometime, no?

It's such a shame, the northern lights accompanied by the moonshine seemed so heavenly tonight but the person who'd promised to share this view with you one night, is already encased in layer upon layer of ice. Far, far away in a land where you were away from her reach and you couldn't wait for the day the others would join her, too.

You're thankful for the fur coat actually, not because it stave off the biting cold — but because it hid the first genuine smile that bloomed on your face in months.

It would've been a beautiful sight, had it not found amusement in such a circumstance.

- ➴ ➵ ➶ ➷ ➸ ➹ -