Amber, who was standing nearby, saw Orion and Lumine whispering to each other, so she leaned over and asked, "What are you two chatting about? You didn't include me!"
Orion suddenly realized that when three people walk together, two people constantly chatting is no different from silent treatment for the third.
Paimon: Am I not a person? Am I really not a person?
So Orion, carrying Paimon, walked between the two and gestured with his chin towards Timmie over there: "Lumine and I were just talking about Timmie."
"What about Timmie?" Amber also turned her head to look. She naturally knew about Timmie; he was a pitiful child.
Orion casually made up, "I was telling Lumine that Timmie might be the Tenth Fatui Harbingers."
Lumine:???
Lumine looked at Orion with her mouth slightly agape. Did we just talk about that?
Amber's mouth also twitched, then she pouted, "If you don't want to say, then don't say. You don't even bother to make up a better excuse to humor me."
"Then watch me make up a better one for you!" Orion said, patting Paimon's thigh, "Paimon, can you list all the Fatui Harbingerss?"
Paimon, sitting on Orion's shoulder, patted Orion's hair: "That's not hard, is it? The Fatui Harbingerss aren't a secret on the continent of Teyvat. Although I haven't necessarily met them, listing their names is no problem!
Let me think, counting from top to bottom, they are:
First Harbinger, Capitano;
Second Harbinger, Dottore;
Third Harbinger, Columbina;
Fourth Harbinger, Arlecchino;
Fifth Harbinger, Pulcinella;
Sixth Harbinger, Scaramouche;
Seventh Harbinger, Sandrone;
Eighth Harbinger, Signora;
Ninth Harbinger, Pantalone;
Eleventh Harbinger, Tartaglia... Eh?
Paimon scratched her head. Who was the Tenth Harbinger?
Amber's body trembled slightly when she heard Dottore, but she quickly composed herself.
Orion saw Amber's reaction, so he proactively steered the conversation in another direction: "There's also The Jester, Pierro. And look, assuming The Jester isn't within the scope of the eleven Harbingers, then isn't there one missing, the Tenth Harbinger?"
"That's true!" Lumine also nodded.
Then Orion continued, "The Third Harbinger, Damselette's name, Columbina, is a language term from near Snezhnaya. Translated into the common language of the continent, it means 'dove.' And look, Timmie feeds pigeons every day, so I was thinking, could Timmie be the Tenth Harbinger, something like 'The Caretaker'?"
"How is that even possible?!"
"So, there really isn't a Tenth Harbinger among the Fatui?" Amber asked, resting her finger on her chin.
Orion nodded, "I don't think there is."
"Oh?" Lumine raised an eyebrow, "Why are you so sure?"
Orion, with his arms crossed, declared loudly, "Because the Fatui don't have 'interns' (shíxíshēng)!"
"""..."""
"Why are you all silent? The'shí' in Tenth Harbinger (shíxí) and the'shí' in intern (shíxíshēng)..."
"Shut up, Orion, shut up."
"That's hilarious."
"I said shut up!"
..."Hmph! What are you spacing out about again? Aren't you afraid of catching a cold, wearing so little!"
Time returned to last night.
Rarely, it didn't snow that night in Snezhnaya. In a small courtyard, a bob-haired woman with a huge clockwork mechanism on her back was speaking to a young girl with bare legs in the courtyard.
Accompanying this mysterious clockwork woman was a gigantic humanoid puppet.
Indeed, she was Sandrone, known as Little Clara, and the tall robot beside her was the giant puppet called Pronia.
This name, like Sandrone and Tartaglia, was one of the "character names" from the Italian commedia dell'arte on Orion's previous planet.
And the object of Sandrone's concern, expressed in accusatory words, was also a maiden as pure as moonlight.
Her dark long hair had several streaks of peach-pink highlights, and behind her head were three pairs of white, dove-like wings, adding a touch of sanctity without losing their playfulness.
A wide Harbinger robe covered the girl's figure entirely, yet beneath it, a pair of glistening white jade feet were exposed, treading on the snow without leaving a trace.
This maiden was the Third Harbinger — Columbina, the Damselette.
Columbina didn't turn around; she just quietly looked up at the bright moon in the sky.
But her eyes were clearly closed, and covered with a white veil, yet she seemed to be able to see further.
Columbina raised her hand and pointed to the jade disc in the sky: "Sandrone... my moon, is gone."
"Huh?" Sandrone and Pronia looked up together, but clearly saw the nearly full moon hanging in the sky.
Sandrone pouted, "Isn't it just hanging there? It's just not mid-month yet, so it's not perfectly round. What, does your moon only include the missing part?"
Columbina, however, shook her head: "No, not this one. My moon is in a place much further away."
"Further away?" Sandrone furrowed her cute brows. She took two steps forward, emerging from the shadow of the eaves to stand under the same moonlight as Columbina. Her white dress and sheer white socks seemed to glow in the moonlight.
She stood shoulder to shoulder with the girl, staring at the moon in the sky for a while longer: "How come I don't see anything different?"
"I haven't been able to feel it for several days." Suddenly, Columbina spoke again: "A few days ago, my Frost Moon seemed to have gone missing, losing its place in the sky."
Sandrone scoffed at the remark: "Your moon is so disobedient it can get lost on its own? Did it see a kitten on the way home from school, chased after it, and then couldn't find its way back?"
Columbina didn't deny it, but still shook her head: "No, not a kitten. It's... a spider."
"A spider? Where?"
"In the sky." Columbina pointed to the high heavens, beyond the eggshell enclosing Teyvat, to where the Frost Moon used to be. That was also roughly where The Wicked Knight had warped with Orion about half a month ago: "A giant spider, carrying a sky-obscuring cymbal, played a flute and took my moon."
After speaking, before the frowning Sandrone could understand her meaning, Columbina pointed in another direction: "Sandrone, what place is over there?"
Sandrone looked in the direction Columbina pointed: "There's a coffee shop down that street, it tastes good."
"No, further."
"Further? Out of Snezhnaya? Then that would be Fontaine?"
"Even further."
"Even further." Sandrone crossed her arms: "Then it should be Mondstadt, right?"
Columbina didn't reply this time, instead gazing in that direction and softly murmuring, "Mondstadt, huh..."
"I will... always, watch..."
...Lying on a small hillside, Orion suddenly shivered.
Paimon, who had already gotten off him, asked, "What's wrong with you? Did you catch a cold?"
Orion rubbed his arms up and down: "It's strange. In this incredibly valuable land of Mondstadt, I always have an ominous premonition, as if a pair of eyes is watching me, but I don't know where she is."
As mentioned before, Orion had this feeling since last night, as if someone in the far north had been searching for him, but that shouldn't be right? North should be the direction of Snezhnaya or Nordkalai, right? Are there people there who know him?
It couldn't be that someone had already discovered that he had 'eaten' Signora, could it?
No, that's not right either. Assuming there's an existence that can perceive his presence across several countries, such an existence shouldn't be idle. But this gaze has been fixed on him ever since he left the Knights of Favonius last night until now.
"If you don't know, don't overthink it. Let's focus on the present," Lumine said, looking with Amber at a Hilichurl camp in the distance.
The Hilichurls there were trying to erect two huge watchtowers.
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