Chapter Text
“I hope you know that what you did was wrong."
Usually, these words would make the little girl in the large armchair cower, but today Klee gripped her hands together tightly and tried to stay as still as she could.
Jean started flipping through a few papers on her unusually messy desk. Klee’s eyes flickered between Jean and the window behind her. Klee knew she should look at a person when talking with them, but it was hard to do it when right behind that person was the blue, cloud-puffed sky, and a tree begging her to climb it. It was the best window to look out of, and Klee used to think that that was why Jean put it in her office. Only now did Klee wonder if it was a test to weed out the bad knights. With a shwip, Jean pulled a paper out. Klee tried to focus on that.
“According to Six-Fingered José, your dodoco completely destroyed his-” Jean’s eyebrows furrowed, “‘Fontain-style artist’s Tyrolean cap.’”
“That’s not what Klee blowed up, it was a hat!” Klee burst out saying. “Klee exploded it because he’s a bad guy-he ate a sandwich at Angel’s Share and didn’t pay for it!”
“He said he spoke to the owner about it beforehand and promised to pay later.” Klee opened and closed her mouth a few times, astounded. Poor Diluc! Fleeced for freebies and his own good friend wouldn’t come to his aid! Jean sighed. “Klee, a hat is next to a person’s head, and it’s dangerous for a person to be hurt there."
“He only lost some of his hair,” Klee mumbled. She rubbed her fingers together on her lap. She stared at the motion, unable to look Jean in the eyes. That morning Six Fingered José took her aside to ask her if there was anything bothering her, anything he could do for her. Flustered and a bit ashamed, Klee had given some lame excuse about not liking her uniform. And later that day, she almost hurt him.
Klee only wanted to be a good knight.
“I don’t know why you’ve been so moody these last few days, but we’re really busy today. Please, don’t cause any trouble.” Klee gripped her hands together tightly. It really felt unfair-Klee wasn’t one of the children running around the square fooling around, she was a knight of Favonious! Resolutely, Klee raised her face, intent that Jean should know that.
Dark circles hung under Jean’s eyes, and her frown was so pronounced that it looked as if it would never go away. Faced with such a sight, what could Klee say?
“Okay.” It clearly wasn’t a happy tone, but Jean sighed in relief. Jean looked ready to say something more, but just then there was a knock at the door.
“Master Jean-”
Noelle peeked in, but when she saw the solemn scene before her, she paused. Perhaps she would have retreated had a frazzled man not pushed his way through.
“Please, Master Jean, my whole cart’s been taken! It was those Hilichurls-”
“I-” Jean’s eyes flickered to Klee, and for a moment Klee’s heart beat with excitement at the prospect of doing a knight’s duty.
“Please,” the man called pitifully, “all my wares are in that cart.”
“Of course.”
Jean’s chair clattered as she rushed to the door. Until the very moment the door closed, Klee held a hope that she might turn back and ask for help.
Alone, Klee took a moment to gaze out of the tall windows. She wanted to grab a bomb, and make everything disappear, but a knight doesn’t break her promises, so she clenched her fists instead.
She stood up. Kicking the floor now and again, Klee headed to leave the building.
“Oh? And what do we have here?” A sly voice called from over her right shoulder. She tilted her head to face it, but before she could, Kaeya slipped to her left. “Shouldn’t you be enjoying the balloon pop game with your young friends?” He knew very well that the woman manning that stall lived in fear for the past weak dreading that very possibility.
Klee usually played with Kaeya at least every week. She made a habit of it, because she knew that he was lonely. That was because even though Kaeya was the Cavalry Captain, the Grand Master took all the horses away North with him. Now Kaeya wears a fluffy scarf, probably because he misses them. But today, Klee didn’t have the patience to deal with his tomfoolery.
Klee twisted her eyebrows in indignation. “Klee is the Knights of Favonius Spark Knight! All kindsa bad guys will try to take stuff and do bad things during Windbloom, so Klee’s gotta baboom them up!”
Kaeya laughed. “Well, make sure to take some time to have fun too.”
Klee crossed her arms. “Maybe if I got some time, but I won’t.”
Kayea kept smiling for a moment longer, but soon his face grew solemn. “Klee, I’m so sorry-”
Klee shouted, cutting him off. “Klee’s gotta go!” Grabbing the straps of her backpack, she jogged to the door.
“Wait, Klee-” She considered grabbing a Jumpty Dumpty to get through the door even faster, but remembering Jean’s face, decided to give the hunk of wood mercy just this once. Just as her hand touched the doorknob, Kaeya suddenly spoke in an unusually serious voice, making her freeze. “Spark Knight Klee, there’s a job that only your tremendous strength can handle.”
Klee froze. Only moving her head, she looked back at him.
Klee and Kaeya walked through the hallways towards a part of the building Klee wasn’t usually permitted to enter, though Kaeya went there often. He walked casually and carried a cup of water. But Klee, arms held straight down at her sides, walked almost robotically. This would be the most serious of serious jobs that Klee had ever been given.
A door appeared before them. Klee shivered. The dungeons.
Last year when ‘The Count of Cajue Lake’ played, Klee went to see the play maybe three times, so she already knew what lay behind that door. Bloody saws, rats, and chains. A thrilled shiver ran down her as she imagined the tortured cries of the prisoners at night.
When the door opened, Klee had to turn away, but not for the reason she expected. A fairly wide window lit up the room, making the pleasant yellow walls almost seem to give off light. A lump lay in a bed that sat against one corner, and the blanket that covered it wasn’t even threadbare. Klee ran inside and ran a finger against the floor at the corner of the room. She didn’t pick up a speck of dust. Klee vowed to herself that she would have a serious talk with Noelle once this was over.
Noticing her drooping ears, Kaeya laughed. “It’s just a holding room.”
The lump on the bed groaned. “Please, retain your poise, and make no more noise. This pounding in my head almost makes me wish I were dead.” The lump shivered. “I didn’t think I could get this hungover. What was in that bottle?”
“Must have been something strong, if it ended in you hanging naked off of our beloved archon’s statue.”
The lump gave a few wheezing laughs and pushed the blanket off. Out came the bard that often played at the local taverns, Venti.
“A friend’s gift given just that day, though where the letter went, I really couldn’t say.” His head fell back to the bed, and he rubbed his face against the sheets. “Am I free? I really need to pee.”
“Almost. And don’t act like we mistreat you, you could have asked anytime and Noelle would have let you go.” Kaeya handed over the cup of water he’d been carrying and the bard gulped it down. “Your punishment is community service. You’ll be helping Spark Knight Klee patrol the city during Windblume and take care of any trouble that crops up.”
Venti groaned. “What’s a poor bard supposed to do against drunk ruffians?”
“Oh? Aren’t you used to that type? What do you usually do when things heat up on the job?”
“I dodge.”
The two looked ready to chat all morning, so Klee marched up to the bard. She wore her scariest face and made her voice gruff so that she talked almost exactly like Diluc. “Klee booms the bad guys. You learn to be good. Got it?”
She worried for a second she might have been too scary-Kaeya was even trembling a little-but Venti hopped off the bed and lowered himself into a bow fit to greet a queen. “As our great knight orders, we shall protect the borders.”
Klee, caught up in the atmosphere, rested her fists against her hips and tilted her nose up. “See that you do.”
Although it was only the first day of the festival, people packed the streets, ducking under brightly-colored streamers as they weaved from shop to shop.
The two immediately got down to serious business. They tested the fair games for safety, riffled through all the items on display to check for anything dangerous, and taste-tested every stall for food poisoning (Venti tested the alcohol). Having done so much work, Klee naturally became tired and grumpy. Glancing back at Venti listlessly following her around, she grumbled. Klee secretly suspected that he wasn’t understanding the spirit of justice at all.
Although Klee was usually an active and dexterous child, after tiring herself out her instincts were weak. This was the only explanation she could give for why she tripped over that one loose brick near the Cat’s Tavern that no one from town ever trips over. She shut her eyes tight. She wasn’t afraid to be hurt, because she was a knight, but she didn’t want to see it happen.
But hardly a hair brushed against the stones before two strong hands grabbed under her armpits and set her to rights.
“Careful, you might hurt yourself.”
‘Knights get hurt all the time,’ she wanted to say. But at the last moment she remembered her manners. “Thank-” Klee looked up at the man that steadied her and dropped her backpack. Looking slightly baffled, the young man merely nodded his head, and, smiling pleasantly, walked away.
Venti walked up beside her. “Careful what you step in, that backpack is a dangerous weapon.”
Klee grabbed Venti’s cape, almost knocking him backwards as she rushed forward. “Quick, follow that guy. Be sneaky!”
Venti gripped his hat and struggled to keep up. They hid behind buildings and barrels, under tables and ladies’ skirts, zig-zagging through the streets until finally the young man slumped onto one of the benches that faced the water fountain that no one other than Mr. Goth ever visited. It was a quiet place surrounded by plants, with an excellent view of the windmills and the far-off cliffs, but it was also far away from the bars, shops and life of the city.
“The man doesn’t look drunk,” said Venti, “is he-” But no one would ever hear what rhyme he would have picked, because Klee quickly shushed him.
Klee, still hidden, crouched and riffled through her backpack and brought out her Knightley Knotebook. She began quickly flipping through the pages.
Venti kneeled behind her and looked over her shoulder. Each page held at least one childish drawing and some very crude writing. “What makes you so fiery, might it be your diary?”
“It’s a list of the baddest baddies. The super top list of bad people that want to hurt us.”
“Oh? And has a super bad baddie snuck into our poor beloved Mondstat while the citizens have lowered their guard for the festivities?” Although Klee wasn’t looking at him, she heard his laughter in his voice.
“Yes!” Klee snapped. Finally, she stopped at a page and began looking back and forth between her book and the festival-goer they’d stalked.
Venti tried making out the writing. “Tentieqila?” Venti tilted his head. “Is he from Sumeru?”
“It’s Tartali-Tarteg-ugh!” Klee cried out in frustration. “The one that starts with a T! The Hairbrainer from Snezhnaya. He did bad stuff in Liyue and Natlan, and other stuff too. I even heard Lily say that Viktor said that he once ate a bear!” She pointed into the plaza. “He’s sitting on that bench over there.”
The red-haired man they stalked sat hunched on one of the benches, but his face was turned downwards so that they couldn’t see his features.
Venti balked. “That wild killer? I think he’d want something more-” Venti paused, scrunching his nose. “Thriller. Shoot, I messed that one up.”
“Klee bets he’s got some secret plan to catch the city on fire and ruin Windblume for everyone.” Klee stuffed her things in her bag and grabbed Venti’s cape again. “C’mon, time for justice!”
“Not again!” But Klee ignored his cries, and didn’t let him go until after they’d run down the stairs and were half-way across the plaza.
Klee marched before the man on the bench. She stood as straight as she could, just like a real knight should, but the man on the bench didn’t even glance up.
“A-hem!” Klee cleared her voice as loudly as she could. She was good at being sneaky, so her unexpected voice made him jump. “H-hello, good citizen and or visitor. How might Klee, the Great Knight, help you today?”
Klee could now see the face she only caught a glimpse of before. His skin was so pale that he looked almost sickly. But he had the same strange, dull eyes that Klee remembered seeing in the plaza-the ones that made shivers run down her back. If she wasn’t such a great knight, they would have made her want to run away.
He wasn’t dressed like a bad guy, he was just wearing a normal shirt and pants. But Klee figured that if he was trying to be sneaky he would wear different clothes anyway-like a disguise, but instead of wanting to look like a witch he wanted to look like a good guy. His gloves were stupid though.
The man smiled. “Thank you, brave knight, but I don’t need any help.”
“Yes, and what is your name?” The man on the bench looked baffled. Klee bit her lips so she wouldn’t burst into a grin. Heh, got him now. He’ll say ‘Hippolina’ or ‘Vlad’ and Klee will-
“It’s Chi-uh,” he laughed oddly, a small blush rising to his cheeks. “Ajax.”
Klee snapped her fingers. Shoot, that’s a really good fake name! It even sounds like it could be a real name! He must be trained in super-spying. Klee fretted, trying desperately to come up with some way to stealthily extract information from the man, but her mind came up blank. Quickly she glanced around, but Venti must have used her moment of distraction to sneak away. Tartaglia didn’t seem to notice her struggle. He had already returned to his previous pose, his forearms resting on his legs as he looked at the ground.
“I’m supposed to meet someone here,” he said suddenly. “‘Beneath the stone flower’s gaze,’ honestly, what does that even-” the man shook his head. He laughed a little, but it sounded awkward. Klee figured that bad guys don’t laugh much, so that was probably why.
Klee’s eyes widened. A secret Fatui meeting! He’s meeting with all the bad guys and they’ll -Klee tried to come up with a suitably evil plan- do something!
“Ok have fun and wait right here for him.” Klee rushed to get away, but swiveled back as she remembered something. “When you get lost you have to stay in one place so people can find you.”
Tartaglia laughed again, but this time he sounded like he might actually be a normal person. “Sure, I won’t move an inch.”
He watched Klee the entire time she ran out of view, so she became a bit worried he might suspect her of something and she ran a bit too far. Crouching down, she hurried to creep around to another angle to watch him from.
“Well color me surprised,” Venti said, appearing suddenly behind her.
Klee squeaked. She slammed her hands over her mouth and jumped back in case Tartaglia might have heard. She shot Venti the dirtiest glare she could make.
“You don’t think it’s him at all. You think Klee’s being a dumb kid.”
“Might be, might not be. He smells how I would expect him to, but I thought he’d be better looking.” Venti removed his hat, ruffling his hair, and murmured, “when I was still dead drunk, in snuck the Snezhnayan punk.”
Klee fidgeted with excitement. “I found out he’s gonna meet someone to do bad stuff together. If we wait, we can grab them both. Maybe we can hear them talk about the bad stuff they’ll do and then grab them, and then they can’t lie about it when we ask them because we’ll already know.”
Venti looked impressed. “Boy, you really do hang out with Captain Kaeya.”
“It isn’t like that!” Klee’s ears burned. It really was a clever idea, and it’s true that she remembered it from an adventure story Kaeya told her, but she wished that he’d just said that Klee was a smart girl.
Klee and Venti leaned against the wall so that they could barely peek around it, and settled in for an exciting wait.
But the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, and then it fell lower and lower, and then it wasn’t there at all. Tartaglia never moved from his seat. Whenever someone walked into the area, his eyes turned sharply towards them, and as the day darkened his entire head turned, but no one approached him.
Eventually Klee fell asleep, and Venti wrapped his cape around her shoulders. The early spring nights were chilly enough that even Tartaglia didn’t look unaffected. Finally, Venti accepted that Tartaglia would probably meet his co-conspirator at the darkest hour of the night, or something equally silly, and he picked Klee up to return her home.
“Humph!”
Klee had been repeating the same sound for the past hour.
Even after falling off her bed, Klee somehow managed to sleep until almost lunch time. After furiously dashing to the detention cell to grab Venti’s cape, and before the bard could cry abuse, she’d run all the way to the entrance of the Knight’s headquarters. But there she came to a sudden dead stop. After an impressive flip over the girl to avoid knocking them both to the ground, Venti tried prodding her to find out what turned her mood so dour, but she refused to talk to him. Slowly and silently, she walked across the courtyard and onto the stairs. Out of a sense of duty she headed to the water fountain, but it was clear what she expected to find there.
“Don’t fall to gloom, this doesn’t spell our doom.”
“That’s a dumb rhyme.” For a bard, that childish insult might as well have been a stab to the heart. Klee’s ears sunk in dejection. “It doesn’t matter anyway, nothing does. The Hairbrainer met up with the bad guys and they had a bad guy party and they’re going to ruin the festival.”
Venti rested his hand on her shoulder. “Our brave knights and our brave citizens all want the festival to succeed. Whatever terrible things happen, we can overcome it.”
Despite herself, the words brought a small kindle of hope to Klee’s chest. On her next step she stumbled a bit as a mysterious, strong wind pushed her, as if urging her to her destination. Somehow, Klee knew that it must be Barbatos, encouraging her the way that Barbara always promised he did for everyone in Mondstat.
Klee gripped the straps of her backpack. Everyone in Mondstat needs me. Even Barbatos!
Klee hopped the stares even faster than she usually dared. At the top she flung herself to the ledge and, cupping her mouth, called out, “Barbatos, this festival is gonna be the best one yet! I promise!”
People watched her, giggling, but she didn’t care. She only spoke to one person, and she knew he heard her. Turning around, she grabbed Venti’s cape (becoming more and more like a leash each day) and ran to the secluded water fountain.
Tartalgia sat at the same seat, heavily hunched over. As in the previous day, he stared at the ground.
Klee rose to her tip-toes and narrowed her eyes. “Is he reading some kind of evil spy message? I can’t see.”
“He’s looking at the dirt.”
“Don’t be boring!”
After a few more seconds observing their prey, Klee pulled at Venti’s cloak and the two huddled.
“Klee will get him to reveal he’s a bad guy, baboom him, and then take him to jail. All the knights will be sooooo impressed, they’ll say, ‘oh, Boom Knight Klee, if only we were as smart and strong and adult as you we coulda done something cool too!” She turned to Venti. “You stay here.”
Before Venti could say another word, Klee bravely marched forward, as boldly as any knight could hope to be. But when she neared Tartaglia, she didn’t even look his way. Well, that was the impression she hoped to convey. In reality she couldn't stop peeking at him, so much that were Mondstat any less clean, she might have had a bad fall for not watching her feet.
She walked towards him, across him, past him. Ten paces away from him, she stopped and had to clench her fists so that furious tears wouldn’t dot her eyelashes. ‘How dare that Tartaglia be so smug that he just let Klee walk by like that! Klee will baboom him back to Snezhnaya and then he’ll regret it!’-this was the general line of the knight’s furious, rambling thoughts.
Resolutely, Klee turned around and once more marched back. Even her loud stomping couldn’t break through Tartaglia’s distracted concentration, but the loud cry she gave out would have turned even a corpse’s head.
“Oh no, I’m tripping!” Arms flung out, Klee hopped a few times on one foot. Then, acting more quickly than a blind man could see, she crouched down to all fours, taking special care not to actually trip. “I fell!”
She only allowed herself a quick look to make sure that Tartaglia, mouth slightly parted, watched her skilled performance.
Klee struggled to her feet and began digging through her pockets. With a loud, “Ha!” she raised her money pouch high into the air and threw it with all her might against the ground.
She stood there for a second, panting a few times, before righting herself. Hands behind her back and nose turned up high, she returned to walking across the courtyard. But elegant as she tried to appear, her thoughts were anything but.
Got ya now, you evil Hairbrainer! Bad guys love money and stealing money, so there’s no way-
“Excuse me,” a hand tapped her shoulder. Dread eating at her heart, Klee turned to see Tartaglia holding up her pouch.
He wants to make sure Klee knows he’s taking her money?! At that moment, Klee realized that she’d never before faced a thoroughly wicked person in her life, and she was both impressed and cowed by his gall.
“I believe you dropped this.” Tartaglia handed the pouch to Klee, even holding her hand to put it in when she didn’t grab it immediately.
“Th-th-th-” Klee began speaking out of habit, but her sense of righteousness wouldn’t let her spit the words out. Shoot, so this was his plan! He knows Klee hasta say ‘thanks’ if he helps her-he’s making fun of Klee! Truly, there was nothing Klee wanted less in that moment than to say kind words to a man she was beginning to regard as one of the wickedest and most cunning enemies she’d ever faced off against. In the end, she gathered her knight’s courage to speak. “Thank you.”
“Are you crying?”
“No way!” Klee hastily wiped away her outraged tears and ran off.
“Windblume lasts an entire week, don’t lose hope.”
Klee was so cowed by Tartaglia’s win the previous day that she’d given up and gone home. Only Venti knew that she’d shirked her duties, but he promised to never tell. But a new day dawned, and once more they visited the remote fountain to watch Tartaglia. It seemed that the person he was waiting for still hadn’t arrived. He must not have slept again-he looked even more haggard than the previous day, nervous and fidgety.
This time when she headed towards him, she grabbed Venti to go as well. Now used to her quirks, he merely followed without complaint.
As had become his custom, Tartaglia immediately moved to look at the two, only to return to staring at the stone floor when he saw who it was. Even when Klee stopped in front of him, he only peeked up through his bangs. His eyelashes were longer than Klee expected.
Klee crossed her arms, and spoke as gruffly as she could. “Guy, you’re in a lot of trouble.”
“Trouble?” Tartaglia tilted his head, looking more wolfish than ever. Klee gulped, then put her fists on her hips to feel braver.
“Yeah! You’ve been here too long. Last week Noelle stabbed a guy for that!” Anyone from Mondstat would have laughed at such a statement, but as a foreigner, Klee assumed that Tartaglia wouldn’t know better.
“Hark, hear that warning chime? It tells of thine loitering crime,” added Venti, who had been charged more than any other person in Mondstat for the exact thing. He gently strummed his harp and even though the tower bell rang just twenty minutes ago, for whatever reason it rang again.
“Oh? And will this ‘Noelle’ come to stab me too?” A sharp gleam entered Tartaglia’s eyes. Although he’d smiled whenever he saw Klee, for the first time it looked sincere. Venti shifted to stand between the two. Annoyed, Klee shoved him out of the way.
“No. You have to deal with Klee!” Tartaglia chuckled, but Klee barreled on. “It’s community helping!” Klee proclaimed. She jabbed her thumb at Venti. “This guy has to helping too. Because he runs around naked.”
Tartalia looked at Venti, eyebrows raised, as if the bard were the more villainous of the two.
Venti accepted the look magnanimously. “I heard that in Mondstat they like to live free, but I’ve since learned they don’t follow this idea to the tee.”
Tartaglia guffawed, practically rolling off the bench to do so. Venti appeared pleased in spite of himself, but Klee quickly took to whapping Tartaglia on the side to get his attention.
“As punishment, you now have’ta follow Klee and Venti to help with Windblume.”
“I can’t. I’m still waiting for my-” Tartaglia froze. He moved his mouth, as if forgetting the word, before ending with a lame, “friend.”
Klee crossed her arms. “That’s the law. You can’t stay in town if you don’t follow the law.”
Tartaglia looked surprisingly thoughtful at that banal and obvious statement. After a few quick taps against his knee, he lurched upwards. “You’re right. I have to follow the laws here to stay.”
Klee nodded her head, not at all surprised by his acquiescence. With the utmost confidence that she would be followed, she marched out of the secluded square and towards the festivities.
The thought of her clever plan excited her so much that she jumped from one foot to the other. Covering her mouth to hold in her giggles, she didn’t at all notice the amused look Tartaglia watched her with.
A bad guy can’t stand acting good! We’ll have him hand out posters and help old ladies and he’ll get annoyed and push someone or melt into a puddle or something. I gotcha now, Hairbrainer Tartagilia!