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Lynette meets Charlotte in the Fortress of Meropide. She doesn’t make a habit of making the acquaintance of inmates. Or of anyone, really. Establishing positive relations is such a hassle, and typically the rewards are frankly inadequate. Not to mention keeping up the acquaintanceship.
But Charlotte is different.
“Hi,” she says, sliding into the seat across from Lynette in the cafeteria without preamble. “So, do you want a couple thousand credit coupons?”
Lynette eats another bite of pasta without looking up. “No.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really,” Lynette says, turning toward her. She isn’t intending to glare, but Father once told her she has a resting annoyed face, and that unless she is actively happy it comes across like she’s glaring. So she glares. “I don’t have any interest in performing whatever task you can’t do yourself. Thanks.”
She eats another bite of pasta. It’s decent.
“But you don’t have to do anything,” Charlotte says, looking bewildered. “I just don’t know what to do with them. Here, take them.” She removes a thick stack of coupons and smacks them down on the cafeteria table.
They look real. Lynette refuses to take them.
“I’m Charlotte,” says Charlotte.
“Okay,” says Lynette.
“You’re Lynette.”
“Uh-huh.”
“The famous magic assistant.”
Lynette raises her eyebrows and feels her tail, tucked under her on the bench, stirring. It’s sort of uncomfortable given that she’s sitting on it. “I wouldn’t call myself famous, exactly. Most people don’t think I’m much of a magician. They focus on Lyney.”
“I know,” Charlotte says. “But I’ve seen your performances. You’re incredible up there!” She pauses briefly, frowning as she removes the lid from her meal. “And Lyney doesn’t give interviews.”
“Interviews?” Lynette asks.
“Yeah!” Charlotte beams, the disappointment of her meal forgotten. “I’m a journalist. Special correspondent for the Steambird, actually.” She holds up a little kamera. “And this is my companion, Monsieur Verite!”
“It’s a kamera.”
“I know!” she gushes. “Isn’t he perfect? Can I take a photo of you? Smile!”
She holds up the kamera. Lynette does not smile.
“Sorry,” Charlotte mumbles, putting the kamera away. “I didn’t take any. I won’t unless you say it’s okay. I know I’m not supposed to take photos without people’s permission.”
“You can take photos of me. I don’t mind.”
But Charlotte doesn’t. She returns to her meal with a slight frown.
“That’s a good one,” Lynette says. “Purple ticket. You must be lucky.”
Charlotte’s brow crinkles. She looks distressed as she slides the meal across the cafeteria table to Lynette. “You can have it.”
For the first time, Lynette takes a good look at it. The purple ticket meals aren’t as coveted as the gold ticket meals, but they’re still nice. Better than some restaurants, even. Charlotte has a bowl of rich-looking seafood gumbo with okra and peppers. The smell is mouthwatering.
Lynette pushes the bowl away. “No way.”
“Please?” Charlotte asks, eyes wide. “I… okay, this is kind of embarrassing, but I really can’t handle any spice. I don’t know anyone here aside from you. So I want you to have the credit coupons before I leave, because what else am I going to do with them? And you can have the gumbo too, because if I have it, I’ll be sick all night. And I’m getting released tomorrow, so there’s no reason to feel worse than I have to.”
Lynette stares at the gumbo in silence while she processes. Then, “Do we know each other?”
Charlotte laughs. It’s a hearty laugh, high-pitched but not grating. The kind of laugh someone could get lost in. Lynette listens in a pleasant trance until the sound fades away. When she glances down, the credit coupon stack is in her hands and the gumbo is in front of her.
“I’ll see you, Lynette,” Charlotte says. Then she walks away and disappears into the darkness of the Fortress like a star might disappear into the night sky.
Goodbye, Charlotte, Lynette thinks, but when she opens her mouth to say something, no sound comes out.
***
The investigation in the Fortress is wrapped up quickly. Good thing, too, because Lynette was only sentenced for twenty-eight days and it would look suspicious if she were to stay for much longer. She returns to the surface, reports back to Father, and settles back into her routine with the House of the Hearth.
Given her aversion to machines, Lynette is exempt from housework. As an alternative, she offers to complete a good deal of inconsequential fetch tasks or simple solo missions. Today’s objective is to retrieve the paper. Two papers, actually. One for her and Lyney and Freminet to read, and one for the kitty litterbox.
Lynette is paying for her two papers at the Steambird kiosk when she hears her.
“Lynette!”
She turns around. Sure enough, Charlotte stands there in all her dapper-special-correspondent glory. Lynette thought her brightness was just in contrast to the Fortress’s dreariness, but no. She shines just as much even in full sunlight.
“Hello,” Lynette says. “I’m just buying these. I have to go home.”
Charlotte does not get the hint, and instead follows alongside her as she walks away from the plaza. “Do you always get the paper?”
If she truly minded, Lynette would just not respond. But she doesn’t mind. “Only when it looks interesting.”
Charlotte practically squeals. “And this issue looks interesting to you? You want to read it? Ooh, which of the stories do you like? Is it the cover story? Please tell me it’s the cover story.”
Lynette, oddly enough, almost feels the urge to smile. “It’s the cover story.”
Somehow, Charlotte manages to spin in a little circle while walking. “Yes! That one’s mine!”
Lynette doesn’t actually know what the cover story is. She glances down. A photo of Duke Wriothesley stares back up at her. He looks… less annoyed than usual. Sort of pleasant. He’s drinking tea. He looks like the sort of person Lynette might enjoy having tea with.
“I thought the Duke didn’t do interviews.”
“Wellll,” Charlotte sings, and Lynette can tell she’s been wanting to be asked this. “Remember when we met in the Fortress? I got him to talk to me! I mean, I kind of annoyed him into it, but it’s the end result that counts, right? Anyway, I was down there for something really minor. It’s faster than setting up a meeting with him. Plus, I get to bother him every day, just in case I need follow-ups while I write the article.”
Lynette stares at her. “You went to prison to interview the Duke.”
“Yep!”
“How long were you down there for?”
Charlotte sticks out her tongue while she ponders. “I think… thirty-five days? How about you? Must have been pretty quick, if you’re already back.”
“Twenty-eight.”
Charlotte’s eyebrows disappear beneath her hat. “How’d you manage that? I got charged for one of those really minor libel cases and thought I found the shortest possible sentence!”
“Wearing pink in the Maison Gestion on a Tuesday.”
For a moment, Charlotte is silent. Then, she groans. “Man! That would’ve been so easy for me!”
Lynette opens her mouth to ask what she means, but as she looks over, she recalls Charlotte’s bubblegum pink hair. “Do you bleach it?” she asks instead.
“Nope!” She grins, flipping her hair carelessly. “Natural blonde. Like you, but my hair’s really pale. Paler than yours. So it soaks up the dye without needing any bleach. I know it looks crunchy, but it’s not. It’s pretty soft, actually.”
Her hair does look soft. Lynette stares.
“Do you, um,” Charlotte says, face turning almost as pink as her hair. “Do you want to touch it?”
“Alright,” Lynette says unthinkingly, and then she leans over to run some of Charlotte’s hair between her fingers.
“You should take off your gloves.”
Lynette doesn’t know how she forgot to do that. “Right.”
Charlotte’s hair is, as promised, very soft. It’s fine in texture, but not so fragile that it could break at a moment’s notice. Lynette withdraws her hand quickly.
“I need to retouch it soon, actually,” Charlotte mumbles, glancing at the ends. She takes off her hat and shakes her head violently, then sweeps her hair back like nothing happened. The roots of her hair are, as promised, blonde. It’s a similar shade to Freminet’s, actually, now that she thinks about it. Would Freminet’s hair dye well, too?
They walk the remainder of the way to the House of the Hearth. Charlotte seems content with Lynette’s relative lack of contribution, spinning stories without a care. How her father freaked out the first time she dyed it. How she once mixed the dye wrong and made it garnet red. How she was once going through a phase and tried blue, but it didn’t suit her freckles. Lynette didn’t know she had freckles, but upon closer inspection, she does. A little scattering of them close to her nose.
“This is mine,” Lynette says, once they arrive.
“Oh, is it?” Charlotte looks at the building, then grins. “It looks like a really nice place. Great sunlight. Do you have a garden?”
“No,” Lynette says. Normally she would stop there. She has the perfect excuse to leave right in her hands. But something possesses her to continue, so she does. “We have a sunroom. I like to nap there.”
Charlotte’s eyes sparkle in the sunlight. Lynette likes it. She doesn’t normally like being in direct sunlight, but Charlotte looks perfectly suited for it.
“Aww.” Charlotte’s smile only widens. “Hey, if you don’t mind me asking, are you actually a cat?”
“No. I’m a person.”
“Obviously,” Charlotte says, rolling her eyes with an unfaltering smile, even in the face of Lynette’s infamous hostile default expression. “I meant the cat ears. And the tail. Are they part of you?”
“Yes.”
She whistles slowly. “Must be really hard to shampoo them.”
Lynette blinks. Normally people react much differently to this information. They’ll tell her the ears are cute, or ask to pet her, or something along those lines. But Charlotte’s expression hasn’t changed at all. She just looks curious, intrigued. Lynette wonders if she looks at everything like that.
“It is,” she says quietly, and realizes belatedly that the corner of her mouth has moved upwards into a half-smile. “I have to buy special shampoo for it. And I can’t stand perfume or lotions.”
“Oh,” Charlotte says, sounding embarrassed. “Does my perfume bother you? I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to make you feel weird or anything. Do you have an allergy? Will you sneeze a lot if there’s perfume in the air? I won’t wear it next time.”
“No,” Lynette interrupts without thinking. “You smell nice. It doesn’t bother me.”
Charlotte’s face flushes. “Well, thanks,” she says. Then, “I… I guess I should be on my way?”
Yes, you should, Lynette tries to say, but nothing happens. She just stands there. Now that Charlotte brings it up, she actually does smell rather nice. Like bulle blossoms and newspaper ink. Nothing like the sickeningly sweet concentration near Emilie’s shop.
“Are you free next Saturday?” Charlotte blurts.
Lynette blinks. “For what?”
“To. Um. Get tea with me. If you want.”
“Then yes,” Lynette says. She thinks she might be smiling a little. Terrifying. “I am.”
“Great! I mean, cool. Nice. I’ll see you there? Cafe Lutece? If you like? Okay! See you!”
Charlotte rushes away like a whirlwind, like she’s the one with an anemo vision. Lynette stands there with her newspapers and her smile and wonders how she got here.
***
They have tea. Charlotte says it’s her treat, so Lynette orders the imported pu-erh blend from Liyue and feels no guilt when she tacks on an order of smoked salmon sandwiches.
“So,” Charlotte says, as Lynette blows on the still-too-hot-for-her tea. “Is it alright if I ask you just a few teensy interview questions?”
Lynette narrows her eyes. She knew there was no such thing as a no-strings-attached free meal. “What for?”
“The Steambird, obviously!” Charlotte dips one of her scones in clotted cream. “But also just for fun. I want to know you a little better.”
Well. When she puts it like that, Lynette doesn’t really know how to refuse. “Okay.”
Charlotte squeals. “Great! Oh, Lynette, you’re a lifesaver. I’ve got an article due in a week and I really need some subject material. Okay, so, first question. Can you tell me about your role in performances with Lyney?”
“I’m his assistant. I’m involved in some magic tricks, but generally, I work behind the scenes. Or I help with the performance.”
“Alright.” She leans in closer. “So, do you ever want the spotlight for yourself?”
“No.”
“Ever considered a solo act?”
“No.”
“What about doing your own tricks in Lyney’s headliner shows? You could be partners, not just his assistant. Have you discussed this together?”
“Yes, we’ve discussed it. I like being an assistant.”
“Don’t you ever get jealous?” Charlotte asks, sounding strangely genuine. “Or think that your status as an assistant is a hindrance? Or anything like that?”
“Nope,” Lynette says. The tea is finally the right temperature. She sips it. It’s delicious, with a very deep, hearty flavor.
“Not at all?”
Lynette looks at her pointedly. “Do you ever get jealous of other reporters?”
Charlotte, to her surprise, considers. “Well, no,” she says. “I mean, they write for different categories of the paper than I do. I write everything, pretty much, so I’m never competing for spots with people. I just do what I need to. So when they write a good piece, I’m happy for them. And then I get to read it!”
“It’s the same for me with Lyney. And with other magicians.”
Charlotte looks at her, tilting her head slightly. “Huh.”
Lynette eats one of her sandwiches quickly. Charlotte’s gaze is unfaltering, right at her, like her eyes are the most interesting thing she’s ever seen. It’s odd, but not uncomfortable, definitely not.
“I guess I shouldn’t interview you, then.”
“You just did.”
Charlotte laughs. It sounds nice. Like the sound of rain on a roof. Lynette likes that sound. It’s comforting. “Well, I guess I’ll just find another profile subject,” she says, not sounding very downcast for someone whose entire plans just unraveled. “Know anyone interesting?”
“Father is very interesting. But she would not deign to speak to you.”
Charlotte groans. “Yeowch. Rejected.”
Lynette stifles her smile into her teacup. She doesn’t have to stifle smiles very often, because she isn’t that inclined, generally, but Charlotte never seems to let anything deter her. Not even Lynette’s unresponsiveness.
“Actually,” Lynette says, apropos of nothing, “I just thought of someone. The designer who made our performance outfits. Chiori. She’s very interesting.”
She swears she sees Charlotte’s eyes light up. “Lynette, you’re amazing,” she squeals, and smiles so brightly that Lynette thinks Charlotte might apply pneuma to her without even touching her. Maybe the arkhe reaction is why her face feels so warm.
***
The first thing Lynette notices is that Charlotte’s kamera has a little hat and a bow tie.
“Do you like them?” Charlotte asks eagerly, holding out the kamera. “Monsieur Verite got an upgrade! Chiori made them for me. She’s really nice! Thanks so much for the tip, by the way.”
“Your kamera has a costume,” Lynette says flatly.
Charlotte must not catch the sarcasm because she just grins. “Yeah!” She sets the kamera back at her waist, hooking it into a little strap. “He’s the best kamera ever. My dad modified him for me, back when I was younger.”
“Modified?”
“Mm-hmm. So he’s really easy to use.”
They’re near the Fountain of Lucine. Lynette has a performance scheduled at the Opera Epiclese in the evening. The instant Charlotte heard about it, she jumped to buy herself a front-row ticket. Lynette is sure she’s hoping to get picked from the audience, but joke’s on her, because Lyney always chooses someone in the back half.
The sound of a shutter snaps Lynette back to reality. She glances at Charlotte, at the guilty smile on her face as she lowers the kamera.
“Sorry,” she says, not sounding at all apologetic. “But you said it was okay for me to take pictures of you back in the Fortress. I figured you still don’t mind.”
Lynette doesn’t, not at all. “You didn’t tell me to smile,” she says.
“But you already were.”
To Lynette’s horror, Charlotte is right. She’s smiling. Just a little, but a little is more than usual.
“Actually, do you want to try?”
Lynette blinks. “What?”
“Taking a photo,” Charlotte says. “Do you want to try? I’ll show you. It’s not hard. See, you just press this button. If you want to adjust the aperture, you turn this dial, and there’s some other settings but you don’t have to worry about those.”
She holds out the kamera. Lynette stares at it intensely. It’s a machine. It’s definitely a machine. Which means that the odds are stacked against her. If she touches it, there is at least a ninety percent chance that it will either spontaneously combust, fall apart, or simply stop working. Lynette should avoid touching it. At all costs.
Charlotte looks at her with wide eyes. “Come on, please?”
“Okay,” Lynette says, a little shakily.
Charlotte beams as she hands the kamera over. Lynette holds it like it’s a ticking time bomb. She directs it towards a rainbow rose growing alongside the path and waits until she hopes it’s focused. And then-
“Just press the button,” Charlotte says reassuringly.
Lynette shuts her eyes and presses the button.
Click.
“Wow.”
Lynette braces for the worst. But when she opens her eyes, all she sees is a perfectly framed shot of a rainbow rose, displayed on the perfectly functional kamera in her hands.
“That’s really good, especially for your first time using Monsieur Verite.” Charlotte smiles widely, throwing up a peace sign. “Try taking one of me!”
“I don’t think I should,” Lynette mumbles, but Charlotte eyes only scrunch up with delighted laughter, and her hair is windswept from the breeze and her eyes are wide and bright and Lynette feels worse nerves than she did when she first performed before the Opera Epiclese as she presses the button again.
Charlotte leans in to look at the picture, then frowns slightly. “Aw. Well, it’s not a bad picture, but I guess I’m not quite as good of a subject.”
“You’re an excellent subject,” Lynette says, with conviction she forgets to hide from time to time. “It’s beautiful.” You’re beautiful , Lynette thinks. Even the voice she uses in her head is quiet, just in case Charlotte could overhear.
Charlotte turns the same color as the rainbow roses on the side of the path. “Well,” she says, smiling at the ground like she heard it anyway. “I’m really glad you think so.”
***
Lyney is, for lack of a more emphatic word, in distress.
“Lynette!” he cries, flopping down into an armchair dramatically. “Why must fate be so cruel to me?”
“Go back to sleep,” she says flatly, without looking up. She cannot break her concentration while brewing tea, not if she wants to ensure the proper depth of flavor is brought out of the leaves. “You’re not dying. You’re just lactose intolerant.”
“I am not - okay, I am,” he concedes. “But that’s not the problem this time! Lynette, oh my sweet Lynette, but it is the woes of the heart that have befallen me. I am in love. Horrible, terrible love!”
Lynette guesses, from the sound, that he throws an arm across his face. “Lyney, calm down. The traveler likes you back.”
“They do?” he asks delightedly. Then, remembering his misery, he groans. “Alas, but they do not! I have displayed my affections in every possible way, and yet they continue to be so cold to me! Oh, Lynette. I pray that you are never likewise ailed.”
“What, in love?”
“Our Tsaritsa is such a cruel master of the heart,” he sighs, which she takes as confirmation.
“You could just ask them out.”
“I’ve already done everything short of professing my adoration from the rooftops,” he laments, and Lynette lets him because he just needs to get the excess energy out. “I praised every dish they brought me. I scaled mountains with them and fought alongside them. Lynette, I pulled a rainbow rose from behind their ear!”
“Rainbow roses are a nice color,” she muses, half to herself, as she pours the third round of water over the tea leaves. “Like her hair.”
Lyney sits up straight so quickly that he is nothing but a blur in her peripheral vision. “Oh?” He grins. “Who is this mysterious ‘her’ you speak of? Whose hair shines so brilliantly like the flower of love?”
“No one,” Lynette says quickly.
“Do you like her?”
“No,” Lynette says. Then Lyney cackles as she misses the teacup entirely and pours hot water all over the countertop.
***
Lynette has memorized everyone’s knock. Well, everyone who comes calling to their residence, at least. Lyney’s, and Freminet’s, and Navia’s, and the traveler’s. Father doesn’t knock; she just enters. But she doesn’t recognize this knock, and it sounds urgent.
“Please,” someone says from the other side of the door. “Lynette, are you there? I kinda have an emergency!”
Oh. She recognizes that voice.
Lynette opens the door. Relief floods over Charlotte’s face. “Oh, thank you,” she gushes, stumbling in like she’s been stuck in a rainstorm for an hour, even though it’s only a little overcast. “Sorry to burst in like this, but I really don’t know where else to go.”
“What’s wrong?” Lynette asks immediately, scanning her. “I don’t see any injuries. Is it head trauma? Are you feeling dizzy? Nauseous? Sit down. I’ll make tea.”
But Charlotte catches her by the wrist before she can turn away. “I’m okay,” she says softly. “Don’t worry.”
Lynette’s shoulders fall. She didn’t even know they were tense.
“Your ears just folded forward,” Charlotte observes, her usual sunshine smile coming back, just a little. “I hope that’s a good thing.”
“What’s wrong,” Lynette repeats flatly. It is a good thing, not that she’d admit it. Charlotte doesn’t need to know any more than she already does. Doesn’t need to know that Lynette has a weakness for her that grows by the day.
“Oh… it seems kind of silly, now that you brought up head trauma,” Charlotte says, frowning slightly. “But I think Monsieur Verite is broken. And I’m supposed to be photographing a duel in an hour.”
“And you came to me for help?”
“Well, yeah,” Charlotte says. “I was in the area. And you fix a lot of things for me. You make things better. I don’t know. It sounds stupid.”
“I can’t fix machines,” Lynette admits, shoving down her embarrassment for practicality’s sake. “I actually break every machine I touch. It might be a miracle I didn’t break your kamera when I used it.”
Charlotte’s face falls. “Oh.” She finally sits down on the couch, setting her kamera in her lap. “Well, thanks anyway. I don’t have time to go back to the Steambird office, so I guess I’ll just have to borrow someone else’s? Do you know anyone in the area with a kamera they’d be willing to lend me? I don’t like using other kameras, but if I have to…”
But Lynette has already made up her mind. Made it up the moment she saw Charlotte downcast. “One moment,” she says firmly. Then, up the stairs, “Freminet!”
A clunking sound. “Yes?”
“Come down,” Lynette calls. “I need a favor.”
Charlotte tilts her head curiously as Freminet descends the stairs. Upon noticing Charlotte, his eyes go wide as saucers, and he nearly retreats, but Lynette gently motions for him to come forward. He steps toward her with trepidation.
“Hi,” says Charlotte quietly. Well, quietly for her. Normal volume for most other people. “I’m Charlotte. Um, can you help out with my kamera?”
Freminet picks it up wordlessly, examining it in silence. He opens the back of it, checks the film canister, fiddles with the tiny hat and bow tie. Lynette watches for approximately three minutes before she decides that it’s probably better if she leaves, and retreats to the kitchen to make some very complicated tea that will hopefully keep her bad luck far, far away from Charlotte, so that hopefully she won’t have reason to frown ever again.
Three cups of optimized Inazuman gyokuro later, Charlotte comes into the kitchen, beaming. “Why didn’t you tell me your brother was a mechanical genius?” she asks, sounding utterly overjoyed. “Monsieur Verite is better than ever! I don’t know what he did, but wow. That was incredible. See, I told you, you make things better.”
Lynette, against her will, feels her face heating up. “I’m glad Freminet helped you,” she says. “Will you make it in time for the duel?”
Charlotte glances at the clock, then grimaces. “Well, I think if I run a little I’ll make it a few minutes early. I guess I gotta go, then!”
“Wait,” Lynette finds herself saying. Charlotte turns, looks at her with that sweet expectancy in her eyes, and Lynette’s breath catches. “I made three cups of tea. I’ll get you a travel thermos.”
“You really made this for me?” Charlotte asks, looking delighted, as Lynette pours her tea into a taller canister for the road. “That’s so sweet. You know, my voice was a little scratchy this morning. I bet this’ll help a lot.”
Lynette clears her throat. “Well,” she says. “I suppose this is goodbye.”
“Okay,” Charlotte says, breathy. Then she leans in and kisses her. “Bye!”
And before Lynette can say anything, she’s speeding off into the city.
Lynette watches her leave and wonders what just happened. It wasn’t even a long kiss. Just a peck. A little goodbye kiss. Her heart is racing anyway.
It wasn’t bad. Not at all. Actually, she might be amenable to it happening again.
***
“So will you go out with me?” Charlotte asks.
They’re at Cafe Lutece again. Charlotte has an interview here in an hour, and Lynette doesn’t have anything better to do today. Even if she did have plans, she would have dropped them to accompany her. Charlotte looks so hopeful, wide-eyed and barely sipping her tea. She doesn’t need to be so worried. Lynette doesn’t know how she could possibly want to reject her.
“I don’t know,” Lynette says anyway. “You’ll have to keep buying me smoked salmon sandwiches.”
Charlotte grins. “I can do that.”
***
“Oh Lynette, woe is me! The traveler has yet again heartlessly turned me down. They must know by now how I feel. I’m beginning to think they take some sort of pleasure in my misery.”
“Just ask them out.”
“Easy for you to say, miss my-journalist-girlfriend-likes-me-unconditionally-and-finds-everything-I-do-interesting.”
“Shh. You’ll wake her up.”
“Well, maybe you ought to move her off the couch, then!”
Lynette takes one look at Charlotte, asleep with her head on Lynette’s lap. Her hair is splayed across Lynette’s legs. Her roots are blonde and her ends are fading. She must need to redo her dye and get a trim soon. Maybe Lynette will help. She’s cut Freminet’s hair before. It can’t be that different. Besides, even if she messes it up, it’ll just be another story, and Charlotte loves stories.
“No.”
Lyney despairs.