The Knave, The Fourth of the Fatui Harbingers, “Father” of the House of the Hearth.

Long before the name Arlecchino was feared across Teyvat, there was only Peruere — a nameless orphan in a frozen orphanage of the Fatui. Like the others, she had no family, no history, and no future. The only constant was "Mother," Crucabena — the first Knave, a woman whose gentle eyes hid a mind colder than Snezhnaya’s tundra.

"Mother" told bedtime stories filled with blood and fire. Her “family” was an experiment, test subjects even. The game was always the same: the weak perish, the strong survive. Those who failed her trials of “love” were erased in the name of progress.

Peruere was different. She endured every trial, every wound, every scar. Fire burned within her — not just in spirit, but in truth. It started as a flicker in her palm, a strange flame that did not warm but consumed. When she lost control, her flesh blackened as if charred from within. Yet, unlike the others, she did not scream. She watched as the fire ate her, and she smiled through the pain.

“Fate grants favors to no one,” Director Pierro would one day say. But even then, Peruere understood this instinctively. Fate was something you burned alive.

The House of the Hearth

The House of the Hearth stood as both orphanage and laboratory. From the outside, it was a sanctuary for those abandoned; inside, it was a crucible of suffering.

Mother Crucabena presided over it like a benevolent queen. She smiled as members obeyed to her experiments, as they played “Marelle” over squares lined with blades. She called it “teaching them balance.” She called it “raising kings.”

Peruere became her favorite. She was gifted, obedient, and strong. She survived every ordeal, and Crucabena saw in her a mirror of her own ambition. Even Crucabena’s true daughter, Clervie, grew jealous of the love their “Mother” lavished on Peruere.

Yet love is a cruel disguise for control. Peruere saw the truth behind the smiles. She saw people die while Crucabena hummed lullabies. She watched Clervie flinch at her mother’s touch, torn between devotion and disdain.

So when the time came to choose a “king” of the Hearth — to decide who would kill or be killed — Peruere did not hesitate. She slew her “Mother.”

Some said it was rebellion. Some said madness. But to Peruere, it was liberation.

At the spot where Crucabena fell, she erected a tombstone herself:

“Here the last light of the setting sun lies buried. Here the coming dawn finds a welcome.”

From that night, Mother died, and "Father" was born.

The Curse and the Flame

After Crucabena’s death, the House of the Hearth fell silent. Blood cooled on the floorboards; screams faded into ash. The orphans, orphaned once again, gathered around Peruere. Some feared her. Others adored her. None could understand her.

The strange fire that once burned within her body — now called the Balemoon Bloodfire — began to change her. The marks of charring spread along her arms like ink stains. Her flames devoured flesh, yet never went out.

Each time she killed, the ashes whispered to her. Sometimes she heard fragments of voices — the cries of those she burned. Sometimes, she saw them take shape beside her: fleeting silhouettes of those she’d slain. She called them “afterimages.” They comforted her in her solitude, ghostly orphans who would sit by her side until they faded away.

But Peruere would never call them by name. The dead belonged to memory — and memory was a weakness she could not afford.

The Crimson Vision

When Clervie died by her own hand, the last chain that bound Peruere to her past was severed. That night, under the light of a crimson moon, she received her Pyro Vision.

No divine revelation accompanied it. No voice from the heavens proclaimed her chosen. It was silent, heavy, inevitable — a reflection of the fire she had already kindled within.

She held it close, not as a blessing, but as proof: that her will was stronger than fate.

And when she finally revealed herself to the Fatui, she came not as an orphan, but as a weapon.

The Jester and the Harbinger

Pierro, the Jester — first among Harbingers — found her among the ruins of the Hearth. He saw not a girl, but a survivor molded by cruelty and tempered by fire.

When he offered her the title The Knave and a Delusion, he also offered five answers to five questions.

“Why me?” she asked.

“The naïve die for ideals. We live to fulfill them,” he said.

“What are my flames?”

“A relic of the Crimson Moon — a dynasty long buried.”

“What will become of us when the Tsaritsa’s dream is fulfilled?”

“You will have no place in it. But she will love humanity again.”

Peruere — now Arlecchino — accepted these truths. She bowed only to the Tsaritsa, and no god besides. Her Delusion was her crown, her Vision her rebellion, her Bloodfire her curse.

She swore she would make the House of the Hearth something real — not an experiment, but a home.

“Father” of the Hearth

Years passed. The House of the Hearth was rebuilt, its walls now shining white. The orphans there were not test subjects, but spies, agents, and "family." Each was an orphan like she once was — broken, but not beyond repair.

They called her "Father."

To outsiders, the title was strange. But within the Hearth, it was sacred. “Father” was protector, teacher, judge. Her discipline was severe; her love, unspoken.

When someone disobeyed, she taught them why. When one faltered, she made them stronger. When one showed vanity or weakness, she used that moment to forge wisdom.

She knew that gentleness could kill as surely as cruelty could. So she gave them lessons forged in fire — the same fire that once consumed her.

And when she gazed upon them by the hearthlight, she sometimes saw faint afterimages flicker in the flames — ghosts of orphans long gone, watching over their successors.

Marelle

Arlecchino’s rules were many, and her code strict. But none carried as much hidden meaning as the word Marelle.

Once, it was the game of death played under Crucabena’s watch — hopscotch drawn over blades. Now, under Arlecchino, it was reborn as a codeword meaning “At Ease.”

To the orphans, it meant laughter, play, sunlight. To Arlecchino, it was a memory buried deep: of blood-soaked snow, of trembling hands, of a promise she made to herself — that no one under her watch would suffer as she had.

She alone would carry that burden. She alone would remember what Marelle once meant.

The Solitary Balemoon

Even among the Harbingers, Arlecchino remains a mystery. Some say she is Pierro’s most loyal subordinate; others whisper that she plots her own vision of order, independent of the Tsaritsa’s.

To diplomats, she is a cold negotiator whose eyes can pierce through deception. To enemies, she is a demon cloaked in civility. And to her "children" — Lyney, Lynette, Freminet, and countless others — she is simply "Father."

She drinks her tea in silence, stares into the firelight, and listens to the laughter fade when the clock strikes the hour.

The lizard she once kept, the one that tried to escape its glass cage, taught her something she already knew: freedom is a choice that often ends in death. Yet still, she sets her children free when their time comes — better ashes than puppets.

Because Arlecchino’s truest rebellion was never against gods or nations, but against fate itself.

The Knave’s Creed

“A home is not a place of safety. It is a forge. Those who survive its fire emerge pure — and free. The world gives nothing to the weak. So we, the House of the Hearth, shall take everything in return.”

And when the crimson moon rises over the snowfields of Snezhnaya, its light catches upon a woman’s scarred hands — hands that once burned, hands that still carry the warmth of every child she saved and every life she took.

To the world, she is The Knave.
To her "children," and orphans she is Father.
And to herself... she remains Peruere,
the girl who burned fate to ash and built a home from the embers.

(Art by Aelion Draws)

Content Warnings: Violence, death, and her backstory. User discretion is advised!

(Art by Immanuela Crovius)

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