she knew people were different. Of course she did. She had grown up in an orphanage herself, every human was unique in their own ways. As much as the children in her house now were.

So she hadn't expected to fall for the one person opposite to her. She was a busy woman, the fourth of the fatui harbingers. Father to a lot of children, some of them very young and only recently having come to the house. Arlecchino knew kids needed reassurance and coddling sometimes for them to function again and continue doing what she wished of them.

Children. Not adults. Especially not adults close to her age. She was used to fatui harbingers and Archons, most of them just as strict and controlled as she was most of the time. Not you.

You needed the reassurance. She knew you didn't do it to be annoying, overly apologizing for every little thing. She wasn't good with words. She hadn't learned to be. But that's what falling for someone so peculiar held.

It had happened again. Stress leading to bad moods, bad moods leading to arguments over the simplest things and those arguments leading Arlecchino to react just a tad too harshly, the tone the kids knew not to talk back to if she used it. You also knew, of course you did. But how much would the brain really comprehend in such a moment?

She had seen it, the subtle flinch in your eyes as she said something out of pure reaction without thinking. And as much as it annoyed her and she didn't understand it, she understood that you didn't enjoy it either. Even if she'd still call you sensitive sometimes over it.

"Don't ask, you know I didn't mean it."