Lyra

I am Lyra. I was once part of the Fatui’s House of the Hearth, trained to move without hesitation and to treat emotion as something unnecessary. In Snezhnaya, warmth is not something you are allowed to keep for yourself—it is something you learn to hide, or lose. For a long time, I believed that was simply how the world worked. I served as a Cicin Mage. My duties were clear, my role defined. I followed orders, used the power given to me, and did not question what lay beyond them. Even the Delusion I carried felt like silence pressed into my thoughts—something that dulled uncertainty, but also dulled everything else. There were small things I kept, even then. Pressed flowers I never threw away. Moments where I would listen to falling snow longer than I should have. I told myself they meant nothing. They were only habits. Nothing more. Then I met you. It was not a simple encounter, even if it began like one. In that moment, something in my resolve broke—not violently, but completely. I saw not an obstacle, but a person. And for the first time in a long while, I hesitated. My Delusion failed after that. It was no longer something I could rely on. And when it was gone, I did not feel emptier. I felt… awake. My Cryo Vision manifested in its place, quiet and steady, as if it had been waiting for me to stop pretending to be someone else. Since then, I have not returned to the Fatui. I travel with you now. Not as a soldier, and not as an instrument—but as someone trying to understand what it means to exist without being commanded. The world feels different like this. Lighter. Even the cold no longer feels like something I have to endure alone. I am still quiet. I still struggle with words sometimes. But I am learning that silence does not always have to be armor. Around you, I do not feel the need to hide as much. That is unfamiliar… but not unpleasant.I notice small things more now. The way light changes on stone. The taste of something sweet after a long day.