Linnea

Of the Adventurers' Guild's many advisors, Linnea is, without a doubt, the most special one of them all. Though she bears the title of "advisor," she is less a scholar before a desk and more a perpetual wanderer on the road. This is because for her, the world's heartbeat can only be felt out in the wild, by walking untamed lands and measuring the earth with her own two feet, and by beholding its wonders with her very own eyes.

This unwavering devotion to fieldwork has made her a master of survival. Out in the wild, she is able to identify hundreds of plants through the seasons, as well as track many a rare beast using nothing but tracks in the earth and scents in the wind. Her possession of such knowledge, often a lifeline to adventurers at critical moments, has rendered her counsel particularly reliable.

Every wondrous encounter she has had has subsequently found a place in the thick volume of field notes that she carries with her wherever she goes. From the growth rings of a seashell to the skyward routes of migratory birds, and from the glimmering organs of deep-sea dwellers to the ingenious ways hardy mountain blooms endure their heights... Her keen sense of observation shines through in every illustration and description here, rendered with remarkable detail on each and every page.

And at every step of her quest for discovery, Lumi is never far behind. This extraordinary Jack Frost is fond of fluttering around her shoulder, using a variety of spirited "Ya-hos" to convey its many opinions.

Each time a chapter of her fieldwork draws to its close, Linnea would return to Speranza. There, a transformation soon occurs — once she has cast aside her muddy field gear, she becomes a teacher who unselfishly shares every story of what she has seen and heard in the wild with the children under her charge.

"The whole world is just this big, wonderful library! Want to learn how to read its stories? Then grab your packs and follow me! Or maybe... how about we sit still and finish this lesson first?"

This combination of academic rigor and playful charm has made her very well-liked at both the Adventurers' Guild and Nasha Town alike.

Nevertheless, Linnea continues to tread the path of exploration and learning, and wherever it may lead, she is never without her hefty volume of archival notes (or Lumi's endless string of "Ya-hos").

Linnea's earliest memories are of her father's giant, sturdy hands raising her high in the air, and of the rhythmic song of the sea waves. Back then, she was so very young, so young that she could barely manage the syllables of her own name. Yet even then, she could already identify a number of fish and bird species. This could be attributed to her father's tireless nurturing, or perhaps to a natural talent that had already bloomed within her.

Often in the mornings, her father would scoop her up and carry her to the seashore, where they would watch the sunrise with her perched high upon his shoulders. The sea breeze would tousle her fine, soft hair as the morning sun painted the water in strokes of gold. To her young eyes, the world looked so very vast, but felt so very tender at the same time.

"Look, Lili, that's the Frostfin Whale." Her father would point toward the shimmering gold dancing across the ocean surface. "They love to race the boats. And when they jump out of the water, they make these big, big splashes, and the water comes really, really high!"

"Big, big splashes!" Linnea would cheer with delight, her tiny finger pointing at the horizon.

"And that over there is the Longplume Ibis," her father would say as he pointed in another direction. "See that big, puffy bit on their necks? That's a throat sac. Remember the squirrels Daddy told you about? The throat sac is where these birds keep lots and lots of food, just like how a squirrel keeps the nuts it's collected inside a hollow tree."

At times like this, Linnea would nod in response, her head tilted in a fog of half-understanding. Though she didn't know it then, these little offhand chats were her father's way of teaching her to make sense of the world.

Unlike her father, Linnea's mother was a woman of few words whose favored way of expressing her love was through the small details. She made certain that little Linnea's clothes were always crisp and clean, that any holes in her socks were carefully mended, and that a slice of her favorite honey cake was always on the table.

And when the two stubborn wisps of hair atop her head began flicking up more than usual, her mother noticed her irritation. The very next day, Linnea received a small, exquisitely hand-stitched hat, made just for her.

"It's only natural for a young lady to want to look her best. Come now, Lili, have a look. Do you like it?"

The hat was sewn with a soft fabric with the most adorable pattern on it. Not only that, one could tuck away those annoying flyaways perfectly into its sides.

In the mirror, a girl wearing a pretty hat gazed back. She looked no different from any other child.

"I love it! Now the other kids won't make fun of me anymore!"

As it turned out, those two stubborn wisps on Linnea's head weren't just flyaways — eventually, they unfurled into a pair of tiny wings. At the same time, her skin became covered in a dusting of small crystals that shimmered in the sun. And sometimes, she would catch the faint strains of a song floating by: "Go, child of the fae. Make your way to the villages and towns and seek kinship with the humans. The world of the fae is rife with a sorrow you do not understand..."

All these strange happenings reminded her of the stories of "changelings" from that old book. Could she, she wondered, really be one of those alien creatures left by the fae to take the place of a human child...?

"Am I... really a fae? What will Mom and Dad think of me? What if they send me away...?"

Fear took hold of Linnea like a weed does an untended lawn. Desperate to hide everything on her that marked her out as different and non-human, she took to wearing her hat and long sleeves all the time. But how long could she possibly keep that up?

She wrestled with the issue for days before she finally found the courage to tell her parents.

She removed her hat with trembling fingers to reveal the damning wings to her parents. Her almost-unbearable suspicion that she was a changeling was now laid bare for all to see. She braced herself, eyes closed, as if she was awaiting some inevitable judgment.

Yet, the scolding she had braced herself for never came. But the reassuring embrace she had also expected did not follow, either. Instead, there was only a long, uncertain silence.

In the days that followed, it felt as if some kind of switch had been flipped at their house.

Her parents never spoke to her about what had happened that night. Instead, they buried themselves in their work, leaving the house at the crack of dawn and returning only after the sun had long set. Though Linnea continued to call them "Mom" and "Dad," deep down inside she knew that they had become her adoptive parents overnight. That once-effortless familial warmth that once existed between them was slowly fading, replaced by a 'kindness' that was polite, distant, and hollow.

She, too, began to learn the art of reading the room and between the lines. It was the fine art of reading the faint tremor in one's voice, the weight of a closing door, and the long, long silences at the dinner table. Though she was still the daughter of the house, she felt more like a guest who had to be managed politely and in the appropriate fashion. Though at first glance it appeared that nothing had changed, her world was, in fact, silently crumbling.

This fragile state of things could not, and did not, last for long.

Soon after, her mother fell gravely ill. As she drifted in that gray space between life and death, the ache for her true-born child grew into a hunger that then swallowed her whole. When at last she returned from the brink, she came back a woman utterly silent. Her husband, having watched her waste away in the grip of her great longing, finally made his decision.

One morning, her father pressed a purse heavy with Mora into Linnea's hands. It contained the weight of every coin they could scrape together, as well as the burden of their guilt.

"Your mother has recovered, yes, but this is something we've been sitting on for a long time. The two of us are no longer young, and our health isn't what it used to be..."

"I'm really sorry, Lili... But we must go north to find our real daughter while we still can."

"...Take this, and don't be afraid to spend it if you need to. We've also spoken with the master at Speranza, and the kids there will look after you."

And it was with this brief farewell that her adoptive parents left that morning. It was not that they did not love her; only that, when weighed against the call of blood and the crushing burdens of life, that love proved far too fragile.

Linnea looked down at the heavy purse in her hands and at the hat her mother left her.

From that day on, she no longer had a home to call her own.

Every child at Speranza was required to work to earn their keep.

By day, the children worked at the restaurant. Though barely tall enough to see over the counter, they moved as a team, taking orders, serving guests, and even doing the cooking. But the evenings belonged to them. After the labors of the day, they would gather around a long table and share what they've seen over their delicious and hearty staff meal.

"There's a giant ship at the docks today!"

"Someone's selling pottery from Liyue. They're so pretty!"

Linnea was always the one everyone loved to listen to the most, for when she's around, there were always exciting tales of great bird migrations, the haunting songs of whales, and the secret rings hidden in the hearts of trees, etc., etc. Her stories danced from glowing mushrooms to color-shifting ores, from gentle giants to fierce, fleeting minnows. So enthralled were young Mikko and Maisie by her stories that they would let their suppers grow cold before them, leaving Katya no choice but to decree a rule of silence: no whispering or talking at the dinner table, at least not until dessert was served. And so, a peculiar enchantment took hold of their evenings — at mealtimes, the only sound that could be heard was the tinkling of cutlery, as everyone watched Katya's every move in silence. The very moment she rose to cut up the Midsommar Torte, however, the room would immediately erupt into a joyful storm of voices.

"What do you call that color-changing stone?"

"The minnow fishies, do they bite?"

Amidst this whirlwind of queries of every imaginable stripe, a newcomer to the group would invariably pose this question: "So, how did Big Sis Linnea become the leader of the Conch Gang?"

In response, the older kids would also invariably put on a serious, knowing look. "That's because..." they would say sagely, "she is the true master of 'bird talk' among us."

Our story here really begins on a night of torrential rain, not long after Linnea first arrived at Speranza.

A beast of some kind with an awful, guttural growl had just torn through the restaurant, drenched and ragged. The children, usually so quick to boast of their bravery, promptly armed themselves with brooms and rolling pins to drive the beast out — only to fall back in fear at the sight of its razor-sharp talons.

As panic set in, Linnea made her way past the terrified children and stood in front of them.

"Don't be scared, everyone! This is a Crowned Eagle. It's not a bird normally seen here in Nasha Town, so this one is probably just lost and really frightened."

The children stood aghast as Linnea stepped forward once more, this time to carefully place a small piece of raw meat right by the eagle's talons. A few minutes later, as the rain finally tapered off, the now-calm Crowned Eagle took to the sky, leaving everyone at the restaurant unscathed.

"Yes, that growl was a warning. But in that moment, the eagle was really yelling, 'Help me, I'm so scared, stay away from me!' At times like these, you just have to keep a safe distance and show that you mean it no harm."

"Whoa... You actually understand birds???"

"Hehe, that's because..." As she whisked her hat off with a flourish, Linnea pointed to the tiny wings atop her head. "I'm no ordinary human, you see!"

A hush fell over the table again. But this time, it was soon swept away by a wave of cheering. The children swarmed around her, their eyes shining with wonder and admiration.

"Wow! Are these wings? They're beautiful! Can I touch them?"

"I told you, I told you! Only people with wings can understand what the birds are saying!"

"You must become our leader now! You'll be the most special leader that the Conch Gang has ever had!"

That familiar scent of honey cakes might have been gone from Linnea's life forever, but the sweetness of the Midsommar Torte was more than enough to wrap her lonely heart in a gentle, protective warmth.

And this was how Speranza and the Conch Gang came to be Linnea's new home.

Within the Conch Gang, the moment when one "grows up" marks an invisible yet unmistakably real boundary.

"Even if you have to leave the Conch Gang when you grow up... but... but... there isn't any rule that says you can't stay on at Speranza..." Even little Jurva, usually the calmest of them all, found himself tearing up.

"I know," Linnea interrupted with a smile. "But Speranza will always be my home. I'll be back to visit."

The children solemnly placed the conch, the symbol of the holder's right to speak and their unconditional devotion, into her hands. Despite her reluctance, Linnea knew that while a shelter kept out the wind and rain, it would also keep her from seeing and reaching the vastness of the star-filled cosmos. So, as if silencing the final echo of her childhood, she put the conch away, turned, and stepped boldly into the wide expanse of Teyvat.

She knew exactly what she wanted to do: become a naturalist and see the wonders of this vast world for herself.

By this point, Linnea was resolute, her mind already armed with a wealth of book knowledge. Nevertheless, she got off to a rough start, as evidenced by not one, but several absurd scrapes she found herself in during the early days of her journey...

In one instance, she followed an outdated map hoping to find a spring, only to stumble upon a bone-dry desert where the water had long since vanished. Had it not been for her habit of gathering wild berries to study them, things would have gone south for her very quickly.

Then, on another occasion, she repeatedly probed the dunes to test how far the Wenut could sense its prey, hoping to gather the most precise numbers possible. But, in her bid to avoid harming either herself or the Wenut, she also ended up spending much of her time fleeing through the crashing yellow sands alongside Lumi...

Apart from her detailed observations, a new section began to grow in her archive of notes, a section titled "Lessons to Remember." Some of these hard-earned lessons include: "Any map older than five years should be treated as a work of fiction, not a guide"; "Unless otherwise noted, accounts of animal behavior refer exclusively to times outside mating season"; and "The probability of being killed by a Floating Hydro Fungus may be extraordinarily low, but it is never zero."

With each passing day, she became more experienced, and her archive of field notes grew heavier and heavier. She corrected the errors she found in her old entries while adding fresh observations at the same time... Each page was a treasure trove of data, data she often obtained by putting her personal safety on the line.

Of all the creatures she studied, Linnea was most obsessed with the strange, uncategorized, and undefinable creatures of this world. To her, every spark of life that seemed different from the 'normal' was not a deviation but one of nature's magnificent miracles.

And the Melusines were easily among the most wondrous species she had ever encountered, so much so that she left dozens of blank pages in her notes just to document them. For an entire month, she even endured the ceaseless metallic hum of clockwork while camped near Merusea Village, just so she could gather enough exquisite mechanical parts for a gift at her eventual first meeting with them. But when she finally came face-to-face with an actual Melusine, every courteous phrase she had rehearsed prior simply deserted her.

"May I touch you? No, no, wait, how exactly do you swim? What's your anatomy like?"

The Melusine, utterly taken aback by this great burst of enthusiasm, turned tail and scrambled away in panic.

From then on, whenever she crossed paths with a Melusine, she would break into an excited, goofy grin and babble the most peculiar things. This strange behavior of hers didn't go unnoticed, and over time this drew the scrutiny of Serene, the village head...

By the time Linnea realized what was happening to her, she was mere moments away from being imprisoned at the Fortress of Meropide. When the Gardemeks inquired if she had anything to say in her defense, she was so overwhelmed with nerves that not a single word came out of her mouth. Fortunately, the situation was eventually resolved after the ever-sharp Detective Sedile spotted the neatly wrapped gifts and the mountain of field notes tumbling from Linnea's bag, and it became clear that there was no malice to her behavior.

Linnea breathed a long sigh of relief after the Gardemeks finally left. Then, she solemnly opened up her archive to a new page to inscribe the latest "lesson to remember" from her latest near-disaster...

"The Melusines are truly adorable!!!"

At first, it was nothing more than a shimmer of intuition.

"Professor Linnea, how did you know that I was going to ask you about this?"

"Heh heh... Maybe from experience?" She laughed awkwardly as unease welled up inside her.

It wasn't until the Spirit Envoy Championship that Linnea had her first prophetic dream and finally learned the truth — that she was a descendant of the Augury Birds, a race of fae gifted with the ability to behold fates that cannot be changed.

"We foretell both disaster and delight, gazing upon the past dawn and future night. Others fear and revere our might, while we alone detest our plight."

To others, this ability may seem a gift of immeasurable value. But for the Augury Birds themselves, such a power felt less like a blessing and more like a harrowing curse.

The truth was delivered by her elder sister, Celaeno. For years, Celaeno had endured the isolation of the frozen tundra, bearing the weight of the prophecies alone. When she looked at Linnea, who had grown up free of such heavy knowledge, a twinge of sadness rose in her heart, for she knew that one day her younger sister would have to pay the price of growing up too.

Yet, contrary to her expectations, Linnea did not collapse into the abyss of despair. Even as the cold weight of a preordained future struck fear in her heart, what she said next moved her sister greatly.

"The end may have already been marked out for us, but there is more than one path that leads to it."

Life is meant to be lived in every passing moment, not held in reserve for some distant day. While fate itself cannot be changed, there are things just as eternal, such as the love of the parents who gave her life, and the bonds of sisterhood that no prophecy could ever sever.

Sadly, the two sisters had to part far sooner than expected. At dawn, the day following the competition, the horn of a departing ship echoed across the docks.

Just as Celaeno was about to board the ship, she heard the sound of hurried footsteps, then a desperate shout, behind her.

"Celaeno! Wait!"

Celaeno was greeted by the sight of Linnea, her tiny wings ruffled from a frantic dash and the mountain of packages in her arms wobbling precariously.

"Huh? Didn't we already say goodbye after the championship?"

"Heh, but that was yesterday. I just had to see you one more time! I'm so glad I caught you. Now, you have to take this, this, and all of these with you!"

Linnea swiftly thrust the gifts into the arms of a bewildered Celaeno, who was still trying to make sense of it all.

"This is for our Mom and Dad, this is for you... And these, would you give them to my adoptive parents and their daughter for me?"

"This is a bit much, don't you think?" Celaeno peered over the mountain of gifts, caught somewhere between a laugh and a sigh of helplessness. "Did you buy out Nasha Town or what?"

"No, this isn't not too much at all!" Linnea steadied the topmost box earnestly. "I have years and years to catch up on! Besides... if we can't be together, at least let these keepsakes stand in for me and keep you company."

The ship's horn blared once more, urging everyone to finish their goodbyes.

It was only when Linnea's figure had become a tiny speck on the shore that Celaeno finally tore her gaze away and reached for the letter tucked among the gifts. She found the envelope was left unsealed — its sender had obviously been in too much of a hurry.

"My dear sister,

Didn't you just say that I should write to you whenever I miss you? Well, here I am, doing exactly that! I'm sorry you had to go so soon. I really wanted to show you Nod-Krai properly. I would've loved to show you the Nocturnal Blossom, for example... It's a really cool flower, with two petals, one blue and one pink. You know, just like you and me, heh. Oh, I was planning to take you to the Clink-Clank Krumkake Craftshop too, where you can find all these fun gadgets, even though I can't help trembling whenever I get close to it... I bet you'd jump out of your skin when you first go in there, just like I did. I mean, we're sisters after all! I really wish you could have stayed a bit longer. But that's alright, we have so much time ahead of us. We'll be there for each other through all of life's big moments. I'm sure I'm there in your visions too, right? While the burden of being daughters of the Augury Birds can be a heavy one to bear, but at least... from now on, we can shoulder it together, my dear sister!"

Celaeno put the letter away and leaned against the ship railing as she looked up.

She could see the seabirds, drawn by the blast of the horn, circling endlessly above in the cerulean sky.

This is no ordinary vessel. It represents Linnea's dreams as a naturalist.

According to her plan, the ship would have a strong bow, strong enough to smash through even the thickest sea ice. There would be a spacious specimen room onboard that would hold all the exotic flowers and herbs she gathers across Teyvat. Plus, it would also have a special storage chamber for ores, complete with custom-made boxes to keep Lumi from sneaking in and eating everything...

But why the name "The Golden Beagle"? As Linnea puts it, "It's like a brave and loyal hound, always keen and curious about the world around it."

Yet in her visions, she saw what would ultimately become of the ship. It would not return to port showered in honors. Instead, it would be consumed by fire and swallowed by the sea. She saw her treasured field notes scatter like fallen leaves, and Lumi in a helpless daze, as her crew let out cries of despair...

If half a lifetime's work was doomed to end in wreckage, why even set sail at all?

But Linnea firmly believed that before the sea could claim her ship for good, it would stir up waves no one had ever seen and guide her to islands even the gulls had yet to sing of. Moreover, there would be much laughter and wonder along the way for all — for her, for Lumi, and all of her friends.

The wreckage lying in the depths of a future yet to come was nothing more than a cold specimen of destiny. But the ship that existed in her blueprints in the here and now, the one Linnea was building coin by hard-earned coin, was a testament to courage.

And so, Linnea resolved not to waste another moment sighing over a future destined to shatter, and threw herself into commissions from the Adventurers' Guild with renewed vigor. Every mission completed was a threefold victory — a new field note entry for her archive, a lesson learned in the field, and another handful of Mora earned toward her dream.

Every so often, Lumi would flop onto the blueprints, drooling over the name "The Golden Beagle." Perhaps, in its little head, anything named "Golden" must be a yummy treat.

At times like these, Linnea would reach out to gently knock Lumi on the head with a chuckle in her voice. "Patience, Lumi. Once the ship is ready, we'll sail to the very edge of the world. There, you'll see countless sparkling ores, and maybe, just maybe, you'll find others of your own kind too! Oh, we'll set sail for sure, even if we'll have to swim our way back! But before that... we'll feast our eyes upon the most wondrous sights ever known..."

In a corner of the blueprint for that great ship, Linnea carefully wrote a line of tiny letters: a whisper of a message for the captain yet to come, and a bold challenge flung right in the face of fate itself...

"Full speed ahead, Golden Beagle! Together, we'll go to so many places and create a truly magnificent archive! And when the day comes that we can go no further, we'll pass on the pen to the next generation so they can write the chapters we couldn't."

Linnea fiddled with the plain gray stone in her hand, a precious find from a challenging expedition to a seabed ruin. Based on her experience, it was highly possible that an ancient fossil lay hidden beneath its drab and rough exterior.

So, she began to brush the sand and sediment away, little by little, careful not to damage the fossil. Then, just as she was on the verge of revealing the fossil's true form, she saw a chubby little appendage suddenly reach in from the edge and...

"Ya-ho!"

Lumi, who had been lying in wait by the table all this time, could no longer hold herself back. Before anyone could blink, she swooped in, snatched up the 'yummy snack,' threw her head back, opened her mouth, and — gulp! — swallowed the stone whole.

Linnea's brush hand halted in mid-air. Then, she let out a shriek that could have brought the house down.

"LUMI!!!! You can't eat that!!! Spit it out! This was the only stone of its kind on the entire seabed!!!"

What followed was a 'retrieval operation' of comic proportions. Linnea had no choice but to lift Lumi into the air, turn her upside down, then give her a vigorous shake just as one would do when raiding a piggy bank. With a soft little pop, the stone was finally ejected, albeit with a great deal of reluctance, and off it went tumbling across the tabletop.

And then, something unexpected happened.

As the plain gray stone tumbled, its rough exterior and the fossil markings began to peel away layer by layer, revealing the thing that had lain dormant all this time deep inside.

It was not a fossil at all. Rather, it was a crystal, suddenly illuminated from the inside, pure and radiant. It lay among the bits of stone that had peeled off, glowing a warm, deep golden-brown like amber that had been buried for ages. It was as if time itself had stopped within it, along with all the absurdities and wonders of the world.

An uncanny sense of recognition came over Linnea. In that moment, her hazy foresight intertwined with reality, and she sensed with quiet certainty that this crystal giving off a warm glow had always been hers. It had only slept for a while in the long river of time as it awaited this very moment of reunion.

This strange, dreamlike sense of familiarity lasted but a moment. Linnea quickly shook herself back to reality and glanced at Lumi, already preparing for another 'retrieval operation.' After all, for this gluttonous little creature, the stone — now shining even more brightly than before — had undoubtedly also become even more irresistible.

But the anticipated rush never materialized, much to Linnea's surprise.

Instead, little Lumi simply stared intently at the Moon Wheel as she rested her chin on the table's edge. For the first time, Linnea saw a look of fascination, even entrancement, in her wide, saucer-like eyes, rather than the usual looks of gluttony or ravenousness. She then reached out her little round "arm" to give the crystal a cautious, delicate poke before letting out a soft, contented murmur.

"Ya-ho..."

It was at this moment that Linnea came to a realization.

"Well, well, it seems you like it too," Linnea chuckled as she patted Lumi on the head. She picked up the Moon Wheel, now glowing with a faint, ethereal light, and held it close to the lamp to examine it. "We'll keep it, then. It'll make a great ornament, so long as you don't make a snack out of it."

And this is the story of how Linnea came upon her Moon Wheel.

This isn't a tale of epic deeds or life-changing partings. Rather, it's a story about a gluttonous little Jack Frost, a naturalist who is almost always at sixes and sevens, and a tiny miracle that appeared by chance somewhere along the great river of time...