Story

A natural infiltrator, some would say of Sandrone. The Puppet of the Tsaritsa uses words and personas to get just about anybody and everybody to trust him by doing nothing more than changing his mask.

This skill makes him untrusted by the other Harbingers, even the one he grew up with. To them he’s void, expressionless, monotone, some would go as far to say Sandrone lacks anything that makes him a person. But it all lends to his ability to manipulate a person’s perception.

However, one may find that Sandrone isn’t one for combat, his claymore is a powerful dangerous weapon, but he prefers his words over combat. He never liked the battlefield and if he had had his way as a child, he would have never been on it. 

Perception and perspectives are the names of Sandrone’s game. He walks the line between friend and foe. Enemy and ally. Hiding things from him is almost futile, while he warps the perceptions of others, his own is sharper than most. Anything and everything is futile once the puppet has his strings attached.

There are rumours of what Sandrone looks like beneath the mask and who he just might be, none of his subordinates know, and very few of his fellow Harbingers know. Nobody and yet everybody knows who is under the mask. 

Some say he keeps his identity hidden because he’s a political head from Inazuma. Others say he keeps his identity hidden because he’s a captain from Mondstadt. And one may even hear whispers of a well known scholar from Sumeru. 

These are all merely rumours though. Sandrone is a nobody from nowhere. Or at least, as far as he’s aware. No matter what he may say though, it doesn’t stop the rumours. So instead he began to listen to them. 

Sandrone will apply other people’s perceptions and theories to any number of his masks in order to infiltrate them. Whether it be a suspicious subordinate with a pension for talking politics. A pesky treasure hoarder with a fear of authority. Or even a very curious merchant. 

Nobody is safe from being heard or seen by the Harbinger and having their own ideals twisted against them.

Before Sandrone, there was Sulien. A quiet and quite shy boy from Mondstadt in a foreign nation to learn a secret form of alchemy that once brought upon the destruction of a nation. Alongside his brother and very few others, Sulien excelled in this alchemical art.

Studious was an excellent word to describe the young boy, and it would seem this particular trait of his hasn’t been diminished unlike everything else. As a child he wanted nothing more than to learn and to teach, a scholar like his father. 

These dreams are all but naught for Sandrone now. The only true semblance of his childhood dream lines the walls of his home in the forms of multiple bookshelves. Books in every language one could think of. He knows it all, and he’s quite proud of it too.

Sulien sought knowledge as a child and when it was given to him he learned quickly just how dangerous it could be. Now Sandrone wields that knowledge like a weapon against the foes of the Tsaritsa. And while he may no longer remember the boy he grew up alongside, he may vaguely recall late nights spent listening to stories.

There was no doubt of his skill even then, though the extent of his alchemical abilities are long since lost, locked away and unused due to their terrible nature. His thirst for knowledge and something more is what remains.

Before being a Harbinger though, Sulien was an alchemist working under Dottore. For two years Sulien withstood the Harbinger’s.. Eccentric.. Personality. However, his heart wasn’t set on using alchemy for elemental infusions of mutated people and machinery.

No far more interesting was the reports that began to show up on the desk of the Jester a year into Sulien working for the Fatui. All done anonymously of course, reports of rogue agents and enemy movements, things that nobody else had managed to get ahold of. 

Pretty eyes and smooth words, it was a lowly alchemist who managed to gain the trust of even the most skittish of Fatui agents behind these reports. His skill did not go unnoticed once more and more reports began to show up. In fact it took seven months for the Jester to find out who was placing them there.

Nowadays there is very little Sandrone and Sulien have in common, the latter washed away to make way for a puppet known specifically for his skills of manipulation. Little is retained but the cunning charisma that makes him who he is. 

Sandrone has long forgotten his past or who he is, where he’s from, or what the almost orange sun shaped birthmark on his right hip means. He vaguely recalls an obsession with the stars, with fate, with destiny. But he does not remember where this obsession comes from.

No, he no longer remembers the once great clan he hails from. Previously known for their gifts granted by Celestia itself. The Ambros Clan has lost almost all their greatness, dwindled down to two members, one of which who no longer remembers.

Any favour given to Sandrone, whether or not it is willing, is only used to advance his Celestia given powers. He can recite all of the constellations and their stories, and point out things in the sky that others may not care to know.

Sandrone simply cannot remember how he knows or why he cares.  That burden falls to the moon-touched twin he has long since wiped from the fragments of his memory. There are reflections in the cracks he can’t seem to make sense of.

Perhaps his memory has long since been taken from him, his autonomy wiped away in lieu of following orders and adapting to needs. Despite this nothing can take his status as Celestia’s sun kissed favourite away from him. Even if he no longer remembers what it means to be favoured or even what those favours may do.

Celestia has not forgotten the sacrifice of the Ambros Clan long past.

Sandrone is not one to often hold grudges, his very nature doesn’t allow him much room to have an opinion on very much. Still, though, his opinion of his fellow Harbingers is rather low. Whether that is due to their treatment or due to his own perception of them is rather unknown.

While he knew Tartaglia while they were both children, the others are still new players in this game that he hasn’t been playing all that long. From Dottore’s horrific experimentations, to Signora’s brutal way of doing things, to Scaramouche’s general attitude. Sandrone does his best to ignore the less savoury parts of his colleagues.

There are times where even the puppet slips though, and it is almost always in response to Signora’s meddling in his business. Overbearing and mocking in how she conducts business with him, he prefers to work exclusively alone as a result.

Head of the reconnaissance unit and one of their best undercover agents, Sandrone often has the ability to work alone or with very few of his own people. This has changed now that his work has extended beyond the borders of Snezhnaya, however. 

More opportunities for his colleagues to annoy him and thus more opportunities for them to get in his way. A solitary man and a group of people who all seek their own form of control don’t mix well. And while few of the other Harbingers make their disdain known, few also work behind the scenes to watch him fail.

Sandrone is a man of few failures nonetheless, an irritating fact to most.

If there was one thing that somebody could find most common between the Ambros twins, it was their ability to both be cunning. The moment Sulien was conscripted into the Fatui after school, he began devising a plan to escape back to Mondstadt. It took two years of working under Dottore as an alchemist focusing on elemental infusion before he was given a leg up.

Backing the Harbinger, Pierro, into a corner, Sulien was able to secure a particularly lucrative promotion, one he deemed necessary to escape the harsh tundra that is Snezhnaya. Everything was going directly according to plan. Nothing could stop him. Or at least, so he thought. This was until the Tsaritsa caught wind of his plans to leave.

Under the guise of retrieving his new orders and a delusion, Sulien was captured and thrown into a cell for what would perhaps be the worst month of his life. Broken down piece by piece until he could no longer stand to remember. Sulien Ambros was completely washed away and replaced by the perfect marionette, Sandrone.

There was no ceremony nor prideful moment. Nothing more than a gift box with a set of black and green gloves within, the left one sporting a Dendro Delusion. Untrusted by his colleagues and further looked at as merely machine, Sandrone doesn’t particularly remember much, let alone why. Even his mask is a vicious mockery of the cracks his own mind holds.