Chapter Text
It's funny, hilarious in fact, when I find myself craving to hear an answer from the ice God. The same woman who assimilated me, rendered my heritage and turned me into a silly mailman.
Perhaps it happens because when I hear the violins from the speakers, I think of you even more often.
I hope with all my human heart that you can still hear the "Sei: Tsaritsa, regina clara".
…
"Who is this?" Scaramouche bugs Sandrone for the 6th time, waving a tea stained picture in her face. Her eyes roll to the back of her head as she turns her back to him, why was he actually working and not slacking off right now?
"Helloo?"
"Aren't you too busy with switching poisoned plates?" Sandrone replies simply and chooses to not indulge in his behavior.
Of course he crosses every boundary like he usually does and bugs her once again. "You're supposed to be helping me sort these out for the Tsaritsa. Since Pantalone is too busy to be doing his own job at the moment." Scaramouche laments, throwing the letters in the air. A letter knocks her hat off balance and she rightfully attempts to slap him before stopping herself.
"Look, she either has access to the outside world without getting caught," Sandrone snaps, grabbing a random envelope and opening it to reveal an exiled Dottore with his said homunculi kids, with a caption crying about coming back. "or she replies to this."
Unamused, he stares intensely at the picture. "Wow, they're ugly."
Sandrone smirks and sits her laptop aside, finally giving their work a light of her attention. "You'd know something about that, now, wouldn't you?" It's safe to say that her giggles definitely hurt Scaramouche's ears.
Exactly four days later after the ALMOST, almost God-Killers were caught and kicked out relentlessly from the refuge of the cult, some lazy members were forced to get along and do the jobs the others left behind. Let's just say that Scaramouche regretted what he did as soon as the Captain gave him Tartaglia's leftovers. Tsaritsa give him grace if he is caught slacking off, for rebellion is his middle name.
"Do you know what I do know?"
Her eyelids flicker and she smacks her lips together. "Is this going to be about Arlecchino again?" Sandrone asks and Scaramouche just stares.
"How are you not upset over this? I mean, who likes traitors?" Scaramouche mumbles and raises his shoulders, lazily shoving bags and bags worth of letters in the paper shedder and keeping pictures of the exiles to laugh at later.
"Who likes hypocrites?" She smiles ironically and he returns it spitefully. Thinking for a second longer, she gave her response. "Listen, I've already made peace with the regime change in this place. Or the clearly fake piles of letters we receive from the 10th herald. "
"I am talking about Arlecchino. I've never seen her so happy before, it's scary. You have a big mouth, why won't you say anything?"
"Because I don't want HER to try and kill me too." Her tone was serious and straightforward, leaving no room for him to argue.
"Right, you have better things to do. Like hiding your Ipad from the Tsaritsa!" He announced loudly, turning his head towards the barely alive Goddess.
Sandrone pupils dilated. "Oh look, Tartaglia and some blonde dude-girl." She mocked, shoving the picture in his face. Suddenly, her teasing quickly came to a stop when a sound of withered moaning came from her majesty's door. Nails scratched against her wooden polished bed, which was adorned with royal sheets and colorful pillows. Her bloodied eyes almost jumped out of her skull and it was a miracle she hadn't broken a bone from all that stretching.
"I would feel bad for her if I knew it wasn't expected." He sighed, thinking of people that like to go too far. "You can't replace God if you don't kill her first."
In the meantime a mute war between two battlefields was reigning, a silent dispute between two raging atheists with the same goal in mind- though different means. As stories always close, one side is victorious and the other is not.
"As your Captain and Tsaritsa may not, your sole advisor, If I so happen to come across you two, " Capitano ushered, walking back and forth in front of Pantalone and Arlecchino. "Playing tug of war with each other's ponytails one more time, I won't be so easy going a 10th time."
Guilty, Mr. Ottoman Empire and Miss Byzantine Empire reacted with indifference to their senior's threats. Trading glances faster than they betrayed people into dying for their cause. Dying in the snow, Pantalone knew a great deal of that. What he didn't know was that she knew much more.
Pantalone is a strong headed and clever man, yet he falters at any possibility of a threat. Threats like people stronger, richer and more loyal than him. Imbalance sounds much nicer without the "I'm".
Anyhow, he wasn't interested in disobeying the Captain, despite a certain someone's insults to just 'just ignore his moaning and continue fighting'. Thankfully, the Tsaritsa supports free will as long as you give all the money you earn to the cult so using the Tsarita's word to his advantage, he excused himself from the scene. Rudely.
"Go cry to Rosaline, I need a break." He waved her off and made his way outside, his destination the snowy cliff.
As he passed by Arlecchino, a smile with satisfaction oozing from his face (in contrast to her sour expression) appeared once she muttered angrily to him. "You are next."
He laughed in her face, "Dogs that bark don't bite." To which he later added. "Don't you have more of our coworkers to sabotage?" Shaking from anger, Arlecchino pushed the caring Capitano aside and stomped out of the room.
"If you have the kindness, please wait for me by the latch." Following suit, he left Capitano all alone to wonder how many Heralds were going to be left after the damsel finally chose Arlecchino.
As he claimed he was going to, Pantalone grabbed ten coats from his room, and made his way to the attic for a break outside. On the attic's ceiling, a trap door led to the fresh, northern, Russian winter: a truly chilling scenery. Grabbing a shovel from the corner of the attic, he ignored the icicle that formed on his ungrounded beard and the blue hue under his eyes. Pantalone then wandered around a five meter distance from the latch until his toes hit a rock beneath the snow. Alas, he had found what he was looking for.
After looking back and making sure no jesters were following him, he began to shovel. Layers and layers of snow unraveled and finally a shiny silk of silver revealed a string of an orthodox cross and dried flowers from last spring. That's when Pantalone stopped digging, he didn't want to smell like 'Herald corpse'.
Digging up an even bigger rock opposite of the tomb, he used his gloves to dust off the snow and carefully sat on it.
It's a cold day outside.
"She did this, it's Arlecchino's fault." Pantalone sighed after a while, playing with his thin hair.
"Fine, it wasn't." He admitted a minute later, grabbing the cross and revealing the number 10. So that's where they went, when they dissapeared last spring.
"You had it coming, 10. I warned you not to do it." Pantalone stated, his voice as sarcastic as when he was daring Arlecchino earlier. "Not because you couldn't win his attention, but because it was meant to be mine. I don't like thieves and I despise people with links that get whatever they want." Reminiscing his spring of sin, a shame washed over him until his guilt dissipated from the reminder of Persian songs he used to worship.
"Of course I am right, I always am. Do you remember the sound of Zandik's gasp when I shot you in the face? When he died laughing after? The beautiful contrast? It was nice."
It's a cold day outside.
"What wasn't nice, was having to forge all those letters." He looked down at the cross, squeezing it in his hands. "The Tsaritsa only believed me when I impersonated you with a run-away letter. I wrote that you ran away to pursue a life in an Orthodox monastery in Cyprus. I misspelled it one time but thankfully, no one here knows how to spell the name of that country so no one ever suspected me. Clever, right?" The man laughed awkwardly. As the memories came flooding back, he couldn't help but continue to rant.
"Always have... and will always be better than you." He murmured, letting go of the cross. "I was the peak, you were the root. I was the crown on Dottore's head and you were just the pen in his pocket. I was everything, and you were nothing." Pantalone hadn't even noticed it but he was standing, looming over the snow which housed number 10.
"Me."
"ME!"
It's a cold day outside. It's time to go back and write.
After covering his tracks, he also buried the shovel and vowed to never come back. There are colder days coming and he didn't want to be buried under the snowy rubble. However, you can't control it if someone pushes you in.
Upon reaching the latch, he could barely ring the bell before Arlecchino opened it herself.
"Do you mind? I am tired."
Grinning, Arlecchino brushed her hair away to reveal a hickey. Someone was feeling better. "Tired after taking a break?"
"Bitch, move aside!" He tried to go past her but she stopped him.
"Someone once said that to 10 when they sat beside Dottore. I think his name is Pantalone!"
How did she know that, she wasn't even there?
"I'm cold, get out of my way!" Once again, he tried to push but his efforts were in vain.
"You see, mister bank, I did as you told me and I went to Rosaline. And she told me you've been behaving very-very naughtily ever since last spring."
"And since Columbina started favoring you again, your mouth got dirty." He laughed.
Her face fell flat at his words, until she talked back. "Did a bee fly up your urethra or something?" She retorted.
"This conversation is going nowhere." Pantalone ignored him, stating the obvious.
"I'll take it somewhere then: I know what you did last spring."
No you don't.
"Cyprus is a gorgeous island, only it is not written with two ps."
"I haven't the faintest idea what you are talking about."
"The Tsaritsa does, she just did." That's when Pantalone's face turned redder than the color of his flag. "A little birdie told her." Arlecchino might not have been at that table where Pantalone bitch-slapped number 10 but Columbina was.
"A little birdie I reeeeally like," She mused, brushing a feather against her blushing cheek. "The one you hate."
"Because!"
She interrupted him swiftly. "It doesn't matter; you killed number 10."
Panicked, he begged. "No…"
"Yes you did, and the Tsarita said 'you shan't kill.''
"I didn't!!"
For the last time, he tried to sneak in but he was grabbed aggressively by the arms. The woman's pupils buried deep into his soul as she sheltered him from the Tsarita's nemesis that was waiting for him eagerly.
"I need to balance your crime. Sorry not sorry." With that, she pushed him, leaving him to lay there with the corpse of his enemy.
"You can handle another 30 minutes of DOG years in the snow, right?"
"ARLECCHINO!!"
END OF CHAPTER 4
Arlecchino omnes interficibunt dicitur.