Chapter Text
“Mother, you know that I have time for you even when I’m busy…”
Ajax’s condescending tone after his talk with Dottore dissolved faster than drugs in water as he spooned out a rich, honey-smooth voice from his throat to his mother. He loved her dearly, all eleven of them did (sometimes fought about it too, before Tsaritsa would interject and say this is a family of love, no matter how violently passionate they were about it), and she loved them all dearly as well. Ajax couldn’t ask for a better mother figure in his family before his days in the orphanage……
“Oh, dearest child of mine, you know I don’t want to bother my little sweeties with whatever they entertain themselves with~ Besides, you might yell at me for not giving you room to grow like most children do…”
Ajax always loved his mothers voice. It was like the snow, cold on the outside with her tone, but so soft as it fell into the place of words, it didn’t make you think of the cold.
Each and every letter she spoke was as distinguished as a snowflake, all swirling together to make a beautiful blizzard inside his mind, not paying attention to the biting cold, but enveloping it, since the very temperature was never directed at him.
No, on the contrary it warmed him faster than the embers of a bonfire in the woods.
Those words were his reprieve and haven from the harsh, outer world. Her voice was cold, yes, but never as cold as those outside…
Other people’s words on the outside were sharper, like icicles, small fractures that pierce slowly, causing lasting injury. They weren’t at all like mother’s snow soft voice, majestic and regal in her own way as well.
But who’s to say snow can’t be deadly in heavy amounts?
“You know we would never yell at you for giving us too much attention, mother. In fact, it might be better if you gave us some more of that love of yours.” His voice purred through the phone, letting his happiness seep into his voice at the notion of talking to his mother, like he was starved of her attention, basking in it like the sun.
The sun he had longed to feel, of warmth in this bitter world he had been in without her…
“Oh, I know you darlings would love more time, but I promised that you can have me all to yourselves after I fulfill my promise to your futures. After all, once I secure a prosperous life for all of you can I finally lay back and enjoy mine. You know that as well as I do Ajax.”
Her sweet voice swirled around him, comforting him with every slight different note her voice would almost melodically strike, a soothing melody like one would sing a baby a lullaby.
Ajax found himself almost reliving the first few days he had been adopted by his new mother, comforted in her arms, warm and protected as he was almost scared to death.
“I know mother, I know, and I wish all the best that we can finally put your will into place to make us all happier. You, the harbingers, and Sneznaya as well, they mean so much. But you must remember to take care of yourself, your health…” He trailed off, concerning and anxious notes playing at the end of his sentence.
Hearing humming on the other end, he remembered what Dottore had told him.
About the missions…
As if reading his mind, the voice on the other line changed subtly, still containing the same soft, motherly tone, but enforced just the slightest with a bit more iron and business. “Yes, I have already set the plan in motion. It has taken far to long for us to get to this moment in time, but it will guarantee us a swift victory in our execution of the future. I must ask you to listen carefully, darling, for this is the most precarious part of the plan.”
Ajax could hear as his dear mother’s voice quivered, motherly concern tainting her pure and concise wording
“The part that could risk all of you as well as me…” There was a slight pause as the other spoke those words, and the momentary silence caused the sentence to ring around his head like a church bell tolling. Each and every long dragging second was another time for the mere tone of her words to bounce around, setting how grave the situation would be, how vulnerable they would appear. How fragile this precipice of their plan truly was, the smallest whisper of wind or chaos would cause all their effort for nothing, and destroy any future attempt afterward.
“You have probably already heard from your siblings, but I will not allow any of you to be lost in any way, thus we must plan carefully and fulfill our role to the highest degree of success possible. You will be sent to different nations, each with your own personal, confidential, motive, and be given the information needed to fulfill the task set before you.”
Ajax could recognize this voice now. Not many people would be able to hear it right off the bat, but this was the side of his mother he loved the most. He loved when she would care for them as a mother would, soft and tender in her own way, seeking their happiness like any maternal figure would to her own children.
But this side, proved to him just how far she was willing to push for children not even of her own blood, but bound by bond
It made something stir up inside of Ajax, a mixture of feelings “You will be departing to Liyue my child. I am sure the little Señora had let you know already?”
Ajax almost scoffed at the name, it was one made up by the Tsaritsa when she had first asked Rosalyne what her name was.
She was confused as to why someone would call their daughter to abandon such a regal name, that was until Rosalyne could learn to spell and it was passed off as yet another memorable and childish moment of his years growing up. Ajax thought back fondly to those times…
When he was carefree, childish, and worried only about minor injuries, nothing big about the world but the little warm cocoon of love he was swaddled in…
”Mama, can we get another swing set for the new child?”
The daughter of the family had chosen to sit with her mother on the couch in their house, not bothering to play whatever silly game her brothers were up to now, and looked curiously at the bundled up boy in her mama’s arms, only being able to see his face with how much he was swaddled up. Honestly, the little girl didn’t know how he hadn’t woken up from overheating or almost being smothered.
Rosalyne looked up at her mother through her white, flowing streams of hair to her mother as she softly spoke, prying her eyes away from the bundle in blankets. She had been shy the first time the Tsaritsa had claimed her as one of her own, and since the day of adoption she had shown proud when her daughter would speak her mind, finally letting her into her train of thought.
It was like she was cloaked in mystery, and one could almost think she was Tsaritsa’s child with how similar they looked. Their ice cold eyes that would only betray the emotion they would want to show, their white hair that looked like it was woven from icicles and snow with how gorgeous it shone, and the way they could act almost indifferent with whatever situation came up to them.
It was like they were twin fortresses, only having a single doorway into their life, and monitored said opening quite carefully, almost like they were expecting someone to hurt them in a second.
Never betraying what they might be feeling inside
Maybe thats what almost all of them had in common as children…
”Oh sweet Señora, we will have to ask him himself when he wakes up. The poor thing just got back you know, he’s bound to be tuckered out with all that happened…”
It was sworn that the boy’s past wouldn’t be disclosed to anyone he didn’t want, and the Tsaritsa would keep it like that if she could only live to see a flicker of light shine in the boy’s eyes again.
”After all, what if he wishes to have a see saw or slide in the backyard instead? We won’t know until he wakes, and thus we will have to be patient my sweet heart.”
Forming a slight pout on her face, easing an amused huff out of the older woman, she snuggled up onto her mothers lap and laid down on her thighs, resting her head close enough to peer and see the little boy up close. He smelled like he was freshly bathed, given how his hair also gleamed in the light with residue moisture. She wondered why he had been bathed in such a hurry, recognizing a dirt smudge almost immediately with the proximity and quickly wiping it off.
The boy wasn’t much younger than her, maybe five or six compared to her eight. She would be the second youngest in the family now, with her older brothers already twelve at the oldest.
She wondered if this one would be like the rest of them; rowdy, ready to try all sorts of new, crazy, sometimes stupid or gross new experiments, especially Dottore, who would never fail to make a loud boom when cooped up in his room for too long.
His hair was different too, not light like hers or her mamas, nor dark like Scaramouche, but a tangerine orange, like it was begging for some attention to its owner. She couldn’t lie saying he looked peaceful as he slept, but the slight scrunch of his face gave away that he might be having a bad dream.
Rosalyne frowned, she knew about bad dreams. Too much to like, she would say. So to see this new brother of hers, contorting his face almost like he might cry, it stirred something in her.
Something to soothe him, like her mother would do to her and her siblings when they woke up to a nightmare, which was more often than not.
Moving in closer to his face, Rosalyne began to hum a little song, and played with the curls in her new brother’s hair, fondling him like her mother had done so many times.
Hearing a small chuckle, she looked above her to see her mother’s eyes filled with soft love at the sight of them getting along, reaching out to pet Rosalyne’s head as she kissed the top.
”Would you like to sing to him? It might help wake him up some more……”
Looking from her mothers face to the little one poking out from the blankets, she cradled up next to the little boys head and started to hum a melody familiar to her…
Rosalyne had since closed her eyes and immersed herself into her little melody of a lullaby, and failed to notice when the child awoke till her mother slightly nudged her into the moment.
After a few minutes of humming, and the small bundle had un-scrunched his face, almost sneezing at how his tendrils of hair tickled his nose, opting instead to give a small huff. Almost startling himself with the small sound, he blearily opened his ocean-deep eyes. Finally seeing a response, Tsaritsa moved her elbow gently against the smaller girls body, and Rosalyne finally cast her glance to the now-awake child.
Rosalyne was right to feel the child was agitated in his sleep, for as soon as his eyes were opened, she could see fear and terror glaze over them in an instant.
Unfamiliar with the new environment, the child tensed and started to wriggle in his blankets, but they made a sound prison to their warmth as he struggled in vain against them.
Smiling down, Tsaritsa responded to his wriggling about with a chaste kiss to his forehead. This ceased his commotion completely, a look of utter confusion covering his face.
That’s when it almost looked like the child would cry, with how his face was starting to wrinkle up again and his eyes watering up considerably.
Starting to whimper, he looked like he would burst with how many different emotions he was feeling at the moment and the push and pull of each one.
Rosalyne had started to frown, her own brows furrowing. Had she gone wrong with her song? Taking charge, she abruptly took the child into her own lap, sitting herself up and cooing at him softly, petting his head alike to what her mother would do to her when she was upset and crying.
”Shhh…shhhh…hey, it’ll be okay now…shshshshhh…you’re alright little brother…you’re safe here…”
She didn’t know what she was saying, the words were just coming so naturally to her, like another faucet of a personality she had had suddenly come loose and was streaming out all her actions for her. She didn’t mind it, as long as it helped her new sibling to calm down, and she found she quite enjoyed almost coddling the small boy.
To her surprise, the child’s whimpers lowered in volume, and his eyes looked less leaky, save for a few streams of tears silently streaming in blush red rivers down his face.
Lifting a small portion of her skirt up to his face, she wiped the stray droplets away, still cooing to him, and felt proud of herself that she managed to save her little brother from bawling on his first day with her.
”See? You’re alright here baby brother…” She whispered lightly to him, scared that any louder it would cause him to break again soon.
”I’m your new big sister, and I know I’ll take care of you baby brother…”
Continuing her coos, she noticed the boys expression softening into a look of comfort, like he was already getting used to the new faces he was seeing.
Successfully calming her brother down, Tsaritsa glowed with pride at how caring the daughter she adopted was. Cold and frigid on the exterior with looks that could kill and probably would if you crossed her. But this side of her, this side that she witnessed holding the orange-haired child in her arms, it revealed how human she could be as well.
Getting used to his surroundings, the cobalt-blue eyes scanned the room they were in curiously, and saw Rosalyne and her mother clearly through his not-so-teary eyes now. A glimmer of some unknown emotion sparked across the void of blue space, and he seemed coherent enough of his situation to squirm out of the blankets holding him in. Emerging victoriously from the cocoon, the crawled over to his new mother and sister, nestling himself in between the two ladies.
He seemed calm enough, and acceptable of his new environment, but Rosalyne wondered if he was being silent and reacting because of something previously…
He was just about two or three years younger than Rosalyne, sure, but he looked much smaller than what she guessed. He had a small body, a bit scrawny, with stick-thin legs and arms and a bit less of a healthy glow to his skin. From Rosalyne's memory, almost all boys were rowdy and noisy and obnoxious at his age; she had experience from years spent living with her annoying older brothers.
Though a change was nice in pattern, she didn’t know how to quite approach this new, almost specimen, that behaved differently than what she knew…
Almost thinking of the devil must have summoned them, for at that very instant a loud bang was sent from the back door leading from the backyard, as Dottore and Scaramouche burst into the living room, with the distinct voice of Pulcinella yelling after them. As well as some faint yells from the tending maids, few in number but sufficient in work.
“MAMAAAAA!!!” Scaramouche was yelling and boisterous as usual, and Rosalyne was quick to sweep the little new boy into her arms and cover his ears, lest he start to bawl then and there after her hard work of keeping him sufficiently calm.
Which would prove hard to do since Dottore was dangling a whole menagerie of insects and animals and creepy crawlies from outside, and some were indeed scattering everywhere with how many he surprisingly grasped in his minuscule fists.
”MAMA, SCARAMOUCHE IS GOING TO TAKE MY SPECIMENS!! TELL HIM TO CEASE AT ONCE!”
“AM NOT, YOU SHOULD LEARN TO SHARE YOUR FROGS!!”
”THEY ARE MINE, AND ARE TO BE DISSECTED FOR THEIR GUTS, NOT SMASHED INTO THAT HORRENDOUS SOUP YOU CALL A ‘POTION’!!!” Dottore and Scaramouche were going at it so much, they failed to notice the cries from the maids and the little boy Rosalyne was cradling from their commotion.
“Boys, I would hate for you to scare your new brother.”
Tsaritsa spoke alright, and even Rosalyneshivered with how cold her tone was with addressing the boys. The previous chaos had immediately been blown out like a candle flame, replaced with rather heavy footsteps trudging toward the mop of orange hair.
”Eh? New brother? Well, you better not get into my experiments, you hear me?” Dottore, being one of the oldest of the siblings, swiftly brought his dominance to the set, and marched out as quickly as he had spoken, containing his so-called specimens in his hands as he turned and swept out the door.
Scaramouche, on the other hand, was spiteful of another personal competition of love from his mother, and was quick to try and pry at the small, vulnerable boy.
”Oh? Another runt in the pack? You better not get in my way too, your nothing more than a little mouse if you step an inch into my way, remember that! I won’t hesitate to squish you just like an ant! BLEGH!” Ending his little speech, which he thought quite clever, with a little face at the end, he was about to also go away like his brother, when he heard a slight whimper from the boy.
”Hah? What’s this, crying already? You’re not gonna survive here if you start whining like a little baby-“
Before he could spout any more taunts, his mother grabbed his arm and brought him very close, whispering carefully to him something Rosalyne didn’t quite catch.
Instead, she busied herself with the little boy, cooing even more eagerly, but in vain as the little boy was starting to cry, tears welling up and face ready to contort with the explosion of emotions that bombarded him before, but this time there was no stopping the flood that was bound to come.
Trying over and over to comfort the little boy, it wasn’t until one of the maids came over, Ekaterina was her name, and swept the two children up abruptly, to take them to a room.
Surprised by the sudden shift once again, the little boy looked like he was about to cry again, as if the tears he shed previously hadn’t been enough to express his distress about the situation. He was wailing down the hall, even with Rosalyne's desperate tries to help calm him down again, he wouldn’t stop.
Ekaterina swept past door to door, curving and scurrying down hallways, until she reached a mahogany door with a golden plaque on it.
Quickly opening it up seemed to quite the boy down a little, as she set them both to the blue carpeted floor.
It was like a little playroom and bedroom combined, much like her own when Rosalyne thought about it, but with whales, dolphins, fish, sea horses, bubbles and sea grass all painted around the room, like it was underwater. The light above was even tinted a light blue, like the feeling of sunlight shafting through the particles under the ocean. Stuffed animals lay in a far corner in the room, accompanies by a small amount of other play toys a boy might have, like play swords, guns, bows and arrows, and all assortment of other toys to fiddle around with.
The orange haired boy was quiet for a few moments, staying slump on the ground where he was put before, almost dumbfounded by all the events taken place within mere moments.
Seeing her chance, Rosalyne wasted no time with quickly dashing over to the pile of stuffed animals, grabbing a narwhal by its horn with one hand and an orca with another. Considerably a bit larger than her, she pulled the two over to the little boy, shoving the narwhale into his hands, and starting to play with him, showing her orca ‘swimming’ in the air.
”This is an orca, see?” She held her animal up at the motion, then pointed to the narwhal she had given the boy. “That’s a narwhal, and it’s special because it has a horn, see?” She poked at the soft stuffed horn on the narwhal’s head, but the boy gave no response after her teaching. He just sat, almost grasping the soft stuffed animal, and continued to be silent while poking at the little creature.
Rosalyne was relieved at the same time she was concerned; how could a child be so quiet and reserved, and still be able to make a fuss like it was the end of the world? Was she doing something wrong? Was something wrong with the boy? Is it something she said or did against him to make him react like this?
Before she could think any further, the little boy finally moved,
Pointing to her orca…?
He nudged it slightly, and seemed confused when it didn’t respond to anything. He moved it slightly again, then looked up at Rosalyne, right in her eyes.
She had seen how blue his eyes had been before, but even with all the light encasing the room and present around them, they seemed to be a void, sucking in all of the light into those oceanic depths, never to return again.
“Is it dead?”
Startled out of her thoughts, she looked down to where the little boy was still poking the orca lightly, almost as if he was scared to break it with a harder tap. He seemed sad, solemn while he still looked at the toy.
That’s when it stuck her.
Did he not know the concept of a toy? How they aren’t alive or dead? That they just wear or break after time?
Taking up her orca again, she started to play with it once more, moving it’s fins and making it swim again all around the it, this time adding little noises to show life.
The boy’s face lit up in an instant, a subtle sparkle showing from all the light they seemed to retain. He smiled lightly, a gesture that was reciprocated by Rosalyne as well, as she started to giggle and sitting up so her orca could swim more.
Taking up his narwhal, the little boy also started to mirror his sisters movements, and they were soon zooming around the room, sometimes taking other small toys and playing together, all under the watchful eye of the maid who still hadn’t left them alone.
Somewhere in all the fun, Rosalyne tried to call the boy, only to starkly realize she didn’t know it. Pausing with her fun, she stopped, almost to contemplate if she did know, or if it was ever told to her what the boy’s name was.
Seeing his playmate getting sad again, almost on cue the orange haired boy started to walk up to Rosalyne, pulling lightly on the play dress she wore.
”What’s wrong?” He asked, careful with his words, and his tone sounding as if he might break down again.
Seeking to soothe him before he can cry, she smiled quickly and continued to play as if nothing happened, with the excuse that she had remembered something, but it was nothing of importance.
Not buying the excuse, the little boy asked again, genuine concern shining in his blue eyes as his face started to give way to a pout, and almost like he was ready to tear up again.
”Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?” He asked, and Rosalyne could already see his voice being choked up from sadness soon to come flooding through. Was the answer really worth asking? She thought to herself. It could either help his situation, but he could also take offense if he had told her before, and might cry at the idea of his name being forgotten.
“I can’t remember your name,” was all she said in response, as quiet as a whisper to be told between the two of them.
This stopped the boy’s worries, with his expression morphing to one of thoughtfulness, instead of worrying sadness.
”My…name…?”
The boy muttered almost to himself these words, and Rosalyne was starting to get concerned about if she had said something wrong.
So it came as a surprise when the little boy smiled, closing his eyes slightly and lightly saying,
”It’s Ajax”