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tartaglia
His father, to be frank, was a nerd. He was fascinated by any tidbit of info, no matter what it was— learning about the history of the Guizhong ballista and the fact that his daughter earned a 100 on her most recent test held the same weight to him. This love for anything and everything regarding knowledge and the world he lived in seeped into his personal life, when he named his eldest son after a stock character in the Mondstadtian Gli Innamorati, blurting out the first name which came to mind.
Tartaglia.
For the children who came after, he attempted to carry on this impromptu naming trend; but from his wife’s pleading request he solely picked names that started with a T instead.
The people of Snezhnaya have a hard time pronouncing his name. They have a hard time adjusting to anything outside of their normal in the first place, the walls of Zapolyarny tall and looming over each head. Tartaglia smiles sheepishly when his neighbors stumble across the second syllable, or when the lady at the near-barren farmer’s market gives up after the third attempt, simply calling him boy.
Perhaps this predicament goes both ways— Tartaglia’s mind jumps through loops and hoops trying to say the Snezh in Snezhnaya correctly.
They disregard his name, they look away because he is merely some new apprentice from two regions over, they comment on his vibrant orange hair and point out that he would never truly fit in Snezhnaya. He presses onwards nonetheless, fighting and training and battling until his teacher says his name in pure awe and his opponents shiver not because of the sheer cold in Snezhnaya, but because the tuft of tangerine-colored hair sticking upwards is more of a death wish than anything.
Her Majesty likes him. She’s rather fond of people who choose to worship her, not because they are Snezhnayan by blood and thus are born to kiss the ground she blesses with her footsteps.
So, she offers him a deal.
If you keep on this same path, I’ll think about your induction into the elite. The Hydro Vision dangling from his belt was proof enough that her god-forsaken sister approves of his capabilities, but Fontaine was so very weak. This was Snezhnaya, where the ice does not let strangers in the same way water does. But slip up once, and I do mean once, and there will be repercussions. Understood?
The young boy before her nods. Who in their right mind would turn away a chance to have a taste of godhood before their day of judgement in front of the true divine living above?
Tartaglia trains. He does so for minutes, hours, days at a time. His little brother Theodore falls asleep watching him spar and wakes up in the morning only to see Tartaglia still slicing training dummies into two.
Then, he falls sick. Bedridden from lack of rest. Theresa nearly straps him to his bed with their father’s belts because he’s itching to get back onto the training grounds for reasons she does not know.
Then, his father drops dead.
“Tartaglia,” Zhongli whispers in awe as if his name was the most marvelous epiphany, “Tartaglia.”
He chuckles at Zhongli’s expression, wide-eyed and raised eyebrows. “Please, make sure to not wear it out.”
Zhongli finds Childe’s reply more interesting than the revelation that Childe was not his real name; he has spent a thousand years solely going by Rex Lapis, or God of Rock, or whatever name the Liyue history texts assign to him. To walk Teyvat like any other mortal and hear his true name, his own name instead of another title given— it is freeing, it makes him vulnerable. It is only right to give others his real name when he is allowed to know theirs.
“So you want me to continue calling you Childe in public?”
“In public, yes,” Childe responds after a moment, “In private, you can call me Tartaglia if you’d like.”
Zhongli supposes it makes sense for Childe to sustain these walls of his. His hair fits in perfectly with the radiant Liyue sunset, but his outfit lacks color, his affiliation with the Fatui begs for frightful glares. To know his real name was akin to having a key, and Zhongli holds said key between his lips; Childe is allowing himself to be vulnerable, but to him only.
Some part of him does not wish to complain.
“That sounds like a plan, Childe.”
childe
“I must say, your name naturally fits into the Harbingers’ naming scheme— close enough, actually,” Her Majesty remarks with a laugh loud enough to echo off of the throne room’s walls. “Please thank whoever named you Tartaglia for me when you can. It’s almost like you were born for this position.”
But you’re the one who killed him, Tartaglia wants to bite back as he kneels on the cold floor, but Scaramouche besides him nudges his elbow harshly as if he can read minds.
How cruel it is to suggest that he was born for this position but yet takes his father’s life in the process— was it all for naught? Could Tartaglia simply wait around for destiny to grab him and toss him into the Zapolyarny throne room, or would fate’s cruel hands take his father no matter which path he chooses?
Scaramouche elbows him again. Tartaglia’s nose just about touches the frigid tile as he bows even further. “Thank you, your majesty. I will make sure to do so.”
“However, we must figure out an alias for you…” She hums, “I believe it should be Childe. You are the youngest, after all.”
But Scaramouche is shorter, and Dottore wails like a baby cloaked in grown men’s clothes when his experiments go awry. He is the eldest in the family yet here he is, called Childe by the strongest Archon there is. After taunting him into growing to fit her interests, she keeps him in a box, the prettiest display for her to stare at, and Tartaglia feels as if he could suffocate.
He knows Zhongli is stifling a laugh. He takes note of how the corners of his eyes crease slightly, the curve of his lips desperately trying to hold it in. “Childe,” he’s almost in awe at how well composed the consultant is, “What an… interesting name. Is that a common name in Snezhnaya?”
“No,” he replies, shaking Zhongli’s hand, “The Tsaritsa gave me this name herself.” And then he takes note of how Zhongli’s hand stiffens in their handshake— it's not because of Childe’s grip.
Names take a toll on a person; this alone was obvious from Zhongli’s reaction to Childe’s forced alias and the mention of an archon who desperately wants his powers for herself. Zhongli’s stance is shifted one way, tilted away from Childe, because his name is not his own.
Names say a lot about a person, and while Zhongli gives his to him willingly, Childe’s walls are as impenetrable as the iced ones in Snezhnaya.
Perhaps this, much like everything else, was her plan. Childe cannot stray too far away from her if she makes it so he has nowhere to escape to. In the end when he comes crying back to her, she will be the loving caring mother and he will forget the frigid cold of both her heart and her hands as she caresses his cheek like a mother would to her darling little boy.
But in the warmth of the Liyue sun, he presumes the ice is melting with each step he takes into another’s arms.
glia
It is not heartbreaking when Tonia fails to pronounce his name correctly. She is merely two; he cannot complain about her speech when she can barely reach the kitchen table.
Still, he persists. “Tar… tag… lia.”
“Tar…” Tonia begins, encouraged by his brother’s frantic nodding, “Ta… glia.” This routine is daily, sometimes even hourly, until one day Tartaglia throws his hands up into the air and calls it quits.
When she grows up his name somehow shortens to Glia in her head, and she falls into the habit of calling him the nickname every time. Glia is so cool, she’d say, Glia should go to sleep; Glia, can you make pancakes?
Theodore would complain- similar to how he himself did back when the debacle began- about his sister’s blatant ignorance of his name, especially after their father’s death. Why change the name he gave him? he’d ask, to which Tonia had no answer. Then Tartaglia would put his hands on their shoulders and assure them that he will be the same whether he is Tartaglia or Glia, and would be the same no matter which name he is referred to as.
(If he was to be completely honest, he rather liked the nickname. It was adorable, Tonia beaming at him and turning his name into her own melody. Glia this, Glia that, he could get used to it if he wanted to. And he was well on his way already.)
“Then,” Tonia’s eyes twinkle reflecting the kitchen light overhead, “Can I call you Taggie, Glia?”
“No.”
The first and only time it happens after his abandonment of the Fatui and Snezhnaya as a whole is in the morning, when Tartaglia stumbles into Zhongli’s cramped kitchen for a cup of coffee.
He finds it jarring, going from being inches away from killing an archon to him accepting you into his home, his Liyue, though you do not belong. Though you had your sword against his neck and your fingertips clutching the area above the godheart.
But Zhongli accepts him nonetheless. He invited Tartaglia into Liyue, presenting him with a fresh start yet his heart continues to sink at the thought of his family left behind within the palace walls. Her Majesty would snap him into two upon his return because he does not have the Gnosis in hand and do the same to his siblings, but at least then he’d fall by their side.
Upon Tartaglia’s plan to return to Snezhnaya without the famed prize, Zhongli frowned. “Tell me, Tartaglia, when is the last time you lived for yourself?”
He could not remember.
Now, he stands in front of a piping hot cup of coffee, waiting for it to cool. Zhongli watches him from his dining table with his own tea and sips it carefully before saying good morning.
“Glia—”
He can’t do this.
Perhaps this was the most sacred name to him, beyond Tartaglia and the wretched Childe he had grown used to in such a short period of time. He understands that his birth name connects him to where he was born, and Childe to Snezhnaya, but Glia was her name, and as much as Zhongli feels like home, he recognizes that gods know little about the intricacies of mortal relationships.
“Please… it’s just—” The coffee nearly spills onto his pajamas and Zhongli’s poor wooden floor, “It’s just Tartaglia.”
It occurs to Zhongli then and only then, that there are three facets to the man before him, and he laments the fact that he will likely witness merely two of them within his endless lifespan.