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It is just another normal day in Zapolyarny Palace.
It is, however, not a normal day for Il Dottore because what in Celestia’s awful name is he doing there?
He pulls his coat a little closer to himself and mentally thanks whoever’s in charge of maintaining the palace’s temperature for keeping it chilly and not overly warm.
“What on Teyvat is so important that Tartaglia has us all come to the palace?” he mutters under his breath, kicking at the floor as he goes. There is not a single satisfying clink of a pebble—not even a minuscule one—clattering across the parquet. Curse the staff for actually keeping the floors clean.
As Dottore continues towards the hall, he grumbles his complaints aloud. This reunion better be serious for the Tsaritsa to actually approve it. He has far better things to do than answer a call for “all Harbingers available”. He’s recently been working on improved ruin machine prostheses. In fact, he recently got a report from one of his segments, detailing a successful transformation of a subordinate into a beautiful —
He stops right in his tracks when his brain catches up and smacks his palm against his forehead.
Then immediately regrets it because he forgot he was wearing his mask: it digs painfully into his skin at the impact.
“‘ All Harbingers available.’ Why didn’t I just say I was unavailable?” he bemoans to himself. “Then I wouldn’t have had to drag myself out to this miserable place.”
“Because your work more often than not remains within the confines of our nation. You aren’t a soldier, Doctor. You are obviously available the majority of the time.”
Ah. One of the only Harbingers he tolerates.
Dottore turns around and smiles. It pulls at his cheeks uncomfortably, but the mayor deserves at least a little civility. “Hello, Pulcinella. I see you were available.”
“Let’s walk together,” Pulcinella says. He doesn’t even wait for Dottore to answer him before he strides forward.
The Doctor feels a little stupid as he struggles to catch up to someone less than half his size and match his pace. In all honesty, he would have preferred to walk alone to avoid any unnecessary interaction. Small talk has never been a forte of his.
“How are you, Doctor?”
Oh, Archons. Small talk.
“I”m fine.” That should suffice.
“It has gotten colder in Snezhnaya. I hope your trip to the palace was not too inconvenient.”
“It was fine.”
He sees a small shape darting across the hall and disappearing into a room on the other side. Whatever it was passed in a flash of light blue. Dottore blinks then looks over at Pulcinella who shrugs.
“He’s one of your segments.”
“That tiny child is one of mine?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say he’s one of the segments you made in the palace’s basement. One of the runts.”
Dottore bristles at that. “ Don’t call the kid a runt.”
Pulcinella raises his hands in a placating manner but says nothing else.
When they fall into silence again, Dottore finds that it isn’t as pleasant as he expected it to be. Instead of ruminating on his own, he can feel Pulcinella beside him, itching to fill the silence. It’s rather uncomfortable.
Squeeeeeeak.
The sound grates his ears and he whirls around, irritated. Pulcinella has also turned to check the sound, evident confusion written on his face. Further down the hall, a massive dark shape is lugging an equally massive shape behind him. Beside them, a certain lanky redhead chatters incessantly, hands behind his head, a smile stretching from ear to ear.
Capitano does not seem very interested in what Tartaglia is saying, but knowing their dynamic, Dottore is certain the Captain is listening attentively to everything the youngest is saying.
When Tartaglia notices Dottore further down the hall, his smile falters. Then his face brightens up again when he sees Pulcinella.
“Dad!” he calls out cheerfully with a wave.
Pulcinella responds in kind, moving to meet him halfway. He lifts his hand and Tartaglia bends down to have his head pat, smiling widely.
While they do their thing, Dottore turns his attention back to Capitano who’s dragged what appears to be a cart closer. A large sheet is draped over the contents but he can spot some orange under it. Curious, he goes to the side of it and lifts the sheet, just enough to peek at it.
Some peculiar orange plant—if that’s what that even is—has been collected in mass. There must be dozens of them piled up on each other.
He makes a face at Capitano, which he cannot see. If Il Capitano returns a look, Dottore cannot see his face either.“What is this?”
“Fruit from Natlan. They’re called ‘pumpkin’.”
“Why are they here ?”
“Lohefalter’s unfulfilled wishes. She had wanted to continue with some traditions from Mondstadt around this time but we could not import the fruit in time before her passing.” He turns back to the cart and picks it up again. “Arlecchino asked one of us to make sure we could enjoy the tradition in her stead and get the fruit ourselves.”
Dottore’s face contorts in confusion. “But why did you go?”
“A sense of duty. As if I’ve known her from before we began working together.”
“And I volunteered to accompany him,” Tartaglia chimes in, “because, despite my dislike for her, I—”
“Nobody asked, ginger,” the Doctor snaps.
Capitano looms over him, cloaking him in darkness. Suddenly, Dottore feels like he is a minuscule bug about to be crushed underfoot for minorly inconveniencing a giant. Teeth split out from said giant’s mask as he growls, “Watch the way you speak to Tartaglia before I eat you and all your clones.”
Before Dottore can get a word in, the Captain continues pulling away the cart, followed by Tartaglia who pulls on his eye and sticks out a mocking tongue at the scientist.
“Defensive much,” he mutters to himself.
Pulcinella tut-tuts from beside him and walks ahead to stay close behind the pair, and Dottore is left alone in the halls again.
Ah, whatever. At least the reunion isn’t actually too important. He doesn’t need to go.
He turns on his heels and heads back towards his lab in the basement.
═══☆═══
A corpse bleeds out on his operating table, a chaos bolt crudely inserted into its back. Dottore clicks his tongue disapprovingly and scribbles out more notes onto his report.
“Imperfect humans. They can’t seem to handle elemental absorption as the drakes do.”
He glances at the corpse, leaking blood and other dubious fluids from its back. He grimaces and pettily kicks the table, only succeeding in making the body topple over and fall to the floor, the chaos bolts clanking at the impact. Great. There is now blood all over his floor and the chaos bolts might be scratched.
He can feel his eye twitch in annoyance.
“One of you better clear this up now before you end up like this failure.”
The little segment he saw earlier hurriedly rushes over and drags out the corpse. The metal against the floor makes a screeching sound. The segment freezes, looks up at Dottore, and gulps. He slowly resumes pulling the body along, the screeching still as loud, just slower now.
Dottore’s hand tightens on his scalpel.
Suddenly, the lab door swings open with a bang and all heads snap towards the figure hovering at the entrance.
Pantalone’s eyes sweep across the lab before he pleasantly smiles. “Dottore, do refrain from disposing of all of your subordinates. Competent humans are difficult to find.”
The Doctor’s lip curls. “Everyone out.”
Once all the shuffling of the scientists exiting the lab quiets, Pantalone crosses his arms. “Why aren’t you at the reunion?”
“Why aren’t you ?”
“I came to get you.”
“Wasted effort. Leave.”
Pantalone snorts and steps over the abandoned corpse still bleeding on the floor. “It’s all Harbingers available.”
“Can’t you see I’m unavailable?”
The banker shoots Dottore a look. “Unavailable doing what, exactly?” When he’s not given a proper answer, Pantalone scoffs. “That’s what I thought. Take a break from carving people to go carve things that don’t have sentience for once.”
“Carving those fruits contributes nothing to my research.”
Groaning in exasperation, Pantalone walks close enough to place a deceitfully gentle hand on Dottore’s arm and pleadingly says, “Please, just come to the reunion.”
Dottore glances down at where Pantalone’s hand comes in contact with his coat sleeve and hesitates.
He’s not sure why he agreed but, soon enough, he’s sitting at the Harbinger’s meeting table with a knife in hand and a very large orange fruit in front of him. Dottore looks at it with a mix of confusion and disdain. He sneaks a peek at what Arlecchino is doing beside him. She’s carving what seems to be a moth into the front of the pumpkin.
Tartaglia and Capitano are bickering across the table. Well, it is more Tartaglia pestering Capitano and the giant of a man ignoring him. Occasionally, he picks up a cut-out piece of pumpkin that he crushes in his fist, giving Tartaglia a pointed look, as if to say, This is not the only orange thing I will crush.
Dottore furrows his brows.
Tartaglia seems to catch his troubled look. “Hey, Dottore! What design are you carving into your pumpkin?”
“I’m not carving .”
“Why not?”
“It’s childish.”
Dottore hears a crunch as Arlecchino stabs her pumpkin excessively violently. It goes flying across the room, shooting past Pulcinella’s head and splattering into the wall. She inhales sharply, picks up another pumpkin, and restarts her carving without addressing a single word to anyone.
Note to self: do not insult pumpkin carving in front of Arlecchino. She feels very strongly about it.
“You carve open humans. How is it different?” Tartaglia asks very stupidly.
Dottore twirls the knife and promptly drops it. “I do that for science. This is just,” he glances at Arlecchino and drops his voice to a whisper, “ a waste of my time.”
“Just carve whatever inspires you!”
“It’s not a matter of creativity, I—”
“Look.” Pantalone turns his little pumpkin to Dottore. There’s mora carved into it. It’s actually quite accurate and is not as ugly as Dottore expected it to be. Pantalone pulls another, bigger pumpkin close. This one has a big grin with shark teeth and smiling eyes. Pantalone’s face seems smug as he says, “I call this one Il Dottore .”
Dottore makes a face at Pantalone, sarcastically saying, “Ha ha. Very funny, Regrator.”
Quickly, he picks an already gutted pumpkin out from the pile in the center of the table. He takes the knife in hand and ponders for a quick moment before planting it into the tough exterior. He twists and turns the knife as he slices, cutting out lines and curves into the fruit.
Pantalone watches him attentively. He’s already put a candle into his pumpkins, giving them an eerie glow. It’s kind of interesting.
A few minutes later, Dottore smugly turns his pumpkin to Pantalone. “I call this one Pantalone. ”
The pumpkin’s carved-out face is one with eyes upturned in a smile and exaggerated glasses. Dottore holds it up next to Pantalone’s face and laughs. Oh, wow, it really does look like him!
Pantalone scoffs. He takes out another pumpkin and instantly gets to gutting it to get back at Dottore.
Across the table, Capitano holds up his pumpkin and shows it to Pierro. “This is you.”
It is literally just an angry circle with a spike on one side of its face. Dottore can’t help but feel bad for the Jester. He also laughs at him. Is the thing on Capitano’s pumpkin supposed to be Pierro’s face? Had the Captain actually tried or was it satire like Pantalone’s was?
Pierro narrows his eyes and holds his own pumpkin up. “And this is what you look like.” He places a palm on the pumpkin. It instantly implodes, carving a massive hole into the front. “This is your face.”
If Capitano had facial expressions, Dottore’s sure he would’ve had the face of someone who just accidentally broke a ruin drake.
“Tartaglia!” Pulcinella calls out and holds up his carving. “How accurate am I?”
Absolutely not. He just carved a carrot.
Tartaglia gasps, affronted, and gets to insulting Pulcinella via pumpkin carving.
The whole charade continues until the pumpkins run out, other Harbingers joining in on making fun of each other as Tartaglia pokes fun at Columbina, too. There are pumpkin guts scattered all over the table and shells thrown across the room when they’re done. Fortunately, Pierro manages to amass most of the pumpkin pulp to make food out of it. He sends it to the kitchen and leaves at the same time, saying something about enough games and Rosalyne’s wish fulfilled.
Pulcinella follows not long after, and, one by one, the Harbingers file out of the room to go back to their respective projects, leaving their pumpkin carvings lined on the table.
Alone, Dottore stands in front of them, staring at his own carving. A smiling creature stares back at him. He turns the pumpkin around and around, then frowns.
It seems familiar but he can’t remember what it is.
“I thought you would have gone back to your lab.”
Dottore turns to see Pantalone with a plate in his hands. He shakes his head. “Not yet.”
“Would you like some pie? It’s from the first batch of pumpkins we carved while you were toiling away in your laboratory. It’s fresh out of the oven.”
He shrugs, more preoccupied with the pumpkin he holds in his hands. Pantalone takes it as a go-ahead and scoops up a portion of his pie which he holds up to Dottore. The Doctor takes it into his mouth and chews thoughtfully as Pantalone squints at the pumpkin. The pie is a little too sweet.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know what you carved?”
Dottore shakes his head. “No. My hands moved on their own. Tartaglia told me to do something that inspires me so I did, but…”
“You don’t know what it is.”
He nods. Then he sets the pumpkin down and turns to Pantalone. “Give me more pie.”
“You could ask politely,” he huffs but feeds the Doctor either way. As Dottore savours the pie, Pantalone glances back at the line of pumpkin carvings. There’s the awful Pantalone carving made by Dottore. Beside it are Pantalone’s own carvings: Il Dottore and Mora. His eyes flick back to the one Dottore just put down. “What do you call that one?”
Dottore looks back at his pumpkin. “I think I’ll call it Ararycan.”