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The saying is that there is “no rest for the wicked,” but the most wicked thing you’ve done so far is tripping Mikhail in the dining hall, which was justified because all Fatui recruits know that Mikhail is a chump and deserved to face plant onto the Tsaritsa’s new marble tiles. Anyway, you digress. The saying is that there is “no rest for the wicked,” and you are not really very wicked, not in comparison to most of the people— beings —within these palace walls, but here you are, scuttling back and forth, very much not resting .
A lesson learned the hard way: Her Majesty the Tsaritsa’s underdogs do not have holiday breaks. Are you being paid overtime for this?
“I apologize for calling you on such short notice, my child,” she had said, that imperious, chilling voice echoing throughout the massive, yet empty, chamber. “Unfortunately, my Harbingers have scattered themselves, a flock of birds reluctant to perch on the same branch. They do not feed at the same fields; they do not drink at the same ponds. They do not dip their wings in the same currents so it is too much to ask that they fly in formation. And yet, for their good—for yours, for ours, for all of Teyvat—they must .” A gust of winter wind swept your hair as she leant forward. You tried not to make it too obvious that you were shrinking back. “You understand my dilemma.”
You tucked your chin closer to your chest. Don’t look up. Leave it to your imagination to fill in the blanks. A lesson learned without being taught: no one at your level defiles your Archon with your gaze unless you had a death wish, which you don’t, not when you have yet to visit your Ma and taste her cooking, warm notes of nutmeg, cinnamon, a quilt after this bitter year of tired rations and cafeteria food.
She might’ve been smiling, then, something thin and wan. A pretty curve soured by some intangible, inaccessible burden that all gods seemed to bear. Immortality is a heavy weight, as all carmine-soaked things are, but you wouldn’t know. You didn’t need to then, you don’t need to now.
Just hear, ringing in your ears, that command:
“Go, and collect them here for me by tonight. Tell them to each bring a gift. The more the merrier, no?”
Logically, you went to find Lord Pulcinella first. He took care of you recruits when you were all fresh-eyed and weak-spirited, softening blows with soaring speeches and promises of a new world—a better world. He was mayor of Snezhnaya, a familiar face unfurled across the nation’s small fishing towns and bustling harbor ports. He was the closest symbol of home you had, for a time. He was your leader.
Lord Pierro may be the Director of this whole organization, but distance distorts the way light enters the eye. You saw him as little more than a scary story recruits told each other over tin bowls of hot goulash, whispered words disappearing, shimmering, into the steam.
“I hear he’s got only one eye—lost the other in the depths of the Abyss.”
“Nah, he still has it alright. ‘S just cursed. My buddy Vik in the seventh regiment says that Sasha from fifth heard Katya and Leonid gossiping that Mikhail said that the eye can see into the future—to the time of death of anyone he looks at for more than three seconds.”
“Mikhail? You know that everything that guy says is bullshit. Said Lady Columbina was a Seelie the other day too. Does she look like a wispy, floaty, treasure-finding blob to you?”
“I dunno man, the Harbingers…they look human alright, but they can change. Wolves waiting to tear open their own flesh, they are. The truth is terror; terror is the truth.” A pause. Hold your breath, two, three—and let it go, slowly, a ripple skipping over a soupy, potato-pebbled surface. “Harbingers. You never know.”
So. You go for Lord Pulcinella first.
“My lord,” you begin, dropping to a bent knee. Nevermind the fact that you’re in the middle of a hallway and everyone within hearing range is looking at you like you’ve spontaneously gone and grown yourself three heads; you must seize opportunity by the throat when it wanders by. Providence is not lightning, after all. It does not strike twice. “My lord, I come bearing a message from Her Majesty the Tsaritsa.”
Silence. Sweat sticks your collar to your skin. Isn’t he supposed to be speaking by now?
A cough.
“Did we change the uniforms for messengers? I don’t remember authorizing anything like that.”
An attendant by his side clears their throat. “No, my lord, we didn’t. This one here is a recruit.”
“Oh.” Another stretch of silence. “Well then, my child, please direct your…message…to your superior, who I’m sure will pass it along to the proper people who are responsible for carrying Her Majesty’s words. Good day.”
Ice grips you in a vise as the small crowd begins to shuffle forward once more. Desperation is a funny motivator and, perhaps comforted by the fact that you’ve seen this man’s face and heard this man’s voice more times than your own mother’s, you lurch forward to grasp his attention once more.
“No! Wait, please, my lord, wait. It’s an urgent message from Her Majesty, I swear!” Your words stumble over themselves in their haste to make themselves heard. The attendant from before squawks as you fall across the Harbinger’s path, face wrought with what you hope is genuinity. “I-I swear on the love of the Tsaritsa—she requests your presence in the throne room tonight.”
You must have groveled enough, because Lord Pulcinella actually stops.
“The Tsaritsa summons me?”
“Yes—tonight. You are also required t-to, uhm, bring a gift?”
Lady Sandrone sighs and waves her hand. The robot removes its blade from where it had been hovering menacingly above your heart, the twenty other blow torches and chainsaws retract into its back, and Archons, did air always taste so sweet?
Your lungs expand gratefully, full and pink.
“Well, nothing to be done about it then. What she says, goes.” Lady Sandrone’s lips twist into a thunderous scowl. Few are so open about their fury, but you suppose that being surrounded by faceless, featureless automatons makes one yearn for some form of expression. “Even if there is still much work to be done…”
You take your first good look around Lady Sandrone’s lab. Machinery and automaton parts take up the bulk of the space, the scent of oil, metal, and sawdust forever lingering, rippling in the air like a silken curtain. Everyday machines sit half-finished on their benches. Killing machines lie quietly, waiting for the moment their creator sets all of their limbs in place and brings them to life.
Life. How strange it is, that there is not one single example of life here, in this laboratory. Not to you, anyway—you see steel, you see copper, you see wires. You see the cruel logic woven into these robots, the single-mindedness that rules their behavior, the rigidity.
You wonder if these repetitive patterns will ever wear themselves down.
(You wonder if Lady Sandrone will ever grow tired of being lonely.)
Her eyes flash something dangerous.
“Why are you still here? Make yourself useful, or get out!”
“So that is why you’ve wandered in here with your arms full of technology more precious than your puny, primitive mind could ever comprehend.” Lord Dottore nods, hand cupping his chin, as if he hadn’t just insulted you to Celestia and back. Nearby, Lord Pantalone sneers, and sets down the sheaf of papers he’d just been reading. There is…a lot of red ink skittering over the page.
“Some technology. Its production costs are higher than its income; its value, mathematically, is in the negatives . It’s worse than a piece of junk!”
“Oh hush.” Lord Dottore flaps one hand; the other Harbinger squawks indignantly, and you sit on a wobbly stool with the grace of an oversized bird on a wire. Should you still be here? Technically, you’ve checked off the items on your list here—deliver Lady Sandrone’s package to Lord Dottore, let the Harbingers know that they were due in the Tsaritsa’s throne room with a gift of their own—but something about the atmosphere pins you to your spot and locks your muscles in place.
You watch, vaguely paying attention, as Lord Pantalone jabs angrily first at something he’s written down, then at Lord Dottore’s chest; the doctor simply shrugs and gets another earful of enraged ranting for his troubles. You feel like you’re witnessing something you shouldn’t be—you’ve accidentally intruded on something private, you’ve breached the iron curtain that separates your superiors’ lives from yours. You may as well be seeing your commanding officers at the farmer’s market in between stacks of oranges, those citrine suns, and bundles of dark emerald greens. Would Lord Dottore choose to sink his shark-like teeth into a ruby grapefruit and laugh as the juice drips down his chin? Would Lord Pantalone count out mora to spend on warm flaky pastry and carefully catch the peeling crust with ringed hands?
The Tsaritsa’s request has sent you spiraling out in a strange orbit.
To your horror, you are beginning to think of them as mortal. You have pulled them out of the sky and brought them down onto your level, as human, as a human with thoughts and feelings, likes and dislikes, a vessel of flesh and blood that craves and wants and needs—
And has a family, perhaps.
You nearly topple to the floor.
Harbingers have…families.
You take another look at the arguing pair, still animatedly clawing at the air, still spitting curses at each other, and try to wrap your head around the idea of two of the most powerful men in the Fatui answering to a call to come inside, dinner is ready. Come inside, there is a place for you at this table.
Someone loved them, once.
Will someone love them again?
You think about your family, that cottage by the sea, a small haven sprayed by seafoam and the light of the sun. You think about returning to your loved ones’ sides and finding that there is still a you-shaped piece left to fill in their portrait of happiness.
You think about songs and firelight. You think about reunion.
Whispers say Lord Pantalone is from Liyue, a land of rock-carved contracts, a land of commerce and trade. It would certainly explain his knack for handling mora. How do they celebrate the holidays there? You’ve never been stationed in that salt-laden harbor, but if you stand at the docks, close your eyes, and imagine that the biting winter wind is just a bit kinder, just a bit warmer, perhaps you could imagine how that golden nation glitters under the evening sun.
Ships sail into the port, linger, then drift away into the awaiting embrace of the ocean.
Which current brought Lord Pantalone out of Liyue? And how do they celebrate holidays there? And how would Lord Pantalone be celebrating now, if he were home, if he knew where home was, if he knew what home is ?
But of course, there is no rest for the wicked.
Lord Dottore and Lord Pantalone are still squabbling over prices and allowances and the advancement of whatever scheme the doctor has laid out on his dissection table. One promises that his army of cadavers will live up to expectations. The other points to the graveyard of monsters bursting from the floorboards and breaks his brow to brace the instability beneath his feet.
(There is no rest for the wicked.)
You turn away. You have a job to finish.
You’d consider yourself a hard worker. An accomplished Fatui recruit, even, if you were feeling bold.
See, you were trained in the art of espionage. You can, after braving multiple snowstorms, after gritting your clattering teeth together so hard your jaw ached for days, after nursing bruises and cuts and then forgetting about the dull pains altogether, stand on a battlefield with not-so trembling legs. You can eat the cafeteria’s infamous cabbage rolls with minimal damage to your intestines because field rations cast your stomach in iron and taught you that food is a god unto itself.
You were never, however, taught how to entertain the menace that is the Third Harbinger.
“Ah, too bad, too bad,” the devil sings, dainty hands laced behind her back. “You’re pretty slow. A pack of wolves could’ve torn you apart twice by now, you know?” She dances away as you lunge forward, ribbons slipping from your fingers, water. “Hey hey, where do you think they’d start? Your head, or your feet?”
“My head, I’d hope,” you wheeze. Your face feels horribly flushed and your uniform has begun to stick uncomfortably to your skin. Why are you playing a children’s game with Lady Columbina again? Oh, right—because Lady Arlecchino had stared at you with those scarlet Xs and intoned that if you want me to listen to you, you’d better let me finish this work before tonight. Keep Columbina entertained for two hours. I should have made enough progress by then to free up my evening.
Bloated on your success with the previous four Harbingers, you let a foolish question loose in the world. Why should you, when Lady Arlecchino must heed Her Majesty’s request either way? An order is an order, and even Harbingers must answer to their Archon. This evening, the one before, and all of the ones coming after belong to the Tsaritsa. You do not “free up” an evening for her ; you free your evenings for the rest of the world.
What eloquence! What confidence! What naïveté!
Truly, you deserve a standing ovation for that performance. Get up on that stage and take a bow, little jester.
With a scapegoat like you teetering on the chopping block, the Harbingers have no qualms about not attending their Tsaritsa’s strange, impromptu banquet. You need them to go more than they need to listen to you, you faceless, voiceless, spineless recruit, because an absent Harbinger is your slacking, your end—so Lady Arlecchino had said.
So. Here you are, playing an impossible game of tag, of all things, with someone who has the power to snap your neck like a toothpick.
“My Lady, please, don’t you have anything better to do? Like, attend a super important meeting with Her Majesty , perhaps?”
“Oh, but you said it yourself—that isn’t until tonight! I’ve got plenty of time. Unless…” She taps her chin. Somehow, she is able to duck and weave and evade all of your pitiful attempts to tag her while looking remarkably unbothered by it all. Harbingers. Not so human after all. “Do you not want to play with me? That would make me very sad.”
Sweat beads at your brow. You’re desperately in need of a shower and a masseuse to wrangle the tension from your tense limbs, but you won’t be getting either of these worldly pleasures if you’re dead.
(There’s a reason why none of the recruits are assigned to Lady Columbina’s squadron. There’s a reason why Lady Columbina has no squadron at all.)
You still need to visit your Pa and marvel at his newest creations: a painted rocking horse, a cherry red stool broken, fixed, then broken and fixed again, goldenrod and sunshine caught under the lip of a honey jar. You need to remember what it felt like to pick splinters from his palms, or how the neighboring children clamored to see what new toy, what new gift, what new joy , he had crafted. You’ve gotten through this bitter year of gray skies and bleak weather. Soon, you’ll slip back the way you came and indulge in the comfort that is nostalgia.
Just hold on.
“I’d be glad to play with you, my Lady. Just—um, could we maybe take a break? Have a short time out or something?”
She’s silent for a moment, stilling.
“You’re tired.” It’s not a question. “Signora said something like that too, just before she left for…Inazuma.” Her voice, a breath. Lady Signora —it’s the first time you’ve heard mention of her since the funeral. You remember the casket looking lighter than air. You remember hearing that the Fair Lady had been slain—ground to dust, to ash, to nothing at all—in a foreign land, perishing surrounded not by comrades, but the baleful eyes of the enemy.
Another soldier felled by duty. Death isn’t picky; it devours both monsters and men.
“She said she was tired.” Lady Columbina sits, picks at a thread from her ribbon. If you squint, she looks just like a little girl. “Do all of you get like this? Tired, I mean.”
You blink.
“Do you not?”
“No. Someone has to sing.” The answer comes quick, marching on resolute feet. Her lips press into a thin line. “I sang for Signora. I’ll sing for Arlecchino. I’ll sing for Her Majesty someday too, when the whole world bleeds into a symphony of chaos and requires an angelic chorus to lead the requiem.”
Her wrist jerks; the ribbon frays.
“In the end, someone has to sing.”
And because you are a faceless, voiceless, spineless recruit, you figure Lady Columbina will forget this whole conversation. And because you are a faceless, voiceless, spineless recruit, and because loneliness devours both monsters and men, you suddenly hear your voice asking:
“But who will sing for you?”
(You think about songs and firelight, presents and presence. You think about reunion.)
Lady Columbina pats her knees and rises to leave. “You said that the Tsaritsa is summoning us all to her throne room tonight? I’ll be there, and so will Arlecchino. Don’t worry about us. We’ll be there.”
“Heard you were doing the rounds on the Harbingers—something about a message from the Tsaritsa. I was wondering when you were going to get to me.”
(If you’re able to go home at the end of tonight, you’ll tell your siblings that it’s true. Lord Childe has the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen. You’ll just withhold the detail that the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen are also not eyes, but sinkholes, or whirlpools, or the dead calm of the ocean before a storm tears through the sky and sets fire to the sea. No, those things are not eyes.
You’ve seen livelier objects set into the sockets of a dead person.)
He leans over you, an expectant grin curled over his lips. You half-expect to see a cheeky fang glinting in the evening light.
“So? Lay it on me. What did Her Majesty have to say?”
“The Tsaritsa requests your and all other Harbingers’ presences in her throne room tonight. Says each of you needs to bring a gift. Something for the holidays.” You sigh. “There. Now you can tell me what I have to do to get you to go.”
“I wasn’t going to, but if you’re offering free entertainment, I won’t refuse!” Brace yourself. He’s going to demand that you play the fiddle for him, or do a Mondstadian jig, or any number of other orders to satisfy his sadistic streak. You don’t know how to do either of those, by the way, but you think you saw Lyudmila demonstrating the basic steps to a dance she picked up in Mondstadt so maybe you could— “Tell me about your hometown. If you weren’t forced to stay here, in this cold, dreary place, what would you be doing right now?”
Come again?
“I said , if you weren’t here right now, if you were home, what would you be doing?” Lord Childe waves a gloved hand in the air. It looks like he’s trying to shoo away a pesky fly. “You know, for the holidays ? What does your family like to do?”
You’ve been around far too many Harbingers by now to let your guard down. You eye him suspiciously, crossing your arms over your chest. If you’re not careful, next thing you know you’ll open the door to him sitting down for dinner with your parents, a fox getting comfy in a chicken coop.
Etiquette be damned. You’re not letting Lord Childe get ahold of your family.
“Why do you care?”
“Can’t a guy be curious?”
“About a nobody? With all due respect, you Harbingers all need to get new hobbies.”
“Nobodies have families too.” Lord Childe shrugs. His persistence was always one of his better traits. One of his worst traits, too. “Let me guess, you’re from a small fishing village off the coast of Snezhnaya?”
You are, but everyone knows Lord Childe hates anything related to paperwork so there’s no way he read up on you before this. Keep it neutral, dear, you’re a professional. “Everything should be in my files. If you’re really curious you could look in there.”
“Ah, but then I wouldn’t be able to hear about which of your mother’s dishes is your favorite, or how no one can beat your old man at an arm wrestling competition, or if you’ve got siblings who still believe in Santa.”
Yeah, those are the bluest not-eyes you’ve ever seen alright. You take a slow step back before you can finish counting the freckles marching over the bridge of his nose. “It sounds like you do.”
“Aw man, that obvious?” He sounds more delighted than someone caught ought to be. “I’m pretty sure Anton and Tonia have it figured out already—smart kids, both of ‘em—but Teucer’s still got his baby fat on him. Thinks Santa’s a fan of Mr. Cyclops as well; he’s been trying to figure out how to make Mr. Cyclops-shaped cookies for a while now.” He’s smiling again, but it’s different. Softer. Fonder. Imagine the fox laying down in the hay next to the chickens, russet-red draped over downy puffs of yellow. You can see it, right? “He’s a good kid. They’re all good kids.”
“And you?” you ask, because you are a nobody with a family, a faceless voiceless spineless recruit who will fade into the crowd tomorrow, after tonight, after you finish your job because you are still working over the holidays, because the Tsaritsa’s fight does not fade even during times of forgiveness and rebirth, because her fight is for love and this holiday is a great celebration of love, isn’t it? It should be, at least, but you’re not home sitting around the dinner table right now, laughing at some stupid joke your sibling made, so what do you know?
Call this grief—a longing for what was, what will never be.
“Someone had to be the bad egg. I was a real pain in the ass.” Lord Childe sighs and looks down; he averts his gaze. Appropriate for a funeral. You’re both in mourning. “You could say I…wandered too far from the path. Got too lost. It’s a bit late to turn back now.” He turns his face toward yours, but his gaze lies elsewhere. The ocean stretches beyond the horizon. Someone is flattened against the sun, waiting. The yellow yolk trembles at the water’s edge, held in perpetual suspension. Is it rising, or setting? Coming, or going? Blue eyes flicker. “It’s late, isn’t it?”
Come inside, dinner is ready. Come inside, there is a place for you at this table.
It’s late. Come home.
You finally exhale when Lady Columbina, clasping Lady Arlecchino’s hand with the marvelous juxtaposition of delicate hands against a bruising grip, skips into the throne room and brings the body count of the room up to ten. Lord Pierro and Lord Capitano may have saved you some stress by already being present in the throne room for a previous meeting, but the other seven Harbingers had done their utmost to give you premature graying. Excuse yourself for being paranoid that one (or more—or all) of the monsters in your Tsaritsa’s menagerie decided to play hooky tonight.
Thankfully, they all seem to possess at least one decent bone in their bodies.
“Hey Pantalone, what did you bring? Tax forms? More cut funding?”
Scratch that. You watch, equal parts impressed, equal parts terrified, as Lady Sandrone’s robot doll incapacitates the Regrator before he’s able to claw Lord Dottore’s smirking face to shreds. Lady Arlecchino sets her gift aside with the other boxes and pulls a face; if she scrunches her brow any further, you fear her forehead will permanently become concave there. Lady Columbina just laughs.
Lord Pulcinella, for his credit, attempts to school the platoon of elite warriors into a civilized bunch before the Archon of the nation arrives.
“Harbingers! Behave yourselves,” and my, if that phrase didn’t sound familiar. You wonder if Lord Pulcinella got his playbook from a mother at the Fatui daycare center. “We are gathered here tonight because of our faith and loyalty to our Tsaritsa. Show some respect, Dottore.”
Maybe that’ll happen when hell freezes over.
“Ah, it’s alright, Pulcinella. It’s rather nice to see my Harbingers being on such animated terms.” Blink and an Archon suddenly fills the empty throne, a solitary figure posed on her island podium. The room falls to a hush immediately. Hell freezes over and everyone drops to a knee so quickly that you become worried that the floor is now pockmarked with dents.
“Your Majesty.” Ten voices soar, like birdsong, in unity.
“Please, rise.” She’s feeling generous tonight. It’s a holiday of giving, after all, and the celebratory cheer can be quite infectious. “As for your question, dear Doctor, why don’t you see for yourself?” The Tsaritsa sweeps one hand out, gesturing to the table laden with gifts. Some are wrapped neatly, all crisp corners and smooth surfaces, while others tell of a shoddy and rushed job to get a requirement done. Still others forego the challenging task of maneuvering wrapping paper and decide to simply stuff sparkly tinsel into a respectable bag.
All in all, the table is spilling over with a kaleidoscope of color, a patchwork of patterns touched by each Harbinger, for each Harbinger.
“What?” Lady Arlecchino’s mouth flaps helplessly a few times as she struggles to find the words. “You mean…these gifts were not for you, your Majesty, but another Harbinger ?” The very thought of willingly presenting her coworkers with anything more than cool tolerance seems to shake her to her very core.
At least the Tsaritsa is enjoying herself. She claps her hands and when she speaks, the edges of that cold, cold voice echoing in the chamber softens with the unmistakable glow of pride. “Correct!” your Archon practically crows. “You will all be partaking in the traditional game of a blind gift swap. My Harbingers will not be spending this holiday alone and without presents or camaraderie.”
What can they do? The Tsaritsa is the Tsaritsa, as strange and whimsically out of character as this behavior is for her. Against the backdrop of low murmurs and the occasional grumble, you watch as your superiors meander reluctantly toward the table, as though the boxes and bags contained poisons, not presents.
Perhaps for them, the two are indistinguishable. A poison, a present for the enemy; a present, a poisonous indulgence for the soul.
How sad. The distrust and discord amongst the nine of them is buried deep in the marrow of their bones, an insidious weed blooming from their collective consciousnesses. In the same way a tree may tear open a boulder with the strength of its roots, this too shall one day split the roster apart, cause it all to shatter.
Their minds are only human.
“Truly. You see why I had you bring my flock back to me?” You jolt, and on reflex, you turn to the voice. You see her for the first time and—Archons. You freeze. The Tsaritsa regards you with curved crescents of the moon for eyes, chilling snowdrops arcing across the porcelain of her face. She looks old and young. Her features are severe, but they have a certain softness and delicacy to them as well.
A yellow yolk trembles at the water’s edge, held in perpetual suspension. Is it rising, or setting? Coming, or going?
You all but crumple to the ground— stupid, stupid, stupid, how could you have looked your Archon in the eyes like that—but when the Tsaritsa speaks again, you think you can hear a hint of amusement woven between her words. “I have to properly thank you for your hard work today, my child. Did you have anything you wanted as well? Name your desire, and that shall be your present.”
You hear the unmistakable sound of wrapping paper tearing, then, a shriek.
“WHO PUT A FOAM VISION IN HERE?” Lord Pantalone’s face is the loveliest shade of purple you have ever seen. He looks sort of like an eggplant. An enraged eggplant. “Dottore, Dottore you SICK FU—”
You can see Lady Sandrone activating her robot companion again, and this time, Lord Childe has decided to join in with his newest weapon: a suspiciously mace-like scepter with pointy-looking gold-entrusted rubies. One experimental swing, two, and ah—he’s off. The ginger blurs past an impassive Lord Pierro, who is carefully holding a nesting doll version of the Tsaritsa, and an expressionless tiara-wearing Lord Capitano, whom the recruits suspect may not actually have a face. Lord Pulcinella has given up on leashing his horde of insolent coworkers. Lady Columbina looks as if she’s delighted she’s here. Lady Arlecchino looks as if she’d rather be anywhere but here.
If you squint and spontaneously become slightly more insane, you think you could see the Harbingers being a sort of…family. A highly dysfunctional, more-than-slightly dangerous, less-than-traditionally-loving family, yes, but a family nonetheless. A flock of birds soaring through the same, cold sky.
The Tsaritsa is still looking at you expectantly. There is no rest for the wicked, you’re aware, but if even the wicked can be something else—something warm, something human, something almost loving—then perhaps there is hope for you yet.
“Your Majesty, if I may.” You take a deep breath. “I’d like to go home for the holidays.”