Chapter Text
He was drowning.
Salt water filled his lungs so quickly he could choke, falling through the depths of the ocean as the currents pulled him further. The cracked ice fell like fractals against his skin, plunging him deeper into what he now knew as endless darkness. It enveloped him in the cold, chilling him to the bones in a way that made the Shezhnayan winters pale in comparison, biting against his cheeks as frost coated his fingers and seeped through his veins.
Ajax had never felt fear before he had put one foot in front of the other, life flashing before his eyes as the sound of wolves howling in the distance grew closer with each panting breath. A bear’s claws nipped against his neck, practically tripping over the thick roots that slithered across the ground as he desperately jumped over snow-capped branches.
One wrong step, and he was falling, foot shattering the fragile barrier between ice and ocean as water engulfed his very being.
“You’re weak,” said the woman. “Mortal. Fragile.”
Ajax had crawled away, tasting blood between his teeth as he pointed a dagger straight at her. Polished bone tinged with ebony, blood so dark it stained his nails black. She gave him a cold smile, her lips crimson red like a gash across her face. It unnerved him, the way her bony fingers wrapped around the hilt of a polished sword, dust-coated across its surface.
“And yet you survived the fall,” she hummed, looking up at the ceiling of an endless void. “You have the ambition of a warrior. I must confess, I am most intrigued.”
Ajax panted, eyes blown wide as she bent down on one knee to wipe the strands of blood-soaked hair from his face. Her eyes were golden, inhuman in a way that sent chills down his spine. She dragged a long, ragged nail across his cheek, each touch leaving him trembling, as though she were a wolf with its fangs hovering above the pale of his neck.
“I will train you,” she told him, standing up. He was still lying on the floor, breaths coming out in short bursts as though he were still choking on water. Salt lingered in his mouth, the air tasting of iron. “And you will learn what it means to be a warrior of the Abyss.”
That day, he dreamed of a monstrous creature. Its sleek body, dotted with blue, with iridescent scales spanning the length of its torso. Long fins that stretched across its side, with golden eyes that stared back at him, as though he were an insignificant speck in the presence of such a majestic beast. Ajax lifted a hand, feeling his fingers grace along the scales, the firm feel of their sharp edges cutting gashes across his skin, and felt a kinship with that abysmal monster.
“Why,” he began one day, dusting the dried flecks of blood from beneath his fingernails. “Why did you take me in as your apprentice?”
Skirk, the woman, turned around. Her hair was gnarly, falling across her shoulders in thick, tangled knots–her skin was pale, snow-white, pallid with sunken cheeks–her body was thin, abnormally tall, skeletal. She towered over him like a spectre’s shadow, and yet her frame was shrunken in a way that unsettled him.
His master was a dweller of an ancient realm, and time flowed in ways unlike Tevyat, where three months passed by in three days. He had learned to count the time in months rather than days, because one month in an endless abyss was a day in the light above.
“You have awakened ‘it’,” she began, thrusting his bone dagger into his hands. He paused, looking up at her as she ran her sharp, black fingernails through his hair. “And you still maintain ‘it’s’ traces. I am teaching you these skills because they will be useful to you when the time comes.”
Ajax felt his shoulders tense as she cupped his face with her hand, running her thumb along the soft of his cheek, tracing the length of freckles across the bridge of his nose. “What do you mean, master, by ‘when the time comes’?”
Skirk smiled, and he had learned by then that her smiles were not gentle. They were sharp like the sword she carried at her side, that pierced into the soft flesh of the heart to spill blood across the ground. When she showed her teeth, they were sharp, the canines glinting in the shallow rays of light that passed through the inky void.
“You are a warrior, Ajax, and I intend to treat you as an extension of my blade. I will carve you into a monster, and you will sink your teeth into your enemies as though you are a Rishboland Tiger seeking its prey. You will stain the grasslands with blood and leave red splattered across the Shezhnayan snow. You will lose your humanity,” she declared, kneeling down so that he was face-to-face with those amber eyes, “And you will become one with the Abyss. One of the very same creatures I have you slaughter into ribbons.”
Ajax remembered the creature in his dream, the feeling of scales beneath his fingers, and understood, then, what she meant.
He had felt it simmer beneath his skin, the way it shifted like tectonic plates, clashing against one another. The Abyss had changed him, in more ways than one, and he should have feared the thing it had transformed him into, the being that treaded along the thin line of “human” and “creature,” but it only left him exhilarated in the face of such power.
The thing he had become was not the shy boy who listened to stories of heroes by the fireplace. His hair was tinged light purple at the ends, slicked back as electricity flowed throughout his body. Dark purple scales enveloped him in steel-like armour, stretching across his torso, his arms, and his legs. His fingers were replaced with long, black claws that could claw straight through the chest to pull out a still-beating heart.
He was a monster, and he called it Foul Legacy.
Skirk had smiled when she first saw it, the way the red mask distorted his face so that he could see her reflection through his single eye. He had not seen his master so pleased before, and it left him grinning even as he felt the scales revert back into what was once human flesh.
When he finally crawled out of that hole, grime on his face as he felt the winter wind flow through his hair, he found a Hydro Vision curled inside his palm.
He had gained the favour of Celestia. This twisted monstrosity had somehow garnered the interest of the gods, and the proof glistened warmly inside his hands, radiating elemental power he knew he now possessed. He had heard of Vision-wielders in myths, of their acts of bravery, of the shiny medallion pinned to their waist as a trinket of glory.
Those who attracted the gods were those who were destined for greatness. They were those who were spoken of in stories, who headed entire nations, who led revolutions and tore down beasts with their bare hands. To be a Vision-wielder was to tell the world that they were a pinnacle of greatness in a bleak world, a figurehead in an otherwise meaningless existence.
He laughed.
Something in him, some carnal, visceral part of him, could only laugh. Laugh to the bitter wind, a cold that he no longer felt, because to feel was to be human, and he had lost his humanity long ago.
It was hours before anyone had found him, half-slouched over his still glimmering Hydro Vision. A band of hunters had seen him motionless on the ground, mouth still agape and eyes wide open as they shook him to consciousness. They’d lifted him with both hands and slumped him over their shoulders, carrying him all the way to Morepesok where his anxious mother had looked at him for the first time in three days.
She let out a gasp.
“Ajax,” she mumbled, hand to her mouth as her son stared back at her. “What happened to your eyes?”
He had, later on, learned what she meant. He could no longer see the light reflected in those irises, only an inky-black darkness.
Humans were fragile, he would later learn.
Skirk was right when she said that to be mortal is to be weak. Never before had he realised how his own mortality was a nuisance, not until he’d tasted another’s blood across his lips.
His parents feared what he’d become. Skirk had been right too, when she said that mortals fear the unknown. They couldn’t understand what had become of their meek son, whose eyes would sparkle at any mention of adventure. He’d become something else entirely, and his limbs always itched for a fight. He had lived in the Abyss under the constant threat of death, with monsters at every corner, and had cut through necks with enough precision that it was practically muscle memory. The stagnant air of Morepesok no longer satisfied his hunger for the battlefield, and he found himself taking every opportunity he could to bash someone’s head in with his bare fists.
It began with something small. An insult, maybe, he didn’t quite care. People had begun avoiding him, ever since he came back. They were scared of him, he knew, but one particular group of boys had been stupid enough to tell it to his face.
Ajax didn’t care for insults, but as far as he could tell, it was the perfect opportunity for a fight. He could already imagine the feeling of his knuckles slamming against one boy’s jaw, the crack of bone as he spat out blood and teeth into the white snow. The cries for surrender even as he pummelled his fists into his skull, the purple and blue that would bloom across his face in sick, ugly bruises.
It was too great a temptation.
All four of the boys that day got sent home with concussions. The doctors told Ajax and his parents that had a lucky group of bystanders not intervened, they’d very likely be dead.
His parents were horrified. Ajax was grinning the entire time.
He had never felt so alive as he did at the sight of blood. It was the closest thing he had to that feeling of ecstasy when Skirk would run her bony fingers through his hair and call him her warrior. No longer did he have that bone dagger, but he would never forget the shape of a weapon in his hands, how its sharp tip would slice across flesh and leave scars in its wake.
Two days later, his parents enlisted him in the Fatui.
Perhaps they thought it would discipline him, give him the taste of bloodshed he so desired. The harsh barracks and cold snow humbled new recruits and transformed lanky and headstrong individuals into proud soldiers. It was a gruesome environment, one where the weak crumbled under the pressure and the strong were rewarded.
Ajax was fourteen, the youngest of them all. The older recruits poked fun at him, forced him into the worst of the obstacle courses, and paired him in spars with men who were far above his weight class, and yet each time he felt unsatisfied with the ease with which these men fell victim to their own mortality.
They stopped treating him like a child when he got into a fight with ten of the older recruits, each one falling to the ground in a puddle of their own blood. Their heads were smashed in, teeth splattered all over the floor, arms and legs bruised and broken with bones sticking out of their own skin. In the centre of the barracks stood Ajax, blank eyes staring at the rest of the watching crowd, licking the blood from his lips and letting out a bitter laugh.
“Come at me,” he taunted, taking a step forward. His hands were laced with blood, his hair dripping with red, and the rest of them were looking back at him with fear. As though he weren’t human. As though he were a monster. “Which of you is strong enough to take me on, one-on-one?”
Skirk’s phantom touch graced the strands of his hair, and he remembered the way she would wipe the blood from his face after piercing another writhing creature through the heart. She was as much his creator as his master, the way he fought resembling the lithe way in which she moved her body to kill in a matter of milliseconds. Her grace was something he could never quite capture, and he would likely spend his entire life trying to imitate even half of her expertise.
While the rest of them stared wide-eyed at the young recruit covered in blood, grinning from ear to ear as he wiped his leather boots on the dirt floor, a man’s loud clapping could be heard reverberating throughout the entire room. It overpowered the stench of iron, all eyes turning to face the brave soul who dared to breach the tentative silence brought about by the gruesome display of violence.
“Impressive,” the man began, and Ajax’s eyes snapped to look at this intruder. He wore a large coat, black fur lining the collar, a Fatui emblem sewn into the side. His hat was wide at its brim, embroidered with gold, shadowing his long, thin nose and snow-white moustache. “I’ve never seen such a broad display of strength before.”
Pulcinella. The Rooster. The Fifth. A Harbinger had watched him beat the living shit out of ten people and called it impressive. If Ajax’s eyes could shine, they certainly would now.
Pulcinella scoffed, walking forward and kicking a half-unconscious recruit in the face. The man wheezed as he rolled across the floor, spitting red onto the ground. “Such actions, however, mustn’t go unpunished. I remind you, child, that violence against fellow recruits is a criminal offence. The harshest of consequences shall befall you.”
He spoke of punishment, and yet the glint in his eyes spelled only one word. Skirk had called him it, once, while knelt down before him with a razor-sharp grin across her crimson lips. Weapon.
Perhaps Pulcinella saw a blade where there only ought to be a monster. Ajax was feral, a wild beast polished for one purpose, and that was to fight. He viewed the Fatui as a plaything upon which he could busy himself, for mere humans could not compare to him, an abyssal creature who was neither mortal nor man. His master had made sure of it, the moment dark scales began to form in fractures across his body, pain and cold ceasing to exist in place of fire-cracking vitality.
Ajax was not a wise boy, but he’d learned long ago to read the tells of the human face, the rise of an eyebrow, the curl of a lip. He did not care for the two-faceted nature of Pulcinella, and yet his eyes spoke of a promise, one that involved leaving bloodshed in his wake.
“Of course,” he laughed, wiping his hands across his jacket. The recruits who stood gaping at this exchange between Harbinger and child glared daggers into his skull, yet Ajax basked in the attention; craved it, even. “I will accept any punishment as you deem fit.”
Pulcinella smiled. It was the sly smile of a snake.
Perhaps there was something poetic about this, Ajax thought. Vision wielders were heroes, but what did that make him? He was no saver of men. The first time he saw the light fade from a man’s eyes, he had stood over him, wiping the crimson from his dagger as he watched him writhe like a gaping fish. His vocal cords were severed in one clean slice, unable to cry out for mercy as the ground greedily soaked up his blood.
“Weak,” he spat out, as the man’s grip on his leg slackened. “All you do is run.”
Pulcinella had given him an outlet. He was a weapon, as Skirk said, an extension of a blade. He sought out the Fatui’s enemies, searched for a worthy opponent amongst the group, and watched as they fell helplessly to his blade. Some he left for dead, buried in the onslaught of ice and snow. Others he left unconscious, a mere warning to never seek vengeance against the insignia pinned to his coat.
They gave him the name Childe. A nickname once spat in the barracks, a mockery of the fourteen-year-old who stood unmarred in a sea of bodies, now incited fear into the hearts of those who dared speak ill of the Archon to whom he had dedicated himself. She was the woman who bestowed upon him a purpose, the privilege of massacring entire battalions, of tainting the waters of his Vision red, of strapping the Electro Delusion onto his belt.
So as he stood by the Tsarita’s throne at Zapolyarny Palace, Pierro, the First, pinning the Fatui emblem onto his fur-lined cape, his lips curled into perhaps the widest smile he’d ever given to one of Her Majesty’s Harbingers. Thousands of them watched as Childe, now Tartaglia, ascended the icy steps towards the Tsaritsa on her throne, the red crystal of his chain dangling as he made his way towards her.
“Tartaglia,” she said, and her voice was the closest thing he felt to chills since the Abyss had removed his ability to feel any sort of cold. “My Eleventh.”
She cupped his cheek, running her long, delicate fingers through his hair. Everything about her was cold, from the frost dotting her eyelashes to the long, pale hair that ran down her shoulders. She wore a crystal crown, one that glinted against the moonlight streaming in through the ice walls of Zapolyarny Palace.
She reminded him of Skirk. After all, she too was his master.
“You will serve me,” she continued, forcing him to meet her eyes. They were blue, fractals of ice that pierced through him. “And you will harden your heart. You will force my enemies onto their knees so that they beg for their Archon’s mercy. You will be my warrior, and I will allow you to spill blood across the snow, for as long as you are loyal to me, you are to rival Celestia itself.”
She released her grip from his hair, and he could feel the shards of ice that had cut through his cheek. Something wet streamed down the fresh cut, and he put a finger to it, if just to see the scarlet seep into his fingers. It had been a long time since he saw his own blood.
“So, Tartaglia,” she grinned. “Do not disappoint me.”
Arlecchino was mad, for all that she acted with the poise of an esteemed gentlewoman. He had seen her fight, the way she rivalled his own brutality, yet for what she lacked in his brute strength she made up for in efficiency. Only her fellow Harbingers could see through her facade of clarity, for she ran her House of the Hearth with false delicacy, the poor orphans placed on marionette strings that she pulled and pushed as the Tsaritsa desired.
He hardly feared his co-workers. Cockiness was a learned nature, though he thought he deserved it, as the youngest. There was an inhuman power that now simmered in his blood, a being he hadn’t allowed himself to become. Foul Legacy ached to be freed from the confines of his human flesh, and yet he wouldn’t allow it, not until he found his equal.
“Lyney, Lynette, and Freminet.”
Arlecchino sighed, hands hanging from the crystal railing of the balcony overlooking the entirety of Shezhnaya. He’d called her after their latest meeting for a talk, and although none of the Harbingers had taken a liking to him, they at least respected his rank enough to give him an audience. “You took a special interest in those children. Why, Tartaglia? You and I know I’m not fond of idle chit-chat.”
Childe appeared from the shadows, feeling the rays of moonlight flash across the sharp features adolescence had brought upon him. His jaw was sharper now, no longer the soft curve that he associated with childhood. He had lost that part of him, surrendered it to the Abyss when he fell six years ago. It was gone, just like the light in his eyes.
“What you do to those children is cruel,” he said, watching as Arlecchino pulled a silver case from her pocket. “Taking away their childhood in exchange for loyalty. They grow up as assassins, as soldiers, as slaves. I understand people’s reasons for joining the Fatui, but you can’t force servitude onto kids.”
Arlecchino hummed, opening the case to show a number of cigarettes. She took one out and flicked open a lighter she’d had in her pocket, the metal intricately carved with the petals of the Fatui insignia. Childe remembered seeing her do the same with La Signora, the two of them heading to the balcony to blow clouds of black into the pristine blue sky.
“You talk about lost childhoods as if you weren’t enlisted in the Fatui when you were fourteen. And besides,” she scoffed, closing the silver case with a click. “I thought we were both on the side of Her Majesty. She has a soft heart, doesn’t she? These children didn’t have homes before they came to the House of the Hearth. And now they have a family.”
Childe chewed on his lower lip. The cold wind bit his cheek, but he’d long grown numb to the endless Shezhnayan winter that seemed to permeate the air with frost. “You trained them to be loyal. I don’t believe that to be a choice.”
She pointed her cigarette at him, rolling her eyes, black like the night sky with slashes of red for pupils. The smoke blew to his face, and he detested the stench of burnt tobacco as he waved it away with a scowl.
“You didn’t have one,” she rebuked. “Yet you don’t regret it. Clearly, you’re quite enjoying the opportunity to fight anyone who dares to overstep. Don’t lie and say you aren’t, Tartaglia, because anyone with eyes can see that you live for the battlefield.”
Childe paused, fidgeting with his earring. He was wearing the cape that day, and it weighed heavy on his shoulders for more reasons than one. “I chose to stay because I wanted to rule the world. I wanted to tear down Celestia and bring it to Her Majesty’s feet. I wanted to go out in a fit of glory. She promised me a dream, so I promised her my loyalty. Those orphans grow up brainwashed into believing that that is their only option. It’s not the same.”
Arlecchino sighed again, taking another inhale of her cigarette. She looked irritated even as she shook her head, blowing more smoke into Childe’s face. She knew he hated it. It was her way of mocking him.
“You have much to learn,” she muttered, her lips curving into a frown. “Everything is transactional. You can’t have loyalty from your subjects unless they receive something in return. You yourself said you had something to gain from joining the Fatui. So tell me, why wouldn’t you do missions in exchange for what you crave most?”
Childe raised an eyebrow. Her implication was clear, he knew that at least. “A family?”
“Precisely.” Arlecchino grinned back, crushing the cigarette between her fingers. The pieces crumbled between her thumb and index, falling to the ground in ashes. “You have a father, a mother, brothers, and sisters. You of all people understand how much familial love can drive a man to do great things. My children remain loyal because they find purpose in one another. It may be unfair to you, but that is one way in which the Tsaritsa provides love to her subjects.”
Her fingers weren’t burned, Childe noted. He could barely see through the inky black skin that crawled up her forearms like roots, ebony making way for pale skin hidden underneath the sleeves of her white coat. It made her seem sinister, and inhuman in a way that distinguished her from mere mortals. It was something he had in common with the rest of the Harbingers, something the Tsaritsa adored in her greatest confidants.
Blasphemy.
“I see,” he began, already making his way back. Arlecchino didn’t turn to watch him go, taking another cigarette from her holster to bring to her lips. “I really do have much to learn.”