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The wind outside Zapolyarny Palace howled with a constant, abrasive reminder that Snezhnaya had no patience for warmth, tenderness, or the commercially mandated affection currently sweeping the rest of Teyvat.
Valentine’s Day. An import from other nations, filtered through the lens of Snezhnayan stoicism.
For the lower ranks listing the Skirmishers, Cicin Mages, and Agents, it was a day of clandestine logistics.
In the dimly lit barracks and the steam-filled mess halls, Pyroslingers were caught smuggling warming bottles to Cryogunners, a thermodynamic disaster waiting to happen but romantic nonetheless.
In another room, a Pyro Agent was seen awkwardly trying to braid a Mirror Maiden's hair, his gauntlets trembling with a delicacy they were never designed to possess.
They celebrated in the shadows, fearful of their superiors, unaware that their superiors were currently too embroiled in their own dysfunction to care about unauthorized hand-holding.
---
Tartaglia, the Eleventh Harbinger, sat on the edge of a velvet chaise in the common lounge, restless with an energy that threatened to shatter the expensive crystal windows. He was bored. He was violently, aggressively bored.
His eyes darted to the calendar on the wall. February 14th.
"Stupid," he muttered, aggressively polishing the hydro-blade manifested in his hand. "Pointless. A waste of tactical resources."
He was absolutely not thinking about the date. He was also absolutely not thinking about the fact that the 14th of February coincided inconveniently with the final days of the Lantern Rite Festival in Liyue.
"It’s a strategic observation," Childe told the empty room, his voice sounding hollow. "Keeping tabs on foreign cultural events is essential for international diplomacy. It has nothing to do with... anyone specific."
He stood up, dispelling the water blade. He needed to hit something. Or someone. Preferably someone who could take a hit and stay standing.
"Sparring," he decided. "I need a sparring partner. It’s a work day, after all."
He marched out of the lounge, his red scarf trailing behind him like a bloody banner of denial.
---
His first stop was the office of The Knave.
Arlecchino’s door was open, which was usually a trap, but Childe was desperate. He strode in, ready to issue a challenge, but stopped short at the sight of the desk.
It was buried.
Mounds of envelopes, wrapped parcels, and velvet boxes created a barricade between the Fourth Harbinger and the rest of the world.
Arlecchino sat behind the fortress, looking impeccably bored. She was wearing reading glasses, a terrifyingly domestic sight in itself, and was methodically sorting the pile with the ruthlessness of a guillotine operator.
"Fight me," Childe announced.
Arlecchino didn't look up. She picked up a scented lavender envelope, sniffed it once, and dropped it into a metal bin by her feet. A small puff of purple smoke rose from the bin.
"Busy, Tartaglia," she said, her voice smooth and devoid of warmth. "Fan mail processing."
"You have fans?" Childe asked, genuinely baffled. He usually just got challenges or terrified pleas for mercy.
"Orphans grow up," Arlecchino said dryly. She picked up a box, shook it, and listened to the rattle. "Admirers of the House. Political suitors. People with a death wish."
She tossed the box into a different pile labeled Suspicious/Explosive. "This one is a proposal. This one is begging for money. This one... ah, a vial of blood. How quaint."
"Just five minutes," Childe pleaded, leaning on the only clear patch of her desk. "I need to burn off some energy. The air in here is stifling."
Arlecchino finally looked up. Her eyes were cross-patterned voids of judgment. "You are restless because you are lonely. Do not bring your midlife crisis romance into my office. It disturbs the filing system."
"I am not lonely!" Childe protested, his voice cracking slightly.
"You are pining."
"I am a warrior! I don't pine! I... strategize!"
Arlecchino picked up a long, elegant letter opener that looked suspiciously like a stiletto. "Go bother the Banker or the Doctor. I believe they are currently making everyone in the West Wing uncomfortable."
"Fine," Childe huffed, pushing off the desk. "But when I come back from Liyue... I mean, from my mission, we’re sparring."
"Hmn. Close the door," was all she said.
Childe stomped down the corridor toward the laboratory sector. If Arlecchino was busy being the world’s most terrifying recipient of affection, surely the others were working.
---
The door to one of Dottore’s secondary labs was ajar. Inside, the air smelled of antiseptic, suffocating ozone, and expensive cologne.
Dottore, specifically the Omega Build, looking as young and sharp as ever, was hunched over a microscope, his back rigid. Leaning over him, trapping the Doctor between the lab bench and a wall of expensive silk, was Pantalone.
The Regrator was smiling. It was that specific smile he used when he was about to foreclose on an orphanage or when he found a particularly interesting chaotic variable.
"You’re interfering with the data," Dottore said, his voice clipped and clinical. He didn't turn around, but his shoulders were hiked up to his ears.
"I’m merely inspecting my investment," Pantalone purred. "This equipment costs more than the total expenditure spent in Mondstadt, Doctor. I expect a return."
"The return is knowledge," Dottore snapped, adjusting the focus on his lens aggressively.
The Regrator ignored him. Instead, he reached out, gloved fingers tracing the spine of the Doctor’s coat, stopping just at the nape of the neck, then wandered again. Dottore bristles.
"Get your hand off my thoracic vertebrae. You are altering my heart rate, which introduces a variable into the experiment."
"Is that so?" Pantalone leaned closer, practically draping himself over the other man.
The tension in the room was a belligerent, electric sort of friction; Pantalone pressing buttons just to see the machine whir, and Dottore who was too socially obtuse to realize he was being flirted with, instead interpreting the advances as territorial aggression.
"Perhaps we should test how high that heart rate can go before critical failure?"
"I will vivisect you," Dottore warned, but he didn't move away.
"Hey!" Childe shouted from the doorway. "Are we fighting or what?"
The tableau broke. Pantalone straightened up slowly, smoothing the front of his coat with practiced elegance, looking entirely unbothered. Dottore spun around, his red eyes narrowing behind his mask, looking like a cat that had been dunked in water.
"Tartaglia," Pantalone said, his smile widening into something predatory. "How festive of you to join us."
"I’m bored," Childe declared, crossing his arms. "Arlecchino is busy. You two are... weird. Fight me."
"I am in the middle of a delicate titration," Dottore hissed. "And the Regrator is currently acting as a parasitic organism attached to my funding."
"Oh, don't be like that," Pantalone chuckled. He turned his gaze to Childe, his eyes sliding shut in that mocking way. "We were just discussing logistics. Speaking of logistics, Tartaglia... I noticed an interesting expense report on your personal account recently."
Childe froze. "My expenses are within the limit."
"Oh, certainly," Pantalone walked around the lab bench, his heels clicking rhythmically. "But the nature of the purchase was fascinating."
"Which one?"
"A pair of custom-ordered chopsticks from the Xinyue Kiosk. Dragon and Phoenix design. Gold inlay. Very expensive. Very... specific."
Dottore perked up, sensing a weakness to exploit. "Dragon and Phoenix? That is the traditional iconography for a Liyue wedding, is it not?"
Childe’s face went roughly the same color as his mask. "They are tactical eating utensils! For... for morale! The balance is superior for combat dining!"
"Combat dining," Pantalone repeated, tasting the words. "Is that what you call dinner with the Consultant of Wangsheng Funeral Parlor these days?"
"Zhongli has nothing to do with this!" Childe yelled, his voice echoing off the test tubes. "I just like the food! And the culture! And... shut up!"
Dottore sighed, a long, weary sound. He picked up a pair of forceps and tapped them against a beaker. "Subject Eleven exhibits classic symptoms of displacement and denial. Heart rate elevated, dermal flushing, irrational verbal outbursts."
"He’s missing his owner," Pantalone agreed, leaning back against a table filled with bubbling acids. "Poor puppy. Left out in the snow while the master celebrates with lanterns."
"I am going to kill both of you," Childe threatened, summoning his hydro blades. "Right now."
"No violence in the lab," Dottore said, holding up a hand. "However, since your cortisol levels are spiking, perhaps you require a stabilizer."
The Doctor reached into a pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a small, foil-wrapped object. He tossed it through the air.
Childe caught it reflexively. It was a chocolate.
But not just any chocolate. It was molded, with disturbing anatomical precision, into the familiar shape. It looked exactly like the Exuvia—Rex Lapis—if Rex Lapis had been turned into a confectionary mascot.
A very cute and very chubby Exuvia. A mockery souvenir of Liyue's very Archon.
"What is this?" Childe asked, staring at the mini-dragon, then at Dottore, then back at the dragon.
"A prototype," Dottore said, turning back to his microscope. "High-density caloric intake for field operatives. Contains a mild... let's call it a mood regulator."
"Are you serious."
"I shaped it like that because the mold was available. Eat it. It might stop you from whining."
"It's poisoned, isn't it?" Childe asked suspiciously.
"Only a little," Pantalone said helpfully. "Go on, Tartaglia. Eat your little god. Maybe it will fill the void in your soul."
"I hate you guys," Childe grumbled. He shoved the chocolate dragon into his pocket anyway "I’m going fishing. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere without psychopaths."
"We are all psychopaths, Tartaglia," the Regrator smiled. "That is the job description."
---
The sun had set by the time Childe reached the frozen lake on the outskirts of the capital. The wind had died down, leaving a heavy, silent cold that settled deep in the bones.
He drilled a hole in the thick ice with a precise thrust of hydro energy, set up his small stool, and cast his line.
Silence. Finally.
No paperwork. No scheming bankers. No mad scientists. Just the dark water beneath the ice and the starry sky above.
He sat there for an hour, not catching anything. The fish were smart; they were sleeping at the bottom, far away from the cold.
Childe sighed, his breath pluming in the air. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the chocolate dragon. It stared at him with blank, dumb chocolatey eyes.
"It's not a wedding gift," Childe whispered to the chocolate. "It’s just... nice chopsticks. He appreciates fine craftsmanship. It’s a gift between... warriors. Comrades."
He bit the head off the chocolate dragon. It tasted of dark cocoa, chili pepper, and... something chemical.
Within minutes, a strange warmth spread through his chest. It wasn't the warmth of a fire; it was a fuzzy, loose-limbed sensation. Dottore’s "mood regulator." A sedative? A truth serum?
Childe felt his shoulders drop. The tension that held him together like a coiled spring began to unravel.
He looked at the moon. In his mind’s eye, the white landscape of Snezhnaya shifted. He saw the golden glow of the harbor. He saw the lanterns rising by the thousands, reflecting on the sea like a second galaxy.
He saw a man in a brown coat, sitting at a stone table, blowing on a cup of tea.
The denial, usually a fortress of iron, melted into a puddle of wistful sludge.
"I miss him," Childe said aloud. The words tumbled out, unbidden. "I miss his stupid stories about rocks. I miss the way he forgets his wallet. I miss the way he looks at me like I’m a chaotic child he’s decided to adopt."
He took another bite of the chocolate body.
"I wonder if he’s watching the lanterns," Childe mumbled, his eyes half-closing as the drug did its work. "I hope he likes the chopsticks. I hope he... thinks of me."
He leaned back, staring up at the aurora borealis flickering green and purple.
"Happy Lantern Rite, Xiansheng," he whispered to the freezing wind. "Happy Valentine's, you old blockhead."
---
Thousands of miles away, in the harbor of Liyue.
The festival was in full swing. The air was thick with the smell of grilled tiger fish and incense. The sky was on fire with lanterns, carrying the wishes of mortals to the heavens.
Zhongli sat on the terrace of the Third-Round Knockout, a cup of premium tea in his hand. Across from him, the Traveler and Paimon were stuffing their faces with festival food, arguing about which lantern was the prettiest.
Suddenly, Zhongli paused. The cup halted halfway to his lips.
He tilted his head slightly, his amber eyes glowing faintly as they looked North, piercing through the noise of the crowd, through the mountains, across the ocean.
"Zhongli?" Paimon asked, swallowing a mouthful of shrimp ball. "What’s wrong? Did you forget your wallet again?"
Zhongli lowered the cup slowly. A small, uncharacteristically soft smile graced his lips. It was a private expression, one that softened the ancient stone of his face.
"No," the Consultant said, his voice deep and resonant like the earth itself. "I merely... heard the wind carry a greeting."
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a long, slender wooden box. He ran his thumb over the lid. Inside lay a pair of exquisite chopsticks, Dragon and Phoenix, waiting for their owner to return.
"The wind?" Paimon tilted her head. "Is it a message from the Adepti?"
"Something like that," Zhongli hummed. He looked up at the moon, which shone just as brightly here as it did over the frozen wastes.
"Happy Lantern Rite, Childe," he murmured, too low for anyone else to hear.
He took a sip of tea. It tasted particularly sweet tonight.
***