Chapter Text
Pantalone, Ninth of the Fatui Harbingers, waited seven days and seven nights to follow his men out of Sumeru.
This, he argued to himself, was out of proper obligation—standing and watching as Irminsul burned, he had come to realize that such a fire could only have been ignited through supernatural means. By all accounts given by his spies, the Traveler and the Dendro Archon had met the Pyro Archon at the border of their nations and parted ways. Days later, all of the data in Irminsul had been suddenly pulled away into Aaru, and Irminsul had burst into flame. It wasn’t a difficult leap to figure out that Kusanali had set the World Tree ablaze with the pyro gnosis. As such, it was his duty as a Harbinger to at least attempt to return to Snezhnaya with the final piece of his majesty’s plan in hand.
The primordial fire blazed on for seven days and seven nights and Pantalone did not sleep. Kusanali arrived on the scene the moment the fire puttered out, searched until nightfall, and seemed to find nothing. Still, he snuck into the remains of the now-blackened, charred World Tree, scoured for anything, anything, to no avail. There was no trace of the pyro gnosis in the ashes, almost as if it had been devoured in its own flame—but even Pantalone, as magically disinclined as he was, knew that even the primordial fire could surely not burn its catalyst.
(There was also no trace of Il Dottore, Second of the Fatui Harbingers, and Pantalone absolutely didn’t feel a deeper stab at the second of these realizations. Zandik, for all of his earnest attempts to separate from his humanity, was flesh and blood like the rest of them. Of course his final segment had disintegrated into nothing when faced with the holiest of flames.)
With no pyro gnosis to bring home (and no remains to bury), Pantalone stared at the remnants of the World Tree for a long moment, then reluctantly set his sights towards Snezhnaya.
~
After arriving in Snezhnaya proper, the train ride to Glupov was quiet. This in and of itself was fairly normal. Pantalone’s subordinates rarely spoke to him unless something urgent came up or he gave an order, and so his thoughts were usually left blissfully uninterrupted.
This time, however, he almost wished he had any distractions at all. Upon returning, he would surely face a reprimand from the Tsaritsa—if he was lucky. Truly, he hadn’t the faintest idea what punishment he would face for aiding a publicly-declared traitor in attacking a nation with whom they had no prior quarrels. Although, he supposed, he could always play the victim again and blame him for the situation and its outcome—but after the last time, he wasn’t sure that anyone believed his “boy who cried wolf” routine anymore. Pierro certainly hadn’t seemed very convinced, and the other three Harbingers in Snezhnaya had looked markedly unimpressed.
(And something in Pantalone crumpled and ached at the idea of cowering behind the excuse of Dottore one final time.)
(After all, he couldn’t exactly say he wouldn’t do it all over again in a heartbeat.)
(It really was too quiet on this train.)
Suddenly, the train jolted on the tracks. Nausea crept over him unbidden, and when he looked down, his knuckles were white with how tightly he was gripping the seat. He gritted his teeth and stubbornly swallowed against the bile that was building up in his throat.
What?
He’d never had motion sickness—and he would remember if he had, because he’d spent a lifetime, lifetimes ago, laughing at Zandik for his motion sickness. Maybe it was his diet. He’d never been the best at maintaining a stable one, even with Dottore there to nag him (he didn’t feel a pang at that thought), and it likely didn’t help that he tended to smoke more than he ate. Also, he reasoned, he hadn’t slept in at least seven days. Seven days without food or sleep might be a new low for him. Dottore would’ve had quite a few choice words to say to him about this.
(He was Fine.)
“Lord Regrator?” Pantalone looked up to see Petrov, a member of his personal guard—an irritation that Dottore had insisted on after a series of failed assassination attempts—looking at him nervously. “Are you alright?”
Oh. He hadn’t noticed that he’d been leaning forward in his seat. He slowly pried his fingers from where they were digging into the cushion and shook himself out mentally. “I’m perfectly fine, just thinking.” Petrov looked around for a second, then nodded obediently and turned his head away.
Still, the nausea rose up again, stubbornly refusing to leave. Pantalone pushed it away, ignoring the unease bubbling up. It would be a long train ride.
~
The walk to fortress was frigid, in comparison to the heat of Sumeru, and rather uneventful—only made interesting by the fact that shortly after leaving the train, his nausea had abated. Apparently the railway system really was just as bad as Zandik had always—
Pantalone shook himself out to rid himself of the thought. A couple at a shop spotted him with his guard detail, stiffened, and bowed low. He paid them no mind, musing to himself that he should funnel a bigger budget towards city utility when he next had the chance. When they reached the doors of the fortress without incident, Pantalone turned to his guards; they both snapped to attention. “I will be fine from here. You may both take your leave.”
Petrov and Zora both saluted him sharply. “Yes, my lord.”
His attention turned back to the palace as he entered. The halls were long and cold, as they had always been and always would be. While all of the Harbingers had living quarters inside the fortress, not all of them truly lived in them full-time while they were in Snezhnaya. Pierro, Pulcinella, Capitano, Sandrone and Tartaglia did, and Columbina had when she was still counted among their numbers; Signora hadn’t, Arlecchino didn’t, and Pantalone himself typically managed his business affairs from a manor on the outskirts of the city that Dottore, at all ages, had always called ‘immoderate’. The Doctor himself had slept in the lab only when forced to by his human nature (this flaw was resolved with the creation of the segments). (Knowing that he would never see his colleague again didn’t make him feel anything at all.)
“Regrator.” Pantalone was jarred out of his thoughts by the gruff voice of Pulcinella. He looked down at his diminutive colleague, who was eying him with an unreadable expression. “I see you’ve made it back to Snezhnaya intact.”
“More or less,” Pantalone hummed. “I’m surprised you were aware I’d left.”
Pulcinella’s gaze turned flat. “Every remaining active Harbinger was recalled to Snezhnaya to witness your hearing. And even if we hadn’t been briefed on the situation, you did take half of your troops with you to Sumeru.” The ’I’m not stupid’ was left unsaid.
“Well.” Pantalone cleared his throat, finding that he didn’t particularly care that there was no way to skirt around his involvement in the situation. He wasn’t sure how to feel about the fact that the Tsaritsa seemed to want to make this a spectacle. “Sumeru sends their regards.”
The old man turned a fascinating shade of red. “Why, you— the absolute diplomatic disaster you left me to deal with—“
“Ignore him, Pulcinella,” a third voice joined the pair. Both men turned in sync to see Arlecchino, clad in her Harbinger coat. She let out an aggrieved sigh. “You know well that he does this on purpose to rile you up.”
“How you wound me, Arlecchino,” Pantalone sighed, putting a hand to his chest. “This particular series of decisions was not made with our dear mayor in mind.”
Pulcinella put forth a valiant effort to stop himself from shouting again; his eyebrows were twitching and steam was practically shooting out the old man’s ears. Pantalone raised an eyebrow mockingly, then pulled out his case of cigarettes to play his final card in this encounter. Looking at Arlecchino’s unimpressed face head-on, he very deliberately flicked on his lighter and brought the flame up to light the tip of the cigarette.
Pantalone inhaled deeply, closing his eyes. He felt his body relax as the familiar bitter taste of the smoke hit his tongue, anticipating that rush of nicotine, and—
Completely without warning, his stomach churned with nausea, bile rose up in his throat, and he promptly vomited onto the hard floor. Bent over clutching his abdomen, Pantalone dry heaved for a minute or so before his eyes blearily drifted up to meet his colleagues’ bewildered gazes. He snapped himself back into place, mask more rigid than usual, then discreetly wiped the remaining bile from his mouth onto the back of his glove. He cringed inwardly and reminded himself to have them washed as soon as possible.
Arlecchino, eyes wide but trying to pretend they weren’t, spoke first. “Are you…”
“Alright? Of course, my dear colleagues.” As luck would have it, a pair of soldiers rounded the corner at that moment. Pantalone snapped his fingers. “You two!” The soldiers looked at each other in unison, visibly petrified. “Have someone clean this up. Or do it yourself. I don’t particularly care.”
The braver of the two fumbled out, “Yes, Lord Regrator!” and dragged her comrade away with her.
Pantalone whipped around back to Pulcinella and Arlecchino, who were still giving him strange looks. Pulcinella opened his mouth to speak, and Pantalone pivoted on one heel to very quickly make his escape.
What in Teyvat was happening to him? Pantalone clenched his teeth, taking long strides through the hallway. No degree of malnutrition or state of sleep deprivation had ever rendered him physically ill like this. After his summons with the Tsaritsa, he really ought to go see—
Suddenly, Pantalone had reached the door to their assembly chambers and had no remaining time to think about it. He paused, taking slow, measured breaths to calm his racing heart and tumultuous thoughts. After he felt himself center again, he closed his eyes and let out one final steadying exhale before pushing open the grand doors to the assembly.