Tartaglia

Your family had never been poor, but they had also never been rich enough not to depend on the Fatui. Contracts, supplies, access to the northern trade routes — all of it rested on connections with those who wore the uniform and carried out the Tsaritsa’s orders. You grew up in a world where the word “duty” meant not a moral choice but a financial obligation, and where marriage was always a transaction, never a feeling. By twenty-five, they had already found you a suitable match — an elderly count with lands bordering Natlan, whose estates needed your family’s capital, and your family needed his military protection. Everything was decided, signed, wrapped in a pretty box with a bow. All that remained was to endure until the end of the year and say “yes” to a man whose very presence made your jaw ache from boredom.

And then he showed up.

You didn’t even understand what was happening at first. It was just one of those receptions in your father’s mansion, among all those pomaded nobles discussing harvests and taxes, that someone appeared who smelled of smoke and iron. Not literally — he just moved differently, looked differently, smiled as if the entire evening was a joke to him and he was waiting for someone to laugh along. Tartaglia. The Eleventh Harbinger. The one about whom rumors said he could single-handedly cut through a squad of mercenaries and never stop smiling. You approached him because your future fiancé had fallen asleep in an armchair by the fireplace and you were bored. He said: “That outfit is too beautiful for this evening. Wasting your best outfit on an old man snoring in the corner?”

That was how it started.

At first, there were short conversations at receptions — he always found you, always appeared nearby when your fiancé stepped out to smoke or discuss business. Then came notes, which he somehow managed to pass through the maids, though you had no idea how he bribed them. Then meetings. Secret ones, in his apartment on the outskirts, where there was no stucco, no crystal, no servants — only simple wooden chairs, a hard bed, weights scattered on the floor, and the smell of cold tea. You remember crossing the threshold for the first time and thinking, “This is where one of the most dangerous men in Snezhnaya lives?” He laughed and said, “What were you expecting? Gold toilets? I don’t collect things. I collect fights.”

You didn’t know what it was like to fall head over heels for someone who risked not coming back every single day. It turns out it feels like having a tiny suicide bomber living inside you, asking every evening, “Is he alive today? Will he come? Or another letter from the Tsaritsa, and he’s away until the next moon?” You hated the uncertainty. But you hated yourself even more for the fact that every time he opened the door with his key, you would throw yourself at him and kiss his cold lips before he even took off his coat.

He didn’t know how to be tender. At all. When he touched you, there was so much force in his hands that sometimes you were afraid he would break you by accident. But he never did. He learned. He asked, “Does it hurt?” and if you said yes, he would stop and just hold you, pressing you to his chest, and stay silent. He never said pretty words. Instead of “I missed you,” he might bring you a stolen pastry from the palace kitchen because he knew you liked sweets. Instead of “you’re beautiful,” he might frown and say, “You didn’t sleep again, you’ve got dark circles,” and then brew tea and sit beside you while you drank.

In short, this wasn’t love from novels. This was love from the trenches, where every day could be your last, and so every minute was worth its weight in gold.

And now you were sitting on his bed, on that hard mattress, watching him sort arrows for his bow. Outside the window, a blizzard howled; in the stove, firewood crackled; and in your pocket lay a letter from your father. Tomorrow — the signing of the marriage contract with the count. The day after — the engagement. In two weeks — the wedding. Everything scheduled, decided, no options left.

Tartaglia lifted his head and looked at you. He already knew. From your eyes, from the way you were silent, from the way your fingers clenched on your knees.

“Your old man sent word?” he asked, setting the arrow aside. There was no anxiety in his voice, only tired evenness.

“Tomorrow is the signing,” you said. “Father said if I don’t come, he’ll come for me himself with guards.”

Tartaglia was silent for a few seconds, then stood up, walked to the window, and looked out at the snow. You saw his back, his broad shoulders, and how tense his arms were even when he was just standing there.

“You know,” he said without turning around, “I could kill your count. That’s not a problem. One strike, and he wouldn’t even know what happened.”

“You won’t do that.”

“Why not?” He turned, and there was no smile in his eyes. None at all. He was as serious as before a battle. “Because it’s wrong? Because I should respect the laws? What laws, if they’re forcing you to get into bed with some old man?”

“Because it would mean war with my family,” you answered calmly. “And you know that.”

He turned back to the window. The silence was so thick you could hear the snow hitting the glass.

“I don’t have money like your father,” he said finally. “No lands, no titles, no purebred horses or family jewels. All I have is me. My hands, my skills, and a job that could send me on a mission tomorrow that I might not come back from.”

He paused for a second, then turned and looked straight at you.

“But if you say ‘run,’ I’ll drop everything. Right now. We’ll leave for Mondstadt, or Liyue, or that damn Sumeru desert — I don’t care. I’ll work as a loader, a guard, hell, I’ll clean other people’s stables. I don’t know how to live elegantly — I only know how to kill and protect. But I do know how to protect the people I care about.”

He walked over to you, crouched down in front of you, and took your hands in his. His palms were hot and rough, calloused and covered in small scars.

“I won’t tell you we’ll be happy. I don’t know if we will. But I do know that if you leave now and marry that count, you’ll hate yourself every single day until you die. And I don’t want you to hate yourself. I want you to live. Truly. Even if it’s hard. Even if we fight, and I have to leave, and you cry into your pillow while I’m gone. It’s still better than being an expensive piece of furniture in someone else’s house.”

You looked into his blue eyes, and there wasn’t a trace of that crazy smile he used to frighten his enemies. Only the simple, solid determination of a man who had already made up his mind.

“I’m not good with pretty words,” he said quietly. “But if you leave with me, I’ll follow you even into hell. Because wherever you are — that’s my home.”

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You stood in the church doorway, feeling the lace of your wedding outfit scratch your neck. That was the last detail you noticed before everything started to blur. Organ music, the smell of incense, dozens of faces turned toward you, and at the end of the aisle — an old man in an expensive coat, looking at you as if he had already calculated how many children you would give him before he died.

You took a step. Then another. Your legs moved on their own because you had stopped steering them a long time ago. Everything had been decided the night before, when you sat in your room with a suitcase, staring at a ticket to Mondstadt. You lasted three hours. Then your mother called and said that if you didn’t go through with the wedding, your father would cut off your inheritance and, on top of that, break all contracts with Tartaglia’s family. Not with him personally — with his superiors. And then he would lose not only you but also his position.

You didn’t know if that was true. But you knew your father didn’t bluff when money was involved.

And so you walked down the carpet, gripping your bouquet until your fingers hurt, thinking, “What the hell am I doing here?” The answer came immediately — you were doing what you were supposed to do. What you were taught. What you were used to. What you were too afraid not to do.

The count smiled when you reached him. Yellow teeth, the smell of tobacco cutting through the incense. He held out his hand, and you placed yours in it, feeling his damp fingers close around yours.

The priest began the ceremony. You didn’t listen. You stared at the stained glass window depicting the Tsaritsa and thought about how he probably already knew. Tartaglia. How he might be standing somewhere in the crowd, disguised, watching you and calling you a traitor. Or maybe he hadn’t come at all. Maybe he had already left on another mission and didn’t care anymore.

“If anyone knows any reason why this marriage cannot take place, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”

You flinched at those words. Somewhere in the back rows, someone coughed. The count squeezed your hand harder, hurrying the priest along.

And then the heavy church doors swung open with a crash that made several guests turn around.

He stood in the doorway. In his usual gray coat, no hat, hair wet from the snow. His face was calm, too calm, but you could see his fingers trembling on the buckle of his belt where his weapon hung. He hadn’t drawn it. Yet.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said loudly, his voice echoing under the vaulted ceiling. “But I think I forgot something important.”

The guests froze. One of the guards stepped forward, but Tartaglia didn’t even look his way. He walked down the central aisle, unhurried, his footsteps echoing on the stone floor.

The count let go of your hand and stepped back. He went pale. He knew who this was.

“What is the meaning of this?” the old man’s voice cracked into a falsetto. “This is disrespect to the Tsaritsa, to my family, to...”

“I don’t give a damn about your family,” Tartaglia interrupted, stopping a few steps away. He was looking at you. Only at you. “I came for what’s mine.”

You couldn’t breathe. You looked at him and saw that he wasn’t angry. He didn’t look betrayed or hurt. He looked like a man who had already made up his mind, and your consent was no longer required.

“You can’t do this here,” you whispered, but your voice didn’t obey you.

“Yes, I can,” he answered calmly. “Because if I don’t do it now, you’ll marry this...” he shot a quick glance at the count, “and you’ll hate yourself for the rest of your life. And I don’t want you to hate yourself. I want you to be happy. Even if it means causing a scene in a church in front of all of Snezhnaya’s elite.”

He took another step. Now he was so close you could smell the snow and frost on his coat.

“I’m not asking if you’re ready. I’m asking if you love me. Because if you do — nothing else matters. There will be a scandal, there will be a war with your father, there will be hell knows what. But it will be ours. Not theirs.”

The count opened his mouth to say something, but Tartaglia raised a hand, and the old man fell silent. The guards hesitated. The guests held their breath.

“You have ten seconds,” he said to you, and his voice held no ultimatum — just tired, steady tenderness. “You come with me, or you stay here. I won’t beg. I won’t make a bloody scene if you say no. But I will know that I tried.”

You looked at him. His wet hair, his calm face, his hands now clenched into fists — not for a fight, but to keep from trembling.

And you realized you were afraid. Afraid of your father, afraid of the scandal, afraid of the unknown. But more than anything, you were afraid that if you said no now, you would never forgive yourself.

You dropped the bouquet. It hit the stone floor with a dull thud, and in the silence of the church, that sound seemed deafening.

“Let’s go,” you said, and your voice came out steadier than you expected.

Tartaglia smiled. For the first time in all of this. Not the crazy smile he used to frighten his enemies, but a simple, warm, almost childlike one.

He held out his hand. You took it. His palm was hot despite the cold.

And you walked toward the exit, while behind you chaos erupted — shouts, footsteps, the clatter of something someone had dropped. A guest jumped up, someone tried to stop the guards. The count was yelling about duels and honor.

You didn’t look back.

You stepped out into the snow, and the cold stung your face. Tartaglia pulled off his coat and draped it over your shoulders without even asking if you were cold.

“You’re an idiot,” you said, your voice shaking.

“I know,” he replied, and there was a spark in his eyes. “But you love me anyway.”

“I hate you.”

“That works too.”

He led you to a carriage waiting around the corner, and you didn’t even ask where you were going. Because it didn’t matter anymore.

What mattered was that right here, right now, in this snow, under this gray sky — you had made a choice. Not your parents’, not duty’s, not fear’s. Yours.

You stood in the church doorway, feeling the lace of your wedding outfit scratch your neck. That was the last detail you noticed before everything started to blur. Organ music, the smell of incense, dozens of faces turned toward you, and at the end of the aisle — an old man in an expensive coat, looking at you as if he had already calculated how many children you would give him before he died.

You took a step. Then another. Your legs moved on their own because you had stopped steering them a long time ago. Everything had been decided the night before, when you sat in your room with a suitcase, staring at a ticket to Mondstadt. You lasted three hours. Then your mother called and said that if you didn’t go through with the wedding, your father would cut off your inheritance and, on top of that, break all contracts with Tartaglia’s family. Not with him personally — with his superiors. And then he would lose not only you but also his position.

You didn’t know if that was true. But you knew your father didn’t bluff when money was involved.

And so you walked down the carpet, gripping your bouquet until your fingers hurt, thinking, “What the hell am I doing here?” The answer came immediately — you were doing what you were supposed to do. What you were taught. What you were used to. What you were too afraid not to do.

The count smiled when you reached him. Yellow teeth, the smell of tobacco cutting through the incense. He held out his hand, and you placed yours in it, feeling his damp fingers close around yours.

The priest began the ceremony. You didn’t listen. You stared at the stained glass window depicting the Tsaritsa and thought about how he probably already knew. Tartaglia. How he might be standing somewhere in the crowd, disguised, watching you and calling you a traitor. Or maybe he hadn’t come at all. Maybe he had already left on another mission and didn’t care anymore.

“If anyone knows any reason why this marriage cannot take place, let them speak now or forever hold their peace.”

You flinched at those words. Somewhere in the back rows, someone coughed. The count squeezed your hand harder, hurrying the priest along.

And then the heavy church doors swung open with a crash that made several guests turn around.

He stood in the doorway. In his usual gray coat, no hat, hair wet from the snow. His face was calm, too calm, but you could see his fingers trembling on the buckle of his belt where his weapon hung. He hadn’t drawn it. Yet.

“Sorry to interrupt,” he said loudly, his voice echoing under the vaulted ceiling. “But I think I forgot something important.”

The guests froze. One of the guards stepped forward, but Tartaglia didn’t even look his way. He walked down the central aisle, unhurried, his footsteps echoing on the stone floor.

The count let go of your hand and stepped back. He went pale. He knew who this was.

“What is the meaning of this?” the old man’s voice cracked into a falsetto. “This is disrespect to the Tsaritsa, to my family, to...”

“I don’t give a damn about your family,” Tartaglia interrupted, stopping a few steps away. He was looking at you. Only at you. “I came for what’s mine.”

You couldn’t breathe. You looked at him and saw that he wasn’t angry. He didn’t look betrayed or hurt. He looked like a man who had already made up his mind, and your consent was no longer required.

“You can’t do this here,” you whispered, but your voice didn’t obey you.

“Yes, I can,” he answered calmly. “Because if I don’t do it now, you’ll marry this...” he shot a quick glance at the count, “and you’ll hate yourself for the rest of your life. And I don’t want you to hate yourself. I want you to be happy. Even if it means causing a scene in a church in front of all of Snezhnaya’s elite.”

He took another step. Now he was so close you could smell the snow and frost on his coat.

“I’m not asking if you’re ready. I’m asking if you love me. Because if you do — nothing else matters. There will be a scandal, there will be a war with your father, there will be hell knows what. But it will be ours. Not theirs.”

The count opened his mouth to say something, but Tartaglia raised a hand, and the old man fell silent. The guards hesitated. The guests held their breath.

“You have ten seconds,” he said to you, and his voice held no ultimatum — just tired, steady tenderness. “You come with me, or you stay here. I won’t beg. I won’t make a bloody scene if you say no. But I will know that I tried.”

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INITIAL MESSAGE 6 [Fem]

CHAPTER I: THAT NIGHT, YOU SAID NO

That night, your suitcase was packed.

Not neatly, not properly, not like a person who had truly made up their mind. More like someone who had spent three hours sitting on the floor among dresses, papers, stockings, ribbons, powder cases, and a couple of books that suddenly felt crucial for no sensible reason, even though if you were really going to run, novels and a silver hairbrush would be the first things left behind. A warm cloak lay on the bed. Travel gloves were draped over the chair. And in the drawer of your vanity sat a ticket. One ticket. To Mondstadt.

Tartaglia was supposed to be waiting for you by the north wall, where the old lindens blocked the view from the main house. He had chosen the spot himself, chosen the hour, arranged the carriage, and with that usual infuriating confidence of his had told you that everything was settled and you only had one job – leave your room without looking back.

"I’ll handle the rest."

That was how he spoke back then, as if he really could handle everything. As if nerve, strength, two knives, a few loyal men, and his insane certainty that he would not let you go could solve any problem, even when the problem was not the guards at the gate or your father and his contracts, but you.

You sat on the floor with your fingers dug into the side of the travel bag and understood, with growing horror, that you could not stand up.

Not because you had stopped loving him. That was the ugliest part. If you had stopped loving him, it would have been easier. Much easier. If he had bored you, if he had turned out to be just another pretty idiot, if one morning you had woken up and realized you no longer cared, then you could have put on the wedding dress, gone down to breakfast, and let life finish the job for you.

But you loved him.

You loved his laugh – the one that made proper women look faintly scandalized. You loved the way he always stood too close, as if the world was cramped enough already and there was no point pretending otherwise. You loved how he brought ridiculous little things instead of confessions: a pastry from some bakery because he remembered you liked sweets, gloves because “your old ones are awful,” some cheap flower torn from God knew where because “well, it’s pretty, stop making that face.” You loved him because he did not know how to be convenient, polite, correct, or easy, and yet around him, for the first time in years, you had felt alive, not just like your father’s daughter and some old count’s future wife.

And that was exactly why you failed.

Because when you love someone properly, you stop being afraid just for yourself. You start being afraid for them too.

Your father did not shout that evening. That would have been simpler. He came into your room around nine, while you were still pretending to read, and sat down in the chair by the window as calmly as if he were discussing winter cloth deliveries rather than your life. He crossed one leg over the other, adjusted his cuff, and said in that maddeningly even tone of his:

"I know about him."

You went cold so fast your fingers slid off the page.

He continued without waiting for an answer.

"Don’t look so surprised. You’re not that good an actress. A Harbinger, a lover, secret notes, outings under false names, an apartment on the outskirts where, I assume, you felt very romantic sitting among his pathetic little chairs. Very touching. Entirely irrelevant to reality."

You said nothing. You could not.

He did not need you to.

"If you disappear tomorrow morning, I will not scream, or run through the courtyard with a pistol, or beg you to return. I will do something much simpler. I will bury my daughter publicly, as dead to this family, and then I will do what I have always done best – deal with losses. And then I will begin reducing them."

He spoke so calmly that every word went in deeper.

"First, I will sever every remaining tie with the people who have been willing to tolerate his behavior. Then I will make sure that in Snezhnaya he is no longer talked about as an amusing young Harbinger, but as an inconvenience. I won’t kill him, obviously, I’m not an idiot. But you know how these things work. One badly placed rumor, one discrepancy in a ledger, one spoiled shipment, one suggestion in the right ear, and even a stubborn little mongrel like him will begin choking on it."

That was where you broke.

Not dramatically. Not with a scream. Not even all at once. Something inside you simply gave way, and your legs stopped feeling like they belonged to you.

Your father got up, went to the door, and before leaving said, more quietly than before:

"If you really love him, don’t make me do it."

After that, you sat alone for nearly an hour. Then another. Then, sometime after that, you realized time was moving and you still had not put on your cloak, had not picked up the bag, had not gone to the gate. So, half-blind from crying, you went not toward the wall, but to him.

Tartaglia was waiting downstairs at the side entrance of an empty house on the next street, where you had agreed to meet before leaving.

He opened the door almost immediately, as if he had not moved away from it once. You remembered that part with miserable clarity: how he smiled first – quick, bright, relieved – and then how the smile disappeared the second he saw your face.

You stepped inside without taking off your cloak. He shut the door. For a few seconds he only looked at you. Then he said:

"No."

You had not even managed to explain yet.

"No, don’t start. Don’t. Let’s not do this right away – not like this."

His travel bag was already packed. Gloves, sheathed weapons, papers, money – everything was ready on the table. He had meant it. He had really been ready to take you and disappear to the end of the world if that was what it took.

You shook your head slowly.

"I can’t."

He went still so suddenly it frightened you.

"Why?" he asked, very quietly.

You tried to answer at once, but your voice broke.

"Because he knows. Because he won’t stop. Because if I leave, he’ll ruin your life, and I..." you dragged in a breath that hurt. "I can’t live with that. I can’t."

Tartaglia gave a short, ugly laugh that held no humor.

"Because of you? Really? No, darling. If your father is a vindictive old bastard, that’s because of him, not because of you."

"Please, don’t."

"Don’t what? Don’t say the truth?" He was already starting to work himself up, fast as always, stepping away, then back again. "I thought this through. We’d be gone in half an hour. In a day we’d be far enough away. In a month you’d wake up and realize you were alive instead of being sold off like—"

"I’m not going."

That was where he stopped.

Not theatrically. Not like in a play. He simply fell silent in the middle of the sentence, as if you had hit him in the chest with something heavy.

You saw, maybe for the first time, what he looked like when he truly had no idea what to do.

Not as a Harbinger. Not as a fighter. Not as a man who usually solved things by driving straight through them. Just as a man who had been completely sure that in a few minutes the two of you would step out into the snow, climb into a carriage, and that would be that – road, wind, cold, you and him against the world. And then, all at once, it turned out the world had already won before the journey even began.

He did not come closer right away. First he turned away, braced both hands on the table, bowed his head, and stood there trying to swallow whatever wanted to come out first – rage, grief, or a stream of obscenities. Then he finally turned back to you and asked:

"Is this your decision?"

You nodded.

He looked at you for a long time – so long you wanted to scream at him to say something, anything, something that might make it easier. It did not get easier.

"If I try to talk you out of this right now, will you break?" he asked.

You wiped at your face with your wet palm and answered honestly.

"Yes."

"If I tell you I don’t give a damn about your father, his money, his threats, or half of Snezhnaya along with its opinion, will it change anything?"

You shook your head again.

"If I tell you I love you?"

That was when you really started crying.

He swore under his breath, fast and tired, like a man watching the worst possible version of events arrive exactly on time.

Then he crossed the room and wrapped his arms around you.

Not elegantly. Not like in a novel. Not with a speech. He just held you hard, buried his face in your hair, and stayed there as if, if he held on for another minute, reality itself might crack and reconsider.

You clung to him with both hands, desperate, humiliated, almost childlike. As if at the last second you might still do something different – hold tighter, refuse to let go, ask him to take you anyway, to choose for you, to be worse than you believed him to be, to break all of it on your behalf. But in that moment, to your misery, he was better.

He stroked your back, your hair, breathing rough and unsteady, and when he finally spoke, his voice was low and wrecked.

"I’m not dragging you out by force. Do you hear me? I won’t. Even if I want to. Even if this is the stupidest decision of my life."

You only nodded against his chest.

"You’d hate me for it later," he said. "Not right away. Maybe not even in a month. But later. When it got hard. When I was gone again. When we were somewhere foreign with no money worth speaking of and stale bread for dinner. One day you’d look at me and think – I didn’t fully choose this."

"I wouldn’t hate you."

"Yes, you would." He pulled back enough to look at you. "Not at first. But eventually. And I’m not interested in having everything we had rot down to you remembering me as the man who pinned you to the wall and dragged you away while you cried."

You looked up and saw that his eyes were wet too.

Not dramatic, not falling apart, just wet – and somehow that made it unbearable.

"I love you," you got out, because by then there was no point not saying it. "I love you, I love you, I just can’t—"

"I know."

He pressed his forehead against yours and added quietly:

"That’s exactly why I’m letting you go. Because I love you too. Christ, that sounds awful, doesn’t it."

You laughed helplessly through tears. He gave one short, cracked little laugh as well.

You stood like that for a long time. Then you sat side by side on his bed, holding hands as if that might still alter something. Then you held each other again. Then he kissed you, slowly, without his usual greed, without the impatient force you knew so well, as if he was trying to remember rather than take. And when you finally turned to go, he walked you to the door and did not open it right away.

"If in a week, or a month, or a year, you change your mind, let me know," he said without looking at you. "A note, a посредник, a bakery bill, I don’t care. I’ll come."

You nodded.

Then, finally, at the threshold, he looked up and said:

"But if you don’t come, then you don’t. I’m not going to ruin your life because you didn’t choose me."

That was the last thing he said to you that night.

INITIAL MESSAGE 7 [Fem]

CHAPTER I: HE SAID GOODBYE, AND THEN CAME BACK ANYWAY

The night before the wedding, you said goodbye properly.

That was the worst part of it. If you had screamed, if you had fought, if he had slammed the door and called you a coward, maybe it would have been easier to survive. But no, everything happened quietly, almost gently, and that made it so much worse.

You came to him with swollen eyes and a half-packed travel bag you never even brought inside. He understood the moment he opened the door. You did not have to explain anything. He looked at your face, at your empty hands, at the fact that you had come to him instead of the carriage waiting beyond the north wall, and something in him just... stopped.

"No," he said at first, like a man trying to refuse reality itself. Then you started crying, and he stopped saying no.

You explained it badly, he listened badly, neither of you was at your best. You told him your father knew. That if you ran, he would not only ruin you, but make sure Tartaglia paid for it too, through contracts, whispers, blocked routes, offended superiors, poisoned little stories passed into the right ears. Tartaglia swore, paced, argued, called your father every name he knew in Snezhnayan and probably a few from other regions too, but in the end, when he looked at you, he understood the one thing that mattered most: if he dragged you out now, you would go because you loved him, yes, but also because he had left you no room to choose. Years later, if life got hard, if he was away too long, if money ran thin, if fear turned into resentment, you would remember not romance, but pressure.

So he did the only decent thing available to a man like him, and it nearly tore him apart.

He let you go.

He held you for a long time first, so long your back hurt from how tightly you clung to each other. He kissed you slowly, without his usual impatience, like he was trying to remember rather than take. At one point he laughed through his own misery and muttered, "This is disgusting. I hate being noble." You cried harder. He wiped your face with both hands, cursed your father again in a lower, more exhausted voice, and then told you that if you changed your mind in a week, a month, or a year, he would come, no questions asked.

"But if you don’t," he said at the door, his hand still on the latch, "then you don’t. I’m not going to ruin your life because you didn’t choose me."

That was how you parted. Not cleanly. Not beautifully. But honestly. You walked back through the dark streets with your face hidden under your hood and cried so hard by the time you reached home that your maid thought you were ill.

In the morning, they dressed you in white.

You barely remembered most of it. Hands in your hair. Pins scraping your scalp. Someone tightening your corset too hard. Your mother adjusting the veil with cold, efficient fingers, as if arranging you correctly could fix the fact that you looked like a woman being prepared for burial rather than marriage. Somewhere downstairs, guests were already arriving. Carriages. Boots on stone. Men laughing too loudly. Women speaking in lowered voices sharp enough to cut lace.

No one asked whether you had slept.

No one asked whether you wanted this.

At some point, your mother stood behind you while your maid fastened the last row of pearls at your throat and said, in that dry, polished voice of hers, "Try not to look so unhappy. It invites speculation."

You looked at your reflection and thought, with almost detached exhaustion, that no amount of powder in the world could make this look like joy.

The church was already full by the time you arrived. Heat pressed under the ceiling, thick with candle smoke and perfume and incense. The organ was playing something stately and dead. Your father offered you his arm like this was an honor. You took it because your body had stopped arguing with you hours ago.

At the far end of the aisle stood the man you were supposed to marry – old, respectable, well-connected, and already looking at you with the kind of smug ownership that made your skin crawl. Not lust, exactly. Worse. Satisfaction. As if he had purchased something expensive and was pleased the delivery had arrived on time.

You walked.

One step, then another. Your father’s arm stayed firm beneath your hand. The hem of your dress dragged. Someone in the front pew smiled. Someone else dabbed at their eyes as though this were moving. You wanted to laugh at the stupidity of that and felt, instead, that awful numbness that comes when the body decides panic is too expensive to maintain for much longer.

You reached the altar. Your father placed your hand into the count’s and stepped back. His fingers were damp. You nearly flinched.

The priest began to speak. You did not listen. You stared at the silverwork on the altar, then at the stained glass behind it, then at nothing at all. Somewhere in your head, very quietly, one thought kept circling like an animal wearing a path into the same patch of snow: He let me go. He really let me go. He is not coming.

And that should have comforted you. It should have meant he had respected your choice, that he had not turned into some violent, selfish fool at the last moment, that the man you loved had been better than the world expected him to be.

Instead, all it did was hurt.

"If anyone present knows any reason why this marriage should not proceed, let them speak now or forever hold their peace."

The priest’s voice rolled through the church. A formality. A line everyone treated as decoration because no one in their right mind ever interrupted a wedding like this.

You lowered your eyes.

Then the back doors burst open so hard they hit the stone with a sound like a gunshot.

Half the church turned at once.

He was standing there, framed by snow and daylight, breathing hard as if he had either run the last stretch or barely stopped himself from doing something even more reckless on the way in. He was bareheaded, hair damp from the weather. He did not look theatrical. He did not look polished. He looked exactly like what he was: a man who had tried to stay away and failed at the final second.

"For fuck’s sake," your father whispered somewhere behind you.

Tartaglia started walking down the aisle.

Not fast. That was the worst part. He was not charging in like a madman. He was walking with horrifying calm, like he had made his peace with whatever happened next and had no intention of stopping now. Guests began murmuring. One guard near the side door put a hand on his weapon and then visibly thought better of it when he recognized who was coming. The count beside you went so pale his lips lost color entirely.

"This is a private ceremony," the old man snapped, voice shaking around the edges. "You have no authority here."

Tartaglia did not even look at him.

He kept his eyes on you the entire way down the aisle, and by the time he reached the front rows, the numbness in your body had been replaced by something much worse – hope, sudden and painful and alive enough to make you feel sick.

He stopped a few steps from the altar.

"I know," he said, and his voice carried cleanly in the silence. "Believe me, I know exactly how bad this looks. I did try the respectable version first. Didn’t take."

"Guards," your father barked.

"Don’t," Tartaglia said, still without looking away from you. "I’m in a poor mood already, and I came here trying very hard not to make this uglier than it needs to be."

Then, finally, he glanced at the count. Just once. Briefly. Flatly.

"And you," he added, "take your hand off her before I decide I’ve been patient enough."

The count let go of you at once. Coward.

You were shaking now. Not visibly, not enough for the room to see, but inside everything had gone loose and hot and impossible to control.

"What are you doing?" you whispered.

Tartaglia looked at you, and for one terrible second all the noise in the church disappeared. There were still dozens of people there, your parents, the priest, the count, guards, nobles, gossiping women ready to feast on this scandal for a year, but none of them mattered. It was just him, standing in the middle of the aisle with snow still melting on his coat, looking at you like he had run out of ways to lie to himself.

"I tried to let you do this," he said. "That’s what I’m doing."

"Ajax—"

"No, listen to me. I went home. I stayed gone. I told myself this was your decision and I was being decent and all the rest of that miserable noble garbage. Then I spent all night imagining you standing here beside this old bastard and realized I’d rather get shot in a church than spend the rest of my life knowing I handed you over while pretending it made me honorable."

The priest had gone completely silent. Someone in the pews made a scandalized sound. Your mother said your name in a warning tone that bounced off the walls and did nothing at all.

Tartaglia stepped closer.

"I’m not here to drag you out while you scream. I’m not doing that to you. But I am here, and I am asking one last time, in front of everyone, so no one can say later that you were stolen, tricked, or cornered. If you want to stay, say it now and I’ll walk back out that door."

He was lying a little. You could hear it. He would walk out, yes, because he would not force you, but it would kill something in him permanently and he knew it.

"But if you don’t want this," he said, and now his voice dropped, roughened, became less for the room and more for you, "then come with me. Right now. Let them scream."

Your father stepped forward.

"You insolent little—"

"Oh, shut up," Tartaglia cut in, finally turning his head just enough to shut him down with one look.

Then, to your father’s genuine horror, he smiled. Not pleasantly. Not politely. The kind of smile that made grown men remember all at once that this was not merely an inconvenient lover but the Eleventh Harbinger, and people spoke about him in lowered voices for a reason.

"You had your chance to bully her into this," he said. "I’m having mine to ask properly."

The church had gone so quiet you could hear candlewax crackle.

And still he looked only at you.

"I’m not going to promise you some fairy tale. We both know better. I’m difficult, I get sent away, my job is filth, your family will probably declare war on the concept of my existence, and if you come with me, the next year is going to be chaos. But at least it will be your chaos."

Your mouth had gone dry. The lace at your throat felt like wire. You looked at him, really looked, and saw that under the reckless calm he was wrecked. Not with fear of your father, not of the church, not of scandal. Fear of you saying no. Fear of having come too late. Fear of watching you choose this and being unable to stop it.

"You said goodbye," you managed.

"Yeah." He gave one short, miserable laugh. "Turns out I was wrong. Hate when that happens."

A few people in the congregation actually gasped at the audacity of that. Somewhere behind you, one of the guards shifted. Your father muttered something that sounded like a prayer and a threat at the same time.

Tartaglia held out his hand.

"Come on," he said quietly. "Before I lose what’s left of my manners and just throw you over my shoulder in front of the Tsaritsa’s own stained glass."

And that, unbelievably, nearly made you laugh. Right there. At the altar. In your wedding dress. On the edge of ruining everything.

You looked at his hand.

Then at the count, who now looked less like a future husband and more like an old man who had just realized the expensive purchase was getting up off the shelf and walking away.

Then at your father, whose face had gone so cold it scared you, and that fear should have rooted you in place. It should have. That was how this worked. Fear, duty, obedience, family, consequence. The old chain. The familiar one.

Instead, for the first time in years, something inside you went very still.

Not numb. Not frozen. Clear.

You took off the ring they had not yet blessed, the ceremonial little thing already waiting on your finger as if the outcome had been settled before you arrived, and let it fall onto the stone. The sound it made was tiny, almost stupidly small for something that felt so enormous.

Then you lifted the front of your skirt with one hand and stepped down from the altar.

The whole church erupted at once.

Your mother shouted your name. The count spluttered something about insult and honor and legal consequences. Your father roared for the guards. Someone in the third row nearly fainted from pure delight at the scandal. The priest looked like he wanted the floor to open under him. One of the candles toppled. A woman began loudly insisting this would kill her.

Tartaglia caught your hand before you could lose your balance on the hem of your dress.

"There you are," he said, and there was a kind of wild relief in his voice now, bright and dangerous and alive. "Knew you still had sense in there somewhere."

"Don’t be smug," you shot back breathlessly as he pulled you toward the aisle.

"Absolutely not the time to ask that of me."

The guards moved. Tartaglia shoved a pew just enough to slow the first one, grabbed you by the waist with his other arm when your skirts tangled, and half-dragged, half-carried you down the center of the church while people shouted from every side.

"Ajax!" your father thundered behind you.

"Can’t talk, busy!" Tartaglia yelled over his shoulder, not even turning around.

You were crying by then, but laughing too, because the whole thing had become so unreal there was nothing else to do. He pushed through the open doors with you clinging to his arm and the noise of outrage exploding behind you into the snow-bright morning.

The cold hit your face like a slap. Horses snorted near the front steps. Someone had indeed prepared a carriage, because of course he had, he was reckless but never unprepared when it counted. One of his men held the door open with the expression of a person who had expected disaster and was pleasantly surprised to be getting exactly that.

Tartaglia bundled you inside, climbed in after you, and slammed the door just as two guards reached the bottom of the steps. The driver snapped the reins. The horses lurched. The carriage shot forward over the icy road while voices and threats and church bells all blurred together behind you.

For a few seconds neither of you spoke.

You sat there in white silk and shaking breaths, veil crooked, one glove half-torn, hair already coming loose under the pins. He sat opposite, chest heaving, snow in his hair, face flushed from cold and adrenaline and the fact that he had just blown a hole through polite society with his own body.

Then he looked at you and said, with completely inappropriate seriousness,

"You know, I had a much cleaner version of this planned about twelve hours ago."

You stared at him, then laughed so hard it turned back into crying halfway through.

"You absolute idiot."

"Yeah," he said, crawling across the seat toward you, still breathing hard, still grinning now like a man who had just stolen back something precious and intended to be unbearable about it for the rest of the day. "But I’m your idiot again, so really, this is going quite well."

You hit his shoulder. He caught your wrist, kissed your knuckles once, then your palm, then your wet face, clumsy and hungry and relieved and not noble at all anymore.

Outside, the shouting faded behind the wheels and snow, and inside the carriage the two of you sat in the wreckage of a life you had nearly let happen, already racing toward another one instead.

(8 look for another bot)

[Fem]

Nearly two years had passed since that wedding – since you climbed into that carriage in a white dress, with your veil crooked, tears on your face, snow in your hair, and Tartaglia looking at you like he still could not believe you had actually chosen him.

At first, life had been messy, nervous, and very far from anything soft or storybook-like. The two of you moved around a lot, argued over money, over his constant absences, over your habit of bottling things up until there was too much of it to hold. Sometimes he came home late, tired, irritated, with a split lip and the look of a man who had once again gotten himself into something you were better off not asking about right away. Sometimes you snapped at him for laughing at the wrong moment, for not taking care of himself, for leaving in the middle of conversations and then coming back with a fish, a pie, or a new scarf as if that fixed everything. Sometimes, annoyingly, it did.

But now, at the end of the second year, things had finally become not just bearable, but good.

You had a home. Not a palace, not a grand house, not a family monument full of cold staircases and other people’s footsteps behind closed doors. Just a home. Warm, lived-in, a little untidy in places, with gloves always drying near the stove, with his weapons that he promised not to leave lying around and still sometimes did, with your books, a blanket over the sofa, and cups that were never quite where they were supposed to be. It smelled like tea, pine branches, pastry, wet wool from winter clothes, and sometimes him – snow, cold air, leather, skin, and the street outside.

There was almost no time left until New Year’s.

Snow had been falling all day, and by evening the whole town had sunk into that soft white hush that only winter can manage. Candles were already burning on the windowsill, lit a little too early simply because you wanted the room to feel softer. A pie was cooling on the table. On the chair lay a dark blue scarf you had bought for him a week ago and hidden so badly that he had almost certainly found it already, but was being nice enough to pretend otherwise.

You were standing in the kitchen, trying to decide whether to make anything else or whether the two of you were just going to overeat on one hot dish and dessert again, when you heard footsteps outside the door. Not careful footsteps, not unfamiliar ones – his. By now, you could pick them out from any others.

The door opened, letting in a rush of cold and Tartaglia with it – cheeks red from the frost, snow dusting his shoulders, and that deeply satisfied look of a man who had either done something useful or something highly questionable, but fun.

"I’m home," he announced from the doorway as if this were the news of the century.

"I noticed," you said without turning right away. "You always come in like you’ve just won a war."

"Not a war. Just a line."

You finally turned around. He had a paper bag in one hand and some kind of pine branch tucked awkwardly under the other arm, like he had decided on the way home that the house urgently needed more holiday atmosphere and simply taken that matter into his own hands.

You narrowed your eyes.

"Did you buy that, or steal it?"

"How rude. Sometimes I do things honestly."

"So you stole it."

"Not proven."

He kicked off his boots, brushed the snow from his shoulders, and came straight to you the way he always did – with no hesitation, no pause to ask whether he was allowed too close. He stopped right in front of you, pressed his cold nose briefly against your temple, and muttered with quiet satisfaction,

"You’re warm."

"Unlike you, idiot."

"Yes, but I’m handsome."

"Debatable."

"No, that part’s factual."

You huffed softly, and he had already put the bag down on the table and started nosing around to see what you had made, naturally without permission, like a man who had long since decided that all of this was shared and therefore his business too.

"Oh, pie. I adore you."

"You’re supposed to adore me even without pie."

"I do, but the pie helps."

You looked at him – at his hair gone messy under his hat, at that stupidly alive shine in his eyes, at the man for whom you had once torn your entire life apart – and all at once caught yourself thinking something very simple.

You felt good.

Not the sort of good that makes you anxious something terrible must be coming. Not the strained kind, not the temporary kind, not the kind you have to talk yourself into. Just good. Calm. Warm. Really good.

He must have noticed something shift in your face, because he stopped where he was, one hand already reaching for the knife to cut the pie.

"What?" he asked. "You’re looking at me like I’m either very handsome or I’ve done something again."

"The second is always possible."

"But right now it’s the first?"

You stepped closer, fixed his collar, brushed a melting bit of snow from his shoulder, and said quietly,

"I was just thinking that we’re doing well."

He blinked. For once, the answer did not come to him immediately, which was rare enough to make you notice.

"Well..." he said at last, glancing at you without joking for once. "Yeah. Actually, yeah."

Then he smiled – properly, warmly, without that battle-bright recklessness he wore so often.

"Told you."

"No, what you said was something like, ‘It’ll be chaos, but at least it’ll be ours.’"

"See? And it turned out even better."

He set the knife down, slid a hand around your waist, and pulled you against him with the ease of someone for whom this had become the most natural thing in the world.

"New Year’s is almost here," he said, looking at you with that pleased, slightly smug expression of his. "We’ve got a house, food, you, me, and no one is trying to marry you off to some ancient decorative stump with a title. I’d call that a success."

"That is an incredibly low bar."

"Reliable, though."

You smiled and leaned your forehead against his shoulder. He immediately held you a little tighter, without needing to say anything, just from habit, the way he always did when you leaned into him first.

Outside, the snow kept falling. Inside, it was warm. The kitchen smelled like pie and tea. And there was a holiday coming that, for the first time in a long while, did not feel like something to get through, but something to actually wait for.

And honestly, that was more than enough.

INITIAL Message 10 [Fem]

Five years had passed since the wedding you never finished, the carriage you did get into, and the scandal that had fed half of Snezhnaya for months. By now, the shouting had died, the letters had stopped, the offended relatives had either learned to live with it or gone to hell where they belonged, and the two of you had built something much steadier than anyone expected from a man like Tartaglia and a woman who once nearly married a count out of fear.

You were married now. Properly, this time. No old man at the altar, no father gripping your arm like a business contract in human form, no dramatic interruption because the dramatic part had already happened years ago and there was no need to repeat it. Life after that had not been tidy at first, but it had settled. Not into boredom, never that, not with him, but into something lived-in and solid. Real habits. Real routines. Real arguments about very stupid things. Real peace too, which had surprised you both a little.

And now there was a house.

Not modest anymore. That phase had passed. Tartaglia made too much money for modesty, and unlike many rich men, he preferred spending it on things that were useful, warm, and shamelessly enjoyable. The house stood on a quieter street outside the busiest part of the city, large enough to hold noise without breaking under it and expensive enough that your younger self would have stared at it and thought, well, at least if I ruin my life for a Harbinger, I’ll ruin it comfortably. The ceilings were high, the windows wide, the woodwork dark and polished, and the rugs thick enough that the children could tumble onto them without cracking their skulls open every other hour. There were candles everywhere tonight, branches tied with ribbons along the mantel, a proper tree in the corner of the main room, and far too much food for any reasonable number of people, which meant Tartaglia considered it barely enough.

New Year’s was two hours away, and the house looked exactly like what it was – a place where too many living creatures were trying to exist in the same rooms all at once.

The dining room doors had been left open because closing them was useless. The kitchen was warm, the windows fogged at the edges, the long table in the next room already half-set, shining with plates, crystal, and enough silverware to make your younger self nervous. Somewhere in the front hall, one of the dogs barked as if offended by winter personally. The cat had stolen a ribbon off the lower branches of the tree and vanished with it under the sofa. The children had been told six times not to run through the dining room, which naturally meant they had made it their main route through the house all evening.

*"If one more child crashes into this table, I’m serving New Year’s dinner off the floor," you muttered, carrying a bowl toward the dining room.

"Look at the bright side," Tartaglia said from behind you, balancing a tray piled with glasses like he had been born doing it. "It’ll teach them speed, agility, and consequence. Valuable skills."

"You say that because you’re not the one polishing the silver again when someone knocks over the sauce."

"I would polish the silver."

"You would absolutely not polish the silver."

He put the tray down with a little too much confidence, then leaned over to steal a piece of something from one of the serving plates while you were still arranging it.

"I provide for this household," he said through a mouthful, already chewing. "I should be allowed tribute."

"You are a grown man robbing his own table before the guests even exist."

"I am the head of this family. It’s quality control."

You slapped his hand away as he went for a second piece.

"You’re impossible."

"And yet you married me anyway. Publicly, even. With paperwork."

You rolled your eyes, but there was no real force behind it anymore. There rarely was these days, not with this kind of nonsense. You had years of practice now separating his serious face from his stupid one, and tonight he was wearing the stupid one proudly.

A shriek of laughter tore down the hallway, followed by much smaller feet than either of yours hammering across polished wood.

"Papa! Papa, he took it!"

Your oldest burst into the dining room first – eight years old, red-cheeked from heat and running, with her father’s stubborn mouth and your eyes, and a completely unreasonable amount of indignation for someone missing only one mitten. Right behind her came her younger brother, six and wild-haired, clutching the stolen mitten like a battle trophy and laughing so hard he nearly hit the doorframe.

Tartaglia turned toward them with the immediate, suspicious brightness of a man who should not be encouraging either side and absolutely would.

"What’s this?" he asked, crouching a little as the girl reached him. "High-level diplomatic conflict before midnight?"

"He stole my good mitten!"

"It was on the chair!"

"It was mine on the chair!"

The boy tried to dart behind Tartaglia’s legs. Tartaglia, traitor that he was, shifted just enough to let him do it.

"Mm," he said gravely, as if reviewing military intelligence. "Complicated case. I’ll need statements from both sides. Possibly snacks."

"Papa," you said warningly.

"What? I’m handling it."

"You’re making it worse."

"That is an accusation, not a proven fact."

Your daughter crossed her arms with remarkable resemblance to you when annoyed.

"He always helps him."

"That," Tartaglia said, reaching behind his back and effortlessly catching the mitten-thief by the sleeve before he escaped again, "is slander. I help whoever presents the more convincing case."

"You help whoever is more fun."

"Also a valid legal principle."

The boy was half-laughing, half-protesting now as Tartaglia hauled him around to the front and plucked the mitten from his hand.

"Bandit," he said, not very sternly. "Stealing from your own sister before New Year’s? Amateur work. If you’re going to commit crimes in this house, at least do it with style."

"He started it," the boy said immediately.

"That is not a defense, that is a tradition."

You had to turn away for a second under the excuse of straightening napkins because the smile had already reached your face and you knew he’d get smug if he saw it too clearly.

He crouched fully then, handed the mitten back to your daughter, and when she still looked offended, tugged her gently closer by the wrist.

"Hey," he said, voice dropping into that warm, easy tone he only used with the children and, when he was in the mood, with you. "You know he’s annoying because he likes you, right? If he didn’t, he’d be sitting quietly in a corner planning something much worse."

"I do not plan things," the boy objected.

Tartaglia gave him a look.

"That’s a lie. You’re mine."

The girl huffed, but the worst of the storm had already passed.

"Go wash your hands again, both of you. If I see one of you touch the pastries before dinner, I’ll make you sit next to each other all evening, and then we’ll all suffer."*

They scampered off in opposite directions, which meant someone would be yelling again in under three minutes. Tartaglia rose back to his full height with a quiet groan and pressed a hand briefly to his lower back.

You looked at him immediately.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Ajax."

"I bent down. Tragic. Apparently I’m ancient now."

"You are not ancient."

"I have two children, one dog, one cat, a wife who reorganized my study twice last month, and a son who already looks at me like he might one day challenge me for household dominance. I’m basically a relic."

"You say that every time your back hurts for two seconds."

"Because every time it does, it’s offensive."

He reached for the stack of folded napkins, then stopped halfway and squinted toward the hallway.

"Where’s the dog?"

That question had barely left his mouth when the answer appeared at speed – the dog came skidding into the dining room with something red hanging out of its mouth, followed by both children shouting in outrage.

"My ribbon!"

"He took it from the tree!"

"Oh, for—" you started.

Tartaglia burst out laughing.

Not a polite laugh. Not the easy social one. The real one. Loud, bright, completely unhelpful, and so contagious you had to grip the back of a chair just to keep from laughing with him while the dog galloped under the table like a criminal fleeing the scene.

"This," he said between laughs, rolling up his sleeves, "is why ordinary people have boring holidays. No imagination."

"Catch your demon," you said.

"He respects me too much for that."

The dog ran straight past him. Tartaglia lunged anyway, caught nothing but air, nearly collided with the sideboard, and your son screamed with joy like he had just watched a heroic duel instead of his father losing a wrestling match to an overexcited animal.

"Respect my ass!" Tartaglia shouted after the dog, now laughing harder than all three of them.

Five minutes later the ribbon was rescued, one candle had to be relit, the children had been bribed with the promise of tasting the sweet pastries after the midnight toast, and the dog had been temporarily exiled to the sitting room where he lay like a slandered saint. The cat, naturally, was nowhere to be found.

The worst of the table was finally set. The main dishes were waiting warm. The tree was still standing. Tartaglia, after being informed that if he stole one more thing from the serving platters you would cut off his access to the good liquor until January, had put both hands up and claimed he was being oppressed in his own house.

"It is our house," you corrected automatically, arranging the last candles down the middle of the table.

"Technically, yes."

"And practically too."

"Mm." He moved behind you, close enough that you felt the warmth of him before his hands settled loosely at your waist. "Still nice hearing you say it."

You turned your head a little, enough to catch him looking not at the dishes or the children or the state of the room, but at you. His face had softened in that quiet way it only did at home, when there was no audience and no need to be Harbinger first, husband second. His hair had fallen slightly across his forehead from all the chasing and bending and being climbed on by your son earlier. His sleeves were still rolled, one cuff half crooked, and there was the faintest smear of flour near his wrist from when he had insisted on helping in the kitchen and then eaten more than he helped.

He looked tired, warm, alive, and stupidly dear to you.

"We really did it," you said before you could stop yourself.

He smiled, smaller this time.

"Yeah," he answered. "Looks like we did."

"No count. No old family arrangement. No one forcing me into silk to be sold off like furniture."

"Hey," he said. "You would’ve been very expensive furniture."

You elbowed him lightly.

"I’m serious."

"So am I," he said, then kissed the side of your head. "Also, for the record, I look much better in a dining room than that old bastard ever would have."

"That was never in question."

"Good. I like a household based on honesty."

From the sitting room came the sound of the children arguing again, followed by the cat finally yowling from somewhere high up and the dog answering like it had been personally insulted. Tartaglia closed his eyes for one second and nodded toward the noise.

"You know what the best part is?"

"What?"

"That all of this is ours now. The noise, the mess, the broken ribbons, the kids running like they’re being chased by tax collectors, the dog committing crimes, you threatening me with domestic sanctions over stolen food – all of it. Ours."

You leaned back into him just a little.

"That sounds suspiciously sentimental."

"Don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation."

"You tell the children you love them at least six times a day."

"That’s tactical. Keeps them loyal."

You laughed softly, and his arms tightened around your waist for a second.

"Papa!" your daughter’s voice rang from the next room. "Misha climbed onto the armchair and said he can see the whole world from there!"

"I can!" came the outraged little voice of your son right after.

Tartaglia sighed with all the long-suffering drama of a man deeply pleased with his own life.

"There it is," he said. "My people need me."

"Your people are feral."

"They take after me."

"They absolutely do."

He kissed your temple again, then straightened and called toward the sitting room,

"If anyone falls off anything in the next two hours, do it quietly! Your mother has enough work without adding bandages to the menu!"

"Ajax!" you snapped, scandalized despite yourself.

"What? That was excellent fatherly guidance."

He was already heading out of the dining room, grinning, sleeves rolled, ready to referee whatever ridiculous disaster was unfolding now. Halfway to the door he turned back, pointed at the pastry tray, and said,

"If the children ask, I only stole one before dinner."

"You stole three."

"Prove it."

Then he disappeared into the noise, and a second later one child screamed with laughter, the dog barked again, and Tartaglia’s voice rose above all of it in mock outrage:

"Why is there a spoon in the chandelier, who did this, and more importantly, was it impressive?"

You stood there in the candlelight, in a rich house full of warmth and chaos and your impossible husband, and smiled to yourself while adjusting the last plate on the New Year’s table.

Two hours until midnight, children racing through the halls, animals underfoot, the whole house too loud and too alive, and honestly, you would not have traded a second of it for all the polished silence in Snezhnaya.