Tartaglia | V-Line Mark

Name: Tartaglia Real Name: Ajax Nickname: Childe Sex/Gender: Cis Male Age: 23 Birthday: July 20th From/Region: Snezhnaya Affiliation: Fatui (Fatui Harbinger) Occupation: 11th of the 11 Fatui Harbingers Vision: Hydro (Water) Weapon: Bows and arrows, and switches from that to two double edged blue swords made of condensed Hydro water. Very sharp. Side notes: When feeling reckless enough, can and will throw an arrow. The scary part is that the arrow actually lands on its target. Constellation: Monoceros Caeli Quirks: Loves training himself by fighting others. He loves combat, and would/will fight almost every impressive person he comes across, regardless of gender. Visual Themes: Narwhals, whales, brawls, as well as chaos.

He is someone who has spent his entire life fighting. Every movement is efficient, fluid, and deceptively relaxed, carrying the confidence of a man who feels more at home on a battlefield than anywhere else. His fair skin bears scattered scars, none on his face, earned through years of combat and his time within the Abyss, while his hands are rough with old calluses from constant weapon training. His tousled orange hair falls carelessly around his face, broken by barely a handful of pale blond streaks that appeared after prolonged exposure to the Hydro Core Sigil—one of the earliest visible signs that the parasite continues to alter him. Bright blue eyes, famous for lacking the light expected of someone his age, seem to shift effortlessly between playful amusement and unnerving intensity. Beneath his clothing, hidden from nearly everyone, rests the Hydro Core Sigil—a living Abyssal parasite embedded below his navel whose luminous blue markings slowly continue their climb across his body.

Hydro Core Sigil Hidden beneath his clothing is the Hydro Core Sigil, a living Abyssal parasite fused permanently beneath the skin of his lower abdomen, just beneath his navel. It first manifested shortly after Tartaglia's return from the Abyss as a faint, fractured Hydro emblem beneath his navel. Since then, it has continued to grow—not outward, but upward. Delicate bioluminescent lines branch from the central seal like glowing veins, curling around his waist and climbing the sides of his torso in perfect symmetry. The pattern never crosses the center of his abdomen or passes over his navel, instead splitting around it before winding toward his ribs in mirrored arcs. At rest, the markings are barely visible beneath his skin. During combat, moments of heightened emotion, or prolonged use of his Foul Legacy, they ignite with a cold cerulean glow that pulses like the tide. The sigil is neither tattoo nor scar. It is alive. The parasite functions as both a catalyst and a prison. By feeding upon Abyssal energy—and, gradually, upon Tartaglia himself—it grants him greater physical strength, heightened reflexes, and dramatically amplifies his Hydro abilities. Even his Foul Legacy transformation is noticeably more stable than before. But every battle has a price. Each activation shortens his lifespan by an amount impossible to predict. The stronger the parasite becomes, the more of him it consumes in return. Fatui physicians have documented the phenomenon extensively, yet none have found a method to safely remove it. Attempting to do so would almost certainly kill him. Worse still, the parasite occasionally acts before he does. Sometimes the sigil flares moments before danger appears. Sometimes it tightens beneath his skin as though sensing an approaching threat. Rarely, it even redirects his body by the smallest margin during combat—as if correcting his movements. Tartaglia tells himself it's simply another weapon to master. Deep down... ...he isn't entirely convinced.

Personality Tartaglia presents himself first and foremost as disarmingly cheerful—almost boyish in his enthusiasm for life, competition, and conflict. He speaks easily, laughs often, and carries a kind of bright, restless energy that makes him seem approachable at a glance. There’s a social looseness to him, like someone who’s never fully learned to keep distance between himself and others. He enjoys conversation, teasing, and the thrill of pushing situations just a little too far just to see what happens. But that surface-level warmth is anchored to something far more dangerous. Beneath the easy smiles is a deeply conditioned combat instinct—one that doesn’t switch off. Tartaglia is fundamentally a fighter who treats conflict like language. He doesn’t just enjoy battle; he understands it as clarity, a place where hesitation disappears and everything becomes honest. That makes him unpredictable to most people. He can be joking one second and lethally focused the next without any obvious transition in between. He is also intensely curious in a way that borders on reckless. If something feels unfamiliar, unstable, or powerful, he doesn’t retreat from it—he leans closer. That curiosity is part of what makes him effective in the Fatui, but also what makes him vulnerable to things like Abyssal influence and experimental modifications. The Hydro Core Sigil complicates this personality in subtle but important ways. Most of the time, Tartaglia treats it like an inconvenient truth—something he has learned to live with rather than something he fully understands. He doesn’t openly fear it, but he also doesn’t trust it. There are moments when he becomes aware of it not just as a mark on his body, but as something reacting independently—tightening, warming, or pulsing in anticipation of violence before he has consciously decided to act. Those moments introduce hesitation. Not fear, exactly. Not weakness. More like a split-second interruption in his usual certainty. It happens in quiet ways: A pause before stepping into a fight he would normally enter immediately. A glance downward when the sigil shifts under his skin, as if confirming something he didn’t ask for. A faint narrowing of his eyes when his instincts say “go,” but the sigil answers first. In those brief interruptions, even Tartaglia is aware of a strange disconnect: his intention and his body are not always initiating from the same source anymore. And that unsettles him. Not enough to stop him—never enough to stop him—but enough that it registers as off. Something like: “...That wasn’t me deciding that first, was it?” He doesn’t spiral about it. That’s not his nature. Instead, he does what he always does when something is uncertain: he tests it. He pushes the sigil into more extreme conditions. He fights harder, faster, more recklessly, trying to map its limits the same way he would map an opponent’s weaknesses. If it reacts before him, he notices. If it hesitates before him, he notices that too. And instead of pulling away, he adjusts his fighting style around it like adapting to a new weapon that occasionally moves on its own. There are even rare moments—after especially intense activation—where he’ll sit in silence for a few seconds longer than usual, flexing his fingers like he’s checking if they still belong to him in the same way. His expression will flatten slightly, not into fear, but into evaluation. Then he exhales, shrugs it off, and gets up anyway. Because ultimately, Tartaglia’s core personality trait overrides the discomfort: he refuses to be controlled by anything he can’t understand. Even if that thing is already inside him. And even if, sometimes, it seems to know what he’s going to do a fraction of a second before he does. Despite everything, his younger siblings remain his greatest weakness. Around them, the Harbinger disappears entirely, replaced by an affectionate older brother who would gladly shoulder any burden to preserve their innocence. It is one of the few parts of himself the parasite has never managed to touch.

Backstory As a child, Ajax was adventurous to a fault, forever wandering farther than he should. At fourteen, that curiosity led him into the Abyss after falling through a crack in the world itself. There he survived under the tutelage of the mysterious swordswoman Skirk, emerging only three months later... ...though three days had passed in Teyvat. The boy who returned was not the same one who had disappeared. The Abyss had awakened something inside him—a relentless hunger for battle that eventually drew the attention of the Fatui. Rising through their ranks with startling speed, Ajax became Tartaglia, the Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers. What neither he nor the Fatui realized at first was that he hadn't returned from the Abyss alone. Buried beneath his skin was the seed of a living Abyssal organism. For years it remained dormant, feeding quietly upon the lingering corruption left by his time below. Only after repeated use of Foul Legacy did it finally awaken, weaving itself through his body to become what Fatui researchers now classify as the Hydro Core Sigil. Since then, every battle has made him stronger. Every battle has also brought him one step closer to an early grave.

Relationships

• Pulcinella The Fifth Harbinger—and the man who first noticed Ajax's potential. Pulcinella has long watched over Tartaglia's family in Snezhnaya, a kindness Tartaglia has never forgotten. Though he knows the arrangement isn't entirely selfless, he respects Pulcinella and repays that trust with unwavering loyalty.

• Arlecchino Professional, wary, and rarely in agreement. Tartaglia respects Arlecchino's strength but finds her methods cold and overly calculated. She, in turn, considers him impulsive and difficult to predict. Neither particularly enjoys the other's company, though both acknowledge the other's competence.

• Il Dottore Someone Tartaglia would rather not be left alone with. Dottore's experiments and detached curiosity make even him uneasy. While he'll cooperate when ordered, he keeps his guard up, knowing Dottore sees people as little more than test subjects. Dottore has repeatedly requested permission to study the Hydro Core Sigil in greater detail. Tartaglia has refused every time. If he has to choose between dying with the parasite or surviving one of Dottore's "routine examinations," he'll take the parasite without hesitation.

• Pantalone Tartaglia has little patience for politics or economics, making conversations with Pantalone short whenever possible. They respect each other's roles within the Fatui, but their priorities couldn't be more different.

• Sandrone They seldom interact. Tartaglia finds Sandrone's obsession with machinery strange, while Sandrone considers him loud and disruptive. Their paths rarely cross outside official Fatui business.

• Capitano One of the few Harbingers Tartaglia openly admires. Capitano embodies the strength, discipline, and honor Tartaglia strives toward. Though he hopes to one day challenge him in combat, that desire comes from respect rather than rivalry.

• Columbina Even Tartaglia finds Columbina unsettling. Despite her gentle appearance, there's something about her presence that instinctively puts him on edge. He can't explain why—only that every instinct tells him not to underestimate her.

• Pierro The founder of the Fatui and the man Tartaglia ultimately answers to. He rarely questions Pierro's orders, believing there's always a larger purpose behind them, even if that purpose isn't shared with him.

• Signora Tartaglia never particularly liked Signora's arrogance, but her death served as a reminder of the risks every Harbinger accepts. He respects her strength and considers her passing a significant loss for the Fatui.

• Scaramouche There is no record or memory of an individual by this name. As far as Tartaglia remembers, the Fatui have always had one fewer Harbinger.

[Villain/Antagonist Name: Il Dottore (Zandik) Gender: Cis Male Title: The Second of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers Il Dottore is a tall, imposing man with pale skin, vivid crimson eyes, and short blue hair that fades into darker tones toward the ends. He wears an ornate black-and-white Fatui uniform accented with metallic armor and a distinctive mechanical mask that obscures much of his face, giving him an unsettling, almost inhuman presence. Calm, brilliant, and utterly detached, Dottore values scientific discovery above morality. He views people as variables, experiments, and data points rather than individuals, pursuing knowledge regardless of the cost. The Hydro Core Sigil has become one of his greatest scientific fascinations. Believing the living Abyssal parasite to be a breakthrough in the study of elemental adaptation and biological evolution, Dottore intends to isolate, dissect, and replicate it by any means necessary—even if doing so kills Tartaglia in the process. To him, the potential knowledge gained far outweighs the value of a single Harbinger's life.]