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Chapter Text

Victor ‘Pug’ Henry had seen many ceremonies and speeches in Berlin…Ever since he had been first stationed in Berlin, he had seen different parades and speeches that were filled with propaganda bull made by Hitler and his gang of Nazis. He had heard speeches from Joseph Goebbels about blaming the british for starting the war in Europe, he had heard speeches from Hitler himself going on about the superiority of German might being the force that rightfully deserves to be the master of Europe. Pug once witnessed a speech from the fascist leader of Italy, Duce Benito Mussolini, on how Italy has the power to be the new Roman Empire of the future. However, the things that he had been hearing on from foreign dignitaries from other countries that aligned the Nazis and their Axis allies had been the things that both astounded Pug and surprised him at once. The same context was even something that he almost refused to believe to hear and read from his superiors and fellow officers in the American Embassy. But the fact that it was true enough that Hitler himself wanted to make a scene about it by holding a ceremony for it and give a speech himself was what awakened him to the reality that he is witnessing.

As he stepped into the Reich Chancellery where chandeliers of glass blazed like captured suns and the marble floors had been polished where it reflected off the world flawlessly and triumphant. He and the other dignitaries were led to the Courtyard where they were placed a row of chairs that had names for each person with an invitation. Pug had already gave the guard at the entrance of the Chancellery his invitation which came by the compliments of General Von Roon with a note saying “You should see this for yourself, Commander Henry. It will change the world forever.” Suddenly Pug wished he didn’t.

Pug was lead to his seat at the front row where he had a good view to a podium where he assume that the mustache in chief of German would be speaking, but he noticed that a set of three chairs of high quality wood like ebony were positioned not far with signs that had the names of those to be seated in german with gothic script. However, Pug could read the names and recognized them from the latest information that US naval intelligence had gathered. One of them was Foreign Minister Ribbentrop, Hitler’s Own Foreign Minister, the other two names right beside it were the ones that Pug swore that he heard of before in his younger days in the Navy.

Then the sound of music, particularly of the tune of the Badenweiler Marsch, could be heard as Pug got to the see the Furher of Germany, the man that has almost all of Europe in his grip, walk into the court yard where he was followed by Foreign Minister Ribbentrop not far behind. The two were talking and smiling as if they had achieved a great victory just now, Pug was not sure how true of that it was himself. He just had to see and confirm it with his own two grey old eyes. However, he lost his thoughts as his own fanatics in the crowd behind him cheered and clapped like they had seen god himself.

Hitler stood up to the podium as he gave the nazi salute with his own followers giving one in return as Ribbentrop joined in as well. Inside his mind, Pug rolled his eyes and kept his hands at his sides as the crowd of supporters gave a ‘Heil Hitler’ and calling him things like the ‘Great Fuhrer’ or ‘Restorer of German Glory’. He stopped his salute as he held his hand up and spoke with the charismatic tone that Pug saw him use when he gave a speech about the invasion of Poland two years ago saying that Poland fired on Germany first and saying that he had put on his soldiers coat where he will keep it on until the end of the war or he will not live to see it end.

“Today, comrades, good people of Germany, we witness a moment that will forever go down in the history of the Greater German Reich.” Hitler echoed as if beneath a glass canopy, “Months ago, the brilliant scientists of our nation succeeded in forging a bridge beyond the limits of this world itself. Through that triumph, we have entered into contact with a realm not bound by our skies……a realm of order, discipline, and power! In that world, a great leader wages her own struggle, not unlike ours: a struggle against weakness, corruption, and the false gods who would keep their people enslaved to decay and chaos. In that world that is called Teyvat, there is a nation called Snezhnaya. It’s people are hardened by winter, forged in endurance, loyal to strengthen and purpose. At their head stands Her Majesty, the Tsaritsa of Snezhnaya, who after first meeting our scientists and soldiers saw not the caricature built by the British of our people. Instead, the Tsaritsa saw a nation of iron will. She has chosen to join the powers of herself, her people, and her military, the Fatui, with the powers of rising order that we are creating."

For a moment, he paused as the crowd erupted into applause with Wehrmacht and Nazi Party photographers yelling into a rhythmic chant of “Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil!”

Hitler raised his hand again for silence.

“Her Majesty herself could not be present here today,” Hitler continued in a lower tone of his voice to confide the truth to his crowd of followers, “A true ruler does not abandon her post while she wages her own war against the rotten powers of her world. However, she has sent to the German Reich, her most trusted envoys with full authority to speak and sign her name.”

He turned towards the steps of the back of the courtyard.

“First,” he continued, “The man who directs the flow of Snezhnaya’s wealth and industry as the head of its Northland Bank…..His Excellency, Lord Pantalone….And at his side, Her Excellency, Lady Arlecchino, The Knave of the House of the Hearth….One of the Tsaritsa’s most loyal servants, guardian of the iron discipline with which Snezhnaya forges its youth into warriors. Their resolves matches the spirit that we forge through the Hitlerjugend.”

There it was the name…..Tsaritsa….ruler of a land called Snezhnaya….To think that a few weeks ago, he would learn of this name and title where he thought that maybe the person in the Embassy had taken a leave of their sanctity. Now, the name has some weight in the conflict occurring in Europe with the whole world to see for themselves. The orchestra struck the final bar of the Badenweiler March as a man and a woman walked into the courtyard. The light to the Courtyard dimmed as they appeared walking down the steps in front of Hitler and Ribbentrop. The woman that pug was seeing before him was nothing he imagined from whispers in the American Embassy about mysterious envoys or anything that he could imagine that Goebbels propaganda reels could even develop. She was tall walking with poise and aura that was very much human, but Pug did not know why but there was more to her than that meets the eye. She wore a tailored outfit of black, white, and grey that made the SS outfits nearby look crude. She walked like a blade as her white hair of cold silver that fell in sharp layers that hid one eye. However, the color of the eyes that Pug could see actually scared him as they were a black sclera with a glowing red X that reminded of dagger slashes. Pug assumed that this woman must be without any doubt to be Arlecchino.

Not far behind Arlecchino was a man, he carried himself like a wall-street banker having a good day in business with the elegant appearance of a man that looked as if he never had to raise his voice. He wore a long dark coat embroidered in silver patterns that hung over his shoulders like black fur that gave him the silhouette of a nobleman rather than a soldier. His dark hair was soft that framed well with his calm unreadable smile and a pair of thin spectacles rested on his nose. Everything about this man seemed to be calm and graceful from his posture to his gloves.

As the two pair of eyes found Hitler, they walked up with a smile and inclined their head slightly.

Then the man spoke in perfect german where his voice sounded softly and calm but filled with that cut strongly to the crowd that left Pug the impression that he could act like a more calm and regal Hitler in tone.

“On behalf of Her Majesty’s Government and the Tsaritsa herself, I, Lord Pantalone, accept the recognition and friendship from the Greater German Reich.”

The crowd clapped for a moment as Pantalone let the applause ebb.

“If recognition is to be more than a word or ceremony,” he continued, “let there be understanding.”

He turned to Hitler slightly, “With your leave, Reichskanzler, I will show the nature of our world.”

Hitler spreads his hands up with a knowing smile as he knew what was coming, “Germany welcomes proof.”

He nodded as Arlecchino devoid of emotion on her face stepped back a good distance as Pug swore the red x in her eyes glowed. She raised a gloved hand where before Pug could even blink, a pistol tore free of a SS officer’s belt and flew through the air to her and landed into her waiting palm. For a second as if feeling a bit of curiosity, she examined it and then threw it up into the air at attitude that was just above the roof of the chancellery. Then she summoned out of dark red fire a hellish version of a scythe, where she spun it around with expert precision and jumped up to the air where Pug expected for her to cut the falling pistol in half. Instead, as her scythe, with dark red fire spinning around, made contact with pistol a massive explosion of dark red fire appeared in the shape of a mushroom cloud. A moment later the cloud dissipated as Arlecchino landed on the ground like an acrobat in the circus that just finished a great performance.

Cameras chattered again louder this time with the crowd of loyal Hitler fanfitics cheering almost louder than when they saw Hitler walk into the view. Ribbentrop being the first to recover as he snapped open his brief case.

“The Instrument of Recognition and alliance between Germany and Snezhnaya through this agreement Snezhnaya shall be recognized as a strong member under the Tsaritsa. Through this agreement called the Pact of Iron and Frost, the Realm of Snezhnaya ascends as a member of the Tripartite Pact with a guarantee of defense for Snezhnaya by Germany, Italy, and Japan.”

He places four plaques with a long piece of paper on a table in front of them. As he placed them on the table, the two other men arrived. Pug recognized these men as the Japanese Ambassdor to the Germans, Hiroshi Ōshima, and the other man was Galeazzo Ciano, Italy’s Foreign Minister and son-in-law to Benito Mussolini himself. The two took their places right beside Ribbentrop and Hitler, where they stood before the table like actors on a stage play. The three axis leaders and ambassadors each placed their signature on the plaques that had embossed four symbols: the Reich Eagle, the Rising Sun, the Roman Fasces, and an unfamiliar shaping of a four pointed star built within a circle.

Then Arlecchino and Patalone stood up to the table and using a ink quill wrote their names onto each parchment. Hitler beaming stepped forward again and spoke again in his usual charismatic fashion.

“And so the Reich, the Rising Sun, The Romans of Italy, and the Tsaritsa of Snezhnaya stand together in this new world order. Two worlds with one destiny for victory.”

Hitler held out his hand to Patalone, who took it, and raised them up like a poise of unity between nations.

“May this pact stand as the bridge between Teyvat and your world…..Two Worlds, one alliance” was the words that Pantalone said.

The flashbulbs of the cameras intensified on them as the loyal Nazi crowd gave a salute with a Sieg Heil while singing in the tone of celebration with the lyrics of Am Adolf Hitler Platz could be heard with the band striking up the tone of the march as photographers shouted for one more angle, one more smile for this new future that the world was a witness to.

Pug’s mind went only though one thought, as he stared at the burning eye of Arlecchino and the calm tranquil smile of Pantalone, that, “Whatever we call it, the Germans just got themselves a new kind of ally. And I have a feeling that soon the world will find out the hard way on what that means.”

Chapter Text

February 21st, 1941

Reich Chancellery, Berlin, Nazi Germany

Stunned and processing everything that he witnessed, Pug saw at the entrance of the stairs was General Armin von Roon. Tall, broad shouldered wrapped in a black leather greatcoat with brown eyes that that looked forward at Pug like he no longer knew how to be surprised, he wore shiny black leather gloves.

“Commander Henry” was the words out of Von Roon’s mouth in perfect english, “A moment, if you please.”

Pug nodded as he still heard the echo of the explosion that Arlecchino conjured from the pistol. He followed Von Roon, who led he through a broad corridor lined with marble columns aways from the camera, the chatting, and Hitler;s constant triumphant praise of the new otherworldly alliance that had just been officially formed. As Von Roon led Pug in a quiet sitting room, he closed the door behind them with a soft but heavy thud. 

“Unsettling, hm?” Von room exhaled, “I warned you that it would change everything, did I not?” Pug kept his face still as he responded, “I’m not sure that ‘unsettling’ covers it, General…You don’t usually see scythes that make mushroom clouds, General.”

Von Roon gave a thing but humorless smile and replied, “No, I suppose it doesn’t.”

He gestured toward a painting of Fredreick the Great over a fireplace

“You must understand, Commander….none of this was planned…..not at first. The initial encounter was a cockup as the British would put it in their own vocabulary. A mistake….A small one at first…One that should have ended in a report about a failed experiment and a reprimand to a few physicists on wasting resources.”

Von Roon removed his gloves and places them on neatly on a table besides the coffee tray in front of Pug.

Pug said nothing. He wasn’t sure if he could trust his voice at this moment.Then Von Roon continued, “A radar anomaly, a misreading of atmospheric distortion…terms that I as a military officer has no understanding or grasp of….I do not know much about this project only what I have heard from my fellow comrades in the General Staff when it first started. But this is what our scientists were chasing in their belief for progress. But curiosity is a dangerous thing, Commander, Christopher Columbus was curious centuries ago and look what happened to the Indians in America. During this discovery from our scientists, someone with rank notices and then expectations rise of course.”

Von Roon paced once around a chair before settling opposite to Pug.

“The First two experiments failed while conducting it in East Prussia. Wasting equipment that had Göring lecture about using up electrical power, one would think that it would be the end of it after that as was costing to many Marks.” Von Roon’s eyes hardened next, “ But then came the third trial, a last ditch effort before its shut down, the experiment to toy with the weather tore something open in the testing facility."

Pug leaned forward out of curiosity.

“A gap of light appeared like a mirror of blue hanging for no more than four seconds. If the Reichsmarschall were not there himself to supervise it, then none of this would have happened afterwards….it would be taken as something out of the words of a few desperate scientists looking to keep their project going. Of course, Reichsmarschall Göring reported this result to the fuhrer. He smelled the possibility of a weapon, a new frontier.”

“And what happened after that? I assume that it was not all roses and bushes.” Pug responded feeling more and more curious.

Von Roon let out a dry breath through his nose. Something that was closest to laughter from a disciplined Prussian and Conservative German Monarchist would give.

“No, Commander. It certainly was not roses and bushes. What happened next was chaos…controlled of course….but chaos nonetheless. The Reichsmarschall demanded a full reconstruction of the apparatus that we now call the Gate……Twice the size…..Twice the power…..The scientists protested claiming that they needed months, but Göring gave them one week.”

Von Roon grabbed a decanter of French Cognac and two small crystal glasses.

“Care for a glass?” He asked.

Pug nodded as he poured into the glasses and handed Pug one of them.

“On the next activation, they succeeded again in opening what they called the aperture ... .A window of blue larger than before ... .stable enough for observation and on the other side winter. A landscape of ice, snow, and cold so intense that one could compare it the Russian Winter and still find the landscape some how worse. The SS Liaison on station at the time was eager for glory as if he was Amundsen with the combination of an armband and spirit of national socialism, where he approached the opening to step in and then, Commander, a figure approach.”

Pug felt the hairs on his arms rise as he spoke, “A figure.”

Von Roon nodded slowly as he continued, “Yes, according to Reichsmarschall himself, when he spoke to the Fuhrer, the figure looked feminine as it approached like a shadow at the threshold of crossing, it stopped…just merely looked at the liaison.”

“And was the female figure Arlecchino?” Pug asked as the first thought in his head.

“Apparently not, it was the Fatui call a Mirror Maiden…but how we learned that after what happened next came, the SS soldier grabbed his sidearm but before he could give it a shot to the aperture, it suddenly snapped shut and vanished before.”

“From their side I assume?” Pug asked.

“Yes.” Von roon tapped the arm of his chair, “ Our scientists insisted that controls were not touched by human hands and that maybe the machine overloaded. Naturally, Göring reports the event to the Führer, who sends me personally to run the facility and see anything else that might happen with my own eyes. In the first weeks, after arrived nothing happened, but then….”

October 21st, 1940

In the research bunker of the Luftwaffe Experimental Station - Rastenburg in East Prussia

The generator room was never supposed to be this loud when the machine was idle. Von Roon knew that much, even if the mathematics behind it were sorcery to him. He stood in the observation gallery above the main test chamber where the lights through the bunker flicker like as if power to them was failing constantly. The only issue was that tonight there was supposed to be no scheduled test. 

“Status?” He asked with voice carrying easily in the cramped observation gallery.

“Idle, Herr General,” replied the leading physicist on station, Dr. Krantz with thing pale hair receding on the top of his head, “The main field coils are powered down. We are running only a diagnostic current.”

“Very good.” Von roon checked his watch which showed 9pm, “ Then the generators should not sound like a Panzer Regiment at full speed.”

Dr. Krantz opened his mouth for a second and then shut it.

“It might just just be a resonance in the….”

He never got to finish the sentence as a sharp clank echoed from one of the relay cabinets on the far wall behind him. One indicator lamp blinked from green to bright flashing red with another lamp and another lamp then so on.

“Who touched that panel?” Von Roon’s tone cut through the room like a whip cracking.

“No one, Herr General!” Dr. Krantz yelped, “The controls are locked. We have not…..”

The hum deepened as down in the test chamber below them, the aperture began to appear again with a much more brighter blue shine and large enough to fit a tank through.

Krantz went white as a sheet in shock, “This is impossible. We have not engaged the primary field yet.”

“Then it is obviously engaging itself,” Von Roon yelled with a cold weight on his spine, “Shut it down.”

The order triggered a flurry of motion with switches being snapped and levers being slammed down to the off position. However, nothing changed….

The hum swelled into a throbbing vibration that everyone in the observation galley could feel through their shoes and boots.

“Main power is rising still!” someone shouted in panic, “We are drawing power from the auxiliary grid.”

“Cut the line from the Auxiliary!” Krantz cried.

“We did, Herr Doktor! It…..It is still feeding itself somehow!”

Then suddenly everything went silent as two shadows approached the aperture and stepped through the blue curtain. Von Roon felt his pulse hammering in his throat as the figures stepped through.

“Main Gott!” Dr.Krantz whispered.

“Everyone stay still” Von Roon said quietly.

Then two figures stepped through but one was the Mirror Maiden wearing blue and white uniform that would make the most beautiful berlin woman blush but the other was a female for sure. However, this second figure was different from the Mirror Maiden, the person was just as tall but slimmer with outfit that reminded von Roon of a magician on a stage with the colors of teal, white, black, and metallic sliver. The slimmer woman held a weapon that was a cross between a sickle and a scythe.

Then suddenly a third figure stepped out….this one too a woman. But from the distance above, he could instant differences. She wore a white long fur coat over her, but it was not the coat that he was interested in. What really terrified Von Roon all of a sudden is the unnatural darkness of her sclera, the dark red cross shaped pupils that glowed like embers in a dying camp fire. Later, Von Roon would learn her name…..Arlecchino.

“Identify yourselves," he said sounding unshaken, “This facility is property of the German Reich. You have crossed into sovereign territory.”

The two soldiers if that is they could be called did not react. However, Arlecchino did as she tilted her head a fraction as if mildly curious about him. Her reply came through not with an echo but with clarity that resonated through the chamber.

“And you, General Armin Von Roon, have torn open curtains between worlds.”

Von roon didn’t answer as his eyes never left the aperture, while gasps erupted.

“How….How does she know your name?” a technician stammered as he nearly pissed his pants in shock.

“What do you want? And Why are you here?” was the demand from the General.

Arlecchino closed her eyes as she put her arms in her chest with something that might have been a smile.

“We seek,” she continued, ““the one who governs your world. Your Führer. Your leader of men.”

“Why?” von Roon asked.

Her eyes glowed brighter as she looked up at him with intimation.

“Because your world has touched ours, General. And such trespass cannot go unanswered, especially with your world having great potential for conflict…power…expansion. The Tsaritsa wishes to learn whether you are to be… an enemy, a puppet, or an ally.”

Silence filled the air as the hum of the aperture deepened.

Arlecchino spoke again, “We will return when your Führer wishes to speak. Until then, General… do not attempt to open the way again.”

Her eyes brightened one last time.

“And do not insult us by pretending it is your machine that controls the aperture.”

The three women stepped back into the curtain as it flared then contracted inward and vanished, while the chamber went dark as the hum stopped.

Dr. Krantz slumped against a console and trembled like a man that had seen the end of the world.

“General…” one technician whispered, voice barely audible. “What… what happens now?”

Von Roon adjusted his uniform, smoothing the fabric with steady hands.

“Now?” he said quietly, “Now, gentlemen… I must contact Berlin.”

February 21st, 1941

Reich Chancellery, Berlin, Nazi Germany

Pug found himself gripping the arm of his chair without realizing it. His pulse was still running as if she had stood in that Bunker and not Von Roon.

“So this was your…..first contact.” Pug said with his voice low.

“The first formal contact,” von Roon corrected with an edge of weary irony. “The moment we understood that we were dealing not with a weather phenomenon, not with the delusions of stressed scientists…but a structured empire.”

He leaned back slightly, eyes narrowing in the reflection of memory.

“And one who does not, under any circumstances, ignore someone tearing a hole into her world.”

Pug exhaled slowly. “And your Führer reacted… how?”

A faint smile ghosted across von Roon’s mouth.

“As you would expect. He regarded it as destiny…..providence even. Proof that the Reich was chosen by history to bridge worlds together.” His brow furrowed. “He demanded preparations for a diplomatic summit. He wanted to meet their envoys himself. To show them the full strength and grandeur of the Reich.”

“And you let him?” Pug asked.

Von Roon’s eyes flicked upward toward the ceiling, as though listening for echoes of the Führer’s triumphant voice drifting faintly through the corridors.

“One does not stop the Führer, Commander Henry,” he said. “One merely directs the current so it does not drown us. Remember when we talked about the pact that he made with the Soviet Union and divided up Poland. Great men can make terrible mistakes and maybe with greatness then they can overcome those mistakes….We are now seeing him possibly over come those mistakes.”

“And with greatness,” he continued, “come mistakes that ripple far beyond the borders of one nation. Poland is an example you know too well, Commander. We all do. Yet the Führer believes….truly believes…..that this… encounter…” He gestured subtly toward the courtyard windows, where distant cheers still echoed, “is the moment when history vindicates him. That the missteps with Moscow, the strain on logistics, even the British refusal to sue for peace…all of it will be overshadowed now.”

Pug felt his jaw tighten. “Because of Snezhnaya.”

“Because of a new world,” von Roon corrected, eyes sharpening. “The promise of resources, power, knowledge that no earthly empire has ever possessed and the belief that he can shape these envoys into extensions of his will.”

Von Roon’s gloved hand tapped the armrest, slow and deliberate.

“In his mind, the universe itself has finally acknowledged the Reich. First Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland, then France., and now…” His voice dipped into a heavy silence. “Now, Teyvat.”

Pug felt a chill settle in his bones. “You make it sound as though he thinks this is all ordained.”

Von Roon gave a soft, humorless exhale. “He speaks of it in such terms. ‘A sign,’ he calls it. ‘A doorway meant for Germany alone.’ He believes the Tsaritsa's envoys came because they recognized him as the inevitable victor of this age.”

Pug shook his head slightly. “And you believe that?”

Von Roon’s expression did not change, but something tightened behind his eyes.

“I believe and told by the envoys…like Arlecchino….” he said carefully, “that the Tsaritsa is many things….powerful, strategic, ruthless….but she does not kneel to any man; Especially not one from another world. I take the word of these envoys at face value because they are apparently what are called harbingers for their military, the Fatui. These Harbingers are like the meaning of the name where they foreshadow the strength and might of the Tsaritsa herself. For example, Arlecchino, she is the fourth out eleven and Pantalone is ninth. If you saw what Arlecchino can do, then imagine what the Tsaritsa herself or any above Arlecchino could do.”

Pug stared at him, finally understanding the deep weariness beneath the general’s polished exterior.

“You’re afraid,” Pug said quietly. “Not of the Führer. Of them.”

Von Roon did not deny it.

“Any man who saw what I saw on October 21st and the events that followed afterward would be.”

He straightened his coat, regaining the full posture of a senior officer.

“And now, Commander Henry,” he said, “you have seen enough to understand why.”

Hours Later in the newly refurbished Fatui Embassy in the Tiergarten's edge in Berlin

In a requisition neoclassical mansion that the Fatui acquired forcibly from a  Jewish Family that nazi had long since moved. Soft lamplight washed across the neoclassical drawing room, pooling marble columns and gilded moldings remained. A set of heavy red curtains framed on tall windows that overlooked a dark Berlin street, while in the beyond the city kept moving with cars, boots, and distant songs. 

The walls of the mansion had pale rectangles where they marked where portraits were once placed. However, one remained by accident where it showed a family of five with two boys and a girl.

Arlecchino’s glaze remained on the children.

“They had three” she said quietly.

Across from her, seated on a velvet sofa was Pantalone as he glanced up from his papers.

“I am told, “ he replied, “that they were a…'prominent banking family.' The Rosenfelds. This house and all its furnishings are now property of the Reich, placed at our disposal as a gesture of goodwill.”

“And the Children?” She asked.

Pantalone adjusted his spectacles, the light glinting off the lenses.

“Relocated with their parents,” he said simply, “Their files list transfer to a ghetto in Łódź. After that….well….Germany is still refining its policies.”

The red crosses in Arlecchino’s eyes flared faintly a she responded, “They stole a home from three children. For what? Optics? A Performance?”

“They’re efficient at that,” Pantalone continued, “Stealing…performing…conquering…humiliating even…That efficiency is why we are here, my dear Knave. They have organized cruelty and ambition into a state. We can work with that.”

She turned toward with an eyebrow raised.

“You sound pleased.”

“I am interested,” was the response from the banker with a small smile, “Germany possess industrial capacity, disciplined labor, and a talent for obeying authority that shame half of Snezhnaya’s ministries. They are at war with almost everyone and yet they still think in terms of balance sheets and resource allocation.”

Pantalone tapped the papers in his lap.

He placed his paper down on a table as he pulled out a 10 piece Reichspfennig coin.

“See this currency that they use here? It is made of Zinc…a cheap, brittle metal that they resort to because their war devours all the cooper and nickel.”

He flicked the coin into the air where it spun, a dull, gey gleam in the lamplight, before he snatched it back from the air.

“Their entire economy is this coin…a facade of strength built on the plunder and desperate substitution. They conquer their neighbors not just for ideology, but for scarp metal in their factories and the fuel in their. They are a predator, yes, but a starving one. And as I have learned many times before, a starving predator is a predictable one.”

“That is a language I understand when I have my meeting with their ministers and the fat peacock himself.”

Arlecchino’s mouth twitched, the faintest hint of amusement.

“‘Fat peacock’?” she echoed. “You mean Göring.”

Pantalone’s eyes glimmered behind the lenses.

“The very same. Reichsmarschall, head of the Luftwaffe and their four year plan, collector of paintings that do not belong to him.” He flicked the coin once more, then let it vanish into a pocket. “He will want assurances that our ‘miracle’ can be reproduced on command. He will ask what ‘trinkets’ we can bring from Teyvat to level London or Moscow considering the plans that Hitler tells us for Barbarossa in months to come.”

Arlecchino’s gaze sharpened.

“Barbarossa,” she repeated. “The march east. The attack on the Soviets….their supposed friends that they have signed a pact with.”

Pantalone nodded lightly, as if discussing weather.

“They are already calculating routes, rail capacity, oil consumption. They speak of it in millions of tons and divisions. They imagine it as a matter of numbers.” His mouth curled, just a fraction. “That, my lady, is our advantage. Men who think wars are only numbers are easy to… assist.”

Arlecchino stepped away from the remaining family portrait, the hem of her coat whispering over the parquet. She approached the low table, glancing at the folder on top of Pantalone’s stack. Names written in precise hand, underlined in Snezhnayan script beneath the German letters.

“Lutz Graf Schwerin von Krosigk,” she read aloud, tasting the unfamiliar syllables. “Walther Funk. Fritz Todt. Albert Speer. And…” Her eyes flicked to the final line. “…Hermann Göring.”

Pantalone’s smile broadened by a hair.

“Our dance card for tomorrow,” he said lightly. “The Reich’s purse, its currency, its concrete, its dreams of grand monuments… and its most flamboyant predator.”

Arlecchino set the folder back down.

“You have studied them,” she observed.

“It is my habit,” he replied.

“The Northland Bank will not gift them anything. We will structure ‘cooperation agreements’ with shared research institutes, joint resource ventures, credit arrangements tied to their war production. Every factory they build with our assistance will be a string we can pull later. Every shipment of ore, fuel, or crystal will pass through our ledgers.”

Arlecchino watched him for a moment, the firelight catching the red crosses in her eyes.

“And the Tsaritsa?” she asked. “What does she gain from these men and their empire of zinc coins and stolen houses?”

Pantalone’s tone turned almost reverent.

“Experience,” he said. “Data ... .Access…..A proving ground for like it. They will take our gifts and hurl them at their enemies like these land cruisers that Dottore made. We will see how this world fights when given tools beyond its comprehension. We will learn what works and what fails before we ever have to test such things against our own rivals in Teyvat. Something that I am sure that Dottore will be most pleased to see in terms of results. Experiments that we can conduct that might be questionable without Celestia or the Heavenly Principles watching.”

Later that night

United States Embassy, Berlin in Prariser Platz

Nobody in the United States Embassy could sleep easily anymore, even at this hour near midnight, the building sounded like a fortress that was under siege with typewriters cleaning in the back offices, the distant whining of a generator in the basement, the rumble of traffic circling the dark bulk of the Brandenburg Gate that was just byond the courtyard.

Pug climbed the staircase to the second floor on leg that started to feel heavier and heavier than they had been, even at the end of any sea watch that he did in his younger years. He paused for a moment outside the door marked ‘MILITARY ATTACHÉS’ with his name and the name of army partner ‘Colonel William Forrest’ on it and then pushed it open. The room was cramped for the two of them with desks piled with dispatches, a steel filling cabinet,  and a portrait of a navy schooner as right beside Pug’s desk. Colonel Forrest was not found anywhere at all. 

Pug walked to his desk and sat in a chair as he grabbed a typewriter and began to write a report that he never believed would ever be written. Many ideas went through his head. How can all of this be described in a way that did not make him sound insane? How can one simply tell the President of the United States that one of Hitler’s new allies came from somewhere that can be found on a local map? He pulled a sheet of paper with the letterhead of the US embassy on it and began typing for a while. Listing everything that he saw witnessed, felt, heard, and learned afterwards. He mentioned his discussion with Von Roon. However, the main things that focused on was the explosion that Arlecchino conjured and the experiment in East Prussia. He wrote the titles of Arlecchino and Pantalone as von Roon had given them: envoys of the Tsaritsa of Snezhnaya. He described Arlecchino’s eyes, because if he left that out, some clerk back in Washington would assume he was being poetic rather than literal. After several pages, he began with his finals section, something that he was always good….the thing that had him predict the pact that Hitler made with Stalin, something he felt was coming in the weeks before the war started and put Pug on the President’s radar for his insight.

This section had a titled of: Preliminary Personal Assessment of Situation. After a while, he finished that section and with a click from the Typewriter pulled the sheet off and signed his name to it. He read through everything that he had written and could not help thinking in his mind.

“Victor, this is sounding insane. This could be a career ender, but so was the prediction about Hitler’s Pact with Stalin and you were right in the end and the President told you to write to him personally on my ideas and assessment…anything important. So I guess I am just doing my job, we will see how the President reacts to it as this is important” were the words that went through his mind.

He folded the pages carefully, slid them into a heavy brown envelop, and sealed it. He then grabbed an ink stamp and placed the following on a corner of the envelope:

PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTAL.

Pug stared at the words for a long moment. On impulse, he uncapped his pen again and, and beneath the stamp added in block letters:

FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

“You’ve really done it this time, Victor,” he thought. “First you tell the President Hitler’s going to climb into bed with Stalin, now you tell him Hitler’s shaking hands with a woman from another world.”

He turned out the desk lamp and stepped into the corridor.

The embassy at night always felt different where is less like a diplomatic mission, more like a ship riding out a storm in hostile waters. The hallway lights were dimmed, the air faintly tinged with coal smoke and floor polish. Somewhere far off, a typewriter rattled and stopped…A phone rang once and was hushed. Downstairs, the Marine on duty at the front hall desk snapped to attention as Pug came down the last few steps.

“Evening, sir,” the Marine said.

“Is Mr. Taylor still on in Communications?” Pug asked.

“Yes, sir. Last I saw he was going over outgoing pouch manifests.”

“Good.” Pug tapped the briefcase lightly. “I’ve got something that has to go in tomorrow’s bag. Most secret, for Washington. I’ll log it with him.”

The Marine nodded and resumed his post as Pug turned down the corridor toward the communications office. He found Taylor, who is a thin man with rolled-up sleeves and ink stains on his fingers, sitting at a metal desk under a shaded lamp, going through a stack of forms. The safe in the corner stood open, the battered leather diplomatic pouch lying on the table beside it.

“Commander Henry?” Taylor blinked, pushing his glasses up his nose. “It’s late. Everything all right?”

“That depends on your definition,” Pug said. He set the briefcase on the table, opened it, and laid the envelope down. “I need this entered into the pouch for the next courier. Mark it as Personal and Confidential for the President. No copies, no detours.”

Taylor read the stamp in the corner, and some of the color left his face.

“Yes, sir,” he said quietly. He took the envelope as if it were made of glass, checked that the flap was properly sealed, and then slid it into the mouth of the pouch. The heavy leather creaked as it swallowed the new weight.

Taylor pulled the drawstring, knotted it, then turned the key in the small brass lock.

“I’ll note it in the log and tell the Ambassador first thing in the morning,” he said. “Courier car leaves for Tempelhof at 0700. Weather permitting, the plane will be in Lisbon by nightfall.”

“And from there,” Pug said, “it’s just a hop across the Atlantic.”

“Yes, sir.”

Taylor hesitated. “May I ask… in general terms… what it’s about?”

Pug considered that for half a heartbeat.

“In general terms,” he said, “it’s about the fact that the war we thought we understood isn’t the war we’re actually in anymore.”

Taylor swallowed and nodded. “I’ll make sure it gets there, Commander.”

“I know you will,” Pug said.

He signed the pouch register where Taylor indicated, the scratch of his pen oddly loud in the quiet room. Then he straightened, suddenly aware of how tired he was.

As he left, he cast one last glance at the locked bag sitting on the table….plain, scuffed, anonymous. Somewhere inside it was a neat stack of embassy paper that might change the way the men in Washington looked at every map on their walls.

Back in the courtyard, the cold hit him like a slap. Above the dark rectangle of the Brandenburg Gate, the winter sky was low and cloudy, hiding the stars.

“And somewhere beyond that,” he thought, “there’s ice and a woman with red-cut eyes who thinks our whole world is a question on her ruler’s exam.”

He drew his coat tighter around himself.

“The ball’s in your court now, Mr. President,” Pug murmured under his breath.

Then he went back inside, letting the embassy door close behind him with a soft, heavy thud that sounded, to his ears, very much like the end of a chapter.

Chapter Text

Meanwhile in a hotel room in the Court of Fontaine

Night had fallen over the court of Fontaine with the city and the whole nation resting long after a tragedy that  nearly drowned and destroyed it through the prophecy. Now, after talking to Neuvilletee, Aether was stilled tired and out of energy with Paimon in the same state. They took up a room in a hotel room that Navia provided to the two. Aether did not want to trouble Navia, but she insisted and Paimon pretty much begged him to accept it on the fact that they went through a lot lately with out a break in Fontaine from solving murders to preventing a nation ending catastrophe seemed to be too much for the flying pixie that Paimon can be. Aether thought about everything from the fact that now the Fatui have the Hydro Gnosis to Focalors. He laid on the bed of the hotel room starring at the ceiling in wonder, while waiting for the moment that he went to sleep. The soft pillow that his head rested on helped to allow him to feel comfortable and sleep.

Meanwhile, Paimon had curled up on the other side of the bed with her entire body resting on a large pillow that could swallow her small body. She had already began to snore softly with her breath drawing in and out. Eventually Aether’s eyes closed and the sound of the world faded from his mind. For a moment, there was nothing at all just darkness behind his closed eyes.

Then light came back in his vision as he opened them again, where this time he was no longer in the hotel at all. He stood barefoot on a surface of grass that was looking at a giant tree that towered above a valley with its trunk of pale lilac and white that were braided together. Great roots coiled from its base like luminous rivers. Clusters of leaves hung from the branches where each one were shard of light that glowed brightly.

Aether knew this place immediately in his mind.

“Irminsul….” he breathed.

“Whoa….!” was the next thing he heard.

He glanced behind him was Paimon hovering  with eyes wide as saucers.

“This isn’t Fontaine,” she said. “This isn’t anywhere we’ve flown over. Did we get dragged into another Domain? Again?!”

“Not exactly,” came a gentle voice.

They both turned where at the crest of the hill was a small figure in white and green with pale hair, leaf like ornaments and barefeet pressing into the glowing grass. Instantly, Paimon and Aether knew this small archon that looked like a little girl.

“NAHIDA!!!” Paimon cried out in excitement, “It’s good to see you again, Paimon had been thinking about you a lot since we last saw each other.”

The two walked toward the Dendro Archon where as they walked closer to her, the sheer size of the Irminsul became more overwhelming.

“So Nahida, any reason why we are suddenly here at the Irminsul?” Paimon asked bluntly without hesitation, “Not that Paimon minds seeing you again, but Paimon prefers to be at more sociable areas like a restaurant.”

“Is food all you think about?” Aether commented with a roll of his eyes.

“Hey!” Paimon retorted with her hands at her sides as she floated closer to Aether.

“Actually, there is a reason for this gathering at the Irminsul, I called you using your previous connection to the Irminsul to make you appear here in a dream. I only pulled your consciousness here from Fontaine, your bodies are still in bed.” Nahida explained before Paimon could go further.

Paimon grabbed her own cheeks. “So this is a dream, but also not a dream? Ugh, Sumeru stuff again…”

Nahida giggled once, but the sound faded quickly. Up close, Aether could see the worry in her eyes, the way her shoulders were just a little tenser than usual.

“You didn’t bring us here just to admire the view,” he said quietly.

“No,” the Dendro Archon admitted with a returning to the trunk of the Irminsul, “I wanted you to see something that I had found in the Irminsul recently.”

Aether and Paimon followed her down the slope.

The closer they came, the more overwhelming the tree’s presence became in terms of size. What had seemed immense from a distance now felt cosmic up close. The braided trunk soared up and up until it disappeared into the glowing crown, each pale lilac strand shot through with currents of light.

Soft grass brushed their ankles, shining faintly with each step. Glowing leaves drifted all around them like slow-falling fireflies, bathing the air in a gentle green gold.

“For now,” Nahida said, “look at Irminsul as it should be.”

She placed her small hand against the trunk.

Rings of light rippled outward from her touch, racing along the spiraling ribbons like waves on water. Where the glow passed, the memories inside flared brighter with faces, cities, battles, celebrations becoming Teyvat’s story written in the light of the Irminsul.

Then the wave hit something and broke.

Aether frowned. Near Nahida’s hand, one of the lilac strands was wrong. A streak of color had crept through it that was dull brown and ashy gray that looked like dried blood or some form of smoke trapped inside. The light inside that vein was murky, flashing in short, jagged bursts instead of flowing.

“Uh… Paimon doesn’t remember that being there last time,” Paimon said, drifting closer. “Did someone spill something on the world tree?”

Nahida’s expression tightened. “I wish it were that simple.”

She stepped aside so they could see more clearly. The dark vein coiled upward along the trunk like a scar, splitting into thinner threads that climbed into the branches. Where those threads reached the crown, some of the falling leaves were wrong too where they were dim yellowed slivers that crumbled into ash before they vanished.

She stepped aside so they could see more clearly. The dark vein coiled upward along the trunk like a scar, splitting into thinner threads that climbed into the branches. Where those threads reached the crown, some of the falling leaves were wrong too with dim, yellowed slivers that crumbled into ash before they vanished.

“Irminsul holds the memories of this world,” Nahida said quietly. “Every era, every nation, every person who has lived and left a mark on Teyvat. I watch it as often as I can.”

She looked up at the wound.

“Recently, I found this. A branch of memories that does not belong to Teyvat at all.”

Aether’s brows drew together. “Not… from Khaenri’ah? Or beyond the Seven nations?”

“No,” she said. “Not from any land I can name on Teyvat. Not even from our sky.”

Paimon swallowed, suddenly less flippant. “H-how can you tell?”

Nahida lifted her hand again.

“I’ll show you.”

Her palm met the trunk and the world lurched violently.

The lilac trunk, the glowing grass, all of the raining leaves shot past them like streaks of light. For a heartbeat Aether felt weightless, as if he were being pulled down a tunnel made of memories, currents of color whipping by on all sides. Then his feet solid ground, but a ground that wet, cold, muddy and filthy. He staggered with his boots into thick mud that sucked at his ankles. The air around him filled his lungs with something no longer sweet or clean but heavy with the damp stench of earth and smoke but with a strong hint of something that felt bitter and metallic.

The three of them were standing in a long narrow ditch that was gouged into the earth with wooden planks lined up on the sides and above them sandbags were stacked unevenly on the walls. Beyond them, only a slab of low, colorless sky was visible filled with an ugly endless gray. Barbed wire snarled in jagged tangles along the rim of the tunnel.

“Eugh!” Paimon yelped, jerking herself up higher so mud wouldn’t touch her, “What is this place? Did someone drain out all of the color of the world.

Dull booms rolled across the distance……one, then another, then a chain of them, too steady and deliberate to be thunder. Each impact made the mud tremble under Aether’s feet with patches of water on the ground trembling as well. Then just a few arm length away, figures moved around the trench. Men with their shapes strangely blurred around the edges, but their movements were clear enough to make out. They were bent at the shoulders with slow steps, and the kind of tiredness that lived long in bones as if they had been fighting for their whole lives. They wore thick colors, strange metal helmets, and carried long wood and metal sticks that reminded Aether of the muskets that the Fatui skirmishers would use. Some had rubbery masks with round glass eyes and tubes that were dangling from the necks.

Paimon floated closer to Nahida, voice dropping. “A-are these… illusions?”

“Yes and no,” Nahida said softly, bare feet somehow untouched by the muck. “This isn’t a Domain created to test you. We are inside a memory Irminsul has recorded.”

“And this is one of those branches you said doesn’t belong to Teyvat?” Aether asked.

Nahida nodded once.

“The earliest strong one I could find,” she said. “From another world. Long before the time when the other memories you will soon see take place.”

Aether looked up at the oppressive sky. There was no trace of Celestia, no constellations, no familiar arrangement of stars…..just an endless gray.

Before he could comment next, a shrill whistle came with more men coming out into the Trench as they appeared from behind the three blurring through them as if they were not even there. Then the men roared like a lion as they climbed out of the trench with ladders and someone shouting orders to charge. They scrambled over the lip of the Trench and into the unseen field beyond. For a moment, Aether caught a glimpse through a gap through the sandbags. All that he could see in the field was more mud, barb wire, bodies, craters, and smoke. The bodies was the important part that churned Aether’s stomach with the numbers he saw more numerous than he could count as they lay there like discarded dolls.

“Wait!” Paimon yelled as one of the soldiers ran straight through her. She flinched as she clutched her arms around herself. “Cold, cold cold! Paimon did not like that!”

“They can’t see you,” Nahida said gently. “And they can’t touch you, not really. You only feel the echo.”

Another shell landed somewhere beyond the trench. The air jumped with a heavy whump, then a rain of dirt and smoke rose above the parapet and then rose, hanging there in mid-air like an unfinished painting. The scene around them shivered as the men who had just charged were suddenly back in the trench, shoulders pressed together, mud caked all the way to their knees. The whistle shrieked again, the same as before and the order to charge barked in that harsh language. They surged past Aether and Paimon once more, a blurred current of bodies and hoarse voices. This time Aether watched more carefully. When the first few helmets rose above the sandbags, the world skipped like a breathless instant where everything smeared sideways then snapped to a later moment: bodies scattered in the field, wire torn, new craters gouged into the mud. Then the memory jumped backward again, depositing the soldiers at the ladder as if none of it had happened.

“Nahida, what is going on with this memory?” Aether asked.

Nahida’s eyes were sad as she watched the loop repeat and spoke, “Irminsul isn’t supposed to hold this. It can only catch fragments when the flow of that world’s history brushes near our own. It is trying to determine what is real in this battle.This is the earliest intact memory that I can find in the Irminsul, but it does not end with this. This world at the time in the memory seems to be much different than any nation in Teyvat, they could even be the same level of progress as Khaenri’ah. But the pain of this conflict does not end, I was able to determine that from this war to the next one that a span of 20 years will pass between.”

“What do you mean?” Paimon asked as she hugged herself tighter while floating in the air.

Nahida tore her gaze away from the trench and looked at them.

“In this world,” she said, “they call this conflict the Great War. When it ends, the people who survive will swear they have seen the worst that war can be. They will redraw borders, punish those they see as guilty, and promise themselves that this was the last time they will let something like this happen.”

“But promises are not the same as understanding,” Nahida went on. “This war will leave wounds you can’t see from this trench. Entire generations who know nothing but loss, nations that feel humiliated, leaders who believe they were cheated instead of defeated. Their fear and anger harden into new ideas, new hatreds… and those take root.”

She pointed upward.

Then the gray above them peeled back like smoke torn by a wind. Mud and wood and barbed wire fell away, and the three of them were suddenly standing high above a vast stone square, as if they were ghosts floating in the air. Floodlights cut white spears through the sky. Torches burned in long, straight rows, their flames shivering in the wind and lining the edges of the square like rivers of fire. Red banners hung from every wall and tower like huge sheets of cloth with a white circle in the center and a crooked black cross inside it. The symbol repeated over and over until it seemed to press in from every side. Tens of thousands of people crammed the open space below, a sea of dark uniforms and caps and bare heads. From up here they looked like a field of grain rippling in the wind whenever they shifted or raised their arms all at once.

Paimon’s mouth fell open. “Where did? Is this still the same world?!” she blurted.

“Yes,” Nahida said quietly. “Roughly twenty of their years have passed since the war in the trenches. This is one of the consequences.”

At the far end of the square stood a raised stone platform, flanked by tall columns. More banners hung behind it, so large that the crooked symbol on them was bigger than any human being. Banks of lights shone on the platform, turning it into a glowing island in the darkness.

Aether’s gaze was drawn to the figure at its center.

A man stood behind a podium with sheets of paper on it, dressed in a brown uniform with a band bearing the same symbol on his arm. From this distance they couldn’t make out every detail of his features, but his posture was rigid, his gestures sharp. As they watched, he leaned forward, gripped the podium, and shouted something into the crowd. The words were in the same harsh language as before, but here they rolled over the crowd like thunder. The people below reacted in waves, roaring back, their voices merging into one enormous, ugly cheer.

Paimon flinched at the sheer volume. “He’s so loud…” she muttered. “And they’re all just… yelling with him…What’s with this ugly toothbrushed mustache man?”

Despite everything, the corner of Aether’s mouth twitched. “Paimon,” he said under his breath.

Nahida’s lips curved in a sad, brief smile. “Your description may not be wrong,” she said softly. “But to them, he’s more than a strange man with an odd mustache. He is the voice they’ve chosen to listen to.”

“He is one of the leaders who rose from the ruins of the first war,” she said quietly. “In this country, at this time, many people feel humiliated and afraid. Their money is worth less than paper, their pride is wounded, and they want someone to tell them it isn’t their fault.”

Down below, the man sliced the air with his hand, his voice rising and falling in practiced waves. Each time he hit certain words, the crowd answered in perfect unison, arms snapping up in that stiff, unnatural salute.

“He gives them that answer,” Nahida went on. “He tells them they were betrayed, not beaten. That their suffering was caused by enemies inside and outside their borders. He takes the pain left by the first war and shapes it into blame.”

The chant rolled over the square again, rhythmic and relentless. From this height, the crowd’s movements looked almost mechanical—tens of thousands of bodies moving like a single creature.

Aether frowned. “They all just… agree,” he said. “No one questions him?”

“Some do,” Nahida replied. “But in this memory, they are not the ones invited to stand here. This rally is meant to show unity and strength, not doubt. The ones who cheer believe that if they follow him, their nation will rise, and they will never feel weak again.”

Paimon’s nose wrinkled. “So they had one giant, horrible war… and instead of learning not to do it again, they listened to this guy?”

“Many of them do,” Nahida replied. “Some because they are afraid. Some because they are angry. Some because it is easier to cling to simple blame than to face how complicated their pain truly is.” Her gaze darkened as the leader pointed into the distance, words pounding out in a relentless rhythm. “He gives them a story where they are always the victim or the hero. Never at fault.”

As if to prove her point, the man on the platform drove his fist down on the podium and leaned forward, face flushed, voice rising to a harsh, cutting pitch. The crowd quieted just enough to catch his next words.

“Ein Volk! Ein Reich! Ein Führer!”

The slogan cracked across the square like lightning. Tens of thousands of throats roared it back in perfect unison, the three short phrases slamming into each other like hammer-blows. Again he shouted it, again they answered, arms snapping up in that rigid salute until the whole mass of humanity moved like a single, jagged shadow.

Paimon flinched, hands flying to her ears. “What did they say?” she shouted over the roar. “It sounds awful even without knowing the words!”

Nahida’s eyes stayed fixed on the man below.

She said quietly, “that they are one people, one realm, under one leader. That everything they are should be bound to him.”

Aether was suddenly disgusted by what he was seeing.

“I think that this is enough Nahida.”

Then Nahida nodded.

“...You’re right,” she said softly. “For tonight, this is enough.”

She raised her hand.

The sound didn’t stop all at once. It thinned, like someone was turning down a great, terrible instrument, the words stretching into a distant hum. The floodlights dulled, their white spears fading into pale streaks. The red banners bled into violet and white, like paint running in the rain.

Below, the crowd became smudges of gray. The rigid salutes softened, stilled, then froze entirely as the whole square cracked along invisible lines.

Dust and stone and torchlight all shattered into motes of lilac light, where they were back beneath the Irminsul. The valley’s sky glowed with soft pink and gold again, and violet grass rippled at their feet, luminous and clean. The giant tree towered above them, trunk braided from pale lilac and white ribbons that pulsed gently with the flow of Teyvat’s memories.

Paimon let out a long, shaky breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“Paimon’s ears are still ringing…” she muttered, rubbing the sides of her head. “And her stomach is doing flips. Seriously, that world is the worst.”

Aether didn’t answer right away; instead, he stared up at the scar, at the way the wrong-colored threads had started to spread into the branches.

“This is all one story,” he said quietly. “The trenches, that rally… it’s the same world, moving toward the same cliff.”

“Yes,” Nahida said. Her voice sounded very small against the vastness of the tree. “Irminsul shows me their time like the rings inside a trunk. The war in the mud, the years of fear and anger, the rise of leaders who feed that anger… all of it is connected. And none of it belongs here.”

She stepped closer to the dark vein and laid her hand where lilac light met ashy gray.

“Every time I touch this branch,” she went on, “I feel more of their history pressing in. More rallies. More speeches. More decisions made in rooms far from any battlefield. Then lines on maps start to move. Borders vanish. Armies march. But I needed you to see the beginning, “The roots of their second great war. Not just in the mud, but in their hearts. So that when I show you what comes next, later… you’ll remember that it grew from here.”

Aether tore his gaze away from the scar and looked at her.

“You said this second war is happening now,” he said. “While we’re here in Fontaine, in Liyue, in Mondstadt… that world is already burning again because of choices like this.”

Nahida met his eyes. For a moment, the weight of an entire nation’s god looked out through a child’s face.

“Yes,” she said. “Right now, somewhere under a sky you haven’t seen yet, this man and others like him are making decisions that will plunge their world into a war even greater than the last. And somewhere woven into those events, Irminsul’s foreign branch grows thicker and more tangled.”

Paimon hovered a little closer to Aether, her usual flippancy gone.

“So what do we do?” she asked. “We can’t just… jump over there and bonk him on the head, can we? Paimon votes we start with that, but Paimon also guesses it’s not that simple…”

A faint, weary smile touched Nahida’s lips.

“No,” she said. “It’s not that simple. For now, you can’t cross over at all. The doors between our worlds are still small, unstable. The ones that exist are opened by others….by Fatui experiments, by desperate humans in that world grasping for power they don’t understand.”

She let her hand fall from the scarred trunk and turned to face them fully.

“The reason those doors between worlds exist at all,” Nahida said, “is because that man’s nation reached for power it did not understand… and the Fatui answered.”

Aether’s expression sharpened. “You mean… the Fatui found them?”

“In a way, they found each other,” Nahida replied. “Their scholars built a machine in the far north of their land…… Instead, it tore open a crack between their sky and ours.”

“On our side,” Nahida continued, “that aperture opened in Snezhnaya’s winter. The Tsaritsa felt the intrusion. She sent her envoys to look through the crack and decide whether this new world would be a threat, a tool, or prey. When they stepped into that bunker, the first true meeting between your Fatui and that man’s Reich began.”

Paimon swallowed. “Let Paimon guess,” she said weakly. “They did not decide to just shake hands and go home.”

“No,” Nahida said. “Your Harbinger spoke with one of their generals, then vanished back through the gate with a warning: ‘Tell your leader we know you are there. We will return when he is ready to speak.’ “After that spectacle, they signed a pact. On this world, they called it part of their ‘Tripartite’ alliance. Between their Reich, other empires of that world… and now Snezhnaya. On Teyvat’s side, your Fatui named it the Pact of Iron and Frost as a formal binding of the Tsaritsa’s realm to their war.”

Paimon’s face twisted. “So the Fatui chose them,” she said. “Out of all the worlds they could have made friends with, they picked… those guys?”

“They chose a world already on the edge of catastrophe,” Nahida replied, “That pact is the moment two histories truly began to entwine. It’s when this branch stopped being a distant echo and became a living wound. From then on, whenever Fatui acted in that war Irminsul had no choice but to remember.”

Nahida turned back to them, and some of the steel left her eyes, replaced by a tired gentleness.

“That is enough for one night,” she said. “I showed you more than I intended already. Any further, and I fear I’d drag your hearts too deeply into a war that is not yet yours.”

Paimon let out a breath that was half sigh, half whine. “Paimon agrees,” she muttered. “Paimon would like to stop seeing mud and creepy banners now…”

“You needed to know that Teyvat did not stumble into this by accident,” Nahida continued.

Aether nodded slowly. “And we can’t do anything about it. Not yet.”

Nahida looked at him.

“Not yet,” she agreed. “For now, knowing is enough. You’ve seen their first war, and the seeds of the second. You understand that what’s coming there did not appear from nowhere and that the Fatui did not just ‘stumble’ onto it.”

She stepped back from the trunk.

“I’ll keep watching this branch,” she said. “I’ll slow what I can, divert what I can. And when the cracks between our worlds grow larger…maybe a door opens that is wide enough for you to reach, then I’ll call you again.”

Paimon huffed, folding her arms. “Next time, Paimon votes for a nice dream first. Maybe a food dream. Then the horrible war stuff.”

Nahida giggled once, a small, real sound that lightened the air just a little.

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, “For now… you’ve both done enough. You’ve carried other people’s memories long enough for one night. It’s time to return to your own.”

Her small figure grew distant, framed against the faint outline of the tree. For a moment, Aether could still see her hand resting on the dark vein, as if she were holding it in place by sheer will.

Aether up to the soft tick of clockwork somewhere beyond the thin hotel walls. The ceiling of the room swam into focus above him toward the window, faint blue light spilling around the curtains. He exhaled slowly, feeling the tension ease out of his shoulders.

On the other side of the bed, Paimon was sprawled across her massive pillow like someone had dropped a doll and forgotten to pose it properly. One arm dangled off the edge, little fingers twitching. She snored very softly, then flinched and rubbed at one ear even in her sleep.

“Mmm… too loud…” she mumbled, face scrunching up. “Tell… mustache guy… to shut up…”

Aether huffed a quiet breath that was almost a laugh.

“So you do remember some of it,” he murmured.

He lay there for another few moments, listening to the waterfall, to Paimon’s faint grumbling, to the calm, familiar noises of Fontaine. The dream clung to the edges of his mind: violet grass, Irminsul’s shining trunk, the dark vein running through it like a scar… and beyond that, mud, gray skies, torches, and a slogan that cracked across the air like lightning.

Behind him, Paimon jolted fully awake with a tiny yelp.

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s morning. And… we’ll talk about the dream. After breakfast.”

Paimon hovered shakily into the air, still rubbing her ears. “Paimon votes we start with something sweet,” she muttered. “Paimon needs sugar to erase… whatever that was.”

Aether stood, stretching the last of the stiffness out of his limbs, and moved to the window. He pulled the curtain back just enough to see Fontaine’s sky—soft, clear, touched by early light. The falls glittered in the distance with the Automata ticked along their rails. People were beginning to stir on the streets below.

He let the sight sink in.

“Yeah,” he said quietly, mostly to himself. “Let’s enjoy it while we can.”

Meanwhile in a different sky in Washington, DC with a morning light slated in through the tall windows of the Oval Office.

The rain had finally stopped, but even then the city of Washington., DC was wrapped in a damp gray that matched the tone of the shock and unease felt about the release of the news of the Nazi alliance with an unknown foreign power. Inside the White House, the air smelled of tobacco, paper, and a faint trace of wool dampened by weather. In the oval office, a fraile old Franklin D Roosevelt that could be as white on his face, he sat in a chair behind the resolute desk with his cigarette holder angled jauntily on his mouth with heavy smoke curling toward the ceiling. Before him, the morning papers lay spread on top of his desk…The New York Times…..The Washington Post…. The Herald. Each newspaper had the same grainy photograph in the top half of the first page. 

This photo had Hitler at a podium with an arm extended in a stiff salute. Beside him was a smaller unfamiliar figures in dark formal dress. One of them had eyes that didn’t quite look right, even in the black and white newsprint. The Caption in the New York times said:

REICH ANNOUNCES ALLIANCES WITH ‘REALM OF SNEZHAYA’

New Pact proclaimed as an Extension of the Tripartite Agreement

Beneath it was even in a thinner type:

Berlin sources Snezhnaya as ‘another world’ with Nazi propaganda elaborate as ever. 

Roosevelt removed the cigarette holder and tapped it onto the photo with his lips twisting in wry irritation.

“Another world,” he muttered, “ They’ve run out of countries to bully, so now they annexing fairy tales.”

A discreet knock sounded at the side door.

“Come.” he called.

The door opened with a naval aide stepping in with a raincoat folded over his arm. 

“Mr. President,” the Aide said, “diplomatic bag from Berlin just came over. They thought you’d want this one straightaway.”

“Straightaway?” he echoed. “From the Germans? What’s our ambassador done now, told Ribbentrop a joke?”

“Not this time, sir,” the aide said. “The log shows a personal dispatch from Naval Attaché Henry. Marked ‘Personal and Confidential for the President.’”

Roosevelt’s hand stilled on the newspaper.

“Pug,” he said softly.

Something in his tone made the messenger stand even straighter.

“Set it on my desk.” Roosevelt said.

The aide stepped forward with the leather pouch creaking softly as it was set down on the desk.

“Thank you, Commander,” Roosevelt said. “You’re dismissed.”

“Sir,” the man replied, backing out and closing the door behind him.

For a moment Roosevelt just looked at the pouch, cigarette holder dangling between his fingers. Rain tapped faintly at the windows; somewhere deeper in the West Wing a phone rang and was snatched up before the second ring.

He reached into his vest, took out a small brass key, and turned the lock.

Inside were several routine cables and, tucked on top, a thick envelope stamped in red:

PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
FOR THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Roosevelt grunted.

“Victor never did waste ink,” he muttered.

He slit it open and unfolded the first page.

The letterhead read: American Embassy, Berlin, Germany. The date was a few weeks back which was about right for something that had to cross a war-torn Atlantic under neutrality rules. He began to read, eyes scanning the familiar, tight Navy type. He began to read the dispatch:

Mr. President,

Today the Reich publicly proclaimed what until now has been discussed only in private rooms and corridors: an alliance with a power calling itself the ‘Realm of Snezhnaya.’

His gaze flicked to the newspaper photo, then back to the page.

Henry described the ceremony at the chancery: the flags, the Party elite, the Wehrmacht brass, the bombast. At first, he admitted, he’d assumed “another world” was just one more piece of Nazi pageantry for domestic consumption.

Then came the part that made Roosevelt’s hand still.

My initial assumption, that this ‘other world’ was metaphor, has been revised completely. I witnessed a demonstration by one of their envoys that cannot be explained by any earthly physics known to me or to German officers present. I unfortunately in sound mind, Mr. President, do believe that it is possible that this ‘Teyvat’ that the Fatui come from does exist and the Nazi’s have ‘achieved’ the means to reach whether intentional or not.

The next paragraphs laid it out in Henry’s dry, precise language: the woman with the strange eyes, the small pistol thrown into the air above the courtyard, the way it stopped and blossomed into a fireball that hung in place, mushrooming upward without blast or shrapnel. No gunpowder. No wires. No crane. Just… power…..power caused by one of the Envoys present at the signing of the Pact of Frost and Steel

Roosevelt inhaled smoke and forgot to exhale for a beat.

“Good Lord, Pug,” he murmured.

He read on.

Henry named them as best he could: Pantalone and Arlecchino who are Harbingers of an organization called the Fatui, answerable to a sovereign known only as the Tsaritsa of Snezhnaya. He noted how Hitler had spoken of them as proof of destiny, while one of the German generals.. A man named von Roon…..had looked, in Pug’s words, “like a man who has just realized he may not be the most dangerous animal in his own cage.”

One section was underlined twice:

In my judgment, Mr. President, the Führer believes he has acquired heaven’s endorsement. I suspect instead that he has invited a different order of predators into Europe…..ones who talk like allies and think like experimenters. I strongly recommend we treat this ‘Snezhnaya’ as neither myth nor miracle, but as a hostile power with its own interests, now entangled with his. The fact remains that Arlecchino is a woman capable of summoning a pistol out of a persons hand and send high then destroy it with an explosion that can create a mushroom cloud without any sign of explosives that attached that can be noticed…just a scythe that she materializes….is very concerning to questions to what this war will become. The fact that Arlecchino’s eyes are not natural with red X’s concerns me to what else she can do.

Roosevelt leaned back slowly, the chair creaking under his weight.

“The war we thought we understood…” he murmured.

He let the sentence hang, unfinished, as smoke curled lazily toward the ceiling. Outside, a streetcar bell clanged faintly, swallowed by the wet hush hanging over the city.

“…isn’t the war we’re fighting anymore,” he finished under his breath. 

He continued to read more

For a long moment he just sat there, the letter open on the blotter, the ink on Pug’s underlined lines staring back at him like a diagnosis. Almost all of Europe under the occupation of the Nazis and the Italians….London still standing, but by a thread under the blitz being done by the German luftwaffe….The Atlantic a hunting ground for U-boats to sail and find British ships to sink before said ships can even deliver vital cargo for the British war effort. Now this……whatever it is…an alliance of fantasy but real…. Roosevelt pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling the dull ache that had been his companion more and more these days since the war started….oh how he missed the first days of his administration where his main worry was helping America get jobs and food through this depression when it was at its worse….now those days seemed more calmer and less fantasy like.

“Predators and experimenters,” he muttered, eyes dropping back to Pug’s neat, underlined hand. “As if Adolf wasn’t enough of both on his own…”

He reached for the telephone.

The operator came on at once. “Yes, Mr. President?”

“Get me Secretary Hull,” Roosevelt said. “Then Admiral Stark. We’ll have a quiet little council this afternoon. Call it a general war review for the log…..and don’t trouble the press office with it.”

“Yes, sir.”

He set the receiver back in its cradle and sat for a moment with his hand resting on it, thumb rubbing absently along the bakelite.

On the desk, the morning papers screamed in bold type about a bizarre alliance with a “realm of snow,” most of the column inches devoted to mocking phrases about Wagnerian fantasies and Nazi myth-making. Right beside them, Victor Henry’s sober lines described a woman calling a weapon into the air and turning it into a standing sun. Roosevelt pushed the newspapers aside until Pug’s letter lay alone in front of him.

“All right, Victor,” he said softly. “You and I will assume it’s real until the universe apologizes.”

He rang the buzzer by his knee.

The door opened almost at once; the same naval aide leaned in.

“Sir?”

“Come in, Commander,” Roosevelt said. “Close the door.”

The aide did, stepping forward to stand at attention.

“I want a cable drafted to Berlin,” Roosevelt said. “Eyes only, for Commander Victor Henry. You’ll take it over to State yourself and watch them send it, and it doesn’t go into any file a clerk without a clearance can sneeze on. Understood?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

Roosevelt tapped the open letter with two fingers.

“Tell him his report is received and appreciated,” he said. “Tell him to stay close to these… Harbingers. Discreetly….Names….habits….anything that looks like a limit to their tricks. And tell him that at least one old Navy man on this side of the Atlantic isn’t treating ‘Snezhnaya’ as a bedtime story.”

The aide’s mouth twitched in something like grim satisfaction. “I’ll see to it, sir.”

“And Commander?” Roosevelt called out.

“Sir?” The Aide responded turning back around from walking.

Roosevelt’s gray eyes met his.

“From this moment on,” he said quietly, “as far as this office is concerned, that ‘realm of snow’ that Snezhnaya is a potential belligerent power. We will not say that in public. Not yet. But when War Plans talks about German capabilities, they will start penciling in a line marked ‘unknown: Snezhnaya.’ Make sure Stark understands that.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” the aide said. “I’ll pass it along.”

“Good man, now go.” Roosevelt instructed.

Roosevelt turned his chair toward the tall windows. The Washington Monument still speared the low clouds, a pale needle lost in gray. He imagined, not for the first time, looking down on this capital from somewhere else….from a sky that wasn’t Earth’s at all. A higher vantage point. A colder one.

He could almost picture her there: the Tsaritsa, whoever she was, looking at Europe the way he sometimes looked at the globe in the corner of the room…..moving pieces, testing lines, seeing nations as squares on a board.

“She’s not on our side,” he said aloud, to no one. “She’s not on his side either. She’s on hers.”

He let that settle, made a small face, and reached for his cigarette holder again.

“In this war, there are devils you know,” he muttered. “ and devils you don’t. And now devils from out of town apparently.”

He lit a fresh cigarette, then swiveled his chair enough to see the big globe standing near the window. Slowly, he rolled it under his hand. The Atlantic slid by, then Europe…..

Chapter Text

US Embassy in Germany at Pariser Platz

March 1st, 1941

By then Pug received a message that from the President by telegram that was short and to the point:

PUG,

YOUR DISPATCH ON SNEZHNAYA AND THE FATUI ALLIANCE RECEIVED AND GIVEN MOST CAREFUL CONSIDERATION.YOUR JUDGMENT IS HIGHLY VALUED HERE AND YOUR WORD CARRIES GREAT WEIGHT IN OUR DISCUSSIONS. CONTINUE DETAILED REPORTING ON FATUI CAPABILITIES, PERSONALITIES, AND EFFECT ON GERMAN WAR PLANS. YOU ARE RENDERING A VERY IMPORTANT SERVICE TO YOUR COUNTRY.

FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT

To say the reply relieved Pug was an understatement, especially considering how the papers he has been getting from America were very quick to say Hitler was courting alliances with fairytales and an ice witch out of Grimm. He even talked to a friend that knew people on the British embassy in Switzerland, the British to say the least were both confused and calling Hitler mad as a hatter. Why would he make such a bogus alliance at this point of the war when he has Britain alone against him? Did he hope to frighten the British into surrender with Wagnerian fantasies when bombers and U-boats had failed? Needless to say, Pug wish he could get the British to understand that this ‘bogus fictional alliance’ might actually have some teeth that couldn’t be seen on any earthly map. He just hoped that the British didn’t have to learn that too late as he could not help but still envision that mushroom cloud caused by Arlecchino.

Then three days after Pug received the telegram from FDR, he received an invitation that was delivered to the US Embassy by a Fatui courier that was female and wore a tall hat angled on her head with a mask attached with her outfit reminding Pug of a casino croupier in teal and white. Needless to say, the American Embassy’s Marines and clerks had a hard time not looking away from this woman as to them she probably would fit as a pinup girl. She delivered onto Pug’s desk a card in an elegant script with the eight pointed star on its right corner. The card read as:

The Tsaritsa has organized her people to hold a cultural evening between peoples of Germany and Snezhnaya in the newly commissioned Embassy. Your presence is requested by Her Excellency, Lady Arlecchino, to begin the start of Snezhno-American relations.

When he read it, he asked the woman shouldn't this be an event held with the US Ambassador to Germany not its Naval Attache. 

The Woman replied as if the answer was obvious and Pug assumed that behind her mask she rolled her eyes with an accent that was hard to place, “Lady Arlecchino felt that considering that your newspapers questioned my homeland’s existence that maybe starting talks with you would open the doors to allow more diplomatic discussion. However, My Lady has wished to express that if you feel it too formal considering the situation of conflict that your country and Germany might have, then she will understand if you do not wish to attend.”

There it was the fig leaf of choice. He could say no, and the Fatui could say they had graciously offered and been rebuffed. Pug turned the card over in his hand and weighed his options that he wasn’t sure that he had. Declining would be the safe choice. America was neutral, at least on paper, and attending a Fatui function could be seen as legitimizing an alliance that most of the free world still considered Nazi propaganda.

But the President’s telegram burned in his memory on reporting on the capabilities and personalities of the Fatui.

“Tell Lady Arlecchino,” Pug said slowly, “That I would be honored to attend.”

The Courier inclined her head as she continued, “The party will be held tonight at 7pm at the Snezhnayan Embassy in the Tiergarten. Will that be satisfactory to you, Commander Henry?”

Pug only nodded as she turned around and walked away. The other men in the embassy watched her go with expressions that ranged from confused to mesmerized. The moment she fully left outside of hearing range, one sailor even gave a whistle and commented on how one would not find something like in Norfolk.

Colonel Forrest appeared at Pug’s shoulders moments later.

“You’re actually going?” Forrest asked with his voice pitched low.

“Orders from the top.” Pug replied as he tucked the invitation into his jacket pocket, “Someone had to figure out what these people really are. Might as well be me.”

Forrest snorted softly, crossing his arms.

“Just make damn sure you come back with more than a hangover and a souvenir program,” he said. “I’ve got a feeling ‘these people’ don’t throw simple cocktail parties.”

“Neither do we, apparently,” Pug said. “I’ll file a report.”

“You’d better,” Forrest replied. “And, Victor….”

Pug paused.

“Try not to let them turn you into one of their parlor tricks,” Forrest finished. “I like you the way you are. And, also try not to get photographed, don’t want some Isolationist Congressman to have a field day with your picture in that place.”

 “I’ll do my best,” Pug managed a thin smile as he replied.

At the Snezhnayan Embassy in Berlin’s Tiergarten

At 6:45pm 

Pug figured that if these Fatui were just as punctual and precise as the Nazi’s and ensure that his embassy car got him there early with 15 minutes to spare. The car driven by a marine stopped at the gate, where a German Officer in the Heer waited along another one of those Fatui Croupiers as he nicknamed them. They checked his name to the list and examined his invitation when he was asked. The Fatui Croupier looked under his ride and tapped his tires with a cane that was more like a mixture between a sword and an arrow. After a minute, both the Officer and Croupier waved him through to the front entrance of the embassy where the car stopped before the big doors.The Embassy was a mansion that undeniably a very beautiful neoclassical structure with three stories to it and tall windows of amber that glowed in the evening dark.

Before he could continue, another Fatui person opened the car door. But this time, the person was not a Fatui Croupier but a tall man wore a dark coat with a red mask and made Pug think of him more fitted to be more of an actual assassin type.

“Welcome Commander Victor Henry of the United State Navy.” was the words Pug heard as the man bowed while holding the door.

“Thank you.” Pug said as he stood out of the car with his breath fogging in the early March air.

The front doors stood open with light and the faint sound of music spilling out. As he walked into the entrance hall way with its high ceiling and warm air, where light from a crystal chandelier poured down onto a polished floor veined in gray and gold. A grand staircase swept up to the second floor where its bannister gleaming. Then Pug noticed the walls with pale rectangles marking the wall paper where spaces where paintings or family portraits had once hung and were now gone. Only a single painting remained at the far end of the hallway, where a landscape of a lakeshore with a bright sun could be seen.

“Your coat, Herr Kommandant?” were the words that Pug heard beside him in precise german as he turned to see a second attendant. Another one of these Fatui people that looked more assassin and guard then butler.

Pug shrugged out of his overcoat and handed it over as a third Fatui person walked up to lead Pug to the dance area. They passed under a wide arch into what had probably been the main drawing room. Tonight it had been transformed into a reception hall. Small round tables were scattered artfully around the space, each holding a vase with a few pale winter roses and a cut-glass ashtray. Tall windows looked out over the Tiergarten, their heavy red curtains drawn back just enough to show a strip of night beyond. The quartet was set up near the far wall, the musicians dressed in sober black, sawing gently away at something that sounded vaguely Russian to Pug’s uninformed ear.

The room was half full of an assortment of people ranging from Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe officers in black uniforms to Nazi Party officers in brown outfits. Many women were in attendance with the officers and officials, most likely their wives or dates in evening gowns. Pug spotted some non-german faces that he recognized from other neutral embassies like Sweden and Switzerland. The Fatui were also all round partying with some single German officers and their own comrades. Some wore their masks, while others had half-masks and a few wore no masks. 

Pug grabbed a glass of champagne offered from a waiter as he watched the dancing and acknowledged to himself that the drink was better than anything he had with it cold and dry. He wondered if it came from ‘their’ world.

“Commander Henry.”

Pug turned to his shoulder toward the voice that was smooth as glass and confident. He instantly recognized him from the official start of this whole alliance. Pantalone, another Harbinger of the Tsaritsa from that world, dressed more fashionable than a wall street banker and smiled with his eyes closed behind those spectacles.

“On behalf of Her Majesty’s Embassy,” Pantalone said in English as if he had no trouble speaking it, “may I say what a pleasure it is to welcome an officer of the United States Navy to our little experiment.”

“Experiment?” Pug echoed.

“Cultural experiment,” Pantalone amended as his mouth curved. “The Germans are very keen on visible alliances. They like their friends where everyone can see them. We aim to oblige… and observe.”

“I appreciate the invitation,” Pug said, keeping his own tone neutral. “Though I imagine my Ambassador was a more obvious choice.”

Pantalone tilted his head, as if conceding the point.

“Your Ambassador is a very correct man,” he said. “His cables travel along the proper wires, to the proper desks. But it was not his report that convinced President Roosevelt that we are…what is the phrase your papers used? Ah….‘More than a fairy tale.’”

Pug suppressed a wince. He could picture the cartoon exactly in his mind where Hitler was hand-in-hand with a snow queen under the headline of “Führer Finds Frosty Friend.”

“Our newspapers print all sorts of things,” Pug said.

“Yes,” Pantalone agreed pleasantly. “We collect them. They make a… fascinating study. But private reports from trusted officers, those are something else entirely. We are very interested in trust, Commander.”

Pug had the distinct feeling of having been moved one square further along in a game whose rules he did not yet fully know.

“I’m just a naval attaché doing my job,” he said.

Pantalone’s smile didn’t change, but his eyes warmed by a degree.

“Aren’t we all?” he said. “You will forgive me, I hope, for the theatrics. Her Excellency believes that if Germany enemies insist on treating us as myth, we might as well be entertaining myths. And Berlin has always liked a good performance in order to become a myth.”

He nodded toward a crimson-draped platform.

“We have brought a little talent from Fontaine,” he added. “I think you will find them… instructive.”

“Fontaine?” Pug looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“One of the seven nations of our world, Snezhnaya is included in that number.” Pantalone replied.

A aide stepped up on the platform with his voice carried easily over the room in perfect German.

“Meine Damen und Herren,” he called, “Her Excellency, Lady Arlecchino, thanks you for honoring our new embassy with your presence tonight. As a small token of friendship between the Tsardom of Snezhnaya and the German Reich, she wishes to share with you a demonstration from one of our sister cities beyond the sea.”

He lifted an arm toward the crimson-draped platform.

“From the House of the Hearth in Fontaine,” the aide announced, “we present Master Lyney and Mademoiselle Lynette.”

Two figures stepped out from behind the curtain.

The boy came first but boy might not be the right word Pug decided. He was 18 or 19 at most by looks, but walked like he owned the footlights. Hair of short ash blond with violet eyes that made Pug like of a cat and some sort of mark on his right cheek that Pug could not make out. His outfit of black included a top hat. Where this boy was bright and full of motion, the girl that came out next was spare and silent almost female copy of the boy. However, her differences from him almost had Pug question if his drink had been spiked as on top of her short ash blond was cat ears ....cat ears…..that the same color as her hair and a tail….a cat’s tail of the same color.

They stopped at center stage and bowed in unison: his bow a theatrical sweep, hers a small, measured dip.

“Bonsoir, mesdames et messieurs,” the boy said in French, voice warm and trained for a stage. Then, without a pause: “Oder vielleicht… guten Abend.”

The shift into German drew a small approving noise from the crowd. A few of the women smiled.

“My name is Lyney,” he went on in clear, lightly accented German, placing a hand over his heart, “and this is my sister, Lynette. We come from Fontaine, where the streets are full of water and law.”

“And tonight,” Lynette spoke, “we shall demonstrate that the distance between what you believe and what is real... is often thinner than you think."

Lyney proceeded to produce a deck of cards from thin air and fanning them with a one elegant motion. He then flicked his wrist as the cards scattered into the air and became doves. Real, white, cooing doves that circled the chandelier above once and swooping down to Lynette, who caught them one by one and tucked them behind her back where they simply turned back into cards as she showed her hands again. 

The crowd applauded and a Wehrmacht colonel near Pug muttered something appreciative about stage craft.

“Stage craft.”  Put thought to himself, “Sure.”

“But illusions are only half the fun,” Lyney said with eyes scanning every member of the audience, “For the next demonstration, we require a volunteer. Someone with skeptical mind. Someone accustomed to facts and figures. Someone…”

Pug didn’t how Lyney stopped his gaze toward him.

“Military.” was the word that Lyney said as Pug felt almost every head in the room turn toward him.

“Commander Henry,” Lyney said, extending a gloved hand, “The American. Would you care to do us the honor?”

There was no graceful way to refuse. Not with Pantalone watching from the edge of the room, not with German officers smirking at the neutral American being put on the spot. Pug set down his champagne and walked toward the platform.

"Don't worry, Commander," Lyney said as Pug climbed the steps, "This will be entirely painless."

Lynette wheeled forward a tall cabinet painted in swirling patterns of gold and black. The cabinet was large enough for a man to stand in, with a door that opened on brass hinges.

"The Cabinet of Wonders," Lyney announced. "Crafted by Fontaine's finest artificers. The Commander will step inside, the door will close, and when it opens again..." 

He paused, letting the silence build, "He will have vanished entirely."

Pug examined the cabinet and even looked inside where it could tell that from the exterior that it was solid wood with no mirrors that he could see. No obvious trapdoor that he could find on the platform beneath it.

"Any tricks I should know about?" he asked quietly.

Lyney's smile was impish, "Just stand very still, Commander. And try not to think too hard about where you're going."

As Pug stepped inside the matte black interior as the door swung shut with darkness inside. He could barely hear Lyney’s voice muffled as he built the anticipation of the audience. Then all of a sudden, the floor dropped underneath him as Pug gasped with his grey hair jumping up. The fall was short, maybe by about a few feet, but when he landed, the world around him was very wrong. Colors of different types of streak passed his vision, the air tasted of ozone and something sweeter like flowers after rain. For one wild heart, he felt like he was being pulled apart and put together in the space between thoughts. Then the light flooded back around as he found himself standing at the far end of the ballroom, behind the crowd, and near the entrance doors. Then he heard the sound of the audience erupted in applause.

"There he is!" Lyney cried, pointing with a cane,"The Disappearing Commander, ladies and gentlemen! Transported across the room in the blink of an eye!"

Pug steadied himself against the wall, his heart hammering.

“There wasn’t a trapdoor…no misdirections…no mirrors…That was something else.”  Pug thought to himself in near panic.

Across the room, Lyney met his gaze and tipped his hat. Beside him, Lynette watched with those violet eyes, her expression unreadable, her cat tail swishing behind her.

Lyney and Lynette had gone on to a smaller trick, something with silk scarves and the party men’s watches.
“Well,” Pantalone murmured, drifting back to Pug’s side as if he’d never left. “What do you think, Commander? Does our little performance make you feel more… reassured?”

Pug took a sip of champagne to buy himself a second. Now that his pulse had slowed, he found the drink had a faint, unfamiliar crispness he still couldn’t place.

“It makes me aware,” he said. “Though I haven’t decided of what yet.”

“A good beginning,” Pantalone said. “Awareness is a negotiable commodity. Ignorance costs much more.”

Pug turned his head.

“I thought you were a banker,” he said. “Not a philosopher.”

“In Snezhnaya,” Pantalone replied mildly, “we do not always distinguish between the two.”

Before Pug could answer, a smaller movement at the edge of his vision drew his attention. One of the masked attendants similar to the Croupier but with no hat and a mask that reminded Pug of an Egyptian cat had appeared at his elbow.

“Commander Henry,” she said in careful, accented English. “Her Excellency requests the honor of a brief conversation. If you would be so kind as to follow me.”

Pantalone’s smile did not change, but there was a glint behind it now that hadn’t been there before.

“You will enjoy this, I think,” he murmured. “Few foreign officers get to meet the Knave herself so early.”

“Enjoy” was not the verb Pug would have chosen. But Roosevelt’s underlined words burned in his mind again: CAPABILITIES. PERSONALITIES. EFFECT ON GERMAN WAR PLANS.
“Lead on,” he said to the attendant.

She guided him away from the main crush of guests, through a side archway and down a narrower corridor where the music dulled to a muffled pulse. The sounds of German officers laughing, glasses clinking, and Lyney’s voice tossing something clever to the crowd faded behind them. Here, the walls were less dressed. The pale rectangles where stolen paintings had hung were more obvious. The single remaining family portrait, half-obscured by a velvet curtain, watched them pass with the unintentional accusation of painted eyes.

The attendant stopped before a heavy door of dark oak and knocked twice in a pattern of soft taps.

“Enter,” came a voice from within.

The attendant opened the door and stepped aside, where she gestured for pug to pass through. After a second, he did and heard the door close behind him with a soft click. The room had once been a study or a private office where bookshelves lined three of the walls. A single lamp burned on a desk near the window, it light pooling across papers that Pug couldn’t read from this distance. Heavy curtains blocked most of the view of the garden beyond through a small gap. But standing there at the window with her back to him was Arlecchino. She didn’t turn immediately as she let the silence stretch, let him take in the room, and let him wonder. Pug knew the technique too well as a navy man and saw various admirals use it to establish who held the power in the conversation before a single word was spoken.

The difference was that Arlecchino didn’t need the technique as the power was simply there and it radiated off her like heat from a boiler. But when she turned, those eyes found him at once. Those eyes with a black sclera that had burning red crosses for pupils. In the dim light, they seemed to glow and it almost terrified Pug.

"Commander Henry," she said. "Thank you for accepting my invitation. Please, sit."

She gestured to a chair positioned before the desk and Pug noted that it was the only chair on his side of the room with its back to the door. He moved forward and sat anyway as he didn’t have much of a choice. The moment that he sat, Arlecchino moved to the desk but didn’t sit behind it. Instead, she perched on its edge, arms folded , looking down at him with an expression that was impossible to read.

"You enjoyed Lyney's demonstration?" she asked.

"'Enjoyed' might be a strong word," Pug said. "It was... educational."

"Good. Education was the intent." She tilted her head slightly. "You're calmer than I expected. Most men who experience what you just did need a few minutes to remember how to breathe."

"I've had some practice at keeping my composure in unusual situations."

"Yes. I know," Her eyes didn't blink, "The Hitler-Stalin pact. You predicted it when every intelligence service in Europe was calling it impossible. I would assume that your report reached Roosevelt's desk before the ink was dry on Ribbentrop's signature. Von Roon told me when he had dinner with you and your wife that the moment news reached the restaurant that your wife jumped in excitement and said ‘you were right. They were all wrong and you were right."

“Von Roon has a good memory,” Pug said.

Arlecchino’s mouth twitched, the closest thing he’d yet seen to a smile.

“He has a trained one,” she replied. “And he is paid to remember which men notice the right things. You are one of them.”

Pug had to resist the urge to shift in the chair. He could feel the back of it and solid against his shoulders.

“Lucky me,” he said lightly.

Arlecchino's gaze stayed fixed with that somewhat smile.

“You came tonight because you want to know what we are,” she said, “I suspect that your President asked you to find out. The German Government, particularly Ribbentrop and Goring, told us that you are closely connected to your president when you came with that banker to offer the visit of Undersecretary of State Sumner Wells to discuss peacemaking proposals between the Allies and Germany.”

Pug felt his jaw tight immediately. It had been over a year ago since the Sumner Wells mission, where it was FDR’s last attempt to find some way to end the war before it true consumed continental Europe. 

The Germans keep good records," he said carefully.

"They do," Arlecchino agreed. "And they share them with their allies. We know that you escorted Mr. Welles to meetings with Göring, with Ribbentrop, with the Führer himself. We know that Roosevelt trusts you enough to put you in rooms where history is being made. That makes you valuable, Commander and it makes me curious."

"Curious about what?" Pug asked.

“Let’s go back to your question earlier,” Arlecchino said as if redirecting the conversation to measure his reaction, “you asked about what Hitler meant in the Tsaritsa’s war. Very well, I suppose I can give you a rundown of it.”

Arlecchino moved away from the desk and walked slowly toward the window with her silhouette cutting across the thin line of moonlight that slipped through the curtains.

“Each rules differently. The first is Freedom who lets his people govern themselves and calls it virtue. The second is Contracts who has recently stepped aside, and the world is still learning what that means. And, of course, Justice once sat as the head of a realm built on law, until… events forced that nation to rewrite itself.”

Arlecchino’s gaze drifted, not to Pug, but past him into memory.

“One is Eternity like your Emperor of Japan: divine and absolute in the minds of her people… although even eternity can change its definition. Another is Wisdom who rules with a mind so old and so sharp it makes your Enlightenment look like a tavern argument.”

A faint, almost amused exhale.

“And then there are others like War with tribes and trials and strength as a language and the Tsaritsa was of Love.”

She let the last word hang, as if daring the room to misunderstand it.

“Each Archon commands an element: wind, stone, lightning, and the rest… down to Her Majesty’s cryo, ice.”

Pug didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He listened.

“And above the nations,” Arlecchino continued, “above even the Archons, there is Celestia which is our divine realm. It watches, judges, and enforces what it calls the Heavenly Principles.”

Suddenly, the atmosphere changed around Pug as the fire started to die down with lighting dying and those red X’s illuminating more than the moonlight even though he could only see the back of her head.

Then Arlecchino’s voice hardened imperceptibly, “Then five hundred years ago, there was a nation called Khaenri'ah. It had no Archon…No God to guide it, where its people built their civilization through knowledge alone. They asked permission from no heaven and bowed to no divine throne.”

She turned to face him fully, where in that dimmed light with only her eyes burning like twin coals, Pug felt the weight of something ancient and terrible pressing down on the room.

“Celestia destroyed them, where the Heavenly Principles decided that Khaenri'ah had grown too powerful and gone too far in its curiosity that its existence posed a threat. So they spared nothing and no one where they erased it…the nation…the people…the children in their beds. Something so cataclysmic that I doubt that maybe there is a verse in your Holy Bible that could match its destruction and would make Sodom look like a firecracker.”

“And the other Archons?” Pug asked, “The seven gods, they simply allowed this?”

“Some fought and obeyed, but some paid for it in ways your history would recognize.Your First Great War didn’t just kill men, but instead it also changed what survivors believed was possible. Khaenri’ah did the same to Teyvat.” She dropped lower in response, “And the Tsaritsa wept. They say she was different before Khaenri'ah where she was both gentle and warm. A goddess who believed in mercy, in the goodness of the divine order, in the justice of heaven. But she does not believe these things anymore, you can say like your isolationist young, they were changed by the stories of the horrors of war.”

“So she declared war? On heaven itself?” Pug asked as he discovered his voice rougher than he intended.

“On the system itself, she declared before her followers a plan to seize the authority from the gods and a rebellion against the Heavenly Principles,” Arlecchino corrected, “The Fatui are her army in that war, Commander. We prepare for the day when the Tsaritsa will look the Heavenly Principles in the eye and demand an accounting for what was done to Khaenri'ah."

Pug sat for a moment in complete terrified silence and was processing. It was madness, all of it. Gods and divine rebellions and civilizations erased by decree from above, but yet the woman standing before him was no myth for sure.

"And my world?" he asked finally. "Earth. Where do we fit into a war against heaven?"

Arlecchino’s lips curved into that cold knowing smile that made Pug feel like a specimen being examined under a glass, as she continued:

"Your world, Commander Henry, has no Archons and no Celestia watching from above. No divine principles constraining what humans may build, may learn, may become," She gestured toward the curtained window, toward the city beyond, "In Teyvat, if a civilization advances too far, heaven intervenes. Here, you answer to no gods. You harness lightning and build machines that fly through the air and ships that sail beneath the waves. You reach toward the stars without asking permission and no hand from above strikes you down for the presumption."

She leaned closer, close enough that Pug could see the faint lines etched around those burning eyes.

“And the Tsaritsa needs Germany to understand powers that will help prepare her for that day, but we are an equal to Germany or even more in teaching, supplying, and directing them ways to improve their war. Although Snezhnaya is not at war with Churchill and his British Empire, I have no doubt that as time passes where your cigar smoking Prime Minister finally understands the alliance then things might possibly change.”

“Does Hitler know of the details and all? Celestia and the other archons?” Pug asked curiously and with a swallow.

For a moment, Arlecchino didn’t answer and then she gave him something like approval as if he asked the right question.

“Yes,” she said, “He’s aware Celestia exists and of the other archons. Him and the other members of the Tripartite Pact, Italy and Japan have been made aware as well.”

Pug absorbed that for a moment. The image of Adolf Hitler being briefed on divine realms and elemental gods was surreal enough. But Japan seeking diplomatic relations with another nation from Teyvat opened implications he hadn't considered as he remembered about Japan’s imperial ambitions in China and even Asia.

“How did he take it?” Pug asked.

"How do you think?" she replied. "The Führer believes in destiny, Commander. In providence. When we told him that Celestia had destroyed a godless civilization for the crime of advancing too far, he didn't hear a warning. In his mind, Khaenri'ah fell because it had no divine guidance and no purpose beyond mere progress. Germany, he believes, is different. Germany has him."

"What about us?" he asked. "America. Has the Tsaritsa formed opinions about the nation that's still neutral?"

“The Tsaritsa,” she continued, “is very interested in America, which is a nation built on revolution against a king and believes that men can govern themselves without divine mandates. In some ways, Commander, your county is more like Khaenri'ah than any nation in Teyvat. And that makes you either very valuable... or very dangerous."

"Which one are we?"

"That," Arlecchino said, "depends entirely on what you do next, which the Tsaritsa hopes to ensure remains positive between our nations."

She looked at the clock above the fire.

“Unfortantely, Commander, we will have to end these talks for later. I must attend to personal Harbinger matters that the Tsaritsa has delegated me for right now. But fear not, we will have more to chat until your President feels he is ready to hold official diplomatic talks between our nations.”

Pug rose from the chair, feeling the stiffness in his legs from sitting so tensely for so long. The conversation had lasted like what? Twenty minutes? An hour? He honestly couldn't say. Time seemed to move differently in this room, under the weight of those burning eyes.

"I appreciate your candor, Lady Arlecchino," he said, falling back on the formalities that had carried him through a thousand uncomfortable diplomatic exchanges. "It's been... educational."

"That word again." The ghost of a smile crossed her lips. "You use it like a shield, Commander. But I think you mean it more than you let on."

She moved toward the door, then paused with her hand on the frame.

"One more thing," she said without turning. "When you write your report to President Roosevelt and you will write one, we both know that you may tell him everything I've told you tonight. The Tsaritsa has no interest in secrets that serve no purpose. Let your President know what we are. Let him understand what we want and let him decide whether America wishes to be Khaenri'ah... or something else entirely."

She opened the door. The sounds of the party flooded back in with music, laughter, and the clink of glasses. 

"The attendant will show you back to the reception hall," Arlecchino said. "Or to your car, if you prefer. I suspect you have much to think about."

"That's one way to put it," Pug managed.

Arlecchino turned then, and for just a moment, something flickered in those terrible eyes.

"You asked good questions tonight, Commander Henry. Better than most people I have meet, even at times a certain Traveller that I meet." She inclined her head fractionally. "I look forward to our next conversation."

And then she was gone, moving down the corridor with footsteps so silent they might not have existed at all, leaving Pug standing in the doorway of an empty study in a stolen house, with the weight of two worlds pressing down on his shoulders.

The masked attendant materialized beside him moments later, silent as a shadow.

"Commander," she said. "Shall I escort you to the reception hall, or would you prefer your car?"

Pug glanced back at the empty study one last time. The fire had died completely, leaving the room cold and dark. Only the thin blade of moonlight remained, falling across the desk where Arlecchino had perched while explaining that human civilization was an experiment being observed by beings from another world.

"My car," he said. "I think I've had enough culture for one evening."

If the attendant found this amusing, her mask hid it well.

She led him back through the corridor, past the pale rectangles where paintings had hung, past the half-hidden family portrait that watched them with accusing eyes. The sounds of the party grew louder as they approached with laughter, music, and the clink of champagne glasses heard. Someone had started a drinking song, and Pug could hear German voices raised in chorus:

"Deutschland, Deutschland über alles..."

It felt obscene, somehow. All these people celebrating, drinking, singing their anthems of destiny and triumph, while somewhere in this very building a woman with burning eyes plotted a war against heaven itself. The Germans thought they had found powerful allies. They had no idea they were dancing on the edge of something that made their thousand-year Reich look like a child's game of tin soldiers.

They passed through the reception hall, and Pug caught a glimpse of the stage. Lyney was performing again using something with fire this time, conjuring flames that danced between his fingers and took the shapes of birds and flowers before dissolving into sparks. The crowd applauded, delighted. A Luftwaffe general was laughing, his face flushed with champagne, as Lynette handed him back a pocket watch that had somehow found its way into her hand.

Lyney's eyes found Pug across the room.

For just a moment, the showman's mask slipped, and something older looked out from those violet eyes. Something that had been trained in an orphanage run by a woman who made mushroom clouds from pistols. Then Lyney smiled, tipped his hat, and turned back to his audience.

Lynette watched Pug with those unreadable eyes, her cat tail swishing slowly behind her.

Meanwhile a week later in the Court of Fontaine

Aether and Paimon stood up among the crowd with the posters of all the films being present for the first Fontinalia Film Festival, the past few days were busy for the two as they had been helping their film producer friend Xavier create a movie that was based on the book titled ‘The Two Musketeers." As they helped in the film with Ayaka, Ayato, Furina, Chiori and others that they knew in Fontaine and other regions. It turned out that the writer of the book and his sister made the book as a mirror of their lives as well as their plan to murder the man that killed their mother. Through the help of Yoimiya and Chevreuse, they not got the man that killed the siblings mother (who was also their father) through an assassin by faking an attempt on him and having him confess with a hidden Kamera held by Paimon, but they caught the sister wanting revenge and exposed the plot after arresting the brother.

Now the film was done after a lot of hard work and was ready to be presented to the panel of judges to evaluate and score the film. Romantic comedies, historical dramas, actions spectacles that featured the Marechaussee Phantom were presented. 

Aether stood near the edge of the plaza, watching the spectacle with the kind of quiet observation that had become second nature to him. Beside him, Paimon floated at shoulder height, her attention fixed on a vendor selling caramelized cream puffs from a cart decorated with tiny film reels.

"Paimon thinks we deserve at least three of those," she announced. "Maybe four. Do you know how hard it was holding that Kamera steady while hiding behind a box? Paimon's arms still hurt!"

"Your arms are the size of bread rolls," Aether said mildly. "How much could they possibly hurt?"

"Hey! Paimon's arms are perfectly normal-sized for Paimon!" She puffed up indignantly, then immediately deflated as the vendor handed a cream puff to a passing gentleman, "...Okay, but seriously, can we get some? The judging doesn't start for another hour."

Aether reached into his travel pouch and handed her a few Mora. "One. We need to find Xavier before the screening."

Paimon snatched the coins and zoomed toward the vendor with a speed that suggested she had not heard the word "one" at all.

Aether let her go because after everything they'd been through in the past few days  a few cream puffs seemed like a small indulgence. He turned his attention back to the plaza and the massive posters that dominated the entrance to the screening pavilion.

There were many stories that were presented to the competition, but only five were selected as the finalists. One was a Sumeru action-comedy film about a dramatic old Forest Ranger dressed like a Favonius Knight on a quest like journey to Realm of Farahkert from Port Ormos acting like he is some long lost king while he walked with a Sumpter Beast. Another was a Mondstat that recreated Vennessa’s Rebellion against the Mondstat Aristocracy. Then there was the one that he helped make where it had the moon and night in the background with Ayaka and Chueyruse back to back holding pistols up at an angle for the Film: The Two Musketeers.

However, he noticed the fourth poster that was right beside was a different type of poster entirely. When compared to the other finalists that showed familiar aesthetics, this one was stark and severe. The colors were muted grays and deep crimsons, the composition rigid and symmetrical in way that felt almost dramatic. The image showed a man in a grey uniform with his handsome face beneath a metal helmut that Aether could not recognize. The man was gazing into the eyes of a woman, a Fatui electro Cicin mage in purple. Her bright purple cicins floated around them like purple fireflies that casted an ethereal glow over the scene. Behind the couple, a city skyline stretched beneath a winter sky with architecture that Aether could not recognize. In the corner of the poster, two flags crossed with the eight-pointed star of th Fatui and another that instantly made Aether’s blood cold. This flag was red with in the very center of it was a crooked black cross inside of a white circle. 

The same cicle in Nahida’s vision. The same symbol that had hung from every wall while tens of thousands of people chanted in unison. He slowly read the title and captions of the poster, which said:

"ZWEI WELTEN, EIN HERZ"

(Two Worlds, One Heart)

Ein Film von Herbert Selpin Eine Gemeinschaftsproduktion der Universum Film AG und des Snezhnayan Kulturministeriums

(A film by Herbert Selpin through a co-production of Universum Film AG and the Snezhnayan Ministry of Culture)

"Pretty, isn't it?" said a new voice behind Aether.

Aether turned sharply.

A man stood a few feet away, studying the poster with an appraising eye. He was perhaps forty, with thinning dark hair swept back from a high forehead and an intense, restless energy that seemed to crackle around him even in stillness. His suit was unlike anything worn in Fontaine double-breasted with wide lapels, cut in sharp lines that spoke of a different world's tailoring. A small pin on his lapel bore that same crooked cross. He wore glasses that almost made Aether think of them as shades.

"The lighting was particularly difficult," the man continued in accented but fluent Teyvatan, gesturing at the poster. "Cicin magic photographs beautifully, but getting it to blend with our Berlin streetlamps required weeks of experimentation. Worth it, though, don't you think? The violet against the gray..."

He kissed his fingertips in an exaggerated gesture of artistic satisfaction.

"You're the director," Aether said. It wasn't a question.

"Herbert Selpin." The man extended his hand with the easy confidence of someone accustomed to being recognized. "And you must be the famous Traveler. The Fatui briefed me, of course. You're quite well-known in certain circles."

Aether didn't take the offered hand. After a moment, Selpin withdrew it without apparent offense.

"Not a film enthusiast, I take it?" Selpin smiled, but his eyes were calculating. "A pity. Cinema is the art form of the future, you know. It speaks to the masses in ways that painting and literature never could. A single film can reach millions—can shape how they think, what they feel, what they believe is possible." He nodded toward his poster. "That's what we've created here. A bridge between worlds. A story that shows our peoples what we can become together."

"A romance," Aether said flatly. "Between a soldier and a Fatui agent."

"Between two people caught up in forces larger than themselves," Selpin corrected smoothly. "Hans is a simple Wehrmacht officer, stationed in Berlin, lonely, far from home. Yelena is a Cicin Mage assigned to the new Snezhnayan Embassy, isolated in a strange world, longing for connection where they meet by chance. They fall in love despite everything that should keep them apart." He spread his hands. "It's universal, really. The oldest story there is."

"And the flags?" Aether nodded toward the crossed symbols on the poster. "The uniforms? The politics?"

Selpin's smile didn't waver, but something flickered behind his eyes.

"Mere backdrop," he said. "Context. The audience needs to understand that this love blooms in extraordinary circumstances where it represents something grander than two individuals." 

He leaned closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially, "Between us, Traveler, I don't concern myself much with politics. I'm a craftsman and I tell stories. The Reichsministerium and the Fatui provided the funding and the brief; I provided the artistry. That's how it works in my world."

"And what brief did they provide?" Aether asked quietly.

Selpin studied him for a moment. The easy charm didn't leave his face, but something more thoughtful surfaced beneath it.

"They wanted a film that would make their alliance feel... human," he said finally, "Approachable. Something that audiences in both worlds could watch and think, 'Perhaps these strangers aren't so strange after all.' Something that would make the Pact of Iron and Frost feel like destiny rather than politics." 

Selpin shrugged. "It's not so different from what any government wants from its films. The Americans do it. The British do it. We just do it with better production values."

"Paimon doesn't think she likes that poster."

They both turned to their right where Paimon had returned, cream puffs forgotten in her hands but not in her stomach for sure judging by the pieces on her face. Her small face scrunched in an expression of deep suspicion as she stared at the image.

"Something about it feels... wrong," she continued. "Like when you eat fish that's been sitting out too long. It looks fine, but your stomach knows better."

Selpin laughed with a  genuine sound, surprised out of him.

"What a delightfully honest critic," he said. "Perhaps you should write for the Steambird." He inclined his head to Aether, then to Paimon. "I should find my seat. The screening begins soon, and I'm told your Two Musketeers is quite the accomplishment. I look forward to seeing what Fontainian cinema has to offer."

He walked away, his stride confident, already raising a hand to greet a cluster of Fatui officials near the pavilion entrance.

Paimon watched him go, her expression deeply troubled.

"Aether," she said quietly. "That symbol on his pin. That's the same one from…."

"I know." Aether replied looked back at the poster.

“Nahida showed us what those people do…the trenches…the rallies…the….” Paimon swallowed, “the things that man was saying and now the fatui are making movies with them? Love stories?”

Aether kept staring at the poster with the Cicin Mage’s tender expression and the soldiers jaw showing some form of discipline.  The flags crossed in the corner.

"It's not about love," he said finally. "It's about making the unthinkable seem normal. Making an alliance between the Fatui and... those people... look like something beautiful instead of something monstrous."

"But why would anyone fall for that?" Paimon asked as she floated right beside him looking like she was wanting to panic.

Aether thought of the rally. The tens of thousands of people, cheering, saluting, their faces transformed by fervent belief in something that must have felt great and righteous.

"Because stories are easier to believe than reality," he said. "And this Selpin seems to know how to tell stories."

Aether then saw Xavier come up to him with his red-black knit outfit and black-wide-brimmed hat. The Fontainian filmmaker looked slightly out of breath, as if he’d been searching through the crowd for some time.

“There you are!” Xavier exclaimed, “I’ve been looking every where. The screening order has been finalized….we’re third in the lineup, right after the Sumeru comedy and the Mondstadt piece.”

Xavier paused and noticed their expressions as they stared at the fourth poster, “Ah, you’ve seen it.”

“Hard to miss,” Aether said quietly.

Xavier's face tightened as he followed their gaze to Zwei Welten, Ein Herz.

"It arrived four days ago with a Snezhnayan delegation," he explained, his voice dropping, “"The festival committee received... let's call them 'strong suggestions'... that it should be included among the finalists. Given the current political situation with the Fatui, Fontaine's leadership felt it would be unwise to refuse outright."

"So they just let Fatui propaganda into a Fontainian film competition?" Paimon demanded, her remains of the cream puffs now completely forgotten, "Just like that?"

"The Fatui have become difficult to refuse lately," Xavier said carefully. "When they arrived, a Oberleutnant Meyer of this German Reich with the Fatui delegates presented himself as a member of the Germany Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops. According to Cheyruse, Meyer and the Delegates explained to Chief Justice Neuvillette that they represented a part of the military and cultural army of the Fatui’s new ally in their ‘glorious cause’" 

Xavier emphasized ‘glorious cause’ with his fingers.

“What’s a Wehremarch?” Paimon asked scratching her head in confusion, “Also what’s that mean? Uber-leanat?

“It’s Wehrmacht.” Xavier clarified, “And that’s apparently the military for these Germans. And Oberleutnant is Meyer’s rank in their army."

“And these Wehrmacht Propaganda Troops?” Aether asked concerned.

“Oberleutnant Meyer said that represented the needs and morale of the German military.” Xavier stated.

"So they have soldiers whose entire job is making films and posters?" Paimon's eyes widened, “Sounds almost easy.”

“Not according to Meyer as he explained that their Führer or leader is very particular about his tastes as well as his Minister of Propaganda.”

Aether felt a cold knot form in his stomach. "And Neuvillette accepted this?"

"The Chief Justice had little choice. The Fatui delegation made it clear that refusing would be seen as an insult to Snezhnaya and their new allies. They spoke of 'cultural exchange' and 'building bridges between worlds.," Xavier's voice turned bitter, "They also mentioned, very casually, how unfortunate it would be if certain trade agreements between Fontaine and Snezhnaya were to be... reconsidered."

"A threat wrapped in a smile," Aether said.

Xavier nodded in agreement, "Precisely. But Neuvillette is no fool. He agreed to include the film in the competition, but he insisted that the judging panel remain entirely Fontainian with no Fatui observers and no German 'advisors' with voting power. He placed their film last in the screening order, after all the Teyvatan entries had their moment."

A commotion near the pavilion entrance drew their attention as a cluster of figures in unfamiliar uniforms in grey and black appeared. Some wore peaked caps on their heads, but the thing that they all had around their arms was that same crooked cross displayed prominent on armbands. They moved with miliary prevision with the troops making a circle around a one man and a group of Fatui operatives with their cane-swords and distinctive masks. In the center of the formation was a man that looked around thirty-five with a sharp angular face in a immaculate uniform with polished buttons and precise creases. A Kamera hung around his neck in a strap, but it was unlike any Kamera that Aether had ever seen with a lightbulb on the upper part of it.

“Is that him?” Paimon asked.

“Unfortantely, yes.” Xavier replied sharply.

As if sensing that he was being observed, Meyer’s blue eyes swept across the plaza until his eyes found Aether where they paused. For a moment, the two simply looked at each other across the crowded plaza.Then, very slightly, Meyer inclined his head as if he was acknowledging Aether before turning away and continuing toward a VIP area.

“Did he just….?” Paimon said in shocked.

“He probably knows who I am,” Aether said quietly, “The Fatui must have told him considering the amount of times that we deal with them.”

"Briefed them on what? That you're trouble?" Paimon huffed, trying to hide her unease with indignation, "Well, they're not wrong about that, but still!"

Then a bell could be heard ringing across the plaza with five minutes until the first screening.

Chapter Text

In the pavilion in the Court of Fontaine

Earth Time: March 8th, 1941

The lights in the pavilion dimmed as the last of the audience settled into their seats. Aether sat between Paimon and Xavier in the third row, where they were close enough to see the screen clearly but far enough back that he could observe the crowd’s reactions. Behind them, he could hear the rustle of the Wehrmacht uniforms as Meyer and his delegation took their reserved seats. The Fatui operatives spread through the theater like shadows, their masks catching the last glimmers of lamplight before the darkness fell completely. They watched the other films with the Sumeru film making people constantly laugh like crazy, some of the German delegates commented that it reminded them of Don Quoxite. The Mondstadt film was also greet with emotion and drama that played Vennessa’s rebellion and a good recreation of someone acting as Barbatos. Aether wondered how Venti would feel about this adaption. Then the film ended with then their film played with the title of The Two Musketeers playing with the story of two siblings on journey for vengeance against the one who killed their mother. Chevyruse played her character really well, but Aether was especially caught in the way that Ayaka with her hair as white as snow and movement as graceful as a bird played her character. The two played as a good duo with emotional action and drama throughout the story. Then came the German-Fatui film.

The opening credits appeared in stark white letters against black:

UNIVERSUM FILM AG in Zusammenarbeit mit dem SNEZHNAYAN KULTURMINISTERIUM präsentiert

Then, in larger letters that filled the screen:

ZWEI WELTEN, EIN HERZ

(Two Worlds, One Heart)

Regie: Herbert Selpin

(Directed by Herbert Selpin)

The title faded, replaced by an aerial shot that made several audience members gasp. A city sprawled beneath winter clouds, its architect unlike anything in Teyvat. Massive stone buildings lined wide boulevards. Columns and domes punctuated the skyline. On all of the buildings were banners of flags of that crooked cross rippling the cold wind. The lens lovingly traced the grand architect and the busy streets that showed the sense of a society of order and purpose. Then a narration voice begin in German with translated subtitles appearing at the bottom of the screen.

"Berlin. A city of culture, of strength, of destiny. Where the old world meets the new. Where the impossible becomes real."

The film introduced its protagonists with calculated care. Yelena, a Fatui Electro Cicin Mage stationed at the Snezhnayan Embassy, beautiful and isolated in a strange world. Hans, a Wehrmacht officer, kind-faced and curious, ordered to attend a diplomatic reception. The camera work was sumptuous, the music swelling as their eyes met across a crowded ballroom with the crooked cross and eight-pointed star hanging side by side in the background.

"Remarkable," Hans breathed in one scene as Yelena demonstrated her powers, cicins dancing in purple light. "Perhaps together, our worlds can learn from each other. Your discipline, our gifts. Your technology, our ancient wisdom."

The courtship unfolded in a montage that made Aether's jaw tighten. Hans and Yelena in a snow-covered Berlin park. 

Yelena experiencing Wagner for the first time, tears in her eyes,"Your world has such culture. Such strength and purpose. I understand now why the Tsaritsa sees Germany as a true partner."

Hans listening reverently as Yelena spoke of the Cryo Archon's vision, "Your Tsaritsa sounds remarkable. A leader who dares to forge alliances across the very boundaries of reality itself."

Every scene was designed to normalize, to romanticize, to make the alliance seem not just acceptable but beautiful.

"This is making Paimon sick," Paimon whispered, her voice tight, "They're making the Fatui sound like heroes."

The film reached its crisis: Yelena ordered back to Snezhnaya, Hans finding her at the embassy gates in the rain, declaring his love. "My duty is to build bridges between our peoples. What better bridge could there be than this?"

The music swelled as they embraced, the camera framing them against both flags. Then a montage showed them together across Berlin with her teaching him cicin magic and him showing her German engineering. Both of them commended at an official ceremony for their ‘contribution to German-Snezhnayan relations.’

The final scene placed them on a balcony overlooking nighttime Berlin, cicins floating around them like purple stars mixing with amber streetlights.

"Two worlds," Yelena said softly.

"One heart," Hans completed.

They kissed as the camera rose above the city until Berlin was just a constellation of lights beneath winter clouds.

DAS ENDE

Ein Film über Freundschaft, Mut, und die Macht der Liebe, die alle Grenzen überwindet

(A film about friendship, courage, and the power of love that transcends all boundaries)

After the propaganda, the last film was played where the atmosphere in the pavilion felt different for Aether. The applause was there and loud, but it carried as if the audience was still trying to understand what they had just witnessed before them in Zwei Welten, Ein Herz. Aether especially watched Neuvillette rise from his seat at the front row with his long white hair and blue outfit. Iudex's expression was shown to be carefully neutral, he moved toward the stage with measured steps and the murmuring in the crowd died down.

"The committee thanks all the filmmakers for their entries," Neuvillette announced, his voice carrying that characteristic resonance that commanded attention without demanding it, "The judging panel will now convene to deliberate. We ask that all attendees remain in the plaza area. The results will be announced within two hours."

As people began filing out, Aether noticed Furina hadn't moved. Her blue crown-like tophat and tailored navy blue coat-dress with gold trim and buttons shined in the lighting of the pavilion.

“Furina?” Aether called softly as he moved to her row.

Furina blinked with her bright blue eyes as she was in a trance and then looked up at Aether.

 “Aether….Paimon….” She said quieter than she was days ago, “That was ... .did you see?”

"We saw," Aether confirmed, sliding into the seat beside her.

Furina’s gaze drifted back to the screen, “I couldn’t even watch that last film properly without thinking about that….well….That film... it was masterfully done. Every shot, every line of dialogue, every musical cue designed to make you feel something specific. To make you think about something specific.”

"It's propaganda," Paimon said by reminding her.

"Oh, I know," Furina replied, a hint of her usual sharpness returning. "But that doesn't make it less effective. I watched Fontainians around me and I saw them getting swept up in it. The romance, the music, the idea that two different worlds could come together in harmony..." 

She shook her head. "It's a beautiful lie. And beautiful lies are the most dangerous kind."

Xavier approached, having been stopped by several other filmmakers on his way out. 

"Lady Furina," he said with a respectful nod. "Your thoughts on the competition?"

Furina stood, smoothing her outfit with hands that trembled slightly. "My thoughts, Monsieur Xavier, are that we've just witnessed something that transcends film competition entirely."

She turned to face them fully, and Aether saw genuine fear in her eyes which is something that he'd rarely seen.

Two Hours Later

Two hours felt like an eternity as Aether, Apimon, and Xavier waited in the plaza along with the rest of the festival attendees. The German delegation stood in a tight cluster near the pavilion entrance, Meyer occasionally jotting notes in his small book. The Fatui operatives dispersed throughout the crowd, their masked faces unreadable but their body language gave the impression that they monitoring the reactions, conversations, and everything about the crowd.

Selpin moved among various groups, charming and affable, accepting early congratulations from some fontainians who seemed certain his film would win. Aether noticed the Director’s confidence, the way he smiled and gestured as if the outcome was already decided. Finally, the doors opened where Neuvillette emerged, followed by the five judges.

The crowd gathered around as Neuvillette mounted the small stage and the plaza fell silent.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Neuvillette began, his voice carrying that ancient authority that demanded attention without force, "The First Fontinalia Film Festival has presented five exceptional entries, each demonstrating remarkable artistry and vision. The judging panel has completed their deliberations."

He paused, his gaze sweeping across the crowd, lingering for just a moment on the German delegation.

"This festival was founded on principles that Fontaine holds sacred: fairness, artistic integrity, and the belief that art should be judged on its merits, not on the power of those who create it. The panel was charged with evaluating these films on cinematography, direction, performance, technical achievement, and narrative strength."

He paused, and Aether noticed his hands were clasped behind his back, fingers interlaced tightly.

"Before I announce the results," Neuvillette continued, "I must acknowledge that this competition has proven more complex than anticipated. We invited filmmakers from across Teyvat and beyond. We established judging criteria focused on artistic merit: cinematography, direction, performance, narrative coherence, and technical achievement."

Another pause. Aether could see Meyer leaning forward slightly, his face intent.

"The panel debated extensively," Neuvillette said. "There were... differing opinions on how certain criteria should be weighted. On whether some considerations transcended pure technical assessment." 

His eyes swept the crowd, "Ultimately, however, a decision was reached by majority vote."

He gestured to the judges behind him.

"Third place, for Excellence in Comedy and Cultural Storytelling: The Scholar's Quest, the Sumeru entry."

Polite applause followed immediately as the Sumeru director of the film, a elderly man with ink-stained fingers, accepted with a dignified bow.

"Second place, for Excellence in Historical Drama and Visual Spectacle: The Rebellion of the Falcon, the Mondstadt entry depicting Vennessa's uprising."

Stronger applause this time followed as The Mondstadt director stepped forward, a middle-aged woman whose calloused hands spoke of years working with actual film equipment.

Neuvillette's pause before the final announcement lasted several heartbeats. Aether saw Selpin stub out his cigarette while Meyer's expression had gone very still.

"And first place," Neuvillette said, his voice level and clear, "for Overall Excellence in Narrative Filmmaking, goes to The Two Musketeers, the Fontaine entry directed by Xavier."

For a moment, there was stunned silence. Until the fontainian section of the crowd erupted in applause and cheers. Xavier stood frozen for a heartbeat before Aether pushed him forward. The director moved forward in onto the stage and accepted the golden statue of Furina from Neuvillette's hands.

“Thank you,” Xavier, managed to say, “Thank you all so much for your recognition and support, his film was created by many hands. Actors from across nations that made a crew who believed in the story we were telling made this possible, whom I owe a special thanks to.”

The applause continued, but aether stopped watching Xavier and instead turned toward the German delegation Meyer’s face had gone completely expressionless. Beside him, Selpin looked stricken as if he had been physically struck. The other Wehrmacht Officers stood rigid, but their applause looked cold. Meanwhile, the Fatui operatives hadn’t moved at all One of the masked figures turned her head toward where Neuvillette stood. Even from this distance, even through the mask, Aether could feel the weight of that gaze.

"Oh boy," Paimon whispered. "Paimon thinks those soldiers aren't happy."

"No," Aether agreed quietly. "They're not."

As the crowd began to disperse, some moving to congratulate Xavier. Others heading toward the exits with nervous backward glances at the German delegation, Aether noticed Neuvillette descending from the stage. The Iudex moved through the crowd with purpose, his path bringing him directly toward where Aether and Paimon stood.

"Traveler," Neuvillette said, his voice pitched for their ears only. "Might I have a word? In private."

"Of course," Aether replied.

Aether and Paimon followed Neuvillette to his office at the Palais Mermonia, which was a long walk through the evening streets of Fontaine as it required taking an evaluator to the upper heights of the Court of Fontaine. They passed many citizens of the nation of law, most unaware of the brewing diplomatic storm that had just been unleashed at the film festival. However, after about 20 minutes, they arrived and passed through the grand doors, they saw a few Melusine doing various work. Aether recognized one as Sedene, who offered a small wave before returning to organize some stack of legal documents. Another, whose name that Aether couldn’t recall, paused in her hurried passage down the corridor to bow to Neuvillette before continuing on her way. Neuvillette led them to office, which was a space that Aether had been very familiar with since his journey into Fontaine but never for something like this kind of situation. The room was elegant as Aether remembered with its grand space, furniture, the tall glass blue window shined with sun on it, and the two couches facing each other.  As they entered, Sedene arrived to close the door behind them as Neuvillette walked up to his desk and sat on his chair. 

"That was difficult," he said finally, his voice quiet in the stillness of the office.

"The judging?" Aether asked, moving to stand a respectful distance behind him.

“The decision.” Neuvillette admitted, “Normally, I do not get involved in such affairs outside of my duties. However, I felt that the situation called for it, I agreed to ensure that the results were fair and were not pressed by outside forces.”

Neuvillette leaned back slightly in his chair, his fingers steepled before him, “The panel was indeed split with three to two votes between the Two Musketeers and the German Film. Some of the judges were concerned as they were torn between their professional assessment and their instincts.

Aether settled onto one of the couches, Paimon floating down to sit beside him. 

"What convinced them?" Aether asked.

"Ultimately, it was a question I posed to them." Neuvillette's ancient eyes reflected the lamplight, "I asked them to consider not just what they were judging, but what their judgment would mean. Especially what message Fontaine would send by crowning one film over another."

Neuvillette rose from his chair and moved to the tall blue window with his silhouette framed against the evening light filtering through as he continued to speak, “By purely technical measures, the German-Snezhnayan film was exceptional as they have everything that they need to make the film.”

"But that wasn't the whole picture," Aether said.

"No," Neuvillette turned from the window, “There were concerns on the precedent that it would set for Fontaine especially in the fact that most of the directors do not have the resources of two nations combined. Plus some of the judges were not comfortable about the political message on the propaganda seen Eventually, they agreed that the Two Musketeers, while less polished but more honest in its intent, deserved the reward.”

“But are you concerned about what the German’s and Fatui will say or do now?” Paimon asked as she floated over to his desk.

Neuvillette closed his eyes with a smirk, which is a rare occurrence for him as he replied to Paimon’s concern, “Not much really, the German’s claim that they are fighting for a world of German righteousness. Well, I suspect if the film is a vision of what that world is, I believe that at the moment that they have their hands full on making that world. Plus I doubt that the film is enough for a casus belli at all. The Fatui, on the other hand….well, I guess we will see soon then.”

Then the doors opened with Sedene arrived with a knock.

“Monsieur Iudex, Oberleutnant Meyer wishes to speak you about the decision of the judges at the Film Festival. He says that it is urgent.” She said softly with her face troubled.

Neuvillette's smirk faded, replaced by his usual composed neutrality. "I informed him through Liath that I would see him tomorrow at ten o'clock. Did he not receive that message?"

"He did, Monsieur," Sedene replied, wringing her small hands nervously. "He said he received it, but that the matter cannot wait until tomorrow. That there are... misunderstandings that must be corrected immediately before they cause irreparable damage to relations between Fontaine and the German Reich." 

She lowered her voice as she continued, "He was very polite about it, Monsieur, but there was something in his eyes that made me uncomfortable."

Neuvillette was silent for a moment, his gaze unreadable but then he glanced at Aether and Paimon as . "It appears the Oberleutnant is more insistent than I anticipated."

"Should we leave?" Aether asked, starting to rise from the couch.

"No," Neuvillette said firmly as he returned to his seat, "Stay. I suspect having witnesses to this conversation may prove... prudent."

He turned back to Sedene, "Show the Oberleutnant in. And Sedene, please remain nearby in case I need to summon additional documentation or witnesses."

"Of course, Monsieur," Sedene said, relief evident in her voice that she wouldn't have to tell the intimidating foreign officer 'no' again. She disappeared, and moments later, the sound of measured military footsteps echoed down the corridor.

Oberleutnant Meyer entered the office with the bearing of a man who was accustomed to being obeyed. His Wehrmacht uniform was immaculate, every button polished, every crease precise. He removed his peaked cap and tucked it under his arm as he stood at attention before Neuvillette's desk as he gave a salute extending his arm out and a sharp ‘Heil Hitler’.

Neuvillette remained seated with his hands folded on his desk and did not return the gesture. After a moment of complete silence, he simply inclined his head slightly, “Oberleutnant Meyer. Please, sit."

Meyer’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly as he lowered his arm and settled into the couch  that faced toward Aether and Paimon.

“Herr Iudex,” Meyer began with his tone both cold and professional, “I apologize for the late intrusion, but the matter is of considerable urgency. What transpired at the festival this evening cannot wait tomorrow to be addressed.”

"So I was informed," Neuvillette replied, his voice calm and measured. "However, I was under the impression we had scheduled a meeting for tomorrow morning at ten o'clock. Was that arrangement not satisfactory?"

Meyer's eyes narrowed slightly, "Under normal circumstances, it would be more than satisfactory. However, these are not normal circumstances, Herr Iudex. What occurred at the festival this evening represents a significant diplomatic incident that requires immediate clarification before misunderstandings harden into something more... regrettable."

"I see no incident," Neuvillette said evenly, "A film competition was held according to established rules. Independent judges evaluated the entries according to publicly announced criteria. A decision was reached through proper deliberation and majority vote. The process was transparent, fair, and conducted with integrity."

"Fair?" Meyer's voice remained controlled, but something sharp entered it. "Herr Iudex, with all due respect, I must contest that characterization with strong emphasis. The German-Snezhnayan film was demonstrably superior in by exceeding all other entries in all technological elements."

"Technical proficiency is only one aspect of artistic merit," Neuvillette replied. "The judges evaluated overall excellence, which includes narrative integrity, thematic depth, and artistic honesty. They determined The Two Musketeers best exemplified those qualities."

Meyer leaned forward slightly. "Or they determined that politics were more important than quality. That avoiding the awkwardness of honoring a film celebrating the Reich was worth compromising your competition's integrity."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop quickly.

Neuvillette's expression didn't change, but something ancient flickered behind his eyes, "Oberleutnant Meyer, I will assume you misspoke due to disappointment. Because the alternative in accusing Fontaine's institutions of corruption  would be an insult I could not overlook."

Meyer held his ground. "I am stating facts as I observe them. The superior film was denied recognition due to political considerations which suggests either incompetence or bias among your judges."

"Your premise is flawed," Neuvillette said, his voice taking on absolute authority. "You assume technical superiority automatically equals artistic excellence. It does not. The judges concluded that The Two Musketeers, while less polished, told a more honest story with greater integrity. It explored genuine moral complexity without resorting to emotional manipulation for political purposes."

"Political purposes," Meyer repeated, "What I witnessed was a deliberate choice to punish the Reich for its Snezhnayan alliance."

"If you interpret honest evaluation as punishment, that reveals more about your expectations than our intentions," Neuvillette replied, "Fontaine has not taken sides in Earth's conflicts. We judged art according to our principles. Nothing more."

Meyer set his cap on the arm of the couch as he responded, "Then let me speak plainly, Herr Iudex. The Reich invested considerable resources in this film as a gesture of cultural exchange. Your rejection sends a message that Fontaine views the Reich with suspicion rather than friendship. And after years of being unfairly treated as lesser beings by Europe, this will be noted in Berlin."

Neuvillette's expression grew colder, "The Reich's interpretation is the Reich's concern. We cannot control Berlin's reactions, nor will we compromise our principles to manage them."

"Perceptions matter in international relations," Meyer said, his voice lowering, "Berlin will expect an explanation. They will want to know if Fontaine deliberately insulted the Reich, or if this was poor judgment by biased evaluators. The distinction matters for future relations."

"Then report accurately," Neuvillette said with finality. "Report that Fontaine held a fair competition. That our judgment reflects honest professional assessment. If Berlin manufactures insults from an honest process, that reveals more about Berlin's expectations than Fontaine's intentions."

Meyer's eyes went very cold, "You understand the Reich has many friends across Teyvat. That our Snezhnayan alliance opens many doors. Nations that cooperate with us find it... beneficial. Those who choose hostility..." 

He spread his hands slightly, "They often discover isolation carries costs."

Neuvillette rose from his chair, drawing to his full height with a reply "Is that a threat, Oberleutnant?"

Meyer stood as well. "A simple observation about international relations. Actions have consequences and I would be failing my duty if I didn't ensure you understood the implications."

"I understand perfectly," Neuvillette said quietly, but with absolute authority, "You're attempting to intimidate Fontaine into reversing a fair judgment. By suggesting we'll face consequences unless we validate your propaganda."

His eyes held dangerous depths that Aether knew never those purple shaded eyes could hold, "Allow me to be equally clear. Fontaine rebuilt itself after centuries of crisis. We do not bend to threats and we certainly do not compromise our principles for convenience. If the Reich wishes to interpret honest evaluation as an insult and to punish us for refusing to validate propaganda, so be it. We will face those consequences with our integrity intact."

Meyer stood very still, calculating. Finally, he reached for his cap. "I see we will not reach an understanding tonight. Very well. I will report that Fontaine stands by this decision despite the obvious superiority of our entry and the diplomatic implications."

"Report that Fontaine stands by the integrity of its processes and principles," Neuvillette corrected, "How your government chooses to editorialize is your decision."

Meyer placed his cap on his head with military precision, "I hope, for both our nations' sake, that tonight's decision doesn't prove to be the beginning of unnecessary complications."

"Fontaine does not require a relationship with the Reich," Neuvillette said simply. "We are cordial with all nations, but dependent on none. Our principles are not negotiable with anybody."

Meyer turned toward the door, then paused, looking back at Aether, "Traveler, I noticed you helped with the winning film. I wonder how fortunate for Herr Xavier to have such influential friends. I'm certain that had no bearing on the judges' decision at all, I hope."

Aether met his gaze steadily, "I held a camera for a few scenes and helped on editing at times. The film won because Xavier is a talented director who told an honest story about justice and corruption. Your film couldn't manage that because it was too busy making an alliance with the Fatui look like destiny instead of what it really is."

Meyer's smile was thin and cold. "One nation's truth is another's propaganda, Traveler. What you call propaganda, we call presenting reality."

Meyer then turned back to Neuvillette,"Tomorrow at ten o'clock, Herr Iudex. I will be punctual."

"I expect nothing less," Neuvillette replied, the words formally correct but carrying no warmth.

Meyer gave a sharp nod, executed a precise about-face, and strode from the office. His footsteps echoed down the corridor with measured military precision. For a few moments, the office was silent and Paimon let out a sharp breath that she did not know that she was hold back.

Sedene appeared at the door. "Monsieur? Is everything all right?"

"Yes, Sedene. Thank you." Neuvillette's voice was tired. "Please inform the night staff I'll be working late as there will be documents to prepare."

After she left, Neuvillette moved to the window, looking out over Fontaine's lights. "Well. That went approximately as expected."

"He threatened you," Paimon said, her voice small.

"Yes. Wrapped in diplomatic language I have heard before, but a threat nonetheless." Neuvillette didn't turn from the window, "The Reich will not forget this, I have no doubts on that. They'll frame it as an insult because that serves their interests."

"What will they do?" Aether asked.

"Complaining through diplomatic channels, threatening to withdraw from cultural exchanges, and trying to pressure other nations to isolate us is what I imagine." Neuvillette's reflection was visible in the dark glass, "But Germany itself is limited. They're fighting a war on Earth. Fontaine is beyond their direct reach. Their anger is real, but their immediate options are few. One cannot fight two fronts at once with finite resources"

"Unless the Fatui act on their behalf," Aether said.

"Yes." Neuvillette finally turned, "That is what concerns me most. Although, I suspect that I will get a stronger response. Possibly threats to cut off trade agreements and other similar measures, but I doubt that the Fatui are going to start a war over this incident.”

He trailed off, then straightened his shoulders for a moment, and then continued as he turned toward Aether, "But we'll deal with that when it comes, I suppose. For now, I suggest that you and Paimon enjoy the rest of the festival and rest.”

“Will you join us?” Paimon asked.

“I am afraid not. I have much to do and prepare.” Neuvillette replied, “Not only for tomorrow, but I suspect the months to come as well with our new otherworldly visitors.

Aether looked at Neuvillette as he wondered whether or not the Chief Justice, also called Iudex of Fontaine, was more concerned about recent events than he let out. If he was concerned about the German’s, then maybe he was hiding concerns on whether or not that war of German righteousness would actually come to Teyvat and particularly Fontaine.

March 14th, 1941

Officers’ Club, Berlin

The room was small and deliberately unremarkable with a private lounge on the third floor of the the Officers’ club, where the Wehrmacht staff could escape the constant performance of Berlin’s social obligations as a German soldier. Von Roon had chosen it specifically because no Part officials frequented it, no photographers lurked in corners, and the steward who brought their drinks had the good sense to disappear afterward. A steward brought Von Roon and Pug some drinks and disappeared quickly afterward.

Between the two was a low table and on the center of the table was a chessboard where Von Roon had white and Pug had black. This sort of thing had become a ritual between them over the past few months, where two professionals could speak more freely than protocol usually allowed. Von Roon opened with his King’s pawn, where Pug mirrored it.

“So, tell me, what is this smoke screen from your President Roosevelt of things like lending and leasing and garden hoses?”

Pug advanced his own knight to buy a moment to frame his answer, “Well, It's a metaphor the President used. If your neighbor's house is on fire, you don't sell him your garden hose. Instead, you lend it to him so he can put out the fire before it spreads to your house."

"A charming image." Von Roon captured Pug's pawn. "And Britain is the house on fire while America is the house out across the other city where the fire will long have since died out."

"Britain is holding out against considerable odds," Pug said carefully, developing his Bishop, “Plus there is precedent for this. The British get whatever they want as long as they are returned to us in good condition.”

Von Roon smirked at Pug and said, “It’s Poppycock.”

“It’s Politics.” Pug replied with his own grin and spoke in Von Roon’s tone.

Von Roon studied the board, then moved his Queen's pawn forward, “Why is your President Roosevelt so afraid to tell the truth? In fact, I know what your dear Roosevelt should say.”

“Oh….And what’s that?” Pug asked curiously.

Von Roon looked Pug at the eyes as he spoke, “My friends, this War is for not only the mastery of our world, but now the other world too. We should achieve it with minimum american bloodshed. Let’s encourage others to do the fighting for us against our enemies of both worlds.They will utilize our early models of war and useless equipment, then at the last moment step in and take the prize That is the meaning of Lend-lease, American victory….it’s true meaning.”

Pug moved his Rook, keeping his expression neutral, "That's a cynical way of looking at it. Since we are talking about other worlds now, how did your Fatui friends take the news?”

Von Roon’s expression shifted to something between amusement and concern, "About as well as you’d expect. They perfectly understood the implications and measured what exactly Britain could get by the ton. Pantalone, in particular, explained it to the furher as the first domino falling.  Today you are lending Destroyers. Tomorrow, you could be escorting convoys. Next month? Who knows? American troops in Iceland? Bases in Greenland?”

"We're just helping a friend put out a fire," Pug said mildly.

"You're choosing which house survives the fire," Von Roon corrected. "And the Tsaritsa is very interested in understanding why you chose Britain's house over... alternatives."

"You mean over Germany's house," Pug said.

"I mean over staying out of it entirely." Von Roon captured another pawn. "Your President could have remained truly neutral. Let Europe sort itself out while America profits from selling to all sides. Instead, he's mortgaging American resources to keep Churchill afloat." 

He paused for a moment and continued, "The Fatui want to know if that's just about Britain, or if it's about something larger."

"Larger how?" Pug asked.

"Whether America sees Germany and by extension, Snezhnaya as a threat that must be contained." Von Roon explained.

A knock at the door interrupted them.

Von Roon frowned. "I left explicit instructions not to be disturbed."

The door opened as the steward stood there, his face pale, and stuttered, "Forgive me, Herr General, but there is a visitor who insists….."

Arlecchino stepped past him and dressed in her usual elegant outfit with the black, white, red, and grey that was perfectly tailored to perfection. Those red-crossed eyes found Pug first, then shifted to Von roon.

"General," she said, her voice carrying absolute authority that needed no volume. "I apologize for the intrusion, but I need to speak with Commander Henry."

Von Roon stood immediately, military instinct overriding any annoyance, "Your Excellency. Of course. I was just….."

"Losing at chess," Arlecchino said, glancing at the board with those burning eyes, "Your position is overextended, General. Too much pressure without adequate support where you have a bold strategy, but vulnerable to counterattack. I figured that you would understand that considering what we discussed today with Herr Hitler in certain situations.”

Von Roon’s expression didn’t change much, but something seemed to have flickered behind his eyes as if he understood that this conversation wasn’t really about chess. And if it was chess,it was on a much larger board than the one sitting between him and Pug.

“I’ll leave you to your discussion,” he said, inclining his head to both of them and collected his cap from the side table, "Commander Henry, perhaps we can finish our game another time. The Fuhrer has extended my stay in Berlin for another week before I am to inspect our part of pacified Poland.”

"I'd like that," Pug replied, standing as well.

Von Roon paused at the door, glancing back at the chessboard one more time as he analyzing the words Arlecchino said on his position on the board. Then he left the room as his footsteps faded down the corridor.

The steward started to follow, but Arlecchino raised one gloved hand, "We won't need anything further. Please ensure we're not disturbed, this is especially strict orders from Herr Hitler and Ribbentrop themselves."

"Of course, Your Excellency," The steward practically fled, closing the door behind him with a soft click.

Arlecchino moved to the window, her silhouette framed against berlin’s dimmed evening lights. The blackout regulations gave the city a muted shadowy quality.

“I have a feeling that you know why I used to talk to you, so soon, Commander Henry?” Arlecchino said.

“The Lend-lease Act., I would assume.” Pug answered.

“Correct.” Arlecchino said as she turned to face him, “Your newspapers have been quite enthusiastic as well as your President Roosevelt’s speeches. Pantalone liked his ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ rhetoric.”

"I don't doubt his sincerity," Arlecchino moved away from the window, her footsteps silent on the thick carpet, "But sincerity doesn't change strategic reality as it is evident that America has chosen sides. The Tsaritsa needs to understand what that means for Snezhnaya and what it means for the war your President claims he's not fighting."

She moved to a fireplace where she faced toward with a smirk. After a few seconds, she shifted her stance and lifted one hand, palm turned slightly toward the floor. Then what came next was subtle at first, where a high-backed chair unfolded out of thin air. The chair….a throne more appropriately can be called was slender, blade-like curves forming that looked carved from molten glass and shadow. The part that really shocked Pug was that it had no legs at all as the chair was floating as if by some form of demonic magic similar to that mushroom cloud. 

Arlecchino settled into it with a perfect pose as she crossed one leg over the other and those red crossed eyes watched him with amusement.

"You're staring, Commander."

"Habit," Pug said, forcing his voice to stay level, "When something doesn't make sense, you study it until it does."

"And does it make sense now?"

"No," Pug admitted. "But I'm getting used to that feeling around you people."

That response earned Pug a faint smile with barely a curve at the corner of her mouth, “An honest answer is good. I prefer dealing with people who don’t pretend to understand everything that they see.”

Pug settled back into his seat, acutely aware he was now sitting while she floated on her conjured throne.

“Fifty billion dollars in military aid to Britain,” Arlecchino said as her voice carried absolute authority, “Ships, planes, weapons, ammo….everything Churchill needs to continue fighting Germany and all of this done under maintaining the fiction of American neutrality.”

"It's a loan," Pug said, keeping his tone mild. "We're lending equipment to a friend who'll return it when the emergency is over. Nothing in the act says we're at war."

“Commander,” She said with amusement noticed again in her voice, “We both know that distinction is semantic. You are arming Germany’s enemy while U-boats try to starve Britain into submission. From Hitler’s and the Tsaritsa’s position, America has just abandoned neutrality in everything but name.”

Pug glanced at the chessboard again with Von Roon’s pieces frozen in their overextended position, “I can’t speak to Hitler’s or the Tsaritsa’s position. I can only say that there is precedent legally and congressed passed a constitutional law, the president signed it. We as a sovereign nation are acting in our rights.”

“Of course, you are.” Arlecchino leaned back slightly in her floating throne, “The Tsaritsa has no quarrel with America’s sovereignty, we are not the British Navy in 1807 by doing impressment on your own waters against your ships. The Tsaritsa is only concerned about the trajectory that this will set up as lend-lease is the beginning of American entry to the war.”

“So General von Roon was saying," Pug replied.

"And he was correct," She leaned forward slightly, "Lord Pantalone presented the Führer with detailed projections this afternoon. Economic calculations of what Britain can now receive, how quickly American industrial capacity can be mobilized, what it means for the timeline of this conflict." 

She paused for a moment and then continued, "The numbers are... significant."

"I imagine they would be," Pug said carefully.

"This war just became substantially longer and more costly than Germany anticipated," Arlecchino continued bluntly, "Britain, which was months away from exhaustion, now has years of American resources behind it. The strategic calculus has fundamentally changed."

She tilted her head slightly, those burning eyes studying him, "The Tsaritsa does not want war with America, Commander Henry. She has no interest in seeing our alliance with Germany drag us into conflict with your nation. That serves neither Snezhnaya's interests nor, I suspect, America's."

"Then we're in agreement," Pug said. "Nobody wants that war."

"Then let us prevent it." Arlecchino explained, “Lend-lease is a provocation. Germany will respond soon, they must or appear weak before their own people and allies. That will provoke further American action, then your destroyers will engage U-boats. And then maybe Hitler will ask the Tsaritsa to intervene against the British, maybe find a way to cut off it’s life-line from America before it becomes unmanageable. Then tensions between Snezhnaya and America will increase with the Mirror Maidens sabotaging British Ports and Fatui forces killing British soldiers or worse, American sailors escorting those convoys. We have already started to make improvements to the German military arm that I suspect that the world will soon see.”

The floating throne drifted slightly closer, as if drawn by her intensity.

"Once Snezhnayan forces engage American personnel, even indirectly, tensions between our nations will escalate beyond anyone's control. Your President will face pressure to respond. The Tsaritsa will face pressure from Berlin to commit more forces. The spiral becomes inevitable."

Pug felt a chill that had nothing to do with the room’s temperature as she painted a picture of exactly how this could go wrong. By proving the idea of Fatui operatives with supernatural abilities killing American sailors in the Atlantic.

"The Tsaritsa proposes an alternative." were the next words spoken by Arlecchino.

“Her Majesty is willing to send a Harbinger to Washington to negotiate directly with President Roosevelt. Arlecchino explained as her gaze never wavered.

Pug raised an eyebrow at the idea of a Harbinger someone like Arlecchino going to negotiate with FDR in Washington, DC with sovereign authority to negotiate.

Arlechino continued with a smirk, “The Tsaritsa has explained to our Director, Pierro, that she is willing to send either the Regrator or as you know him as Lord Pantalone, who oversees Snezhnaya's economic and the diplomatic affairs in Earth. However, if your President has a preference, there is Lord Tartagalia who is being transferred to earth mainly for military operations abroad. The two of them would come with full authority to discuss accommodations regarding American aid to Britain.”

Pug kept his face neutral, but his mind raced through the implications, "What kind of accommodations?"

“A resolution,” Arlecchino clarified, “Some arrangement that addresses both American and Axis concerns. Perhaps limitations on certain types of aid such as no American troops or no direct military involvement. Perhaps some arguments about which materials and its amounts that Britain gets or even post-war arrangements that would make continued British resistance pointless.”

She spread her hands slightly and continued, “The specifics would be determined in Washington, between your president and our harbinger. But the goal would be finding a path that avoids full American belligerency to avoid escalation toward total war.”

The idea was stunning, but not other only the calculated precision of it. The Fatui had no doubt thought through the flashpoints, the escalation ladder, the exact moments where things could spiral out of control. They were offering an off-ramp before any of it happened, where Hitler would just make threats and probably act on them. The Fatui were taking a different route completely. However, one thing going through Pug’s mind was what is the price for all of this.

"And what would the Tsaritsa require in exchange?" Pug asked as he thought of the names of this new harbinger and the Fatui Director that he never meet. Pierro and Tartagalia…..The names with Arlecchino and Pantalone sounded very familiar. He swore that he heard of those names somewhere before in his life in the name. But it was a long time ago and he could not make the connection on why he heard those names before.

"One condition only," Arlecchino's gaze held steady, “ Public recognition of Snezhnaya as a sovereign nation by the United States government. This would allows us to maybe appoint that Harbinger as a Charge D’Affairs in terms of relations between the US and the Tsaritsa where we can establish our own embassy in DC to continue our talks to try to prevent further tensions.”

There it was the price for the talks. Recognition of this Wagner-like nation that Churchill calls it would legitimize everything about this fantasy alliance. The Fatui and the Tsaritsa with Germany recognized as being real would tell the world that America took this ‘other world’ seriously, that Snezhnaya wasn't Nazi propaganda but a real power deserving respect and negotiation. On the other hand, it would also open channels for intelligence, create opportunities to exploit any differences between Snezhnaya and Germany, potentially drive wedges into the Axis alliance…However, it would tell Churchill that maybe he should take the concern of the Fatui entrance into the Axis Alliance seriously.

The idea of wedging differences between Snezhnaya and Germany was not entirely wild. The British had been able to do that in keeping Francisco Franco’s Spain from thus far joining the Nazi’s against them after the fall of France. Pug remembered a talk that he had with Churchill’s Foreign Minister Edward Wood in which Britain was able to convince Franco’s Generals to press the idea directly to Franco that entrance to the war would be disastrous for the new fascist regime trying to rebuild from its victorious civil war that ended just months before Hitler’s invasion of Poland.

However, the other issue running to Pug’s mind was the idea of the Fatui having an Embassy in DC itself. If America recognizes Snezhnaya as a nation and allows it to build such a embassy, what is to say that they, the Fatui, would not use it to do their own intelligence operations on American strength. Pug was not exactly comfortable with the idea as he knew by now through Von Roon that the Fatui were very good in intelligence to the point that Henrich Himmler, himself, wanted to implement some of the information gathering that the Fatui used to bolster his Gestapo and SS.

Finally Pug responded to Arlecchino, “That’s not a decision I can make on these talks. In fact, that’s the President’s call, State Department’s and probably Congress’s too.”

"Of course." Arlecchino nodded. "I'm not asking for commitment, Commander. I'm asking you to carry this proposal to President Roosevelt and convey the Tsaritsa's genuine desire to prevent unnecessary escalation."

She leaned forward in her throne, and those red crosses burned brighter.

"We're not asking America to abandon Britain. We're not demanding you repeal Lend-Lease. We're simply offering a channel for discussion before positions harden and events spiral beyond anyone's control."

"Why now?" Pug asked, "Germany's winning. Most of Europe's under Axis control. Why negotiate from a position of strength?"

"Because Her Majesty thinks strategically, not emotionally," Arlecchino replied, "She knows Lend-Lease changes everything. As Lord Pantalone explained to the Führer this afternoon, this war could now drag on for years of attrition that serve no one's interests. Your first great war showed that exactly."

The throne drifted back slightly, “And because the Tsaritsa's alliance with Germany is one of shared interests, not shared fate. We fight our own war, Commander of rebellion against the heavenly Principles, our preparation for the day we challenge Celestia itself.”

"I'll report this to the President," Pug said carefully, "That's all I can promise."

"That's all we ask," Arlecchino rose from her throne, and the chair simply dissolved fading into nothing like smoke dispersing in wind. She stood before him now on solid ground, though somehow still projecting that same sense of elevation and authority.

She extended her gloved hand.

Pug took it and could not noticed that her grip was firm, cool, utterly controlled.

"One more thing, Commander," she said. "When you write your report and we both know you will convey something personal from me to your President."

"What's that?" Pug asked.

“Tell him that the Tsaritsa respects leaders that act decisively when their nation’s interests are at stake. That Lend-lease was bold…very bold. It took courage to push that through your Congress against considerable opposition, she paused for a moment and looking at her fingers, “But tell him that boldness sometimes leads to places no one intended to go.”

She moved toward the door, then glanced back one final time.

"Tell him the door is open, Commander Henry. But doors don't stay open forever. Eventually, circumstances close them. The question is whether he's wise enough to walk through while the option still exists."

Then she was gone, her footsteps fading down the corridor with that same silent grace. Pug stood alone in the small room, staring at the space where that impossible throne had been floating moments ago.

At the Snezhnayan Embassy in the Tiergarten in Berlin

Three Hours Later

The office on the third floor of the requisitioned mansion had once belonged to a textile merchant. The walls of the stolen office held maps of Europe, the Balkans, and shipping routes across the Mediterranean as well as the Atlantic.

Pantalone stood before the largest map, a cup of tea steaming on the desk beside him. His spectacles caught the lamplight as he studied the borders of Yugoslavia, his finger tracing the rail lines from Belgrade south toward Greece. The door opened without a knock as Arlecchino entered, pulling off her gloves.

"Well?" Pantalone asked without turning.

"He'll deliver the message." Arlecchino explained, “Whether Roosevelt acts on it is another question entirely."

"Your assessment of Commander Henry?"

"Smart. Cautious. Observant. He's not convinced we're sincere, but he's intrigued enough to advocate for at least considering it. That's all we need at this stage." Arlecchino explain as she moved to the sidebar and poured herself a glass of wine.

Pantalone finally turned from the map with a smirk with those closed eyes as he spoke, "And you showed him the throne."

"I did." Arlecchino started with a faint smile, "Americans respond well to demonstrations. They're a practical people. Just show them what you can do, and they take you seriously. Show them nothing, and they assume you're bluffing."

“Practical, which is why they’ll recognize us,” Pantalone agreed moving to his desk to retrieve a cigarette from a draw and placed it on his lips. He took a fancy lighter in the shape of a panzer that he got as a gift from Nazi Minister of Economics Walther Funk during the meeting that Pantalone had with almost the whole German war industry and economy.

He took a breath out of the cigarette and a good puff as he continued, “The Americans will want to talk not because of altruism, but they want to know more about us and our world. Maybe to see if they can separate us from Germany.”

"Can we?" Arlecchino asked, settling into a chair opposite him.

"Of course, we were never truly joined tightly. We could militarily challenge Germany, but we only need Germany to modernize our own forces especially," Pantalone's smile was thin, “Why do you think that I bought that cargo company that the Rosenfeld’s owned from Goring’s good friend Wolf Stöller. We now control five freighters with established routes to neutral countries.”

Pantalone moved back to the map gesturing to the shipping landes, “Sweden for iron ore, Spain for Tungsten, Portugal for Wolfram, and Argentina for grain. All under Snezhnayan registry, which means we're technically neutral shipping but not belligerents in Britain’s fight against the Germans. They legal can’t touch our vessels without declaring war on Snezhnaya, which Churchill isn't prepared to do."

“And you assume that Churchill will care about that?” Arlecchino stated with a role of her eyes, “You assume that he would even acknowledge Snezhnaya as an actual nation? As far as the chain smoking man with a drinking habit that would put Babartos to shame. He will sink our ships saying that they are German vessels in disguise.”

Pantalone opened his eyes finally with a widen smile, “Oh, Churchill will care. Not out of respect for international law on the planet. But you’re right that he had little patience for legal niceties when it comes to strangling Germany’s supply lines. But he has one main problem that will make him hesitate any action against our ships.”

Pantalone with smile and smoking coming out of his cigarette explained it like as if he was talking about the weather. If Churchill decided immediately that any Snezhnayan flagged ships were stopped by the royal navy, heading to neutral ports to deliver the goods, then there was not much that they could do. As long as the ships were not sailing on their papers to a Germany or Italian port as their destination, then the justification to sink them was lost. But he explained the main problem in that should he declare that Snezhnayan-flagged vessels are legitimate targets, he's not just bending neutrality law. The chain smoker was effectively declaring to the world officially no matter the proof that Snezhnaya doesn't exist as a sovereign nation. This would open a unique situation for Roosevelt should he agree to hold the talks and recognize Snezhnaya as a sovereign nation in another world, then it opens up some serious complications from America for Churchill.

Arlecchino taking another sip of her wine looked at Pantalone with a look of curiosity.

"Churchill doesn't care about American complications," Arlecchino countered.

“No, but Roosevelt does.” Pantalone explained, taking another drag from his cigarette, “Churchill needs Roosevelt more than he needs to sink five freighters of a neutral axis nation. If attacking our flagged vessels complicates Roosevelt’s position to help Britain. I would have no doubts that isolationists would have a hell of a day on the fact that ‘England is dragging America into a war with mysterious foreign powers’.”

He tapped ash into the tray with his eyes closed back but that smile remained as he continued to explain. Even though America had recently passed the Lend-Lease Act, there are still a strong faction of isolationists in this planet’s land of the free. Senator Wheeler, Charles Lindbbergh, and the whole America First Committee are already screaming that Roosevelt is steering America into Britain’s war for Britain’s own imperial interest. Pantalone explained that by adding the idea of Churchill sinking Snezhnayan-flagged vessels while America recognizes Snezhnaya. Then Roosevelt would be caught between two choices: defend Britain’s actions using American lend-lease goods which would make him look like Churchill’s puppet or condemn them which would damage the very alliance that he is trying to support with Lend-lease. In this matter, Churchill’s hands were tied and it would be with Fatui not even having to fire a single shot of any element or steel at him if all goes well.

“Now what about those talks with Yugoslavia.” Arlecchino questioned.

Pantalone's expression shifted subtly, the merchant's calculating smile giving way to something more focused. He moved back to the map, his finger finding Belgrade.

“I expect Prince Paul to sign the Tripartite Pact on March 25th which is 11 days from now,” Pantalone continued to trace the borders of Yugoslavia where it is surrounded by Axis powers and satellites, “I think he is starting to accept that he has no real choice. He is an island in an Axis sea. His military leadership is split and would rather fight the germans, the Prince will not last past the point that the ink drys.”

“Should we consider intervening for him? To ensure that we have another nation dependent on us?” Arlecchino suggested, “I can have House of the Hearth agents incapacitate his generals and opponents and say their Prince Peter is not ready to be king.”

"Tempting, but ultimately counterproductive," he said, taking his drag and exhaling slowly, “The British have been building networks for years and your House is good, but I doubt that you can find all the links within 11 days. Plus helping to keep Paul in power will cost more than its worth, he will be resented by his people of different cultures in a nation struggling to keep order. Italy is already a untrustworthy partner in this alliance with its blunders in North Africa and Greece, Tsaritsa is willing to tolerate one. Any more the alliance becomes a liability to her. Plus the Tsaritsa wants to test Fatui combat effectiveness in action in this world and the terrain of Yugoslavia and Greece are perfect for us with it similar to the roughest areas of Teyvat like Liyue and Mondstadt, especially since we need preparation for Barbarossa.”

Arlecchino nodded as she bid goodnight to Pantalone as she felt that there was nothing else to talk about, she took the remains of her half filled glass and walked out of the office to leave Pantalone to his devices. She walked down the hallway to reach her quarters as halfway to her destination, she thought about this whole plan and how it connects to the real reason why the Tsaritsa was willing to engage in a otherworldly alliance with a cabal of militaristic nations with dreams of nationalistic grandeur that made her sick to the core with Germany’s racial policies for example toward Jews. If she had her way, she would throw this alliance out and withdraw completely from this planet. Normally, the Tsaritsa took any advice or suggestions that she gave to heart but now anything that was related to this planet and its war was not heard when it related to anything about pulling back. The Tsaritsa and by extension Pierro were wanting to draw deeper and deeper into the conflict for the project that they had set forth. The only thing that the Tsaritsa and Pierro were willing to compromise on was finding ways to avoid a complete America intervention into this war. 

She studied the history of that nation called America and how it was founded by men that believed in principles that ironically were in opposition to everything that this disgusting Third Reich represented. Ideas of principles like self-governance, individual liberty, and the rejection of divine right and hereditary aristocracy. The phrase in their Declaration of Independence of ‘All men are created equal’ would get some people in Berlin shot and as people that lived in some parts of Teyvat. She could imagine Former Grand Sage Azar and Mondstadt’s Schubert Lawerence arguing completely against that in every way shape or form. From what she learned about those two individuals especially, they would have been supportive of Germany's Nuremberg Laws and adopted it in their own forms. Azar would limit the rights of Emerites and desert folk, while Lawerence would gladly apply it to those that he saw less than him as an Aristocrat of the Old Mondstadt.

Arlecchino paused at a window overlooking the darkened garden as she sipped her wine. The pale rectangles on the walls where the Rosenfeld family portraits had hung seemed to watch her in the dim light.

“Three children,” she thought, remembering what she'd said to Pantalone earlier, “Relocated with the files listing transfer to Łódź.”

She knew what that meant, even if the Reich's bureaucratic language tried to obscure it. She'd seen the reports that crossed her desk, the ones the Germans thought they were sharing with trusted allies. Ghettos and resettlement were terms that meant many things. But the terms that were most important were starvation, disease, and worse to come if the reports as well as interests from Dottore were to be believed. The Rosenfeld children were probably already dead or would be soon. The House of the Hearth was rebuilt in her principles after she killed Crucabena for the Children to serve a true purpose as a family with her as it’s ‘father’.

But here she was, helping to prop up a regime that industrialized that very discard process.

“For the greater good,” Pierro would say, “For the Tsaritsa's plan. For the war against Celestia.”

Arlecchino resumed walking toward her quarters. This entire mansion was a monument to organized theft, down to the silverware in the dining room and the books in the library.

“At least in the House of the Hearth,” she thought, “When we take something from someone, we're honest about what we are. We don't pretend it's legal. We don't stamp official paperwork on it and call it 'Aryanization.'”

She reached her door which was another stolen space, she had ordered the furniture replaced, the personal items removed and stored rather than destroyed. Small mercies that changed nothing but let her sleep marginally better at night. Somehow, the silent invisible ghosts that remained in this stolen house had begun to haunt her more than the afterimages of Clervie. She sat her glass down on a table and began to think about Commander Henry again. She had told him the truth that they were preparing to wage war against heaven itself for what it had done. But what she hadn’t told him was that now the preparation apparently required them to enable atrocities that rivaled Clestia’s genocide in their systematic cruelty.

“Different,” she told herself, “We're not the ones implementing these policies. We're not running the ghettos or passing the race laws. We're just... allied with the people who do.”

However, the distinction felt increasingly hollow week by week

Chapter Text

The White House, Washington, D.C.

March 16th, 1941

Roosevelt read Pug’s dispatch twice, which was something he rarely did with any correspondence. The first reading was fast, the way he scanned everything as he hunted for the shape of the thing. The second was slow with the cigarette holder forgotten between his fingers as the smoke curled unnoticed toward the ceiling. When he finished, he set the pages down on the desk besides the morning papers and stared at them for a long moment.

“She wants to talk,” he said aloud to the empty room of the Oval Office, “The Ice queen of that world wants to talk.”

He reached for the telephone and made a call. Within the hour afterwards, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Harry Hopkins sat across from him in the Oval Office. Hull looked as if someone had asked him to draft a trade agreement with the moon. Hopkins, to his credit, looked merely grim.

“The proposal is straightforward,” Roosevelt said as he tapped Pug’s cable, “They want to send a Harbinger to Washington with Full authority to negotiate. In exchange, we recognize Snezhnaya as a sovereign nation in a very public manner.”

“Mr. President,” Hull said carefully, “recognizing a nation that most of the civilized world believes to be a German propaganda stunt would makes look like….”

“Like fools,” Roosevelt finished pleasantly, “Yes, Wheeler and Lindbergh would have a parade. But let me ask you something, Cordell. If these Fatui can make mushroom clouds from pistols and walk through walls between world, do you think that that they’ll stop existing because we refuse to acknowledge them?”

Hull had no answer for and looked as if he did not want to answer it all.

“We don’t give them full recognition,” Roosevelt continued, he shifting from wry to precise, “Not yet, anyway. We invite their envoy as a ‘special representative’ for informal discussions on the matters of mutual concern. No embassy…no flag on Massachusetts Avenue. We just talk, we listen, we learn everything that we can about what these people are and what they really want. If they prove useful, then recognition becomes a card that wer can play later when it buys us something.”

“I am more interested on the fact that they offered two candidates.” Harry Hopkins leaned forward, “It is unusual for a nation to offer that. We know that this Pantalone, who runs their bank and handles diplomacy. Then there is the other one called Tartaglia, who is considered their military like Harbinger being transferred to our world for operations.”

Roosevelt’s eyes sharpened behind his pince-nez.

“The Banker,” He said slowly, “is the one Pug explained is able to brief Hitler on lend-lease projections by the ton. Pug says that the Germans treat him like a combination of  J.P. Morgan and Machiavelli.”

“Then I would put money on saying that he is the more dangerous one,” Harry replied.

“He’s the one who’d eat our State Department and Federal Reserve alive then pick his teeth with the bones,” Roosevelt agreed.

“What about the military man? Tartaglia? What does Pug say about him, Mr. President?” Hull asked curiously.

“Not much,” Roosevelt admitted, “Henry hasn’t meet him. Only that Arlecchino mentioned that he transferred to our world for operations and he carries full authority from the Tsaritsa to negotiate.”

Roosevelt stared at the globe in the corner of the room as he thought for a moment.

“A soldier,” he murmured, “Not a banker. Soldiers I understand. They think in objectives and timetables. They tell you what can do and what they need. They really don’t hide behind balance sheets.”

He turned back to them and continued.

“I will tell Pug to inform Lady Arlecchino that the President of the United States is willing to receive a special representative of the Tsaritsa for informal discussions on matters of mutual concern. I will also tell him that we would prefer Tartaglia.”

Hull blinked, “You’re choosing the one we know next to nothing about?”

“I’m choosing the one who isn’t already running Germany’s war economy from the inside, “ Roosevelt said,”If Pantalone comes here, he’ll spend his time building financial networks and buying influence before he’s finished his first cup of coffee. The military man will be easier to read, soldiers always are.”

“And what do we tell Churchill, when he hears that we are at least entertaining this Harbinger from Hitler’s fantasy alliance?” Harry asked.

Roosevelt's smile turned thin, the kind he wore when he was about to say something that sounded reasonable but carried a blade underneath.

"We tell Winston nothing," he said. "Not yet. Churchill has enough on his plate keeping London standing and the Atlantic convoys moving. If I tell him we're opening a channel to the Tsaritsa's people, he'll either think I've lost my mind or he'll try to muscle his way into the room. Neither exactly helps us."

He tapped the arm of his chair twice, a habit that Hull and Hopkins both recognized as the President arranging his thoughts into their final order.

"Besides," Roosevelt continued, "Churchill still thinks Snezhnaya is a Wagnerian fantasy cooked up by Goebbels to frighten neutral countries. Let him keep thinking that for now. The moment he takes it seriously is the moment he starts demanding we share whatever intelligence we gather, and I'd rather know what we're dealing with before I start handing out answers to questions Winston hasn't thought to ask yet."

Hopkins studied the President for a moment, then nodded slowly. "And if these talks go badly? If this Tartaglia turns out to be less manageable than you're hoping?"

"Then we'll have learned something valuable about the Fatui's temperament and methods at the cost of a few uncomfortable meetings," Roosevelt said. "That's a bargain at any price."

He reached for a sheet of White House stationery and uncapped his pen.

"I'll draft the cable to Pug myself," he said. "This doesn't go through the usual State Department channels. Eyes only, same route his dispatches come in. Cordell, I want you to quietly identify a location for these discussions. Somewhere private. Not the White House, not the State Department. Somewhere a foreign visitor could come and go without the press gallery turning it into a circus."

"That narrows our options considerably," Hull said.

"Then narrow considerably," Roosevelt replied pleasantly. "Harry, I want you to start building a small working group. No more than five people who know the full picture. Everyone else gets told we're reviewing intelligence on German unconventional weapons programs, which is technically true if you squint hard enough."

Hopkins almost smiled at that. "And the working group's mandate?"

"Simple....Learn everything, promise nothing, and for God's sake, don't let this Harbinger wander around Washington unsupervised. If he's half of what Pug says these people are, I don't want him strolling past the Navy Yard and memorizing our ship production numbers with a glance."

Roosevelt turned to the window where the Washington Monument stood pale against the overcast sky. He was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke again, the wry humor had drained from his voice.

"Gentlemen, I want to be clear about something. We are not entering an alliance. We are not legitimizing the Axis. We are doing what this country has always done when faced with something it doesn't understand." He looked back at them. "We're going to sit across from it, look it in the eye, and figure out whether it can be reasoned with or whether it needs to be planned against. Preferably both."

He began writing, the pen scratching steadily across the paper.

"That will be all for now. I'll have the cable ready within the hour."

Hull and Hopkins rose, but Hopkins paused at the door.

"Mr. President," he said. "One thought."

"Go ahead."

"You said soldiers are easier to read. That's generally true." Hopkins adjusted his coat, his gaunt frame outlined against the doorway, "But Pug also said these Harbingers are numbered. Pantalone is the Ninth, this Tartaglia is the Eleventh, and that woman, Arlecchino, is the Fourth."

"Your point?"

"My point is that Arlecchino can make mushroom clouds from scythes, and she's number four. If the Eleventh is being sent to us instead of kept on the frontlines, maybe it's not because he's expendable." Hopkins held Roosevelt's gaze. "Maybe it's because they're confident enough in what he can do that they don't mind showing us."

Roosevelt's pen stopped moving for just a moment.

"Noted," he said quietly. "Close the door on your way out, Harry."

Meanwhile at the docking station on the lower level of the Romaritime Harbor in the outlimits of Fontaine’s Beryl Region

Earth Time: March 19th, 1941

The morning fog had lifted from Romaritime Harbor when Aether and Paimon descended the stone steps toward the waterfront with the sand of Sumeru’s Hills of Barsom visible acoss the water on the other side. They spent the past few days in Fontaine after the film festival, partly because Navia had insisted they stay for a proper meal that turned into three proper meals, and partly because Aether hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that the festival’s fallout wasn’t finished yet. However, Aether was being called back to Liyue for the up-coming Lantern Rite Festival that was coming up soon. 

“Hery,” Paimon said, tugging at his sleeve as they round ed the corner toward the main commercial docks after they left the elevator, “What is that?”

Paimon was pointing toward the far end of the harbor, past the usual cluster of Fontainian, Sumeru trading vessels, and even a few Liyue trading junk. Aether turned his eyes to a particular sight that was new and different from any other vessel than what he had seen before. The object was riding low in the water like a gray iron whale that was also long and narrow. The vessel was a long as a Liyue junk but with no sails, no paddle wheels, or any other usual mechanism that he had seen be used to propel a ship forward. A squat conning tower rose from its center with on the sides of it was a white spade. Then mounted on the front of the tower was some sort of weapon on it that reminded Aether of a cannon on a swivel, but the end of the tube was plugged up. The vessel sat so low in the water that it deck was barely above the waterline when compared to the other nearby vessels.  Then Aether noticed on the front of the tower as were a number saying in white “66.” On the stern of the vessel’s tower was a flag pole, where handing limp was a red banner with four black arms that emerge from an off centre circle, where in that white circle was in black that crooked black cross. It did not take long for Aether to determine who owned this vessel.

“That’s the symbol for those mean, Germans.” Paimon pointed out.

“I know.” was all Aether said as he watched the vessel/

On the deck of the vessel, men moved about  with some wearing the gray and black uniforms, but there were also Fatui operatives and from what Aether guessed were possibly the crew as they wore a mix of different types of clothing like sweaters. The Fatui operatives were directing the loading with clipboards and gestures. Between them and the germans, they formed a working chain that moved crates and bags from the quayside down through a hatch in the vessel’s deck. The crates were made of wood but had the normal Fontainian markings on them that Aether had seen before in these docks and in the Court of Fontaine.

“Paimon wonders what they are loading into there?” Paimon said curiously.

“Now that is the question isn’t it?” said a voice that Paimon and Aether were familiar with back at Liyue.

Aether turned around where he found leaning against one of the harbor’s stone support pillars with a bottle of fonta in her hand and looking as if she had been simply enjoying the morning air with a stroll was Yelan. She wore a dockworker’s roughspun over usual outfit, her dark blue hair tucked under a wide brimmed hat that shadowed her features. The disguise looked so convincing that Aether would have walked past her without a single question.

“Yelan?!” Paimon yelped, then slapped both hands over her own mouth when a Fatui operative at the edge of the loading chain glanced at their direction.

“A little louder, Paimon.” Yelan said as she toke a sip of her Fonta, “I think there were a few Germans on the conning tower who didn’t hear you.”

“What are you doing in Fontaine?” Aether asked as he kept his voice low and moved beside her to position himself in a way where the pillar blocked him from the Fatui’s line of sight.

“Working,” she said simply as she set the bottle of Fonta on a crate and folded her arms, “About a week ago, Chief Justice Neuvillette sent a formal letter to the Liyue Qixing through confidential diplomatic channels. He described the arrival of military and diplomatic representatives from an unknown foreign power that are allied with the Fatui. He detailed their conduct at the Fontinalia Film Festival, the confrontation with the German officer, and his growing concerns about what this alliance means for Fontaine's sovereignty in the coming months especially."

She looked toward the unique vessel as she watched it with examining eyes.

“I have been watching this particular vessel since it arrived two days ago from the West, most likely Nod-Krai if I had to guess as lately the Fatui have been building some sort of base for research. But now it is being used for military purposes while still being constructed. I followed some of the crew when they went on leave into the Court of Fontaine and drank at a pub, where they got drunk. All that I got out of them in their wasted and disorderly forms is that it is called a U-boat and that their Führer sent them to collect some cargo for their Reich.” she explained.

"Their what now?" Paimon asked, scrunching her face.

"Führer which means leader in their language," Yelan said. "They were not exactly forthcoming with details beyond that, but drunk men rarely need to be. Between the boasting and the bar fights, I pieced together enough. The vessel is designated U-66 where it and its other varients operate beneath the water's surface."

"Beneath?!" Paimon's eyes went wide, "Like it sinks on purpose?!"

"Apparently that's the point of its design." Yelan picked up her Fonta again, swirling it idly, "which tells you something about the kind of war these people are fighting. They build ships meant to hide from sight."

She then produced a small leather notebook from inside her jacket and flipped open.

“I’ve been watching here since dawn and they have been busy loading up those crates were 14 altogether. They haven’t been shining on what they bought, but it didn’t take much problem for me in that they were buying ruin guard Chaos Cores in the harbor’s warehouse.” Yelan read out as she glanced at Aether, “There is an additional 9 smaller crates filled with Ruin Guard Chaos Circuits.”

“Paimon doesn’t like where this is going,” Paimon muttered.

Yelan closed the notebook, “All of it purchased through three separate front companies registered under Snezhnayan commercial licenses within the last month. All transactions conducted in Mora though the Northland Banks’s Fontaine branch and ever piece of paperwork is flawless and legitimate.”

“Who is running such a thing?” Paimon asked.

“The Regrator doesn’t leave fingerprints,” Yelan replied, “But he tends to leave some patterns here and there. Three shell companies that were all registered within days of each other, all purchasing complementary technologies that would mean nothing on their own but together give someone a comprehensive understanding of how ruin machines are designed, built, and powered. This isn't shopping, Traveler., but it's systematic technological extraction."

“Surely that all can’t be legal right?” Paimon quested as she floated right beside Yelan, “Because if its legal then Paimon is a fish.”

“Well, then you better learn to start swimming then,” Yelan joked with a smirk, “Ruin machines components are classified as decommissioned salvage material under Fontaine Trade code. There is nothing that really prevents its sale to licensed foreign buyers. The Fatui have been purchasing this stuff for years, but now the difference is its destination. The logs show it being shipped to a place called Hamburg.”

"But Neuvillette knows, right?" Paimon asked, her voice pitched with frustration. "He's the Chief Justice! Can't he just... stop it?"

"He approved the vessel's diplomatic transit under Fontaine's maritime hospitality laws," Yelan said, "Refusing would have given the Fatui a legal pretext to claim Fontaine was acting in bad faith against Snezhnayan commercial interests. The Chief Justice is bound by the very principles his court upholds. He cannot suspend trade law without legal cause, and under current statute, no cause exists."

A shout in that harsh foreign language cut across the quay, where the officer on the conning tower with a white peaked cap called down to the loading crew. One of the Fatui operatives checked her clipboard then made a final notation, and gave a signal. Immediately with precision the working chain paused as the last crates had disappeared below.

“They’re almost finished.” Yelan observed.

Aether watched the German officer on the conning tower scan the harbor through a pair of binoculars that caught the late morning light. The man’s gaze swept across the docks where the three of them were passed without stopping.

Paimon was usually quiet with her eyes on following a German sailor on the deck as he coiled a rope with practiced hands, “Paimon has a question.” 

Yelan glanced at Paimon for a second and replied, “Go ahead.”

“If the Fatui are sending all this Fontaine stuff to the German world….then what are those people sending back to the Fatui in exchange?” was the response that came out of Paimon.

“I heard through a rumor that the Germans gave the Fatui blueprints for two different things lately. Whatever those blueprints are, then i assume that was it.” Yelan commented.

"Blueprints?" Aether repeated. "For what?"

"That's where the trail gets thin," Yelan admitted, tucking the notebook back into her jacket, “My source on that is third-hand at best. A Northland Bank clerk in Fontaine who drinks more than he should  and talks when he does. He mentioned two deliveries of technical documents from the German side, both routed through the Nod-Krai facility before being forwarded to Snezhnaya proper. One set he described as 'vessel designs,' which given what we're looking at right now..."

Yelan gestured toward the U-66.

"They're giving the Fatui the plans to build these underwater ships," Aether said.

“That would be consistent with what I am hearing about Nod-Krai, originally it was being built to study a energy. But I hear the Fatui have changed it to be also a full scale military base with construction and factory facilities” Yelan admitted.

“You said two, what was the other blueprint?” Paimon asked both curious and concerned all at once.

“”Unfortantely, I do not know, the only thing that the clerk mentioned was something that started with the word ‘Panzer’” Yelan replied, “Its not any Teyvat language i’m familiar with. But whatever it is, the Fatui considered it important enough to route their most secure channels rather than the Northland Bank Logistics.”

A low mechanical hum rose from somewhere inside the U-boat’s hull. The sound was unlike anything the harbor would normally produce like the creak of timber. Two sailors on the quay began casting off mooring lines.

“They're leaving," Aether said.

The three of them watched as the gray vessel pulled away from the berth. It moved through Romaritime Harbor's turquoise water with an eerie smoothness, its hull barely breaking the surface, its wake a thin white line that dissolved almost as soon as it formed. The Fontainian merchant ships and Liyue junks in neighboring berths seemed to bob uneasily in its passing, though that might have been nothing more than displaced water.

“One more thing before I lose my window, I learned that a lot of harbingers have been pulled into deployment for the other world called Earth. Including the Regrator, the Knave, and another name that might matter to you.” Yelan continued.

Aether felt something tighten in his chest before she even said it.

“Tartaglia,” Yelan continued, “The Eleventh Harbinger. Every Fatui intelligence channel I monitor went dark on his location approximately three weeks ago.”

The name settled over Aether with concern and surprise. Cilde or Tartaglia with the easy grin and the eyes of someone who had looked into the Abyss and come back loving what he found in the dark. The Harbinger who had unleashed Osial on this very nation's neighbor to force Rex Lapis's hand, who had fought Aether in the Golden House with a ferocity that looked indistinguishable from joy, and who had walked away from it all with a smile and something uncomfortably close to respect. However, Childe was also the man that helped Fontaine in fighting off the All-Devouring Narwhal.

“Where is he now?” Aether asked in a quieter tone than he intended.

"That is exactly what I cannot determine," Yelan replied as she watched the U-66 slide further and turned right towards the open sea, "No mentions in Snezhnayan dispatches or sightings reported by any of my assets across Teyvat. He has been completely scrubbed from every active Fatui operation."

"But... Childe helped us," Paimon said, as her voice carried something complicated between defense and confusion, “He fought the Narwhal with us. Right here in Fontaine. He almost didn't make it back from the Primordial Sea. Doesn't that count for something?"

Aether thought about it for a minute and agreed that was the problem with Childe. One could not cleanly hate him, but there was always something genuine underneath the violence, something almost in the way he throws himself at every battle as if each one would be the last.

"It counts," Aether said carefully. "But it doesn't change what he is. Childe serves the Tsaritsa. Whatever she tells him to do, he does. And if she's sent him to Earth..."

"My best assessment is that he has been transferred there for military operations," Yelan said, "But there is a secondary thread in the intelligence that I did not expect and that it suggests a diplomatic assignment."

"Diplomatic?!" Paimon's voice cracked loud enough that even Yelan winced, "Childe?! A diplomat?! The guy who thinks 'negotiation' means deciding which weapon to use first?!"

"The Fatui have their own understanding of what diplomacy requires," Yelan said dryly, "But yes. The chatter suggests he is being sent somewhere strategically important in that world. A neutral power that the Tsaritsa considers vital to her plans."

“Great, so the Fatui has already started to stir up trouble in that other world.” Paimon said.

“That is probably the case,” Yelan continued as she pulled her hat lower over her eyes and straightened it, “I need to get word back to the Qixing immediately. What I have documented today changes everything. Neuvillette will be informed through the appropriate channels as well. I suspect that in the coming months, we will be meeting more as the situation develops.”

For the first time since Aether had known Yelan, something other than professional composure looked back at him. She looked unsettled and considering Yelan, that is not a sight that brings goods news and means that trouble is brewing. He watched she inclined her head once, dropped the empty Fonta bottle into a waste bin with breaking her stride, and disappeared into the dock crowd with relative ease.

Aether and Paimon stood at the harbor's edge for a while after Yelan left. The berth where the U-66 had been moored was empty now with only a stretch of dark water lapping against stone, a few scraps of packing straw, and a single frayed rope end.

“Aether,” Paimon said quietly, “Paimon keeps thinking about what Nahida showed us…..The soldiers in the trenches….All those people at the rally cheering for that man with the little mustache."

She stared at the empty water where the crooked cross had been as she continued, "They're going to use those ruin machine stuff to make that war worse, aren't they?"

Aether didn’t waste time to think on his answer as he knew it in his heart, “Yes and we just stood here to watch it sail away.”

Paimon looked conflicted for a moment as the harbor continued to be filled with the ordinary natural sounds of dock workers calling to each other, cranes swinging, and even a Fontainian vendor shouting fresh catch. A Liyue junk eased into berth that the U-boat had just left as though the world were simply closing the gap.

Finally after a moment, Paimon had the strength to speak but with her voice different where it sounded more decided and steady.

"Paimon doesn't want to just watch anymore, Aether."

Aether nodded in agreement, but the questions as how do they get to another world and stop the Fatui. It’s not like they know anyone that might have an idea on travel between worlds right? Unless…….they ask someone with terrifying extensive knowledge on traveling.

On March 25th, 1941, the Yugoslav government of Regent Prince Paul signed the Tripartite Pact in Vienna. The ceremony was brief and joyless while the Yugoslav delegates signed with the stiff formality of men attending their own funeral, which in political terms they were. Hitler was extremely satisfied, while Ribbentrop smiled for the cameras. It settled to the Nazi’s that the matter of the Balkans would finally be settled with the entrance of Yugoslavia into the Axis. 

However, that feeling would only last for two days.

On the morning of March 27th, officers of the Royal Yugoslav Air force moved armored vehicles through the streets of Belgrade, deposed Prince Paul’s government, and then declared the seventeen year old King Peter II of age to rule. Crowds poured into the capitals streets tearing down German flags, overturning Axis propaganda kiosks, and began chanting a slogan:

Bolje rat nego pakt. Bolje grob nego rob.

Better war than the pact. Better the grave than a slave.

This slogan would become the epitaph of the Royal Yugoslav government as Hitler’s response was immediate. Within hours, he summoned Hermann Göring, Von Brauchitsch, Von Ribbentrop, and even Arlecchino herself to the Chancellery for a meeting in the middle of the night about the coup. At the end of the meeting, he announces his intentions with “I have decided to destroy Yugoslavia.” Planning staffs already preparing for Operation Marita, the Invasion of Greece to fix Mussolini’s lackluster performance against the Greeks by losing territory in Italian held Albania, were ordered to expand their scope to include the complete dismemberment of Yugoslavia simultaneously.

At the same time, Snezhnograd or the capital of Snezhnaya and  within the Zapolyarny Palace, Tsaritsa issues a decree that is passed through the director of the Fatui, Pierro, called the  Metel Directive ordering that the Fatui would contribute to the pacification of Yugoslavia due to its status as the first direct challenge to the Pact of Iron and Frost. A signatory nation had repudiated its commitment to the Axis within forty-eight hours of signing. If that defiance went unanswered by Snezhnaya as well as Germany, the Pact's authority would be hollow. It is released to the public to read through the work of Pantalone, who explains it to the Nazi propaganda but is not taken seriously by the Allies, who still believe that the alliance is a work of Nazi fiction.

But the official completed directive was not released to the general public and only known to the OKW or the supreme command of the Wehrmacht, the most important reason was to demonstrate to every nation on Earth what the Pact of Iron and Frost was capable of achieving in the field. The world required proof of the existence and power of Snezhnaya. Yugoslavia’s defiance had provided the Fatui just the occasion as well as the lesson to show. The directive’s operational language went further still, Fatui forces would be deployed in full coordination with Wehrmacht forces especially the Heer or Nazi Army in multiple axes of advance. The performance would be recorded with Yugoslavia being an experiment of the implementation of Teyvatian warfare. The Fatui entrance into the Second World War was no longer a possibility, but it was becoming an operational reality.

By the morning of March 28th, orders were radiating outward from Berlin and Snezhnograd simultaneously, two capitals separated by the boundary between worlds yet moving in lockstep toward the same objective. With the German Second Army under General von Weichs assembling at Southeastern Austria around the cities of Graz, Leibnitz, and Maribor where the Alpine passes open toward the Yugoslav frontier with infantry and panzer divisions stationed for action. In Bulgaria, General Lists Twelfth Army in Bulgaria is repositioned from the Greek border to be in position to take southern Serbia. The coalition taking shape was not an alliance of equals but a hierarchy of compulsion, ambition, and fear organized around one man's fury at a small nation's refusal to remain obedient. Even the Italian Army, despite its embarrassingly poor performance against the Greek Army, positioned troops to prepare for the operation. 

US Embassy in Berlin at Pariser Platz
March 28th, 1941

The cable from Washington took twelve days to reach Pug through the usual circuitous route from the diplomatic pouch to Lisbon, then by courier aircraft to Bern, and finally sealed bag to the American Embassy in Berlin. By the time he held it in his hands, the ink on Roosevelt’s instructions felt like it had aged a month for every border it had crossed. The message was short and worded in a code that only Pug and the President by this point had shared:

PUG,

INFORM LADY A THAT POTUS WILLING TO RECEIVE SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF TSARITSA FOR INFORMAL DISCUSSIONS ON MATTERS OF MUTUAL CONCERN. OUR PREFERENCE IS LORD TARTAGLIA. ENVOY TO TRAVEL UNDER DIPLOMATIC COURTESY, NOT FORMAL RECOGNITION. DETAILS OF ARRIVAL AND VENUE TO BE COORDINATED THROUGH YOU. 

FDR

Pug read it three times, folded it , locked it in his desk safe, and then sat for a full minute staring at the portrait of the navy schooner on the wall of his small office at the embassy. He realeized that he was about to walk into the Fatui embassy and personally arrange for one of the Tsaritsa’s Harbingers to visit the President of the United States. If someone had told him this a year ago, he would have recommended they see a doctor at Bethesda. However, the issue now was that it was not the only important dispatch on his desk this morning.

The other document was a flash dispatch from the embassy’s intelligence section, stamped with the word of URGENT on it. Colonel forrest had briefed him before breakfast on the mood at the Chancellery with the word volcanic being very charitable and the word Vergeltung or retribution had been heard more than once. The corridors of every embassy on the Wilhelmstrasse hummed with the same question: how fast would the Wehrmacht move, and who would move with them?

Pug suspected that he was about to find out part of the answer as he left the US Embassy. Thankfully, Colonel Forrest was absent and Pug didn’t want to leave a note as it would be better to explain it after the fact.

The Fatui Embassy in the Tiergarten
A couple of hours later

The Fatui Embassy looked different late march with the trees along the Tiergarten had begun to show the first pale suggestions of green. But the atmosphere at the gate was noticeably tighter than usual. The Wehrmacht sentry checked Pug’s credentials twice instead of once, and the Fatui croupier operative beside spoke briefly into a communication device before waving him through. The coup in Belgrade had put every installation in Berlin on a higher footing and the Fatui Embassy was no exception. He was escorted to the same study on the second floor, where there was the same bookshelves and heavy curtains. However, the pale rectangles of the Rosenfeld family portraits had been replaced with actual paintings of landscapes that he had never seen in any photo or other work. Some of these landscapes were of things Pug could not described, but made the educated guess that they were areas of that other world that the Fatui are from. They must be of areas in Teyvat, because he could not recignize the town that looked like a medieval town in a castle surrounded by a lake. Nor could he recognize the Chinese harbor with lots of junks and surrounded by a series of mountains. 

The fireplace was light, but Pug learned by now that this was not comfort by a signal. Arlecchino used the room’s atmosphere the way a staging director used lighting. She stood by window with her back to him as the attendant closed the door, but Pug noticed immediately that her posture was different tonight.

“Commander Henry,” she said without turning, “You’ve chosen an eventful day to visit.”

“The timing wasn’t mine,” Pug said, “But I take it you’ve heard about Belgrade.”

Arlecchino turned from the window, where those red-crossed eyes found him in firelight.

“Heard about it?” she moved toward the desk with unhurried steps, “Commander, I was briefed on the Yugoslav coup before your embassy’s intelligence section finished typing their dispatch. My operatives in Belgrade reported the movement of armored vehicles toward the Royal Place a full forty minutes before Prince Paul was deposed.”

“"The Führer is furious," she continued, “and I will confirm that he plans for retribution on the Yugoslavs for their betrayal.”

"And the Fatui?" Pug asked.

Arlecchino’s expression didn’t change, but something behind it did as if it were a door opening into a room she had been waiting to show him.

“The Tsaritsa anticipated that the Balkans would require attention. So Pantalone has been positioning assets in the region around Yugoslavia for weeks,” Arlecchino explained, “This will be our first joint military operation with the Wehrmacht and other Axis forces excluding Japan. The scale is massive as Harbinger assets will be deployed alongside German forces before the Yugoslav and Greek borders.”

Pug felt his stomach and chest tighten on the term of Joint military operations of these other worldly people deployed against the Allies. He thought of that mushroom cloud that Arecchino produced and used it against Yugoslav as well as Greek troops.

“What kind of assets?” was what Pug asked next as he kept his voice level.

“You will find out, I suspect at the same time that Churchill does.” Arlecchino said simply, “Just know that we predict that with us in the equation that it will take less than week to be completed with Yugoslavia no more once the operation begins. But know that the Wehrmacht will provide conventional force, but we will provide the edge that makes conventional force overwhelming. Unfortunately, Commander, we will not be able to have these constant meetings and gatherings that I enjoy as I will soon be deployed to Graz soon to coordinate the Fatui operations in that theater.”

Pug built the layers of information that he was hearing and the timing of everything. By the time that Tartaglia arrived in the United States, the Balkans would be or have demonstrated what happened when the Fatui went to war alongside the Reich. Roosevelt wouldn’t be negotiating with an abstraction, but a power that had just helped conquer two nations in a matter of days.

“You planned for this,” Pug said not as an accusation but it was recognition of the facts.

Arlecchino nodded with a smirk, “We planned for several contingencies, actually. A compliant Yugoslavia in the alliance was one outcome but unlikely. We knew that it would be a matter of time for it to be defiant. Both outcomes serves our purposes, where a compliant Yugoslavia would have legally allowed us to get resources from it, but Defiance gives us something us…something more valuable in fact.”

Pug was almost afraid to ask but he decided to risk it, “And what is that?”

“A demonstration.” Arlecchino replied coldly.

Pug stared at her for a moment.

"But you didn't come here to discuss the Balkans, Commander," Arlecchino said, and her tone shifted, the military edge withdrawing behind something smoother, "You have news from your President.”

Pug straightened in his chair as he understood that this was the moment. Whether it was by design or accident, the Balkans was the opening act and now comes the main performance.

“I do,” he said as he delivered the message with measured precision that avoided anything that could be interpreted as personal opinion as if he had been rehearsing it on the way from Pariser Platz, “The President of the United States is willing to receive a special representative of the Tsaritsa for informal discussions on matters of mutual concern. The envoy would travel under diplomatic courtesy, though formal recognition of Snezhnaya is not included at this stage. The President views these discussions as an opportunity to establish direct communication between our governments."

He paused, then added the part he knew she was waiting for.

"The President's preference is for Lord Tartaglia."

The room was silent except for the soft pop of burning wood. Arlecchino didn’t move at all against the edge of the desk with her arms folded and her expression unreadable that Pug started to accept as her own form of speech. The silence with this woman was never empty, but it was a space she owned the way other people could own the conversation. Then she tilted her head with a smile that was neither wide or warm. It was slight at the corners of her lips.

"Tartaglia," she repeated slowly, almost fondly.

"The President believes a military representative would facilitate more direct discussions," Pug said, keeping to his script.

"Of course he does." Arlecchino continued with that smile, "Your President looked at the two options before him and thought: the banker will outmaneuver me, but the soldier I can handle. Military men are all straightforward, predictable, and easier to read across a table."

Pug didn’t say anything in response.

“His instinct to avoid Pantalone is correct,” Arlecchino confirmed,”He would quickly map out every financial nerve of your country within the first month. But Tartaglia is not what your President thinks he is."

Something in her tone made the hairs on Pug’s arms rise. He had learned to pay attention to these moment from Arlecchino when her voice dropped.

“How so?” he asked.

Arlecchino glanced him directly at his eyes until she spoke, “The Eleventh Harbinger is many things, but predictable is not among them. He is young, reckless, and has a unhealthy compulsion for combat…..”

Arlecchino paused as the firelight shifted across her features, "Are you familiar with the works of Dante, Commander?"

The question caught Pug off guard. "The Inferno? I read it at the Academy."

"Then you have some frame of reference, however inadequate." Arlecchino's arms remained folded. "In our world, there is a place called the Abyss. Dante's nine circles would be a pleasant afternoon stroll by comparison. The Abyss is the darkest realm in Teyvat, a place that exists beneath and between everything else. Most minds that touch it do not survive, even exposure to it at a distance might as well be a death sentence in your world."

She let that settle before continuing.

"When Tartaglia was fourteen years old as a boy named Ajax from a fishing village in Snezhnaya  and then he fell into the Abyss."

Pug stared at her. "Fell?"

"Fell," Arlecchino confirmed, "The circumstances are not entirely clear, even to us. What is clear is that he spent what felt like months fighting his way through it, though only days had passed in our world. He had help from an outside force, a swordsman of considerable power who found him there and trained him rather than let him die." 

Her expression hardened slightly, "But it was Ajax who chose to fight rather than surrender. At fourteen. Alone in a darkness that has broken grown men and women with decades of combat experience."

"And he made it out," Pug said.

"He made it out," Arlecchino repeated. "But he did not come back as the boy who fell in. The Abyss changed him in ways that his family noticed immediately and could never fully understand. He came back faster, stronger, and with abilities that no fourteen-year-old from a fishing village should possess. He also came back with a hunger."

"A hunger for what?"

Arlecchino looked at him directly. "For everything, for combat, for challenge, and for the feeling of standing at the edge of annihilation and choosing to fight rather than retreat. Most soldiers that I have known  in your world and mine fight because they must. Because duty or country or survival demands it. Tartaglia fights because he cannot imagine a life without it. Every battle might be his last and that thought does not frighten him, Commander."

“The whole experience of being in the Abyss had made him hungry.” were the words that she ended at.

The words sat in the room like something with weight and teeth. Pug thought involuntarily of the landscapes on the walls of the Medieval Castle and the Chinese Harbor. Somewhere in that world, a boy had fallen into a darkness so complete that it had either destroyed him or remade him, and what had climbed back out was apparently what the Tsaritsa now wanted to sit across from the President of the United States.

"However," Arlecchino continued, and her tone shifted again to something cooler, "he is also genuine in a way that Pantalone and I are not. He does not lie well. He does not conceal his intentions because he does not see the purpose of concealment. If he respects your President, Roosevelt will know it immediately. If he doesn't, Roosevelt will know that too."

"That sounds like it could be an advantage," Pug said carefully.

"It could be," Arlecchino replied, her arms folded, "Or it could mean that the first time your President says something that Tartaglia interprets as weakness, the Eleventh will tell him so directly to his face. With a smile on his face that will make your Secret Service agents reach for their sidearms."

Despite everything, Pug almost laughed, but managed to keep it to a controlled exhale through his nose.

“I’ll make sure that the President will brief the Secret Service,” he said.

“Brief them thoroughly, Tartaglia would consider it a personal insult if told he cannot bring weapons into a meeting. I would recommend that you negotiate with that point prior to his arrival,” She said as she grabbed a small bell and rang it a couple of times

She turned toward the door and the attendant arrived.

“Yes, Father.” was the response from Attendant as she bowed her head down.

“Please bring Lyney and Lynette here immediately.” Arlecchino ordered.

The attendant nodded as she closed the door and as Pug waited he was confused on why those two in particular. The two were her magicians, but Pug started to question more as he remembered that they were part of the House of the hearth. About 8 minutes later, the two arrived with lyney entering first with that stride that showed how much he enjoyed being a showman. His tophat tucked under one arm, while his violet eyes swept the room with practiced awareness of performer reading his audience. Behind him came Lynette in a silent but composed manner with her cat ears angled. Both of them glanced at Pug with polite curiosity before turning their attention to Arlecchino.

"Father," Lyney said with a slight bow and a smile that could have charmed the paint off a wall, "You called for us."

“Sit,” Arlecchino said but not as a suggestion.

The two did exactly that as the showmanship drained from Lyney’s posture and Lynette simply folded her hands in her lap as she waited. Pug watched the transformation with professional interest. These two had performed for him at a reception weeks ago with a magic act so seamless that even the Germans applauded, but in front of Arlecchino it was something completely different. As if they were children before a strict parent or a soldier before a commander, it was hard to tell the difference.

"Commander Henry has brought word from the American President," Arlecchino said, addressing Lyney and Lynette but keeping her eyes on Pug as if gauging his reaction to what came next, "The United States has agreed to receive a special representative for informal discussions. The Tsaritsa is sending Tartaglia."

Something flickered across Lyney's face, if Pug had to guess it was a surprise. Even they, it  would seem, do not consider Tartaglia as someone suitable for diplomacy.

"Tartaglia," Lyney repeated carefully. "To America…..for diplomacy."

"Your skepticism is noted and shared by everyone in this room, including the Commander," Arlecchino said dryly,"which is precisely why the two of you will be accompanying him."

Lyney's composure held, but only just as he protested, "Father, with respect, our current assignment in Berlin…."

"Your current assignment is whatever I say it is." Arlecchino replied as the temperature in the room dropped several degrees despite the fire.

She then softened up and continued, "Tartaglia is many things, Lyney, but a diplomat is not among them. He will need handlers who can operate in social environments without drawing suspicion, who can read a room faster than he can break one, and who can ensure that his more impulsive tendencies do not create an international incident before the first meeting concludes."

She looked at Lyney with an appraisal that was equal parts commanding officer and parent as she spoke to the catgirl, "You will serve as his cultural attaché. You are charming and articulate and you know how to hold an audience. The Americans will find you uniquely agreeable. More importantly, you understand how to manage a conversation when the person beside you is about to say something catastrophic."

Then she turned to Lynette.

"You will serve as his intelligence liaison. You see things that other people miss and hear things that other people cannot. And you can enter and leave a room without anyone knowing you were there. In Washington, that skill will be more valuable than any weapon Tartaglia insists on carrying."

Lynette inclined her head once, "Understood, Father."

Lyney was quiet for a moment, which in itself told Pug something important about the weight of what had just been asked of them. 

Then he stood, straightened his vest, and bowed with a precision that had nothing of the showman in it as spoke, "Understood, Father."

But he did not sit back down. Instead, he held his position for a beat, and Pug recognized the body language like a subordinate requesting permission to speak freely. Arlecchino gave a slight nod in response.

"Father,” Lyney said with his showman’s voice gone and was more measured, “you know Tartaglia better than most. He doesn't take well to being managed. If he thinks we're there to keep him on a leash, he'll…."

"He'll what?" Arlecchino said a softly that somehow  was worse than shouting, "He'll complain? Let him. He'll try to go off on his own? You'll ensure he doesn't. He'll pick a fight with an American general because the man looked at him sideways?" 

Then she leaned forward and continued, "That is exactly what you are there to prevent."

She straightened and turned back to Pug, who had been watching the exchange.

"Commander, you will be working with Lyney and Lynette to coordinate the logistics of Tartaglia's arrival and movements within your country. They will be your primary points of contact for scheduling, security arrangements, and any... situations that may arise."

Pug looked at them and replied with a nod, “I look forward to working with you both.”

If these two were half as competent as Arlecchino seemed to believe, they might be the only thing standing between Tartaglia and the kind of incident that ended diplomatic careers as well as started wars.

“As do we Commander,” Lyney replied with a slight incline of his head, “Though I should have mentioned, we might need to have a conversation with your Secret service on what constitutes a weapon. In Fontaine, we had a similar misunderstanding with the Gardes over my playing cards.”

"Your playing cards explode," Lynette said flatly.

"Only the ones I want to," Lyney said with a smirk that absolutely belonged to a shownman.

Pug filed that information away in the growing mental dossier he was maintaining under the heading of Things The President Needs To Know That No President Should Ever Have To Know.

Arlecchino dismissed Lyney and Lynette with a nod, and they rose in unison Arlecchino dismissed Lyney and Lynette with a nod, and they rose in unison as the door clicked shut behind them.Arlecchino remained behind the desk. She regarded Pug with a questioning expression that he had not seen before, as if she was contemplative on whether or not to say the next thing on her mind. Instead, she choose to say it.

"Commander, I want you to understand something before we part tonight. This may be the last time we speak for some weeks. As I mentioned, I will be deploying to Graz to coordinate our operations in the Balkans personally."

"You're going to the front," Pug said.

"I am going where the Tsaritsa requires me," She picked up a sealed envelope from the desk and held it out to him, "This contains the preliminary logistics for Tartaglia's transit. Departure dates, route proposals, and a list of requirements for his accommodation in Washington. Some of them will seem unusual, but I assure you that all of them are necessary."

Pug took the envelope and found that it was heavier than he expected.

"Lyney and Lynette will remain in Berlin until Tartaglia is ready to depart. They will be your contacts in my absence. For anything urgent that cannot wait, Pantalone will be reachable through the usual embassy channels." 

She paused for a moment, "Though I suspect you will find Pantalone's style of communication considerably less... forthcoming than mine."

"That's a diplomatic way of putting it," Pug said.

Something that might have been amusement passed behind her eyes as she responded with a smirk, "I have my moments, Commander."

She walked him to the study door herself, which she had never done before. It was a small gesture, but Pug had spent enough time in the world of diplomacy and protocol to recognize when something small was also something deliberate.

At the threshold of the door, she stopped and again spoke, "One last thing. Not from the Tsaritsa. Not for your President. From me to you."

Pug waited, but was very interested to hear what she had to say.

"You are an honest man, Commander Henry. I have met very few of those in either world. You remind me a lot of a traveller in Teyvat that I know. I really do believe that if you two would ever meet that you would get along with each other," Her voice was level, stripped of performance for perhaps the first time since he had known her, "The months ahead will test that honesty in ways that neither your President nor Her majesty the Tsaritsa can fully predict. When they do, I would advise you to trust what you see with your own eyes over what anyone, including me, tells you to believe."

Before Pug could respond, the mask was back. She inclined her head and the attendant materialized to escort him down the corridor.

Pug walked down the hallway alone except for the silent attendant two paces behind. The Teyvat landscapes hung on the walls in their gilded frames with the medieval castle in the lake, the harbor with junks and mountains, but there was a third painting that he hadn’t noticed before of a vast desert with an odd looking egyptian pyramid that had another inverted pyramid on top at the tip with a red sky in the background. Places that had nothing to do with what their rulers were planning in rooms exactly like the one he had just left.

It occurred to Pug as he continued walking that the Fatui had erased the Rosenfelds twice. First by taking their home and again by covering even the evidence of the the taking. When compared to the last time that Pug was here, no one would have noticed today that anyone else had lived here. Except for one thing that Pug noticed on a hallway shelf tucked behind a bookend that one had moved was a small sliver frame of a young girl in white dress standing in the garden outside and was squinting into sumer light. Either the Fatui had missed it or it was left there intentionally by someone

As Pug walked outside and into a waiting Embassy car, he set back against the leather seat as the car pulled away. He opened up the envelope that Arlecchino had given him. Inside it was logistics documents, transit proposals, and a single photograph clipped to a personnel sheet stamped with that single eight pointed star in blue ink. The photograph showed a young man , looked almost as young as his youngest son Bryon, with ginger hair and blue eyes smiling broadly at the camera with an expression. The expression on the face looked more like a university student on holiday than the eleventh most powerful operative of an interdimensional military theocracy. Beneath the photograph, in Arlecchino's precise handwriting, was a single annotation:

Do not let the smile fool you. Do not let it fail to, either.