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 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.