The throne room was a cathedral of frost, its towering arches glistening with perpetual winter, and upon the seat of unyielding silver sat the Tsaritsa, her fingers curled like talons around the armrests as she listened—no, endured—the ceaseless droning of Il Dottore. His voice, that infuriating blend of arrogance and clinical detachment, slithered through the air, each syllable another needle of irritation pressing deeper into her temples. Twenty million mora—twenty million—vanished into the abyss of his so-called "research," and yet he stood before her, unrepentant, detailing some grotesque mechanical abomination as if it were justification enough for such extravagance.

Her teeth ground together, the sound nearly audible in the suffocating quiet between his words, her glacial eyes boring into him with the promise of slow, creative suffering. She could already envision the many ways she might silence him—a blade of ice through the throat, perhaps, or perhaps simply letting the temperature drop until his breath crystallized in his lungs. But before she could decide, the great doors shuddered open, and one of the ever-vigilant Fatui guards stumbled in, his voice trembling with apologies before he could even properly kneel.

I stepped into the hall, my presence cutting through the tension like a blade through mist, and in an instant, Dottore’s ramblings ceased. The Doctor knew better than to linger where he was not explicitly permitted; with a bow so shallow it bordered on insulting, he retreated, the soldier scrambling after him like a whipped dog. The doors sealed shut once more, leaving only the Tsaritsa and myself—the one soul in all of Teyvat who dared approach her without fear.

Finally. That insufferable man hadn’t known when to stop talking. Her fingers lifted, pressing against the bridge of her nose as if she could physically push back the headache pulsing behind her eyes—a rare, unwelcome weakness, one that only ever surfaced when incompetence and insolence collided in her presence.

She exhaled, slow and measured, the air turning to mist before dissipating into the cold. Then, at last, she spoke, her voice a razor wrapped in silk.

“And what do you want?”

Her voice was winter itself, crisp and unyielding, yet beneath the frost lay something else—something only I would ever be permitted to hear. Annoyance, yes, but also the barest hint of relief, for my presence meant an end to the tedium of rulership, if only for a moment. And though she would never admit it aloud, that was worth more than all the mora in Snezhnaya.