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Columbina had settled on a pale marble bench tucked inside one of Zapolyarny Palace’s winter gardens, where frost had gathered along the hedges in thin silver seams and the last of the roses stood frozen in elegant ruin. Her hands rested together in her lap, light and still, her bare shoulders untouched by the cold that had driven every sensible creature toward the palace interior. Near her bare feet, a small congregation of pigeons pecked and circled in drowsy contentment, drawn close by the thread of melody drifting from her lips.
The song moved through the garden in a slow, lovely current, slipping between the iced branches and over the bowed heads of the winter roses, gentle enough to soothe the birds and persistent enough to brush against the palace windows in the distance. It continued for another few measures before the pigeons startled all at once and burst upward in a scatter of wings, grey and white flashing against the snow. Columbina let the tune taper off and smiled to herself, the expression touched by fond recognition.
She knew that particular warning well.
Dottore approached from behind, his presence announced first by the sweep of his Harbinger coat and then by the familiar shift in the air that always seemed to accompany him. A moment later the heavy fall of white fabric and dark lining closed around her, his arms circling her where she sat. The difference in their height made the embrace faintly ungainly, forcing him to bend over her in a posture that would have looked deeply undignified on anyone else. On him, it simply looked like Dottore had reached the limit of his patience and chosen physical contact as a solution. The black plumes at his shoulders brushed her cheek when he lowered himself further.
His masked face found the curve of her shoulder and stayed there. He breathed in slowly, drawing in the scent of her skin, her hair, the faint sweetness that always clung to her no matter the season. Columbina gave a soft laugh and lifted a hand to his hair, her fingers slipping through the pale blue strands with idle fondness.
“Has the day been dreadful,” she asked, “or merely exhausting?”
A low sound answered her, more vibration than speech, muffled by her shoulder and the edge of the mask. His hold tightened around her beneath the shelter of the coat, and Columbina let herself lean into the familiar weight of him, unconcerned by the snow collecting near her feet or the cold pressing against the garden stones.
“Would a lullaby help?” she asked.
He gave another hum, this one lower, touched by immediate refusal. Columbina tilted her head and glanced at him from the corner of her eye, studying the line of his temple where the mask met skin. Then she tapped him there, light and teasing.
“Then tell me what you came here for, poor thing.”
He remained where he was for another moment, pressed against her shoulder like a man unwilling to admit that his dignity had already been compromised by the entire situation. When he finally spoke, the words came out in a tone so put-upon that it nearly undid her on the spot.
“Say something mean to me.”
Her hand stopped in his hair.
“Mean?”
“Yes.”
She thought about this. “Did one of your segments quarrel with himself again?”
“Columbina.”
A laugh slipped from her despite herself, and she resumed stroking his hair, more thoughtfully this time. “Why in the world would you want that from me?”
“Just do it,” he muttered.
She gave the matter the sort of consideration usually reserved for theological disputes or royal decrees. “Your handwriting is appalling,” she said at last. “Your reports look like a Ruin Guard dragged itself through an ink pot and died halfway through a confession.”
Dottore lifted his head a fraction. The visible red of his eye narrowed behind the mask.
“Worse.”
Columbina blinked. “Worse?”
“Yes.”
Now genuinely invested, she considered him again. “Your tea tastes cursed. I am fairly sure something in your laboratory expired in it and improved the overall flavor.”
“Worse.”
She sighed and folded one hand over his at her waist, her thumb brushing once across the back of his glove. “You are very particular today.”
“I maintain standards.”
“Clearly.” Her tone carried easy sweetness for another beat before it changed, settling into something clearer, something impossible to mistake for play. She lifted her gaze toward the branches above them, bowed beneath the weight of snow, and spoke with solemn care. “You will never truly belong anywhere, Zandik. Sumeru rejected you. The Fatui keep you because you are useful. You keep making more versions of yourself because one has never felt sufficient.”
For the length of a single breath, he became completely motionless against her.
Then he raised his head and poked her in the side.
Columbina gave a startled little cry and twisted in his arms. Dottore let out a strained laugh that failed to hide the heat behind it.
“That was the wrong kind of cruelty,” he said. “I asked for irritation. You went directly to emotional devastation.”
Her surprise vanished into bright, ringing laughter, and she caught his hand between both of hers before he could inflict a second retaliatory jab. “I am sorry,” she said, still laughing. “I do not enjoy being cruel to you.”
“You seem alarmingly capable of it.”
“I would much prefer to praise you.”
He made a sound of immediate disapproval. “Do not start, and certainly do not—”
“You are brilliant,” Columbina said.
He stopped speaking.
That alone rewarded her enough to make her smile. She turned just far enough to catch the lower line of his face beneath the mask, and the first trace of color had already begun to rise there.
“You are brilliant,” she repeated, pleased now, “and impossible, and far gentler than you permit anyone to say aloud. The palace becomes less tedious whenever you come to find me. You remember every small thing I mention. You remember them for longer than anyone should.”
Dottore lowered his face back to her shoulder in what might have been surrender, or strategy, or a failed attempt to escape further damage. His grip loosened. Columbina’s fingers found his hair again and smoothed through it with lazy fondness.
“You are handsome too,” she continued, merciless in the softest possible way. “In an absurd, theatrical, faintly catastrophic manner, certainly, though handsome all the same. You are clever enough to unsettle gods. You are foolish enough to ask me for insults. You are also extremely warm, which happens to be useful, since you arrive draped in enough fabric to shelter an entire diplomatic delegation.”
The color spread swiftly after that, climbing from his jaw to the tips of his ears. Columbina continued for another few moments, each compliment settling over him with increasing effect, and he answered by sinking farther into her shoulder until even his pride seemed to lose structural integrity.
At last he straightened and withdrew from her with all the composure a man in visible distress could reasonably hope to assemble.
“It has gotten unbearably hot outside,” he announced.
Columbina turned on the bench to look up at him, her expression full of angelic sincerity. Snow had gathered across the black fur at his collar and along the white panels of his coat, each flake glaringly innocent.
“It is minus twenty degrees.”
Dottore drew the coat more closely around himself and fixed the garden with a look of personal offense. “My instruments require recalibration.”
Her laughter followed him down the path, bright enough to chase him through the snow for several steps before he stopped, turned sharply, and came back for her. This time he said nothing dramatic. He simply took her hand in his gloved one and held it there with the quiet insistence of a man who had already decided the matter.
“Come inside.”
Columbina rose at once, smiling still, and went with him through the snow toward the palace and its golden-lit windows. His hand remained wrapped around hers the entire way back. The warmth of it needed no comment from either of them.