baby, have you noticed the sky is rearranging?

“Did you know, during the War of the Funerary Flame, there was an Emperor named Valerian who got captured by the Heavenly Principles?”

Across the table, a long-suffering sigh cut through the delicate steam rising from your teacup. Valeriy sat with his massive arms crossed over his chest, his imposing stature casting a long shadow across the pristine tablecloth of this high-end Snezhnograd cafe. His dark hair framed a sharp face, and those eyes like a midnight sky bore into you with the weary patience of a man who dealt with your nonsense daily.

“Yes,” Valeriy replied curtly. “You asked me the same thing when I first escorted you to a ball at Zapolyarny Palace.”

A delighted laugh slipped past your lips, and you took a slow sip of your tea. “Well, it’s because your name is quite similar to his. Though I doubt Emperor Valerian would willingly bend the knee and work for someone like my father.”

Though your tone made it sound like a jest, it was a pointed arrow aimed directly at the armor he wore so proudly. You didn’t know much about Valeriy—he was famously tight-lipped about his past—but you had a few guesses here and there.

The way he carried himself, the rigid discipline he exercised, and that unshakable sense of duty; it was that of a knight’s. One who fell from grace perhaps, or one deeply misguided. Although it did make for a fascinating paradox: a clearly honorable man fiercly loyal to a noble whose hands were stained black with the underbelly of Snezhnaya.

Because you knew exactly what your father was.

You had lived your entire life wrapped in opulence, pampered within an inch of your life. But you were far from blind. You knew the extravagant banquets thrown for your name days were bought with tainted money. You were fully aware that your family’s fortune relied on a predatory, underground narcotics trade and clandestine alliances with the Fatui. Every fine thread on your back and every delicacy on your plate had been bartered for the tears and slow ruin of faceless addicts.

Yet, you had never done a single thing to stop it.

“Tell me, Valeriy,” you began, swirling the amber liquid in your porcelain cup. “Does a knight’s oath still count if the king you’re protecting is a villain?”

The silence that followed was terse, broken only by the distant chatter of other patrons and the clink of silverware. Anyone else in your social circle would have laughed it off, or worse, reprimanded you. Whenever you had subtly tried to voice your unease to your peers about where your families’ wealth came from, they treated you like a pariah. To the Snezhnograd elite, questioning the blood on the Mora was a distasteful social gaffe. The rich always protected their own wealth before all else; they expected you to smile, drink your fire-whiskey, and ignore the bodies the empire was built upon.

But Valeriy didn’t scold you. Nor did he offer a shallow defense of your father’s syndicate. He simply stared at you, though a small, sharp muscle twitched in his jaw.

You didn’t know why, but you felt entirely certain that underneath that quiet exterior beat a heart with some semblance of a moral compass. Which was a ridiculous assumption. The man had quite literally agreed to guard a family notorious for sitting at the very peak of the Snezhnayan drug cartel. He was paid by a monster, to protect the child of a monster.

But a week ago, your father had hosted a private gala at the manor, a gathering of wealthy distributors and certain Fatui Harbingers. You had stepped out onto the grand balcony to escape the suffocating smell of expensive perfume and greed, watching the heavy snow fall over the courtyard. Down below, a young kitchen maid had accidentally tripped on the icy cobblestones, dropping a crate of imported vintage wine meant for the Tsaritsa’s elite.

Your father’s chief overseer—a cruel, bloated man who handled the street-level enforcements—had immediately marched out fuming, his vision pulsing with aggressive geo energy. He was going to make an example of her for ruining property. The girl had shrunk into the snow, sobbing, knowing no one would help a servant.

You had moved to call out, to stop it, but a tall shadow cut through the balcony light before you could.

Valeriy had intercepted the overseer’s wrist mid-air. He hadn’t drawn a weapon. He hadn’t even raised his voice. He simply squeezed the man’s arm with enough force to make the elemental energy sputter out, his towering frame completely shielding the maid from view.

“The Tsaritsa's guests are waiting for their security detail inside, sir,” Valeriy reminded, his voice dripping with an unspoken promise of violence. “Do not waste your energy on spilled grapes.”

The overseer had gone pale, sneered, and retreated. Valeriy hadn’t comforted the girl—the guard merely turned and walked back to his post in the shadows—but he had saved her. He had drawn a line in the snow that your father’s learned culture of cruelty wasn’t allowed to cross.

“You're doing it again.”

Valeriy’s voice suddenly pulled you back to the present, shattering your memories of the gala.

You blinked, realizing you had been staring at him for a solid minute. “Doing what?”

“Looking at me as if I am some specimen you find utterly fascinating,” he said, uncrossing his arms and sitting up straight, the leather of his armor creaking faintly as he checked the perimeter of the cafe with a sharp glance. “I am a guard. Nothing more. If you continue to look for ghosts in my past, you will only end up disappointed.”

“Oh, I highly doubt that,” you replied, leaning back into your plush chair with a slow, knowing smile. “I think you’re the most interesting thing in Snezhnaya at the moment, Valeriy. And I have a very high tolerance for disappointment.”

Valeriy grunted, the faint tightening around his eyes the only indication that your stubbornness had registered. He reached for his own cup—a black blend he had ordered purely for the caffeine, ignoring the delicate pastries you had pushed toward him—but his hand froze an inch from the handle.

The low-humming chatter of the cafe abruptly died.

In the span of a single heartbeat, a cloaked shadow detached itself from the heavy winter coats hanging by the entrance, moving with a frantic speed that bypassed the cafe’s front counter entirely. Before Valeriy could even move, a man reeking of cheap alcohol lunged over the back of your plush chair.

Then, a cold, jagged blade was pressed against your throat.

“Don’t move! Nobody damn well move!” the man shrieked, his hands trembling so fiercely the cold steel bit shallowly into your neck. “I know who you are! I know whose blood runs in your veins, you little parasite!”

The other patrons gasped, knocking over porcelain cups as they scrambled backward to flee the establishment.

“Y-You—guard!” the attacker hissed, his wild, bloodshot eyes locking onto Valeriy. “You tell his lordship that this one is going to bleed out on this rug unless I get five hundred thousand Mora in cash. Right now! Pack it in a case, or I’ll slit their throat!”

Obviously, this was a high-stakes, life-or-death hostage situation. A single twitch of the man’s trembling hand could end your lavish, boring existence.

But you remained perfectly still, leaning back against the chair, completely unfazed by the sharp metal threatening your life. Instead of panic, a strange, thrilling rush of anticipation washed over you.

Because even when Valeriy masqueraded as a well-behaved dog loyal to his master, you knew what he really was. He was a apex predator. A bear waiting for the slightest, most logical excuse to be unchained. And right now, his charge was being threatened.

Which gave him permission to kill.

Valeriy didn’t rise slowly nor did he even try to parley. The air in the cafe plummeted past freezing as he moved, a burst of speed that defied his massive, armored frame. Your guard was on his feet as his hand shot forward, clamping down directly over the blade of the knife. He didn’t care about the steel cutting into his glove. With a brutal grip of his fist, Valeriy shattered the weapon into pieces.

The assailant screamed in shock as he staggered backwards, but your guard was already moving. He gripped the man’s collar, lifting his entire body off the ground, and threw him through the cafe’s large glass storefront. The window shattered into a million glittering diamonds, scattering across the snowy Snezhnograd pavement outside.

Valeriy stepped through the ruined frame, drawing a broadsword from his back as the fur trim of his cloak fluttered majestically against the swirling snow. His hair was dusted with white flakes, his eyes burning with ice-cold ire. He looked breathtakingly handsome, a dark knight silhouetted against the blinding frost.

The desperate man pulled another dagger from his boot, lunging blindly with a scream of pure terror.

Effortlessly, your guard brought the flat of his massive blade down against the culprit’s chest. The sheer force of the blow shattered probably shattered collarbone, and sent him crashing face-first into the cobblestones. Before the assailant could even get back on his feet, Valeriy’s heavy boot planted itself firmly on his stomach, pinning him into the dirt and snow.

The sword’s tip hovered mere millimeters from his eye.

“Yield,” Valeriy commanded. “Or I will ensure you never see the sun rise over the palace again.”

The man proceeded to go entirely limp, having passed out from shock.

From the sidelines, you took yet another sip of your tea, unbothered by the screaming wind or the commotion still buzzing about in the cafe. The amber liquid was losing its heat, but the warmth blooming in your chest more than made up for it.

Valeriy kept his boot on the culprit, his gaze shifting slowly until his midnight eyes locked onto you. He took in your unbothered posture, the teacup held gracefully in your hand, and the smirk playing on your lips.

“You’re helping yourself to a drink at a time like this?” he muttered.

“Well, what can I say?” you replied smoothly, stepping over the broken window to dust the snow off his hair. “My guard certainly likes to put on a show. Thanks for not killing him this time.”

Shortly after the threat was subdued, you spoke with the panicked cafe owner while the Druzhina were contacted to apprehend the unconscious assailant. The poor woman was begging for your forgiveness and weeping over the shattered glass, terrified that word of the incident would reach your father and spell the end of her livelihood.

Valeriy stepped up behind you, holding out your expensive winter coat. As you slid your arms into the sleeves, you offered the owner a small, reassuring smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes.

“Do not lose sleep over it. Blood is not always thicker than water.”

The carriage ride back to the estate was quiet, save for the rhythmic clatter of hooves against the cobblestones. Inside the cabin, Valeriy let out a heavy sigh, leaning his massive frame back against the plush velvet seating.

“Your penchant for these outings in the city is quite the occupational hazard,” he complained, pinching the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Your family has accumulated more enemies than Snezhnaya has snowflakes. Walking into public spaces just to test my reflexes is a dangerous habit.”

You let out a soft laugh, turning your gaze away from him to watch the heavy snow drift lazily outside the frosted carriage window.

“Well, history says Emperor Valerian fought to his very last breath,” you murmured, casting a sidelong, wicked glance back at him. “You’ll do the same for me, won't you?”

His grunt of resignation was an answer all on its own.

Whether he was a dog bound tightly to a master’s leash or a black bear locked in a cage of duty, the facts remained absolutely true. Valeriy was yours to provoke, and he made your otherwise boring life somewhat of a grand adventure.

✦ afterword. i love inconveniencing a big, handsome man who seems to not even mind being inconvenienced at all. okay maybe he does mind, but he lets reader off the hook every time anyway <3 i also like to think that in this fic, valeriy is actually someone undercover who's infiltrating reader's family to get some dirt on their father. what ever shall he do when he grows attached to the offspring of someone he's tasked to eliminate! but it's whatever!! i promise to write something more substantial for him once we get to know him better. the snezhnaya trailer looks promising for all characters!! also btw emperor valerian doesn't exist in genshin i made all that up just in case you're wondering bwahahaha