Xenoverse origins / R-012
Tatiana la TetonaOrigin story
The champion of the wrong gate
She promised to break the fortress before sunrise. Technically, she broke a building.
Read the origin ↓
Placeholder artworkTatiana la Tetona introduced herself with enough confidence to make lesser people check whether they had missed an announcement. She loved a challenge, an audience, and a weapon too heavy for anyone else to lift comfortably. Her enemies considered this exhausting. Her allies had additional evidence.
Her Xenoverse origin begins with a siege contract and a promise made before she had seen the target. The fortress had resisted three attacks. Tatiana declared that its fourth would be its last. The garrison heard the declaration from a travelling trader and began constructing a remarkably inexpensive answer.
A triumph is easier to organize when nobody checks the address.
From the dossier
Chapter 01
A captain with a prepared portrait
She commissioned a victory banner before hiring a scout. It showed her standing above a shattered gate, chin lifted, enemies arranged below in flattering proportions. The artist asked what the gate looked like. Tatiana said a professional should be able to imagine defeat. He charged extra for the uncertainty.
Her crew marched at night to preserve surprise, accompanied by a cart carrying the banner’s display frame. They encountered an old stone gate lit by torches, with figures moving along its upper walk. It stood exactly where the road appeared to end. A scout suggested checking the walls beyond it. Tatiana pointed to the armed silhouettes and asked whether he needed an introduction. The crew prepared the ram. Behind the gate, the silhouettes remained impressively still. Nobody thought this odd until much later, when stillness became one of several qualities the defenders shared with sacks of straw.
Placeholder artworkChapter 02
The most obedient enemy imaginable
The first strike cracked the timber. The second loosened the hinges. Tatiana led the third herself, treating the ram as though enthusiasm could improve its weight. The gate collapsed into a courtyard filled with old grain bins. No soldiers charged. No alarms rang. A painted board welcomed visitors to the abandoned toll depot.
On the upper walk, the defenders proved to be coats stuffed with straw and propped beside lanterns. Tatiana’s crew stared at them. One sack fell slowly forward, performing a bow of extraordinary disrespect. From the actual fortress on the ridge came the sound of cheering. The garrison had opened its shutters to watch. Her boast had supplied the evening’s programme; her banner had supplied publicity. Tatiana ordered silence. Unfortunately, she had no authority over the ridge, the laughing sacks, or the sudden and powerful urge of her own crew to look at anything except her face.
Placeholder artworkChapter 03
The retreat with additional scenery
They could not approach the real fortress with the exhausted ram, and dawn was exposing every movement. The sensible option was to withdraw. Tatiana called this repositioning until the cart wheel broke beneath the banner frame. Then even the euphemism became difficult to transport.
She carried the frame herself. It weighed enough to make the painted version of her appear smug by comparison. The crew followed through the mud while arrows from the ridge landed safely short, each tied to a strip of paper bearing directions to the correct gate. The garrison was spending ammunition on editorial comment. That detail wounded her more than an actual injury would have. At the camp, she set down the frame and discovered that the painting’s chin had cracked across the middle. The artist had, in the end, imagined defeat exceptionally well. She turned it toward the wall and asked the scout what he had seen.
Placeholder artworkChapter 04
A plan without a starring role
The scout knew the fortress depended on a water road through the ravine. A siege might be avoided entirely by blocking the delivery of stolen supplies and negotiating their return. Tatiana disliked the word negotiating because it offered no obvious pose for the banner. She disliked losing twice more.
For three days the crew worked without announcing itself. Tatiana hauled barriers, watched the ridge, and let other people speak first. The garrison discovered that its amusing little victory had not replenished its stores. Its commander eventually met the crew outside the real gate and agreed to release the supplies named in the contract. There was no storming of walls, no final duel, and no shattered entrance to stand upon. The task was completed. Tatiana found success surprisingly quiet when it did not spend half its strength describing itself to an audience that had other plans for the evening.
Placeholder artworkChapter 05
The boast she has to carry
Tatiana kept the damaged banner. Some companions considered this brave. Others considered it evidence that she still liked the portrait. Both explanations could coexist. When she became insufferable, the scout asked which gate she meant. It was a compact question with an excellent effect on planning meetings.
Her origin leaves her powerful, competitive, and magnificently capable of making a situation about herself. It also gives her a reason to hesitate before mistaking a visible obstacle for the real problem. In the Xenoverse, that hesitation can save a crew even when it irritates its captain.
She eventually earned another banner. The artist requested a description of the setting. Tatiana supplied a map, a sketch, and the scout’s written confirmation. He accepted the commission at his ordinary rate. The new portrait was smaller. The chin was reinforced. Some lessons deserve to survive transportation, even when their owner insists she learned them the first time.
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