#(hi so tl;dr smol tonia can kill u in your sleep)

[abyssmalice]

(on account of being awake since god knows when but definitely not at a time humans ought to be awake and with little sleep - this is gonna be a non-formatted but quick and short (edit: this is not short at all) headcanon post because my brain said so. anyway -

as a part of the fatui, smol tonia excels in:

1) causing trouble, small or big

2) getting into violent battles

3) assassination and murder coverups

4) torture and the occasional information extraction from the process

the first is what she’s honestly best at, and what she’d rather do most of the time. the tsaritsa and pierro, recognizing her aptitude for mischief (and maybe also feeling a Little bad about what they’re making an actual child do otherwise), usually arrange their plans in a way so that yes, little tonia just needs to cause a ruckus. 

mainly, anyway. of course, the fatui always have people to take care of, one way or another. and as much as tonia doesn’t want to do that sorta work, a harbinger is a harbinger and so she tends to be tasked with dealing with a few individuals every now and then. she tries to stall on those particular missions, but it has to be done eventually.

regardless of whether her targets are high-profile in society or common grunts, tonia has a very hands-on approach to dealing with them, rather than assigning any of the work to her subordinates where applicable (unless it really can’t be helped, but she really hates relying on people for this so she tries not to). 

this is mainly because she wants to make sure she gets these particular missions done, properly and thoroughly with no room for complaints (read: problems, because complications related to murder of all things tend to be very troublesome and very hard to deal with in a way that doesn’t affect herself), and what better way than to take control of the whole process, top to bottom, and execute it all herself?

she’s a bit more lax if all she really needs to do is just let off some steam and beat up people - it’s easy to just bully someone and do a little property destruction in the process, and anyway, no one will complain if they hear about a violent fight but no one’s dead. but if someone needs to be gone-gone with no one the wiser, or if she needs obtain information and the people in the know are too stubborn for mere intimidation and bruises, then she gets serious with how she does things.

this is where her expertise for pranks - for elaborate, detailed plans - comes in. her unfortunate penchant for schemes ensures she’s more than capable of coming up with a solid plan on her own, executing it, and doing a very believable coverup of her murder unless you’re a very, very good and lucky investigator.

similarly, she’s quite capable of coming up with plans to kidnap someone, confining them to a discreet location, and then extracting what she wants from them - information or confessions - and very, very painfully to boot. though, to be frank, she finds torture to be kind of boring, kind of more unpleasant than just straight up killing people, and sometimes she loses her patience with whoever she’s dealing with, so it can’t be said to be one of her better skills as a fatui. 

but she will eventually get this work done, like with the rest. not much of a choice, if she doesn’t want people to get suspicious of her and her missing, very tortured, and eventually must be permanently silenced afterwards target. too much as stake there, and honestly, she probably had to put in a lot of damn work to set up all of this to get some measly words or numbers or whatever - it has to pay off or else that’s even more annoying.

it’s why she’d rather just fight someone, if she had to pick between her more discreet methods and a straight up brawl. a battle is just logistically way more easier to manage, and usually, the consequences aren’t as bad if she can make room for a self-defense excuse in it.)