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To this Dotorre, contingency plans were a no-brainer.
To maintain his position, to maintain his power, set plans were non-sequential things. Should one fail, another would trigger. Much like an expansive nest of bear traps.
It’s almost unheard of for him to simply create new experiments on a simple whim. And if it appeared as such, one would know something was terribly wrong.
Of course, he’s chaotic enough to pick apart machinery when he’s bored. Insane enough to dissect one of his clones should they decide to cross a line. But it’s all an interweaving act.
No one can read him. No one should.
Especially when he decides to create this form’s magnum opus.
It’s funny that magnum opus’ are not defined by their uniqueness. Rather, the quality, the way in which the artform has been refined over years and years and years yet of repetition.
That said, while clones are normal, Dotorre has never dared distill himself down into a mere child.
He has never dared create a new life without a plan.
There are no documents created to mark progress. No photos taken to show the stillness of the petri dish, the single cell, the amalgamate that floats in his monstrous test tubes.
Through his labour pains that come in the form of frustrated sighs, supplies of his own blood and hours of his undivided attention, time draws on and he finds that this will be a detriment, rather than a well-yielding result.
He’s foolish. But he’s curious.
Dotorre is well aware of the folly of man that he falls into.
~>><<~
Today, he does not wear his usual lab coat. He forgoes the harnesses, the mask. And his hair is pinned up into something less mad.
He sets out of Snezhnaya like a normal man.
He arrives in Sumeru like a seasick, listless and delirious man.
Surprisingly enough too, the Akademiya is not his final destination.
No one knows of this Dotorre's plans, besides the clones that so annoyingly shared his mind.
And even now, they cry with a volition that makes the natural migraine of travel even worse.
The child will not recognise you!
Your final report was due an hour ago, and you’re wasting precious time with this?
I cannot believe this…
It’s equally funny that oneself can misinterpret intentions.
This is entirely unled by plans. All Dotorre needs is time away from the others. All he needs is to merely observe, and allow his hands their rest away from pen and paper.
He enters Vimara Village.
He introduces himself as a tourist in search of knowledge. He is offered lodging. He is given the time he needs to locate where he last dropped off this small clone of his.
To his surprise, he finds grey-blue hair and red burning eyes amongst a group of children that were his similar age. They surround him, they ooh and aah over his recent creation: the near-perfect paper airplane.
It flies beautifully. It crosses the river in one swing. One of the older boys has to sprint to the other side to even manage catching up to it.
Even then, older Dotorre notices flaws.
The facade of friendliness easily clicks into place, and he approaches the crowd.
For now, he intends to observe. This child who has everything he never had.
~>><<~
Dotorre has the occasional urge to kill the child.
It’s unfair, he thinks.
Teyvat has grown kinder, yet he has grown more callous. It’s been two weeks now. What should have been a control specimen has now gained an outlying factor. He is the outlying factor. Younger Dotorre now possesses an exploitative hint that could reveal his origins. The lies of his life, interwoven into each other. Like that nest of bear traps.
Dotorre decides he should leave instead.
In the dead of the night, while younger Dotorre takes a rare moment to sleep amidst his all-nighter studies, older Dottore departs from Vimara Village with nothing more than a note and a gift: the perfect airplane. Both of which are placed upon younger Dotorre’s desk.
It’s his one act of kindness he’ll promise to himself. To none other than himself.
There’s a difference between kindness and selflessness, after all.
~>><<~
Dotorre can no longer hear the child.
His deal with Lesser Lord Kusanali which resulted in the eradication of his other selves must have included that little byproduct of his.
He hates grieving. In fact, such an emotional time period does not cross him, for it’s true that any and all of those clones were growing to be liabilities than beings that felt like himself.
He’s a contradiction. He knows this.
Even so, there were points in time where Dotorre would take some time out from his work to just listen.
Listen to the bubbly voice of his younger self, excited and fuelled by his desire to learn, and the support of friends and family.
Did that airplane mean anything to the child?
He considers returning to Vimara Village just to be sure something had been done to memorialize him; that special and unique child. His magnum opus. Instead, he stays in Snezhnaya, and prepares for the next step in this ceaseless waltz between heaven and abyss.
This is why he never experiments without a plan.