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Once, there was a sun god.
He was arrogant, prideful of the radiance that he exhibited. Golden laurels were worn on his head and he sneered down at all who were beneath him. He was much feared for his lack of empathy.
What would someone such as him understand of a human’s grief, anyway?
Then, he fell for a man named Hyacinthus.
His days, once spent in boredom and scorn of humanity, were now filled with joy. The clouds parted to reveal a new sky he had never once traversed in all his years of driving his sun chariot. Their long walks always ended in held hands and secretive, shared smiles; they were carefree, for the first time in those long years.
And often, the god wove flowers into his mortal’s hair and kissed each one gently when they parted ways.
Then in an accident, the sun deity killed his beloved hyacinth, and his light was gone. A god of truth and the glorious sunrise’s golden glow, yet shrouded in shadows.
From there where he knelt, holding his dead lover, he created a flower, the soft teal of his hyacinth’s hair. And as he wept, he promised to find his beloved in his next life.
He kissed him tenderly, for one last time, and learned to grieve.
-
In the night, a tree stands. There are no leaves, no spring green drifting from twisting branches.
Several shriveled apples grow on it, fruit of a plant watered only by tears.
Under it, a figure sits.
From his ear dangles an earring, crystal-clear with blue liquid sloshing around in it. Flowers are gripped in his hand.
They're hyacinths. He grew them himself.
It’s freezing cold, but an uncomfortable warmth settles under his skin. Crawls through it, runs through his veins, traps him in a chokehold.
No amount of Mora can appease his grief. Nothing can, but for the soft feel of hands cupping his face in the middle of the night and soothing him from his nightmares. Emptiness rings in his hollow chest, the tolling of a bell that signals death.
Eight hours. Eight hours he’s sat under this tree and against the gravestone and run his hands down every edge, every crack, until he himself starts to crack too and his world caves in and he rests his forehead against the slab with little will to live.
“I know you’re in there,” he breathes, pressing a snow-crusted hand to the frozen earth. Petals scatter everywhere, blue against a white carpet. “I know you’re listening to me right now.”
If his words are heard, they are not replied to.
Fingers, frozen stiff by Snezhnayan winter, trace the words carved into stone. A husky voice whispers them aloud, as if they are a hymn. A song he holds sacred.
“Zandik. Of Sumeru.”
The name etches itself onto a shattered heart.
He curls up tighter under the tree and presses his face against smooth bark. Stroking it, softly, trying to hold each branch as if they were the pair of hands that once grasped his own with such gentleness that he will never feel again. Every apple that grows on the near-barren tree is ruby-red. Like the eyes he used to spend so long staring into.
A hand reaches up. A fruit is plucked off.
Come back, he thinks, but does not say it.
“I hate you.”
He’d buried him here purposely, under a tree where they’d met up in secret once upon a time, by the Snezhnayan riverbank. There had been no objection from the others— no one else cared about how he ended up.
The memory condenses clear in his murky mind, and a blinding flash of pain erupts in his head.
That's not a fair exchange. Immortals are supposed to live forever.
There had been a funeral. No one mourned.
He did.
He’d made a fool of himself and stood at the foot of the coffin and lowered his head so no one would see his expression. He’d held out trembling hands and tucked every strand of hair in place and willed him to wake.
And when the Harbingers had dispersed, he’d draped himself across a limp body and wept until the sun rose.
Now he inhales the scent of a half-decayed apple to remind him of joy— and cannot remember.
He tries to breathe and can’t.
He pulls his knees to his chest and a scream tears through his throat. Fire roars in his veins but chills him to the bone at the same time. There is nothing, nothing in his heart but a gaping wound that he picks at until it widens and he prays he will bleed to death.
Glassy eyes drain of color until there is nothing behind golden-yellow eyes except tears.
Don’t you dare leave me.
He lies in wait for hands to so lightly caress his hair and have arms slip quietly around his waist. He waits for a final dance and insults that feel like comforts.
A tremor runs through his body. A half-sob escapes trembling lips. Hands press themselves to a pallid face in a desperate attempt to stop himself from crying.
Don't…you dare…d-
A forced laugh follows.
He can't even say the word “die”.
Come back and insult me for crying.
Seeing him dressed in his thin and impractical coat, the winds show no mercy on his frail mortal body. They blow, ruining his hair, stabbing through his eyes until he shuts up. Sobs fade into sniffles, which fades further still until he sits there, dead silent.
He touches the gravestone as if it were the doctor's face. Rough, worn, but lacks the warmth that brings his heart to melt.
Cold to all others. Warm to him.
That warmth is what he feeds off of– and now that it has been extinguished…what is left? How will he live?
Three nights he’s been dead now. Eight hours since the funeral.
Yet he’s still here, frozen in time while the rest of the world thaws out and moves on.
You said, once, that you would find me in another life.
Tears are fought back. Hands are clasped around bent knees.
Where are you now?
Lifelessly, he takes another fistful of hyacinth petals from his pocket and brings it to his nose. It reminds him of a happier time.
It was destiny, he supposed, the way he’d thought Dottore to be so achingly familiar for no reason when they’d first met. Like they’d always known each other, somehow; like they had held each other close in another life. Another universe.
A bittersweet feeling floods his chest.
Reality is too cruel to accept.
So he bends over a gravestone and grieves.
-
“I will likely die first.”
Says the Regrator, as he leans against the tree and bites into an apple. Golden juice bursts through his mouth. He savors the taste.
Savors the presence of his Doctor next to him, violently stabbing his surgical knife into a very mangled piece of fruit.
And Dottore just laughs.
“Let’s hope not,” he says. “Who’s going to fund my experiments if you die?”
-
The Regrator is quite good at cultivating flowers.
All the petals scattered over Dottore’s grave are grown with his own careworn hands, watered and sunned to perfection. The glory of the bulbs unfolding used to bring him great joy.
Now, it pains him.
He loves the hyacinths. Especially the teal ones. They remind him of that hair he used to run his fingers through so gently.
Sunlight streams in through translucent walls of the little greenhouse. Amongst his riches, it is insignificant— what use does a banker have for plants? But they are treasured dearly, like Pantalone’s own tiny children, each and every one of them planted with care.
It’s unlike him to be so enamored by something that is not money.
The other Harbingers have scorned him for wasting valuable time on gardening, as has Dottore himself. Pantalone, well, he’s aware it’s not something economically wise to be investing in.
He doesn’t care.
Instead, he walks into the greenhouse upon sunrise and kneels beside the sweet little blossoms.
It’s quiet. Too quiet.
Normally, there would be a segment or two, messing around the tangerine plants and picking flowers. Far too many times he’s scolded the damned things for mucking up his precious flower garden or eating his hyacinths. There had been no expectation for himself to become so fond of these moments, and yet.
They’re gone, too.
It leaves a hole in his heart.
The greenhouse is too orderly. It’s unnerving.
He murmurs to himself at every plant he passes.
“That dratted Akademiya segment, he used to love cutting my flowers open for so-called research.”
Now he plucks dried strands of blue off a tulip and holds them so reverently, as if it is a fine treasure.
“The smallest segment, what’s his name…loved to eat my strawberries. I poisoned them once. He never disturbed me again.”
Now he misses those disturbances, and curses himself for slipping mercury into the plump red fruits.
“And Prime— the real one…he would entertain me as we walked through this place. He always wanted me to plant more carnivorous species. I turned the suggestion down.”
And yet.
A giant pitcher plant grows in the center of the conservatory, presumably the largest in the world— courtesy of the Doctor’s definitely not safe-to-use fertilizer. Roots jut out of the ground and tips poke through the ceiling. He reaches up to it, watching it snap at him eagerly, trying to bite off a chunk of flesh.
“Hello.” sighs Pantalone, rubbing the stem of the giant shrub as if it were an angry cat. “I’m back.”
The flower opens up and snaps at him. A droplet of red drips off his arm, a thin line seeping blood like water through a crack on ice.
There is no playful smack of the leaves against his cheek now. Even the plant droops a little. Like something is empty, missing from their lives.
Sometimes, Pantalone thinks it’s sentient.
“Do you miss him?” says Pantalone quietly. “He used to feed you things from his lab. I think it’s where you got your taste for human meat.”
The petals flutter in response. Rustling, a root curling up to gently nudge his ankle.
Pantalone sits and rests against it.
“No human flesh today, I’m afraid,” he says, offering his arm. “You can bite off my hand, I suppose, but Dottore won’t be here to replace it.”
Outside the greenhouse, Childe and Pulcinella pass by. A snatch of conversation is heard through the doorway.
“—Poor thing. The arrogant Regrator, so silent and sullen? Unheard of.”
And Childe shakes his head as he speaks in pity.
“He doesn’t even have the energy to make fun of me anymore.”
Shame burns at the banker’s cheeks. Has he really fallen this far? What has gotten into him?
And a little indignance worms its way around his heart too, if he must be honest.
Poor thing? he hisses. I’m not supposed to be pitiable.
His disheveled appearance says otherwise.
A seed falls into his soul, and starts to sprout, growing poison around blood vessels. It is only a matter of time before it consumes him entirely.
-
“Why do you spend so much time on those ridiculous blue hyacinths?”
Or so the Doctor scoffs, but without scorn.
“I don’t know.” A smile plays around the corners of Pantalone’s lips. “I think they’re pretty.”
He bends down to touch one of them gently, as if stroking it. Hands scrabble around the messy array of flowerpots until he finds a fallen flower.
“Here, for you.”
The offering is simple. Humble, especially for a man of such standing. But still, to the Doctor, it is more precious than any gold.
“I don’t remember why,” Dottore mulls, accepting the blossom, “but I recall that we have done this before.”
“You must have remembered wrong, then.” The Regrator lifts his chin in that stuffy, annoying manner, but then smiles. “You know what? I think it would look good in your hair.”
“Over my dead body.”
He puts it there anyway.
-
Why could I not have died first?
The smell of wine is intoxicating.
Frostbitten fingers curl around a glass. The fourth this evening. Damp eyes lift themselves to the ceiling, red-rimmed and scared— so uncharacteristic of a ruthless economist. He angles his chin proudly and does not cry.
He isn’t drunk. His alcohol tolerance is high— too high.
He doesn’t even like wine. He’s just trying to drown his sorrows and forget for a few moments and yet.
It’s not working.
Snezhnaya is silent, as are the stars. The others are asleep or have left the palace; he remains here on a moonlit night, legs crossed on a balcony, sitting in an antique wooden rocking chair he most certainly did not need to buy. His glance darts around the landscape, waiting, waiting for a familiar ghost to appear, or for Dottore to show up, bloodstained hands and all, knocking on his door way earlier than is needed.
He turns, eyes misting at the empty room behind him. Filled with golden ornaments and age-old collectibles…and yet still so empty.
(It lacks a Dottore to mess it up.)
The chest-of-drawers in the corner catches his eye. Unlike the rest of his room, those drawers are an unholy mess. A grim smile turns up the corners of his mouth. Glass splinters on hardwood. Red liquid snakes across oak panels, staining a plush white carpet.
Curtains are thrown open. A chest-of-drawers spilled. He sifts through yellowed letters and a collection of test tubes filled with some liquid he does not want to touch. Fabrics are sorted through, thrown everywhere until a white coat is pulled out. It’s unwashed.
He chuckles humorlessly.
He used to nag, quite often, at Dottore to wash his damned clothes. “You look terrible,” he’d say, and his remark was replied to with a flippant grin and word of thanks.
Now the lab coat is wrapped around shaking shoulders and pulled tight over a stiff chest. The folds of the fabric are almost comforting to the touch— if they do not feed his obsession more, more, more. Every stain and crease is noted, with a clear memory of how they got there.
There is nothing about Dottore that says perfection. Not in the slightest. He is messy, grumpy, clinically insane and frankly rather irresponsible.
But Pantalone will never let anyone ruin his memory of him.
Without Dottore, he will never be complete again, he knows.
I should have died in place of him.
The creak of rusted joints on a cabinet sounds. A new wineglass is retrieved.
Another glass of alcohol is poured. Then another.
Letters are read and reread and marked with tears. Pictures are carefully observed, then placed back into the drawers. They water the sprout in his glass soul, and it grows, grows until it breaches the tips of that very soul and worms into his heart.
Frustration wells up inside him. It’s not like him to be desperate. He doesn’t like how it feels.
It reminds him of his childhood.
And he hates thinking about it— so back to the bottle he goes.
A sixth cup, a seventh. Rage bubbles up in his mind.
How dare they take all this from me.
And it’s only a matter of time before he storms off to the greenhouse with veins bulging in yellow eyes, a skimpy lab coat around bony shoulders.
Snezhnayan wind flows through open doors. Another swig of the bottle is taken, wine-red rushing to sickly cheeks and growing in them a flush.
He’s too drunk, too delirious for this.
How…how dare I. How dare I let him leave like this.
A knife is taken out of his pocket.
Widened, scared eyes pin themselves on beautifully blossoming flowers. The source of his pain. The reason he aches.
Dottore.
A primal scream. A cut of the blade through a hyacinth.
Every slice of the knife against breaking stems feels like a stab wound in his heart.
I hate you.
Leaves scatter in morning light.
Red petals are torn apart, the pride of his greenhouse reduced to pieces. There is no giant pitcher plant growing through the ceiling. There are no hyacinths in full bloom that butterflies land on.
Gasping and panting, he takes one look at what he’s done. Then, a drunken hiccup. A hand flying to his face that comes away damp.
A door slams shut behind him.
He does not come back the next day.
Nor the next, nor the one after that.
-
“And if I died?”
“Well, then,” Dottore flicks a hand dismissively, “I'd find you in my next life and beat the hell out of you for abandoning me.”
The crunch of an apple sounds. Pantalone laughs. Their eyes meet, red and gold, sparkling like freshly poured champagne.
A hand laces through teal hair, the color of the Regrator’s favorite hyacinths.
“I'd do the same for you.”
-
A tree grows in his soul. The branches twist and tangle until they form a cage over his heart, squeezing it tight, suffocating him. He spends his days filing taxes and nights on his balcony, drinking away his sorrows— and when morning comes, he wakes with a splitting headache, lonely as ever, and lets himself cry.
Please don’t abandon me.
He lives in delusion and curses the skies and holds a lab coat that smells of antiseptic and chlorine to remember. At night, he clutches the white fabric. Breathes in what remains of his Doctor until Hypnos lulls him into a dreamless sleep.
He hasn’t dreamed for a long time.
And when he wakes, his cheeks are always tearstained, with the smell of flowers hanging saccharine over him.
Food is not a necessity. He cannot bear to stomach it. What is eaten, is thrown up shortly after. So he hardly bothers anymore. Illness plagues him endlessly, and a sickly-pale complexion is worn.
The other Harbingers do not question it. Not the worn appearance; not the dark spots under his eyes; not the way he glances at the empty seat beside him during meetings. But he has changed, they know. And they almost— almost pity his hunched, silent form that used to relish hearing the sound of his own voice so much.
Sallow is his face that used to glow red upon seeing that familiar smile. Ice-cold are his hands, thinner than that of the beggars in front of the bank. Those hyacinths he spent years so carefully tending to are now discarded, left in an empty greenhouse with only flies to keep company, rich teal wilting to brown in a matter of days.
An inability to stand the ache brings him back to the greenhouse one day.
Gloves are slipped off, discarded in a corner.
His shaking hands caress rotted hyacinths. They are corpses. Dead, like his own flower.
He remembers that Dottore once joked how if he were a plant, he would be a Venus flytrap, or poisoned milkweed.
He thinks that his Doctor is— was— a hyacinth.
The bulbs of the flower are poisonous. But then it blooms, grows larger, more beautiful, and underneath the poison is a type of softness that carries an exotic fragrance.
Just like him.
Dying petals are held to a heaving chest. They intoxicate the banker, poison him past the point of thinking straight. They give him fragmented memories in a thousand shades of blue and force him to think, think about what he has lost. To accept Dottore’s departure.
Weakly, he breathes in the scent of hyacinths gone to rot.
And his voice gasps out a melody of grief, as had a sun god many years ago in another world.
Kill me.
Doors are flung open. Footsteps clack on marble stairs.
Kill me so I can end this pain.
Coughs rack his throat. There is no need to care. Blood covers trembling palms pierced with frostbite.
Kill me so I don’t have to live like this.
And Snezhnayan winds push him forward, through mounds of snow to a familiar place under a dead apple tree. The fruits have all fallen; the plant is little more than a piece of dead wood, bracing itself for the harsh howling of winter gales. It is hollow.
And he, too, is empty as well.
Kill me because I just can’t live without your irritating voice.
Knees give way to exhaustion on frozen ground. Bruises stain snow-colored skin purple. Glasses fall and splinter against rocks.
A body hits the floor, too weak to support himself. Blood drips from his open mouth as he coughs, wildly, his heart seizing up.
Please kill me.
A face is pressed against cold earth, unable to move. Petals are sprinkled over snow once again, this time withered into pieces. Frost brings a chatter to his teeth and bites at once-soft skin, threatening to carve wounds on shaking hands.
Every prayer he whispers goes to his false god. His Doctor, and no one else, for what true deity would understand a mortal’s plight? So he lets cold seep through his clothes and cries to a carved stone in a cracking voice.
“Zandik.”
Tears blaze trails down a cheek marked with frostbite, scarred like a certain doctor’s. Fire burns shame in his heart.
I failed to save you.
Blood dries on a pair of hands, bare against ice. Hypothermia obscures his vision.
A single snowflake, crystalline and perfect, flutters from the skies like the flight of a butterfly and alights on his finger, the glare of the sun at dawn illuminating tearstained cheeks in shades of gold. As if something is clicking into place— something larger than Snezhnaya, than heaven. A ghost of another world possessing him.
And suddenly, he remembers.
Remembers something that he has seemingly never experienced before.
Like a delusion, it dances before his eyes, a memory of a sweet yesterday he has forgotten.
Of a flower woven into silken strands of teal.
Of a mischievous stare that he has grown far too used to seeing.
Of heaven dissolved and slipped between their lips in a dance unknown to any other.
And of a golden-eyed immortal watching his hyacinth die out.
Hyacinthus, cries a god.
Dottore, screams Pantalone in response.
It’s too much. It’s all too much.
In another time, he is a god in his throne atop the sky. And although all the riches in the land were easily controlled by him, he lived a joyless life after an untimely death.
What will Mora bring you, if you are so useless?
White blooms at the tips of his fingers stained red. The words he chokes out are slurred. Drowsiness overcomes him, and he does not think about what the others will say when they see the body slumped on the grave.
He thinks only of a scarred face more beautiful than any marble statue, and the sensation of warmth he has sought out for so long. Footsteps approach, but they are an illusion.
A breeze embraces a shaking figure.
Like a ghost’s voice.
Like his— soothing, rugged— that damned voice.
He shatters.
Ragged weeping punctuates the silence between the calls of birds.
It doesn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt if it means I can find you again.
He laughs, near hysterically, but cries at the same time.
And why is it so unfair? That he is the mortal in this cycle and yet his other half still dies first?
I am not sorry I tried to love.
Despite his ailment, he smiles.
Kill me so I can…be with you…
The flapping of birds sends his imagination spiraling beyond control. He finds Dottore reflected in anything he sees and the rise and fall of the river crashes against shores and echoes the words slashed onto his soul in its ebb and flow. Mint hair brushes the sides of his face. The touch of fingertips down a cheek, so horribly, annoyingly gentle, and a soft voice murmuring in his ears.
“Idiot. Don’t die.”
The Regrator is not known for his ability in following instructions.
A crack, jagged and sharp, runs down an earring. A puddle is formed in dusty blue.
Frost sweeps over a decayed mortal heart, freezing it over forever. The pumping of blood draws to a halt.
Endless wealth is left behind. He hardly cares.
…I…am grateful…
From his chest, a single red hyacinth sprouts, borne of a seed in his soul.
…Thank you.
When the cold consumes him, there is no fear of death. Just a smile, pained but in joy, and hands folded as if in prayer. Droplets trickle from luminous eyes.
Rotted hyacinths fall like snow.
A sigh. A last breath.
Through blood-colored lips, a sun deity speaks.
A promise that has been uttered so many times before, in so many worlds across time.
My hyacinth, my—
my love,
I will find you in my next life.