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Some would say the idea of loving someone born to fit the role of a heretic would make you almost, if not, just as insane as the heretic himself.
That didn’t bother you.
The man you had chose to spend your life with had a beautiful mind. A talent for creating and solving conundrums just for the sake of it — just because he could.
At first, the nature of his methods unsettled you; but that was a long time ago when the two of you met during his time as a very awkward, very antisocial reclusive student in the Akademiya.
Getting close to him was probably harder than the entirety of the material you had spent countless nights drudging through — but the endless cold shoulders and snappy remarks were worth it when he had willingly decided his place to sit was now next to you.
He didn’t acknowledge your friendship until late into his teenage years, and neither did he acknowledge how much further it went after your first kiss that he had deemed an ‘experiment is social behaviour’.
He never asked you out on dates. No. He simply stole you to go and ‘do something more productive’.
The ring he spent countless days making from left over ruin guard parts wasn’t a promise ring — it was just something he ‘accidentally’ made and didn’t want to waste materials.
All of that seemed so far away as you watched the moonlight glinting off the same very same ring. Blue hair peppered with white gently catching on the ridges as you ran your hand through Zandiks hair.
You thought back to your wedding.
A small, private affair. He didn’t want the large fuss of a public ceremony, despite the Tsaritsa explaining what a big deal it was for a Harbinger and their spouse.
You thought about the arguments when he’d spend more time with his projects than with you. The way he’d wordlessly apologise by holding you in his arms, almost as if he were scared you’d slip away.
Emotions that bubbled over in both good and bad ways. Ways which were never seen by anyone else.
“It’s time.” A voice all too familiar spoke out into the suffocating silence of your shared bedroom.
It was his voice, but it wasn’t him. It would never be him anymore.
“I hope you’re aware that this opportunity is something rather extraordinary.”
Blinking, you looked up to see Omega. The cold expression on his face causing a pit of anger to fill your chest.
How could he be this cruel? This excited to violate the body of the man you loved. He created him — he existed because of him.
Yet you knew there wasn’t anything you could do; so instead, you wiped the tears off your cheek with your sleeve and stood up from the bed, looking down at Zandik who lay motionless. The silence that was once filled with his raspy breathing now louder than any explosion could compare to.
Sleeping. That’s what you told yourself.
He’d wake up soon.
He wouldn’t.
You knew that.
That awkward boy from Sumeru had faded, and along with him, so had your heart.
The man known as a heretic was no more, and all you could do was watch as three of his segments - three of the men who looked like your husband, yet would never be him, transported his body away as though he were nothing more than an experiment.
He wasn’t an experiment, you thought. He was Zandik.
Your Zandik.