Archive of Our Own

“I think this one will do.” 

Sumeru City doesn’t change. It’s still as bright and sunny as always, the ever-familiar spice-scented breeze wafting from the variety of stalls lining the roads. The sun beats down on his green uniform, but the breeze breathes relief onto heated skin.

Thank the Archons the Akademiya uniforms are breathable in this weather.

Housein nods in approval, smiling widely. “You’re the only one who so carefully selects his sunsettia. You really are one of a kind, Zandik,” the fruit vendor says.

The coin, warm from sitting in his palm, drops onto the vendor’s open one. The cool, sunset coloured skin of a sunsettia replaces the sticky sensation of the coin. Zandik begins to wipe the fruit’s skin with his sleeve, rubbing the wax off until the glint of the sun shines just as bright on it.

“It would do no good to be careless with what you eat. Besides sunsettias mean a lot to me. I’ve always liked them since I was a kid,” Zandik says. 

“Yes, right.” Housein moves some fruits around, pushing some pomegranates farther into the shade of his tarp. “I remember you coming by with your mother when you were a little thing. I didn’t know you would still remember me so long after and be a loyal customer. I hear you’re in Amurta now. Congratulations, kid.”

“It was quite simple,” is Zandik’s response.

He has always been told that his ego could be split into seven fragments and would still be the size of a mountain. He’s inclined to disagree, of course. Zandik is a prodigy of his own right—why wouldn’t he assume that intelligence and talent? Some call it ego. He calls it acknowledging his strengths.

“Yes, yes. You geniuses always say that.” Housein shakes his head with a laugh. Another sunsettia is held out to Zandik. “On the house. Eat well, young man. You need to nourish those brains of yours. And don’t forget to keep steady even when things are as chaotic as a storm out on the ocean.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Zandik responds. “Thank you.”

He won’t. 

There is no genuine intent to remember Housein’s advice. Zandik knows he can fare well on his own, and he does not need to take into account the sunbeaten musings of an old man. The fruit vendor will continue to tell every passing client about his sailing experiences, and they will all indulge in the niceties and pleasantries exchanged in a transaction. Deep down, they’ll all be thinking about how hot it is, how the fruit feels nice against their skin, and how they can’t wait to finally get moving to their destination. 

While Zandik does not care for social pleasantries, he can appreciate the interactions for what they are: a reminder that there is community for him. 

There is a fruit vendor who is well acquainted with him and his keen preference for sunsettias over any other fruit from childhood, and there’s the manager of Puspa Cafe who knows him well from his late-night studying, poring over the yellowing pages of old books. There’s even the part-time hostess of Lambad’s Tavern, who always makes a point to make friendly conversation with him when he passes by to enjoy the view of boats coming in from the small rivers below.

Of course, he knows she just thinks he’s handsome and is probably just trying to get to know him better. Still, she counts among the handful of people who welcome his presence, and that might count enough for Zandik.

But there is still a shell around him. 

It’s formed from the distant looks he gets from the Dendro Archon—the ones she gives him when she must not realize him noticing her staring at him for a beat longer than she does everybody else. The shell has been built from the suspicious looks the General Mahamatra levels him with, as if the image of Zandik evokes a memory of a wanted poster.

Zandik does not recall ever meeting them personally. He doesn’t remember even exchanging a few words of those well-practiced pleasantries with them.

The knowledge that such important people eye him always makes him retreat further into that shell. For someone with such a “big ego”—as some people like to put it, though he will always refute it—Zandik cannot help but feel minuscule under their scrutiny.

Sumeru is his home, but sometimes, it feels like he was meant for a life of exile.

“Zandik!” There’s Qishan again. The part-time hostess standing in front of Lambad’s Tavern greets him with a bright grin and an excited wave. “Coming by to study again?”

“What else is there for a scholar to do?” he says in greeting. “Have you taken the exam yet?”

“Ah…” Qishan grabs a menu and scratches her head awkwardly, tossing long black hair over her shoulder. She leads Zandik to his usual seat outside the tavern and clears her throat. “Well… The exam’s a lot harder than I expected. I have to retake it later…” A glass of water and cutlery are set in front of Zandik, though Qishan should know very well by now that he won’t eat. She laces her fingers and pouts. “Even after taking a few years to just work, I still haven’t landed it. I don’t know how you did it, Zandik. You got admitted so fast!”

He had been admitted remarkably fast. Everyone praises him as a genius, and he wants to agree. But… Zandik thinks of Lesser Lord Kusanali’s knowing eyes on him. He reconsiders.

“Perhaps not solely on my own merit, but I believe you will get it eventually.”

And because he’s done with this conversation, he pulls his books from his bag and sets them heavily on the table. It’s hard to ignore the way Qishan gasps then beams at him, her ears pink—and not from Sumeru’s heat. 

“Since you believe in me, I’m much more confident!” Qishan says, giddy, and practically bounces away to attend to the next guest, though Zandik thinks she might just be flirting with any mildly attractive guest. 

Right. Whatever. Zandik doesn’t bother answering her.

Papers flutter in the wind, brought over from the comforting, lapping water below. Zandik puts his glass of water over them to hold them in place and flips open his work binder. As an extern at Bimarstan—another prodigious achievement so early in his studies to the eyes of the public, he has to very carefully juggle his studies and his job at the same time, making sure that his academic performance remains as pristine as it has been while ensuring timely care for his job. 

The sunsettia drips clear, sweet juice as Zandik takes a bite from it, eyes scanning the reports. 

Sex: Female, 24 years
Patient Presentation: Thin, likely from improper nutrition. Patient experiencing fever. Poor sleep, able to eat minimally, signs of fatigue. No physical injuries.
Route of Administration: Oral
Reactions: 

He pulls his notes from the stack of papers he’d pinned under the glass. The condensation has dripped onto his medical notes, leaving a ring of wetness and smudging the ink. It’s still legible, thank the Archons. Zandik wedges the sunsettia between his teeth with a crunch and furrows his brows to write as he cross-references.

Reactions: Positive. Sleep quality and appetite improved.
*Note: Patient is a student at the Akademiya. Proper rest and cessation of demands to be her lover well-advised for mental wellbeing. Incense as possible treatment.

Really, it’s a problem. He doesn’t want to keep disappointing this poor, unwell patient by turning her down all the time, but she’s sick and delirious. And Zandik is also a little tired of women clambering over themselves to be in his vicinity. It’s flattering, yes, but it’s a little off-putting, especially when he has no interest in such things, nor does he have the time.

Zandik just wishes they would leave him alone a little more, so he can focus on his work and studies, instead of—

“Dottore!”

His head jolts up at the angry call.

Zandik doesn’t know anyone by that name. It’s quite an odd name for Sumeru, but the way it was said with such vitriol catches his attention. 

His eyes meet the green ones of a man dressed colourfully. From a black and green bob rise two long fox-like ears, and Zandik squints at him. The man, who is now approaching Zandik with that same scrutiny in his gaze as the General Mahamatra and the Dendro Archon, looks so incredibly familiar…

It’s as he leans on the table across from Zandik that he finally realizes who it is. A spark of excitement jolts through him. “You’re that Forest Watcher– An Amurta graduate. My senior, Tighnari!”

His enthusiasm is stomped out immediately.

“What do you think you’re doing here?”

Zandik shrinks back. “What…? I’m– Uh, studying? I mean, I’m writing out my report.”

Tighnari’s ears twitch forward, his bushy tail swaying impatiently. He’s furious, for some reason. Those green eyes of his dart across Zandik’s face, as if taking him apart and piecing him back together to try to find whatever he’s looking for. “Nothing to say for yourself, huh?”

“I… Uh? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zandik stutters. He flusters and pulls his papers a little closer to himself. Surely Tighnari wouldn’t snatch them up in his search for whatever it is he wants to find? “I don’t think we’ve met before.”

At least, Zandik has never met him before.

“You–” His eyes narrow, and his tail swishes across a chair harder. “After everything you’ve done—everyone you’ve hurt, you think you can pretend to be just another person here?”

“Is this about the overdue book? I didn’t mean to stress anyone out!” Zandik nervously fishes out the thick book about Sumeru flora from his bag and sets it on the table. It thunks like a stone. Pushing it in Tighnari’s direction, he flounders. “I swear I tried to return it! The House of Daena was closed for renovations that day. I– You can tell Katayoun I’ll return it as soon as I can!”

That’s what seems to calm Tighnari.

Another pass of his tail across the back of a chair behind him. The legs of the chair squeal against the floor as it rocks sideways. His expression tightens one last time before it relaxes, and he straightens into a non-threatening posture. The smile he shoots Zandik is evidently forced, but it’s a good effort at reconciliation.

It doesn’t soothe the lump of fear in his chest.

“Sorry. I mistook you for someone else. I sincerely apologize for the trouble I’ve caused you.” As if nothing had happened, he turns to leave, but not before shooting one last look over his shoulder and saying, “But I’d give the other Forest Rangers a wide berth, if I were you.”

“Can I… ask why?” 

Zandik hasn’t done anything wrong, as far as he’s aware. 

It’s like the situation with the General Mahamatra. Has Cyno been rubbing off on Tighnari? Zandik has seen those two together a lot.

Tighnari’s smile turns a little more sardonic. “Let’s say… Conflict prevention.” He turns around for good this time and raises his hand for a dismissive wave. “Bye now!”

“... Bye?”

And with Tighnari goes the warmth of the Sumerian sun. The lapping of the river’s water down below, past the railing, is no longer a sound of comfort. The smell of food no longer seems quite as warm, and Zandik’s papers are soaked through with that ring of condensation leaking still.

The shell around Zandik thickens and closes itself just a little more until the sun just barely peeks through the crack.

Zandik, the heretic.

In a world where one’s name is tied to their fate, Zandik has never felt blessed. The life of exile he’d always imagined was meant for him—perhaps he was already living in, but not in a physical sense. Perhaps he is an exile of his own identity, forever caught between the future and the past, never allowed to learn who he really is—who inspires such disdain and mistrust in the people who should know more. 

Maybe he once did something in a past he can’t remember to hurt these people. Maybe their rejection of him is rightful, though he is not that person he cannot remember. 

Still, the patients in Bimarstan will not recover on their own.

Picking out the words from smudged, wet ink, Zandik diligently completes his reports. 

As always, it’s a sunny and breezy day out. 

Zandik sits on a grass slope east of Sumeru City. Further east is the Chasm and Liyue, where sandbearer trees grow, ancient and golden as their late Archon. But here, Gandha Hill is a peaceful place to sit and be alone.

He thinks that, if he were younger, he’d be running through the grass here with other kids. He hears the peals of laughter and feels the wind in his hair. It tousles his thick locks, parting the waves and pushing his side-swept bangs back. Somewhere, his mother is calling out his name as his father keeps watch. 

In this dream, he is just Zandik, beloved son of two Snezhnayan merchants. He isn’t a replica of a past self he does not know. The world does not look down on him for actions he cannot recall. He is a child with dreams of saving the unfortunate, and his path is noble and bright. 

But Zandik opens his eyes. He’s alone. He hasn’t been a child for a long time.

The purple kite sits still on the grass beside him, unmoved since he placed it down. Zandik turns his eyes to the sun. 

It’s a perfect day to fly a kite. 

“Geez…” He rises, stretching his aching back. He’s not yet twenty, and he already feels like he’s eighty-five years old. Maybe one day he’s going to fall over, and nobody’s going to help him up, and he’s just going to die like that. 

What a miserable death. 

Thankfully, Zandik is not eighty-five, and he is not going to keel over so quickly. He still has things he wants to achieve. For example, flying this kite. He’s always wanted to do it as a kid, but he never got the chance. He was always too busy burying his nose in books to learn as much as he could, so much so that he’d lose track of the daylight passing every time and entirely forget to go outside. 

Thinking of it now, he hasn’t changed much. Maybe his social life is a little better, and he no longer has his mother reminding him to come have dinner. 

The kite is light in his hands, as it should be. When Zandik turns his back to the winds blowing in from the east, the kite floats out of his hands and soars into the sky like a free bird—only it isn’t so free, because Zandik holds the string taut to pull the kite higher in the air. The black tail of the kite flutters as it flies in place, spreading its frail purple wings across the blue expanse of the sky above. 

It’s an unconventional colour for a child’s kite, but Zandik felt it was appropriate. 

He imagines this could be what releasing lanterns would feel like. He makes a mental note of that. Liyue isn’t so far, after all.

Sumeru City ahead of him, the Divine Tree standing so great and tall on the horizon and the rest of the city built into the tree’s roots, Zandik thinks that this might be what a childhood is meant to feel like: the breeze whipping up a kite into the sky and his hair into his face, the grass soft under his bare feet, and a feeling of being at ease in the world. 

Though Zandik has outgrown his childhood, he hopes that, somewhere deep inside him, wherever that might be, little Zandik can rest easy knowing he has finally flown a kite. 

His peace is quickly interrupted.

“Hey!” A gruff voice shouts from far away. A man leading a Sumpter Beast, laden with much on its back, approaches. “Are ya Zandik?” he yells over the rolling hill.

Zandik blinks in surprise. “Yes?” he calls back, uncertain. 

He’s not exactly known outside the Akademiya and his peers, so being approached by a burly man strapped with weapons is not the most ideal situation. But, as the man gets closer, Zandik can tell that he’s just a very cautious merchant with what seems to be a delivery for him.

“I don’t know what kinda people yer dealing with,” the man snorts as he hands him a crisp white envelope, “but they’re the kinda folks who’ll stop me in my tracks to make sure I got this to ya.”

Zandik turns the envelope in his hands, frowning. There’s a lump in there, and the outline of a folded piece of paper. “They… delivered it like that?”

“A band of Fatui, I tell ya!” The merchant scratches at his greying beard. “Didn’t tell me where the letter came from. Jus’ asked me where I was heading, then told me to make sure this was safely delivered to ‘Zandik of the Akademiya’. Gave me the most vague description of ya and sent me on my way with payment! They oughta consider themselves lucky I ain’t one to run off with a pre-payment.” He nods his head sagely, as if that gives him the high moral ground for not essentially committing theft. “Ah, yes, that band gave me this to give to ya, too.”

The bag of mora jingles loudly as it falls into Zandik’s open palm.

He’s so stumped.

The merchant finally shrugs and waves off Zandik. “That’s all I got for ya. Take care out here, kid. Young ones like your lot are always getting up to no good.”

The rest of his muttering is lost to distance as he strides back toward his Sumpter Beast and continues on his merry way toward Sumeru City. That leaves Zandik with a bag of mora atop an envelope in one hand and a purple kite in the other. 

Well… Childhood will always come to pass. It’s time for Zandik to let go and return to the present.

The string slips out of his fingers. The kite, unrestrained now, is finally truly as free as a bird. The black and purple thing gets swept up and carried away by the wind currents. Zandik, oddly, feels as though he is letting go of more than just the kite.

He watches it go until it becomes nothing more than just another blotch in the sky, blending in with the clouds and the dark spots in Zandik’s vision from staring at the sun too long.

Zandik flops down onto the grass, crossing his legs and setting the envelope and bag in front of himself. There’s a bout of just staring at the two items. He can estimate the amount of mora just from the weight of it, so he sets that aside and reaches for the envelope first.

There’s no address. No sender name. Nothing. Just four words scrawled elegantly onto the front: Zandik of the Akademiya.

The envelope smells oddly floral.  

It tears open messily thanks to his lack of a letter opener. Immediately, something tumbles out. It lands in Zandik’s hand before it can hit the grass. The mysterious lump from the envelope is cold and hard in his hand, as expected of a glass vial with a strange blue liquid in it.

But then Zandik holds it upright to watch the bubbles rise through the liquid, and a little metal chain clinks softly against the glass. It’s an earring clip. What the…

The letter doesn’t give him much more information either when he sets aside the mysterious earring and pulls the folded sheet of paper from the envelope. 

Dear Zandik, the letter opens with, cordial as can be.

Skimming the contents of the letter doesn’t tell him much. Neither does reading it line by line. Whoever the sender was, they were polite and generous, but they were also reserved and secretive about their identity. He can respect that, as curious as he is about their ties to the Fatui. Perhaps the sender is Fatui themself. 

I have faith that it will fit you well, is what they had to say about the earring.

And, I hope you will find good use for it, is all they say about the curious parcel receipt Zandik finds when he digs his fingers through the envelope one last time, for good measure. 

There are instructions for him to show the parcel receipt to the teller at the delivery system and use the bag of mora delivered along with the letter to enlist professional helping hands to move and set up his delivery. 

Now, Zandik has about three options here. One: he can accept this stranger’s gifts and listen to the letter, though it could end up being a trap. Two: he can ignore it and pretend he never received it, but some merchant might get in trouble with the Fatui. Three: he can report it to the Corps.

Naturally, he’s suspicious of such a generous benefactor who has not apparently asked for anything back. Why wouldn’t he be? With the great rift between him and the figureheads of Sumeru City, he’s an easy target. His parents have returned to their homeland, Snezhnaya, to continue their business now that their son is all grown up. If anything ever happened to him, would Sumeru care? 

But it’s for that same reason that Zandik clips the vial to his ear, pockets the bag of mora and the parcel receipt, and heads back to Sumeru City to find the Adventurer Guild’s delivery system. 

No one does anything for Zandik unless they seek something from him. Favours, patronage, his attention—it’s all a give and take. Were it not for these cyclical exchanges, Zandik would have nobody. From where he’s standing, his welcoming community is built on transactions. If they saw who the others saw when they looked at him, they’d probably cut ties with him, too. What’s another person taking from him as they give?

The weight on his ear sends a sensation of wrongness in his bones, like his thought process contradicts the earring’s existence so strongly that it causes a physical reaction.

Zandik touches the glass thoughtfully. 

Maybe it’s about time he went to find out what this oh-so-important parcel is. 

…

“Oh, finally! Good to know you’ve come for your parcel. It’s a big thing, alright!”

“Sorry, someone sent it as a gift,” Zandik says, sliding the receipt onto the counter. He leans against it and rests his cheek tiredly on his arms. “I heard you offer a service for professional movers?”

“Yes, of course!” The young teller at the Adventurer’s Guild delivery system pulls some papers from the drawers behind the counter. “Do keep in mind that there is their service fee, and then a gratuity fee to us. It will all be detailed in an invoice if you choose to hire helping hands.”

“Is it really that big?”

She hands a receipt back to Zandik and giggles lightly. “Imagining you carrying it all by yourself—it cracks me up. I think it’s disassembled for easy transport, but boy, are those pieces big and plentiful.”

“I’ll do the movers.”

“Perfect!” There’s the sound of more papers being rifled through, and another form is slid along to Zandik. “Just fill these out, including address, date and time of delivery, and your contact information. Be sure you’re at least around to open the door for them at that time,” the young teller scolds, taking the forms back as soon as Zandik signs them. “You Akademiya folks always get so caught up in your theses and papers, you just forget the world is there! Anyway, you’re all set. The confirmation will be mailed to you, and the invoice will be sent once the service is complete.”

“Wow. Thanks for the advice to this workaholic Akademiya student. I’ll be sure to remember that,” Zandik retorts dryly. “Well, thank you. Have a good day.”

“No problem. See you around, handsome!”

Three days later, there’s a ruckus in Zandik’s house. 

Three days later, when Zandik returns home after a long day at Bimarstan, he opens the door to find a sleek black grand piano sitting innocently by the window.

The murmur of the fountain in the center of Puspa Cafe gets overshadowed by the Acting Manager and her client’s chatter. 

The three of them are gathered around a table at the side of the cafe. Zandik had originally chosen that table because it was quiet enough that he could peacefully study, but Enteka, the Acting Manager, had decided to sit right next to him to do her weird coffee-ground reading thing instead of doing it right at the counter where she usually stands. 

Of course, it isn’t customary to read one’s own fortune, which is why Zohreh is sitting across from Enteka, looking as tired as ever.

Before Zandik are the papers with his notes from today’s lectures, his cooling cup of coffee, as well as the books related to his next assignment about the ecological responses of the rainforest’s fauna and flora to the Withering. That topic always gives him a headache, as he’d much rather study the history of Eleazar. Well… He supposes the topics are related enough that it’s worth it to put in his full effort.

At least, he would, if he could focus.

The sound of the cup swirling around on the saucer grates his ears, and Zandik finally sets his pen down with a sigh of frustration.

“I really want to know what’s in store for my future. Working for the Akademiya is so stressful. Sheesh… I need a break. So, c’mon, tell me what you see!” Zohreh, beside him, passes her cup and saucer back to Enteka with an eager smile. 

Why is everybody around Zandik so full of joy and excitement? Don’t they ever just… stop?

Enteka lifts the cup off the saucer. “All in due time.” 

It takes a total of two seconds for her to look at the contents inside the cup and on the saucer before looking back up at Zohreh. Zandik raises his brows. He’s a little impressed; that’s a quick read if he’s ever seen one. Whether she’s accurate or not, that’s still very little time taken to make up a reasonable story.

And, from where he’s sitting, all he sees are wet coffee grounds and a spill on a porcelain saucer.

“So? What’s my fortune say?”

“In your future, Zohreh, I see… a change.” Enteka rests her cheek on her knuckles, leaning over to the side to ponder the results. A curl of brown hair falls over one of her amber eyes. “There will be an opportunity that will arise and give you a chance to diverge from the path you have set yourself on.”

“Maybe that change is my brother finally stopping his pestering to plagiarize my old, outdated research?” Zohreh snorts. 

Zandik makes a face. Only imbeciles would think that plagiarism would get them anywhere in the Akademiya.

Laughing, Enteka shakes her head. “Now, I’m not sure about that. But I see a fish here. You will achieve something in your career—something that will cause a shift in your life.”

“Is that good?”

The manager shrugs. “That’s up to you. Good and bad are entirely subjective, and it is up to you to decide what you make of a situation.” Her eyes meet Zandik’s, and she smiles cryptically. “Wouldn’t you know about that, Zandik?”

He raises a brow at her, perplexed.

“Hey, wait!” Zohreh leans forward slightly, eyes bright. “Enteka, why don’t you read Zandik’s fortune?”

He grimaces and gestures to the papers and books spread out on the table. He shakes his head in disapproval, heavy glass earring swinging with the motion. “Can’t you see I’m busy? Besides, there’s no point in having my fortune read. My fate will come anyway, whether I know it or not.”

“Lighten up,” his senior says. “You’re the type of person my brother complains about to me all the time, exactly like his roommate. So studious and overachieving that you forget to have fun. C’mon. Even I’m taking a little time off from writing budget applications to relax.”

“You’ve graduated. You have time to do… whatever this is now,” Zandik says with a haughty sniff. “You should know that burning the midnight oil is necessary for someone striving to be a trainee Dastur,” he quips right before finishing the lukewarm contents of the cup in one swig. He sets it down with a delicate clink.

“Actually, no, I wouldn’t.” As if the memory of studying at the Akademiya invokes a headache, Zohreh presses her palm to her forehead with an exhausted sigh. “I only ever submitted one thesis and graduated. I couldn’t be bothered to go through that whole process again, so now I’m just a logistics buyer for the Akademiya.”

“That’s still a good position,” Enteka says and reaches over to the other end of the table.

Before Zandik can even croak out a word of protest, the manager has snatched up his empty cup of coffee and turned it over, upside down. 

His heart picks up. 

She can’t read his fortune. She’s going to find out all the horrible things that are hiding in his unknown past, and she’s going to shun him, as seems to be his fate. He can’t let someone who has accepted him revoke that community. He wouldn’t know what to do with himself, she can’t—

“The one having their fortune read has to swirl the cup themself,” Zandik manages to squeak out past the torrent of fear.

But Enteka just begins to swirl the cup, ignoring him. The sound of the cup against the saucer is clean this time, and it cuts through Zandik’s mounting panic. She only responds when she’s done and letting the sediment drain down onto the saucer.

“Your intent is stronger than you think,” she says. Then she lifts the cup.

Zandik wants to leap at her and close the cup back down. He wants to hide away whatever she may find.

He freezes in place.

“Your future,” Enteka begins, “is a complicated one.”

His future. Zandik lets out a noticeable breath of relief. She’s not going to rake up the leaves covering the grave of his past self.

“I see crossroads encroaching,” she continues. “There is a decision you must take at a forking path, but you will have help from a friend—a benefactor—you have not seen in a lifetime. That decision has to do with a cycle and… Ah, a feather! A contemplation of one’s life.” She looks up from the coffee grounds, suddenly serious. “Zandik, remember that cycles can be broken.”

A book shuts loudly, the pages whooshing air out like a sigh.

“I said I have no interest in what your coffee grounds have to say about me.” Zandik puts the book away and trades it for a candied Ajilenakh Nut bar. “Don’t the cafe manager and my senior have better things to do than bother a customer and your junior?”

Enteka seems more offended by the confectionery’s presence than by Zandik’s insolence. “Why didn’t you just ask me for some?”

“It’s sold for cheaper down the street.”

She clicks her tongue in irritation. “They’re not made as high quality as is sold here.” As soon as Zandik opens his mouth to snark another unnecessary insult, Enteka points a chiding finger at him. “Not a word about scams. I don’t want to hear it. You just keep your eye on your future.”

“Keep an eye on your sales,” Zandik snaps back, no true heat behind his words. 

Enteka throws her hands up in the air, but there’s a quirk to her lips. “You, the younger generation, are impossible.” She picks up his and Zohreh’s cups, then sweeps away to tidy up. “I’ll get you some good candied Ajilenakh Nut.”

“Whatever.” Zandik turns over a paper and furrows his brows at his nearly illegible lecture notes. There are scribbles in the margins—his wandering thoughts between topics—that he can barely make out.

There’s a knock on the table. Zohreh is giving Zandik a look.

He sighs. “Thanks, Manager,” he reluctantly calls out to Enteka, working behind the counter, who laughs in response.

“Hey, Enteka! Another coffee for Zandik, please!”

Zandik sits up straighter, eyes wide at Zohreh. “You’re paying, I hope.”

“Don’t worry. It’s on me.” 

His worries about spending more money assuaged, Zandik goes back to reviewing his lecture notes. It’s something about immunological responses in allergies and the correct treatments, as well as cautions. 

Zohreh doesn’t let him focus for a second. 

“I always see you alone here. Actually, I always see you alone everywhere. You talk to people in passing, but I’ve never seen a girl with you, handsome as you are. What’s up with that?”

“I don’t believe it appropriate to comment on your junior’s social life.”

“Not your social life,” she says and snatches up one of his sidelined papers to scan it briefly. “Your dating life.”

“That’s even more inappropriate.”

She places the paper down on the table and nabs his pen from where it’s sitting innocently on the table. In a few quick strokes, she jots something down onto the paper and returns it to him before he can complain. “Nobody said you have to answer! Also, you noted that slightly erroneously. Damage to the cornea is reparable. What you’re thinking of is this below,” she says and taps at his subsequent annotations. “The retina doesn’t generally regenerate. Just remember the key consequences of corneal damage and its repairs.”

Right. Zohreh is an Amurta graduate.

Zandik examines his corrected notes. She’d just noted down a few extra details that he’d omitted, but it’s enough that he can see a clearer picture of the topic. He looks back up at Zohreh.

“Thank you.”

“No problem!”

His pen continues to scrawl over his notes, correcting spelling mistakes and joining ideas together. There are just the sounds of the metal nib scratching along paper, the bubbling of the cafe’s central fountain, and the steaming of a machine where Enteka is cleaning. 

Zandik pauses his writing. 

“I think I did something in my past,” he confesses to a surprised Zohreh. He avoids looking at her expression, keeping his eyes on the ink drying. “People give me a wide berth, like I’m a monster that’s bitten them before. Especially Vision holders.”

“Vision holders are said to be able to see things that others can’t. Maybe there’s something with your elemental energy.”

“Perhaps. I myself don’t know what it is, though.”

“Hm… That reminds me of the story of an exile of the Akademiya centuries ago.” Zohreh laces her fingers and rests her chin on them, thoughtful. “It was tied to an accident on an expedition. His name was also Zandik, I think. It’s an unfortunate coincidence that you bear his name, isn't it?” She pulls a face. “Why would your parents even name you that?”

He really is meant for the path of an exile, isn’t he?

Zandik drops his head into his hand and ruffles his hair, just to do something with his hands. “My parents didn’t name me.”

“Huh?”

At that moment, Enteka returns with a plate of candied Ajilenakh Nut and a coffee for Zandik. It’s not hot enough that it burns his lips and tongue when he takes a grateful sip, but it’s just warm enough to settle hotly in his chest as he swallows it all down in one go.

Zandik sets the cup back on the saucer. “I’m adopted,” he tells them. “A merchant family from Snezhnograd adopted me from an orphanage when I was about eight years old. They moved here to give me a chance to grow with my Sumerian roots.” His fingers, back in his hair, get caught in a tangle. He slowly rakes them through to loosen it. “They didn’t name me. I don’t know who did. I never knew my biological parents.”

“Oh. Sorry for asking,” Zohreh mumbles, face pink in embarrassment.

Lost in thought, Zandik doesn’t even notice Enteka taking his cup from him. This time, she doesn’t go through the whole process. She just peers into the cup and levels Zandik with a tender look.

“It doesn’t matter, in the end, who named you and why. Your name no longer holds the meaning it used to. Your past has been cut off from your present, so look to the future.”

Zandik’s heart flips again. His past. She saw his past. But… She reacted calmly. Surely whatever it was that she saw wasn’t so horrible that she had to extend that rift between them, too. Surely, there is hope.

He rolls his eyes. “Keep your magic to yourself. I don’t want to hear it.”

Enteka huffs and stands up again, cup and saucer in hand. She looks down her nose at both Zohreh and Zandik. “Isn’t it time you scholars went to sleep and let me close up?”

“Hey, I didn’t do anything!” Zohreh protests.

“I was done anyway,” Zandik answers back and makes a point of packing away his things. 

He mourns not having finished reviewing all his notes, but he supposes that he can finish the rest at home, despite how much more difficult it is to focus. It has gotten significantly more tempting to get distracted from his studies ever since the arrival of that grand piano. He’d picked up the piano for the two years he spent in Snezhnograd before his parents moved him to Sumeru. Since then, he’d only ever managed to squeeze in a few hours a week of practice in the Bazaar, so having one of his own was a Celestia-sent blessing.

He never did find out who it was that sent him that letter.

On his way out the door, Zandik reaches down to pat the cafe cat’s head as it rubs against his legs. “Bye, Gata.”

“Wait, Zandik.” Zohreh steps out from Puspa Cafe onto Treasures Street behind Zandik, the cool night breeze weaving through her almond brown hair and framing her face gently. “I forgot to tell you something.”

Zandik stops in his tracks and turns, adjusting the straps of his backpack over his uniform. “What is it?”

“This is from one of the people I bought imported supplies from,” she says, fishing an envelope from her sleeve. “He said to give this to you and that it was important. And, uh, he says: ‘Snezhnograd sends its warmest regards’... Whatever that means.” She scuffs her shoe on the pavement and sighs. “I wish I had someone to look after me like that when I was a student.”

Who says it’s not a threat? Zandik wants to shoot back.

The envelope feels the same as the one he’d received from that gruff merchant what feels like ages ago. When he brings it up closer to his face to inspect the writing on it, that same floral scent—orange blossom, he realizes—hits his nose.

The same person?

Not a threat, then.

“Who was it?” Zandik asks, lowering the envelope. “Can you describe him?”

Zohreh pokes her cheek, scrunching her face up in thought. “It was a man. He looked, I don’t know, about forty? Fifty? He looked like a foreigner, and he had really dark hair. Honestly, he looked like a nobleman.”

Zandik scrounges through his memories, desperate to put a name to that description, or even a face. There’s an itch in the back of his brain that he can’t scratch, like a memory stuck in a caught drawer that won’t open all the way. His finger grazes the glass vial hanging from his ear.

In the end, he comes up empty.

“It’s okay,” Zohreh assures when Zandik just stalls for a second, brows pinched together almost in pain. “I don’t know who it was, but he seemed to care for you a lot. I could tell from the way he asked about you. Goodnight now, Zandik.”

“Goodnight,” he replies distantly, mind too far away to register her expression shifting to concern before she walks away.

The walk back to his place feels like traipsing through a cloud. There’s a fog in Zandik’s mind, like he’s trying to grasp at air and coming up with, expectedly, nothing. He’s torn between running to his past and moving forward from something that isn’t him. The feeling of loss sinks heavily in his chest, but with it comes shame.

(Why does he have to deal with the consequences of someone he has never known and will never be? Why does he have to both mourn and fear a past that should have never been his to begin with?

Your past has been cut off from your present.

So why doesn’t it feel like it?)

Zandik’s backpack drops heavily beside the piano’s legs, and he sits down on the leather quilted bench, feeling just as weighted.

The envelope finds its way into his hand again. The moon shines through the green and yellow-stained glass of his window, glowing lightly against his piano. Orange blossom fills Zandik’s nose, and he tears open the envelope.

A small, rectangular paper falls out. 

The same scented ink leaves dark lines against the Northland Bank cheque. There’s no name on it; just the information paying the amount to Zandik, and a scrawling, elegant signature.

Regrator.

Zandik shakily sets the cheque on the music rack of the piano. It’s not the signature that rocks his world, but the amount paid to his name.

Five hundred thousand mora.

That’s– That’s enough for almost three months of rent, with leftovers for indulgence with his groceries and study expenses. 

He picks it up again, turns it over and over, and even smears his finger across the ink, just to make sure it’s real. The cheque doesn’t disappear from his hands. The ink doesn’t smudge. The orange blossom scent lingers in the air.

Zandik presses the paper to his chest and stares at his murky reflection in the glossy black music rack.

The caricature of a shapeless, nameless past stares back at him, for a portrait is not what he is. Imperfection regards him with a crimson glare.

And yet.

Orange blossom ink leaves its scent on the rough pads of his fingers as he clutches the paper.

A blessing has come from the winter lands.

Zandik doesn’t know how he ends up in these situations.

He’s not even that far from Sumeru City—just out between Vanarana and the west entrance to the city. He’d just been out collecting Nilotpala Lotus samples from the northwest wetland of Sumeru City for his independent studies on its effects on treating Eleazar in the past and how it could be applied more widely.

It was dark out, but the moon shone bright, opening up the delicate corolla of the lotuses. As his excursions out into the wild usually are, it was quiet and peaceful. The weasels scampered into the bushes as he walked by, and the fungi had shrunken into themselves to rest for the night, undisturbed by his silent passage.

The ordeal was quite simple and quick. Zandik had waded into the water and picked just the necessary amount of lotuses, and he’d left promptly.

It was on the walk back to Sumeru that he’d noticed the path was too quiet. Suspiciously peaceful. Nothing stirred even as he cleared his throat to alert the wildlife of his presence.

Stillness was never good in the wild. It always meant—

Zandik’s heart only had a second to stop before the sound of something heavy landing on the grass reached his ears. A duo of low growls rang out in the darkness. He didn’t have to see them to know what they were.

Rishboland Tigers had surrounded him. 

Now, the pair of them swish their tails across the damp grass, just a shadow in the night. They haven’t attacked yet, but Zandik has studied them enough on expeditions to know how they behave. Immediately, as many facts about them as he can muster whizz through his mind.

They’re extremely territorial—checks out, that’s why they’re attacking. The tufts of fur protruding from their heads are used to gauge distance. Said distance can be closed in just one leap. Many stray passersby fall victim to that agility.

And he only has about five seconds before they decide whether he’s prey enough.

Zandik doesn’t take that long. 

Pure reflex driving him, he reaches behind his back to latch onto the first glass bottle his fingers touch. Tearing it up and away from its strap on his backpack, Zandik launches the bottle at the Rishboland Tigers and makes a run for it without waiting to see what element he’d thrown at them. 

There’s a loud sound of electro crackling and a yowl of surprise and pain.

It doesn’t matter.

His backpack bounces against his back as he books it toward Sumeru City, feet slipping and sliding on the dewy grass. Behind him, the tigers have begun snarling. He can almost see them pawing at their faces to swipe off the electro remnants lingering, but he doesn’t waste his precious time checking.

He doesn’t have much time, anyway, because the snarling suddenly gets closer and closer. 

The pair of tigers bound after him, eager to drive the foolish intruder in their territory away. Zandik wishes he could say he made it to the road, found stable footing, and made his way safely back to Sumeru City and far away enough from the tigers that they stopped their pursuit.

His foot slips on the wet grass. The ensuing tumble is rough, but Zandik makes sure he does not fall onto his backpack and crush the lotuses. It’s such a trivial detail when his life is on the line, but he has always cared deeply for his studies. Revelations do not come from carelessness.

But… What an idiot he is. He was careless, and now the only revelation coming to him is that he will die young at the measly claws of the incoming Rishboland Tigers. He will die young, and he will never have the chance to meet that crossroad that Enteka was speaking of—he’ll never learn whose shadow he is. 

Zandik screws his eyes shut. He’s never been good at facing death.

I’m sorry to everyone my past has hurt.

Death never greets him.

The ground rumbles by his feet. Zandik cracks his eyes open just in time to see a wall of geo rise up and crash into the tigers. It flings them far away and hard enough that, when they rise, just silhouettes along the grass, they scamper off without another sound.

A wheezing breath escapes him.

“Hey, are you okay?” There’s a high voice, child-like in nature and tinged with concern. 

Zandik’s trembling hands grip the grass tightly. His heart won’t calm down. He swallows thickly and gasps, “Y-Yeah.”

The figure appears in his line of sight, finally. A blonde outlander with a simple blade steps closer, a white being raining celestial dust floating by their shoulder. It’s hard to tell in the light, but there’s an air of suspicion in their gaze as they appraise him.

Then the outlander’s companion’s eyes go wide with recognition. “Wait a second—” 

Claws and fangs are exchanged for the pointed tip of a sword pointed at Zandik’s face.

“Dottore,” the outlander snarls, voice full of that familiar hatred.

Instinctively, Zandik raises his hands to his face. “Please don’t hurt me!” he yelps. Adrenaline rushes through his veins, but his nerves have frayed too much with the events of the night. He’s at the end of his rope. “I’m not Dottore! I don’t– I don’t know who that is. I’m not him, please, you have to understand!”

“We’re not falling for another one of your tricks!” their companion says sharply.

It seems his shadow is cast far too long. He can’t outrun his past.

“It’s not a trick!” Zandik’s voice cracks, his throat dry and stuffed with fear. “I don’t know why everyone thinks I’m this person who– who’s hurt people. I just want to help. I don’t know what this Dottore did, but I swear, I’m not that person.” His eyes tear up, and the lump in his throat grows. But he blinks, and it’s like a dam breaks. “I can’t take this anymore. I don’t want to just be a shadow of someone I’ve never met! All people see these days is a person I– I never got to know,” he hiccups as the tears pour. “But I don’t want to know about anyone he hurt. I don’t want to think about it! It’s not my sin to carry!”

The stunned silence is broken only by Zandik’s sobs and sniffles as he tries to catch his breath.

Through his tears, he sees the outlander and their companion exchange perplexed looks. 

“He seems really upset…” she says, rubbing at her knuckles.

“Please,” Zandik whispers, “you have to believe me.”

The outlander lowers their sword, hesitant. “He’s… just a kid.” They deliberate for a moment. Then, their sword disappears from their hand in a shower of gold. The look of distrust does not ease from their soft features. “Who are you, then?”

Wiping his eyes with his grassy sleeves, Zandik sniffles again. “I’m a student at the Akademiya. I’m working to be a trainee Dastur.”

“And your past?” they push.

“I… don’t know. I’m just the son of a merchant family from Snezhnograd. I can’t do much more for you.”

“Traveler?” The floating companion gets a little closer, rubbing her chin and looking Zandik up and down. “What do you think?”

“I think he’s telling the truth.” The Traveler holds their hand out to Zandik, face stern but posture open. Zandik nervously takes their hand, ready for them to show that hatred once more, but they only pull him to his feet. “I’m the Traveler. This is Paimon.”

“I’m Zandik.”

Paimon makes a sound of surprise. “Isn’t that—?”

The Traveler claps their hand over her mouth. “Sorry about the scare. Ever since Irminsul was replaced, things have been weird in the world. I mistook you for someone else.”

His palms are damp from the fear and the mud smeared onto his skin. Zandik just wipes it down the front of his uniform. He can wash it later once he’s processed the events of tonight and taken a good moment to relax. The thought of relaxing draws his mind back to work. Right. He also needs to check on the patients before he returns home. 

There’s no time to worry about himself when there are people relying on him.

“It wouldn’t be the first time it’s happened to me,” Zandik says, voice shaking. He clears his throat. His voice comes out more steadily when he tries again. “I appreciate you fighting off the tigers.”

“It’s what we do!” Paimon chirps, removing the Traveler’s hand from her mouth.

They glance back at the winding, beaten path. “You’re headed back to Sumeru City? We’ll escort you back.”

“You don’t have to.”

Paimon shakes her head. “We insist! We’re headed there anyway to meet with Nahida.”

They have ties with the Dendro Archon. Of course. No wonder they’d assumed he was someone else and reacted with that same viciousness that another person in the Archon’s close circle had that one time.

The memory of that day is still fresh in Zandik’s mind, a hot brand of shame. 

That day, he’d learned how intrinsically intertwined one is to their shadow—or, in his case, a shadow to their creator. He, the shadow, cannot flee from his object. He cannot flee from the past.

“I’m heading to Bimarstan. We should get going now.”

…

The Traveler and Paimon drop him off by the hospital. Their farewells are nothing but distrust and suspicion, and it only leaves Zandik’s mind clouded with the possibilities of what he could have possibly done—what Dottore could have possibly done to these people. What could have possibly happened for the Dendro Archon to keep a close eye on him?

Leaving the Nilopatla Lotus flowers in water will preserve them long enough for him to get back to them when he has the time. They float serenely atop the bowl of water Zandik provides them, moonlight casting ripples onto the tabletop he leaves them on.

The open window on the other side of the room, its thin curtains open and billowing with the occasional breeze, lets the moonlight shine in. It illuminates the dark enough that Zandik does not need to light the lamps to navigate through the room. 

His patient, the young woman who had gone through a bout of malnutrition, is fast asleep as he takes her temperature as quietly as he can. A small notepad holds the updated vitals as Zandik goes through the motions, checking on her as diligently as he can and preparing her medicine and supplements.

While he should act under supervision, Zandik’s supervisor is quite lax—perhaps too much so—and trusting of his capabilities. This means that he is, in fact, permitted to enter the hospital so late at night and conduct checkups without the mandated supervision.

His performance has, so far, not prompted any change in his exaggerated freedom, and he doesn’t intend to change that fact, so he does no more than necessary. 

It’s as he’s mixing in the Sweet Flower extract with the orange juice that a low, tired voice speaks up from behind the curtain separating the two patients.

“What are you doing here so late?” the man behind the curtain asks, sounding like he’d just woken up from a long dream.

“I thought you were asleep. Did I wake you?” Zandik replies. He makes an effort to clink the spoon a little less against the sides of the glass. “I returned from an outing. It was time for me to check on the patient.”

“No, you didn’t,” the tired voice assures. There’s a beat of silence, filled by the sound of Zandik mixing the drink, and then, “Are you the doctor?”

There’s… something about his voice that’s familiar. As if Zandik should know it, or like he’d heard it in a dream. But maybe he’s just imagining it; the man sounds loopy and exhausted. He’d wager drowsiness as an aftereffect of a medication, if anything.

“No. Do you need something?”

“Ah… No. Likely not. That medicine… It puts me right to sleep after a bout of feeling a little, let’s say, enlightened.” Right. So the high of allergy medicine, followed by its sedating effect. There’s a sniffle. “The rainforest’s air has far too much pollen. It’s dreadful.”

Zandik can’t help the small puff of air that leaves his mouth. Laughing at a patient’s ailment isn’t right, he reminds himself, and clears his throat. “Who is the doctor looking after you?”

“Golshan, I think was her name.” In the pause that follows, Zandik tosses in crushed mint leaves into the drink. A muffled sneeze reminds him that there’s someone still speaking to him. Then, “Are you an Akademiya student?”

Zandik pauses his movements. “How do you know?”

“I heard, here and there. The one who comes in late is still a student,” he says, and there’s an air of amusement to his voice. “You aren’t permitted to, are you? But you care for what you do, as you always have.”

“Do I know you?”

“No. I do not think you would.” A chuckle follows, sad and soft. “But I’ve finally found you.”

Amidst the man’s delirious, snickering muttering, Zandik furrows his brows. “I’m not a difficult man to find,” he says a little sourly. He wraps the top of the glass in a thin film and sets it on his patient’s bedside. “You just have to follow the air of isolation between that of a young man and his nation.”

“... The weather in Sumeru is beautiful, isn’t it?”

Right. He shouldn’t be talking about his insecurities with a sick man. Zandik brushes back his bangs with the back of his sleeve. “Are you visiting?”

“I would say so,” the man responds cryptically, shifting in his bed and rustling the sheets. “I came to see a dear friend who doesn’t remember me. Sumeru feels much lighter these days, wouldn’t you agree? It’s much different from Snezhnaya. I always thought I’d be here under different circumstances.” He chuckles softly—sadly again. What a melancholic soul.

“I didn’t expect to hear an old man’s ramblings tonight.”

Zandik crosses the room to close the window until it’s just cracked open. The moment his foot crosses the imaginary line drawn by the curtain, the pollen allergy patient ducks under the covers. All Zandik sees when he glances over at the lump in the bed is a cascade of dark hair against the cream sheets. On the ground are polished black dress shoes. He makes a mental note that this patient must be wealthy. 

“How are your studies going?” the lump in the bed asks, smooth voice muffled.

“As well as they can be.”

“I see.” From where he’s standing, Zandik can see the man under the covers fidgeting with something. Then, he pulls the covers farther over his head, as if he’s worried Zandik will look at him, and Zandik realizes his hands are gloved. “What do you hope to achieve?”

“To heal the sick and find a way to extend human life.” He pulls one of the curtains closer, eyes on the moon in the sky above.

“Not to make a god?”

Zandik stills. “No,” he says, an odd sensation creeping along his arms, raising the hairs. “I considered it when I was a child, but… Something told me that that was a path I must eschew.”

The covers rise and fall with the man’s melancholic, empty laughter. “I’m glad you can eat sunsettias and fly kites in this lifetime.” There’s a sniffle, more wet this time. Zandik worries that his allergies are acting up again. “And your parents? Do they fare well?”

“Isn’t that a personal question? What do you care about my life?”

“Indulge a sickly, dizzy patient.”

Zandik clicks his tongue and leans against the windowsill, resting the back of his head against the clear glass. Moonlight glints off the vial hanging from his ear. “My mother is well. She’s back in Snezhnaya.”

“And your father?” the man presses.

He hesitates. His father is a complicated topic for him, but, in the end…

“My father is also well. He mails me sometimes to check on me.” Zandik closes his eyes and lets air huff out his nose, a silent sigh. “He wants me to return with them to Snezhnaya, but I’m studying here.”

“This life is your own. Live it unburdened,” he says with such conviction that Zandik almost forgets the object of his shadow. 

Almost.

“A crime I must have committed in the past follows me. I can’t do that.” He pushes himself off the windowsill and plucks the Nilotpala Lotuses from their bowl. Carefully, he tucks them back into their container in his backpack on the floor, careful not to drip water everywhere, then throws it over his shoulder. “Do you need anything before I leave for the night?”

“I’m just glad to hear you’re well, Zandik,” is all the man says.

A pause.

“I never told you my name.”

“No? How odd.”

Zandik waits a moment, just in case the mysterious man will add anything to that comment. One second… two seconds… five seconds. Nothing. He turns to leave.

It’s only as he’s just about out the door that the man speaks up again.

“I hope you won’t hate me for what I’ve done. Sunsettias rot. Don’t resent them.”

“... Goodnight.” 

Zandik shuts the door behind him. He glances back as he pads down the hallway toward the exit and sighs heavily. 

He’ll have to make a note to Golshan to lay off the allergy medication for that patient.

In the little time he spent growing up in Snezhnograd, Zandik was always told to beware the nighttime. He was told stories by his mother about the fae—how they were beautiful, deserving of the aristocratic positions they held, the powers they wielded, and how he had to be careful or they might steal him away and replace him with a changeling.

She also told him stories about a wicked monster who would steal lost children away and lock them up in cages in a dingy laboratory, so he mustn’t stray too far!

Despite all of her warnings, Zandik has never feared the dark. Primarily because he doesn’t believe the fae are as bad as the stories make them out to be, but also because he has always believed that they wouldn’t target him. He has never believed that the fae would ever reach him, especially not when he now lives in Sumeru, a notoriously warm climate that the fae would not enjoy.

But Zandik finds himself questioning that belief as he stands just a few steps from his door, looking into the distant, clouded eyes of what must be a fae.

The man is enchantingly beautiful, for lack of better words. He stands tall and dresses like the aristocrats Zandik’s mother used to tell him about as he curled up against his pillows late at night. He looks like he’s from the winter lands, too, a fur-trim coat draped over his shoulders and a black shirt pulled up to his neck, bejewelled with silver notes. Those aged, purple eyes stare up at Zandik from down the street, the disbelief in them framed by the silver chains hanging from delicate glasses.

Zandik freezes in place. His mother had told him stories of the fae, but she’d never told him how to handle them if he ever ran into them.

“Zandik?” the man calls out, voice hoarse and soft with a grief unburied.

But the voice is familiar.

Taking a step forward—for caution’s sake and to inspect, and not because he feels drawn toward him like the opposite, polarized end of a magnet—Zandik hesitates and peers at the man. Fair skin, dark waves fading out to a faint violet, the creases under his eyes carved by time; Zandik is sure of it—they have never met before.

And yet he knows Zandik’s name.

The man takes a step toward Zandik, closing the distance between them by just that much more. “It’s really you,” he says, talking to himself now because Zandik becomes distracted by his shoes.

They’re polished and black, fit for a businessman. Zandik notes that their wearer must be wealthy and—

“It’s you,” Zandik echoes, realization hitting. “You’re the pollen allergy patient from the hospital a few days ago.”

The man stops in his tracks, startled. He looks perplexed, but his expression quickly shifts to amusement. “Ah. So it wasn’t a dream, after all.” He shakes his head, amused, and begins walking toward Zandik, continuing, “I truly thought I was so desperate that my delirious mind conjured you up. I’m pleased to know that I am still somewhat sound of mind.”

For some reason, Zandik says nothing. He does not stop this graceful man from approaching and closing the distance until he’s right in front of him and just a few steps from his door. All he can think is, How? How does this man know him? How did he find him? How does he tear down Zandik’s careful walls and simply let himself in so easily?

“I believe you have questions for me. I’ve brought tea with me.”

That’s what moves Zandik from his stupor.

“The host usually prepares the tea,” he replies with a click of his tongue as he turns to his door and opens it for the man, whom he has not decided is a fae or not quite yet. 

“You’ll have to forgive this social faux pas, then.”

His house is not small by any means, thanks to his parents’ generous funding of his living expenses. The man walks around Zandik’s living room carefully, as if trying to make himself as small as possible and take up as little space as he can. In the dead of the night, there’s only moonlight peeking in from the stained glass. Lamps light the space warmly, but the man still looks like he’s stepped into a frigid lion’s den.

Zandik sets his kettle to boil and turns around just in time to see the man hover his hand over the piano.

“May I?” he asks, glancing up at Zandik with those tired eyes.

What have you seen? Zandik finds himself wondering. 

Still, he waves vaguely at the grand instrument. “As you please.”

His gloved hands stall over the keys for a moment before he slides onto the bench and exhales softly. His eyes drop to the keyboard, and he lightly rests his fingers against the ivory. Then, he begins playing.

The piece he plays is, by no means, badly played. The music rings out clearly and cleanly, but there’s something about the way that he plays that makes Zandik’s heart twinge. There is hesitation in his notes, and there’s an underlying grief to the simple melody that makes him grind to a stop.

The man clears his throat, removing his hands from the keys. His fists clench and unclench, as if he felt something unpleasant. 

“It seems I still haven’t got it down,” he says regretfully and pulls away from the piano. He sits himself down on the settee a little behind the piano. “Perhaps you could play something?”

Zandik glances at the kettle. It’s yet to boil, and he hasn’t practiced today, so…

“Alright.” He wipes down his hands on a kitchen towel and slides himself into place on the piano bench, scooting it back until he’s a comfortable distance away where his feet can press the pedals just right. Zandik pauses. “But only if you tell me your name.”

The blurry, murky reflection of the man’s face in the polished piano smiles. “I never did introduce myself, did I?” He presses a hand to his chest and bows his head politely. “My name is Feofan.” From his breast pocket, without Zandik noticing the movement, he procures a cigarette. “Would you mind if I…?”

“From the sound of your voice, I’m not sure your lungs could take another one,” Zandik immediately drawls.

Feofan does not respond for a long moment. A strange sinking feeling makes its presence known in Zandik’s chest, weighing down on the stomach and making it churn. The silence stretches long, until Zandik breaks it.

He swallows down the lump in his throat. “I don’t care. Knock yourself out. Just open the window.”

There’s a click of a lighter coming to life, and then the first puff of smoke comes. It drifts out the window quickly, and Zandik has to fight the weird sensation in his chest. Before he can resolve himself to play the piano, he turns himself around on the piano bench to observe Feofan.

He still looks like he walked right out of one of Zandik’s mother's stories—tall, sinister and elegant, with the loftiness of a Snezhnayan aristocrat, but the age of someone who has lived through love and loss. 

It sinks in then.

“Feofan,” Zandik says, and the name feels heavy on his tongue like he was never supposed to speak it. “You’re part of the Fatui, aren’t you?”

Polite crinkles stamp their feet at the corners of his eyes as Feofan smiles. “I don’t see how you could have jumped to such conclusions—”

“You’re the Regrator.” The pieces start colliding in Zandik’s head, like a puzzle is clicking together with magnetized ends. The band of Fatui who intercepted the merchant for the letter, the familiarity with the piano, the recognition of Zandik before ever being introduced—Feofan is the middle-aged, black-haired “nobleman” that Zohreh described to him. “You’re my mysterious benefactor from Snezhnaya.”

“Ah…” Another puff of acrid smoke drifts from his parted lips and out through the window. Feofan sets down the cigarette like he doesn’t want any more of it, but it still hangs loosely in his fingers, dripping ashes onto the street outside. “I should have been less careless in my methods.”

Zandik’s head pulses, like there’s a barrage of memories and thoughts just crammed behind the bony structure of his skull, waiting to spill out. He grits his teeth and turns back to the piano. His fingers settle on the keyboard delicately.

He begins playing as the thoughts continue to churn in his mind. In the reflection, he sees Feofan—Regrator, whatever he is, whoever he is—tilt his head over, but he doesn’t look at Zandik.

“You really have made a life of your own,” Feofan says a little sadly, eyes still fixed on the sky outside. “I didn’t want to sway the future you’ve paved for yourself by dredging up the past.”

“It’s too late for that,” Zandik says bitterly. “You should have considered that before involving yourself in my life.”

He tries to control the force with which he presses down the keys, lest the sound come out too forceful and aggressive. It’s difficult not to let his emotions spill out into the melody. All the frustration, fear, uncertainty, and guilt for his unknown self stay restrained in tension in his shoulders. 

“Would the past have let you go if I hadn’t inserted myself?” Feofan asks, sounding genuinely thoughtful. “Would you still have followed it?”

Zandik hesitates. The rest lasts a quarter note longer than it should. He resumes playing, but the piece has been shifted into an odd thing, like a question mark without its dot.

Fates are spelled out with the same letters as one’s name.

“I would have never been able to escape the fate my name spelled out for me. And if I’ve inherited someone else’s fate, then there’s even less of a chance of me living a life that was never meant to be my own.”

“But you’re wrong.” At Feofan’s words, Zandik flourishes a chord. He lifts his hands off the piano, takes a breath, and continues playing. A different melody rings from the piano’s solemn notes. Feofan taps the end of his cigarette, and ash rains down. “You did inherit someone else’s name, but not his fate. I made sure of that. Possibilities have run amok since Irminsul’s burning. You’ve been given a fresh start.”

“Who are you really?”

“A venture capitalist who hopes that a young scholar will bring me a great return on investment.”

“That’s bullshit,” Zandik says, and his pinkie slips. There’s a false note accompanying the chord, but he pushes on. One mistake will not ruin the entire piece. “There’s more care than necessary if all I am is your investment.”

Feofan disregards his suspicion with curiosity. “How has Sumeru been treating you?”

“It has been far more unkind to those bearing my name in the past.” The echo of Feofan’s words rings in his head as he lets a note stretch out, his foot pressed down on the pedal. 

Has he really been freed from his past, as Enteka said? Then why has he continued to live that life of exile? Zandik looks down at the black and white before him, seeing the keyboard as it is for the first time since he started playing. When he plays, he doesn’t see what his fingers touch—just black and white keys—but he hears the song they make.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Zandik loses himself to the music again, and once more, the keyboard turns into a tool for his emotions to bleed through the song. “Well. Sumeru has been treating me relatively well.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

Feofan sounds more melancholic than he sounds glad.

“What are you really doing here?” Zandik asks as the piano quiets down to a finale.

The final few notes ring out clearly in the quiet room.

Zandik lifts his hands off the piano and returns them to rest on his lap. At the same time, Feofan stubs out his cigarette and tosses it onto the streets. He sits himself down on the piano bench beside Zandik, looking at him through the murkiness of the noterack. They sit, thigh to thigh, and Zandik feels his heart do a strange somersault at the smell of smoke.

Feofan gently runs his gloved finger against the sharper edges of the keys. “I wanted to see how my memories were faring.” 

It’s oddly blunt for someone as refined as him. 

“Who am I really, Feofan? Regrator? Whoever you are? I think I deserve answers for all I’ve lived.”

“Please call me Feofan.” His voice wavers. “You’re… a collection of my memories, given form. You’re severed from your past. You were given a second chance to exist in a world that’s not as cruel as it was to you.”

“So I did exist before this. I’m a rehash of someone.”

“No,” Feofan snaps. The sharpness in his voice makes Zandik flinch. With a dreadful sigh, Feofan brushes back his hair and pushes back his glasses at the same time. “You… You’re you. The past doesn’t matter anymore.”

“But it does. I did something to hurt people.” Zandik screws his eyes shut as he remembers Tighnari and the Traveler. Fear still squirms in his stomach, but he just clenches his fists on his lap. “Dottore.” The name makes Feofan tense up. “That’s who I was, isn’t it?”

“People’s preconceived notions imprison their minds. It’s not who you are now. His actions were not your own. You’re not him,” Feofan whispers, and it sounds like it’s killing him to say that. “You’ll never be him,” he emphasizes, but it seems the words are strangling him with his own breath. 

“Then why am I living this life where a shell curls around me? Why do I feel like I have to make up for whatever he did?” Zandik turns his head to finally look at Feofan in the flesh, instead of a dark reflection. Feofan looks stricken, but he won’t meet Zandik’s eyes. “If I’m not him, like you say, then why am I atoning for his sins?”

“You’re not.” Feofan’s left hand twiddles with the singular ring on his right hand. “It’s just as you said—it’s just a feeling. You feel like you have to, but you don’t. You may have been born from my memories of him, but you are not your creator.” The more he says it, the more it sounds like he’s reminding himself. “Zandik, you are just you. Dottore is… a person of the past.”

“Then… Who was I to you?”

In the silence that follows, Zandik can hear the kettle cooling. 

When Feofan finally speaks, he sounds like he’s going to break from the weight of the grief he’s carrying. 

“Everything. He was everything to me.” Feofan inhales deeply, breath shuddering, and Zandik gets an uncharacteristic compulsion to brush the hair that falls over his face away as he lowers his head. “But the past should mean nothing to you. You are Zandik, child of Sumeru. Don’t forget yourself.”

“Feofan…” Zandik gives in. He reaches out and lightly brushes a finger against Feofan’s cheek, tucking his hair behind his ear. Feofan’s cloudy purple eyes look up at him, and Zandik’s heart aches. “I used to be a monster, didn’t I?”

Like it takes all the strength in him—like he’s Atlas, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders—Feofan lifts his head and cups Zandik’s hand in his own. Their hands come to rest in the space between them. “Not to me. You were just another human who’d satisfied his overambitious curiosities. There will always be good and bad in the world. You needn’t confine yourself to these definitions.”

“So what do I do?” Zandik runs his thumb over the triple band on Feofan’s hand. “I just… move on?”

With his free hand, Feofan reaches up to very carefully touch the heavy earring on Zandik’s ear. He smiles, as if he’d just come to terms with something. “Grow anew. It’s the right path for you.”

Zandik looks into Feofan’s eyes, lost in the glassiness of them. “‘Child of Sumeru’... Despite whatever I may have done in the past, is that who I am now?”

Feofan just shakes his head and smiles.

“No. Not ‘now’. It’s always been you.”