Work Text:
The first thing Pantalone forgets is the voice.
He notices it while working late one night.
Normally, when he encounters some particularly idiotic report, he can almost hear the commentary beside him.
A dry remark.
A sarcastic observation.
An insult disguised as intellectual criticism.
But suddenly
Nothing.
The silence feels wrong.
Like reaching for a handrail that should be there.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The second thing he forgets is the face.
Not all at once.
Little pieces.
The clinking sound of his blue earings.
The curve of his smile when he was being particularly insufferable.
The way his hair fell beside his ear.
Pantalone keeps commissioning portraits.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Each one slightly different.
Because he can no longer remember which version is correct.
Eventually his room fills with dozens of paintings depicting a man who may or may not have ever existed.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Then the name starts slipping.
Dottore? Zandik.
At first he writes it down to preserve it.
On letters.
Margins.
Financial reports.
The backs of receipts.
Soon he needs to check his notes before writing it.
Then he needs to check how to spell it.
Then one day he finds the word in his handwriting and realizes he doesn't know whose name it is.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Panic sets in.
Not because he forgot.
Because he notices himself forgetting.
Every morning he wakes up and immediately checks a journal.
A list.
Things I Must Remember.
At the top:
His name was Zandik.
A week later:
His name was Zandik. My person.
A month later:
His name was Zandik. I loved him.
♦ ♦ ♦
The entries become increasingly desperate.
You will wake up confused.
Do not throw this journal away.
He was real.?
He? mattered?
What is this feeling?
♦ ♦
Months pass.
The memories continue eroding.
Like a coastline being eaten by the sea.
♦
One evening Pantalone opens the journal.
The handwriting is familiar.
His own.
But the words feel distant.
His name was Zandik.
My person.
He stares at the sentence.
Waiting for something.
Anything.
A face.
A voice.
A memory.
Nothing comes.
Just sadness.
A vast sadness without shape.
Without context.
Without reason.
And somehow that's worse.
Because if he remembered Zandik, he could mourn him.
If he hated Zandik, he could curse him.
If he missed Zandik, he could yearn for him.
Instead he is left with an absence so complete that it doesn't even have a name anymore.
▬
Years later, Nahida finally manages to recover a fragment from below the remains of Irminsul.
Not a full memory.
Just a recording.
A few seconds long.
The last surviving trace of a man erased from the world.
She brings it to Pantalone.
By then he doesn't know why the Dendro Archon is visiting.
"Would you like to hear it?"
"I don't know what it is."
"I think," Nahida says softly, "you might want to keep it."
The recording plays.
Static.
Distortion.
Then a voice.
"Goodbye, Feofan."
The room goes completely silent. Feofan? That’s his long forgotten real name.
Pantalone doesn't know why his heart suddenly hurts.
"This time..."
The fire crackles louder.
"That's what it truly is."
Then, he heard his own voice.
"And don’t I know it."
"Goodbye. Zandik"
Zandik?
End of recording.
Huh?
Pantalone listens to the recording once again.
Twice.
Ten times.
A hundred.
Because every time he hears "Feofan," he feels something tear open inside him.
A wound without a memory attached.
A grief without a face.
A goodbye directed at him by someone he can no longer remember.
And eventually he asks Nahida:
"Who was he?"
And for perhaps the first time in centuries, the Dendro Archon has no answer.