having grown up away from my parents’ home countries, it’s hard to connect with my cultures, especially on my filipino side. so to get closer with them, i’ve decided to start this series where i draw zandik eating the food i’ve grown up with and loved along the way 💕 just some comfort doodles, if you will
Desperately clinging to your fics for comfort at this point LOL
✦ Ageless Metamorphosis
OG Zandik x immortal Reader witnessing him in different stages of life with segments. Reader is gn. Warning: Longer fic idk why I wrote this
When Zandik was scarcely 18, he sat across from you as a junior Trainee Dastur.
Tepid sunlight cascaded over an endless sea of book spines, towering rows undulating like hypnotic waves. If the sound of your quill scribbling across the parchment paper were akin to the sound of splashing waves, then Zandik would wish to stay on this shore. You amended his notes, and the junior sat silently, nervously adjusting the golden trims of his emerald uniform when usually vanity meant little to him. However, with you, things were different.
“I see now why you wanted me to read it,” – you told him. “I believe this outline holds merit. I corrected some basic equations you wrote down, but I can say you're on the right track.”
His hands clench into fists in his lap, knuckles whitening with suppressed excitement. Was it foolish hope, or had you truly begun to believe his work on longevity might stand in defiance of Eleazar itself? Even so, you cautioned him gently, reminding him that the Akademiya’s six cardinal sins were not transgressions his supervisors would overlook:
“You should've been my supervisor,” – he quickly interjected, arms crossed. “At least, a senior co-author. Are you truly certain you intend to leave after graduation?”
Alas, your wistful smile confirmed you had already made that decision.
Though Zandik inclined his head with due respect, the cast of his lowered gaze betrayed how bitterly he cursed fate once more. Had he only belonged to the same academic year as you, he might have shared so much more with you: his scholarly frustrations, sleepless research, the burdens of looming deadlines, and endless debate during field trips amongst the dunes of Deshret’s old kingdom. Lamentably, a young heretic like him could only covet an equal like you.
You are far more intimidating than he expected. You sat there so calmly, pen moving across parchment like this is just another Tuesday. Yet when you stand back up, offering a gentle tap on his shoulder, Zandik’s face broke into an unfiltered smile he rarely wore in his scholarly career. It transforms his usually intense ruby eyes, rendering him to look exactly what he is – a mere young boy.
“I'll take your words of encouragement at face value. Otherwise, I hope not all long-lived individuals such as yourself dispense polite encouragement to humor naive mortals?”
“Maybe when I reach several centuries of age, Zandik. I am not that ancient yet.”
When Zandik was 25, you watched him work tirelessly in Dar Al-Shifa’.
With a notebook in hand and chalk in the other, he scribbled tirelessly on the board in front of him. A crease formed on the bridge of his nose, right underneath his glasses. A white medical lab coat has replaced his once-pristine Akademiya uniform.
"If I adjust the plasma conductivity here... no, this won’t do," – He mutters to himself as he scribbles furiously. Realizing he was far from alone in this room, he felt self-conscious of you watching him after hours again. A habit of yours lately, one he proudly memorized, even when your footsteps were soundless and your breathing undetected. "Oh! You're still here. Great, I will wrap it up to show you my progress."
You watch him fuss and mutter over cellular samples of the recent Eleazar patient. Simply resting your head on your palms, you remained seated by a medical table behind him. Any attempts to convince him that he was way overqualified for this run-down hospital remained futile.
"If it keeps me afloat, then so be it. And it’s not like I can scavenge better opportunities elsewhere after my expulsion," – Zandik's shoulders tensed slightly, chalk dusting the fingertips of his gloves. "They're building a new wing for experimental treatments. More patients with Eleazar are coming in… This would be the perfect opportunity to experiment on the condition. What do you think?”
You paid little heed to his pleas. Instead, you busied yourself checking the formulas written on the board here and there. Then, without warning, you turned to stare at him with such profound astonishment:
“... You wear glasses now.”
Zandik blinked at you. An embarrassing exhale escaped him, a sound halfway between frustration and affection. He abandoned the chalkboard entirely now, walking over to where you sit – "You're avoiding the topic again, aren’t you? I do not ask you out of whimsy, dear. I want to hear your opinion first and foremost. Always have."
But both you and Zandik could already guess what you would utter. You knew these parts of rural desert villages. People here do not look kindly upon those who meddle with Eleazar, nor upon anyone who tampers with the ancient Khaenri’ahn machinery buried beneath the sands. To do so was akin to cursed omens. You shook your head: “Do something reckless, and they will exile you like Sumeru city did.”
The young man crossed his arms – “And is concealing your true age and origins from the villagers not equally reckless of you?”
Your eyes widened before your gaze drifted away in solemn silence. Indeed, neither of you was innocent, and the doctor sighed before leaning closer towards you.
For seven years, since that golden afternoon at the Akademiya, through his exile, to your frequent visits to this remote hospital, the young doctor would gaze at you with an encumbered yearning. His desolation from Sumeru city was his burden alone, yet somehow, you’d return after him to ensure his well-being. Perhaps the shared disdain for the Akademiya’s taboos was what brought you to him as a senior, but to the young man, you were an image of everything he’d hoped to achieve. Was it immortality or change? His brilliant mind couldn’t grasp for an answer.
"You think I care about exile?" he asked, voice low but intense. "They cast me out once already for pursuing forbidden knowledge. I was hoping that maybe after seven years, you'd see me as more than a puny junior. We can go together, it doesn’t matter where, even in the worst possible outcome.
Silence followed.
“... Eh? It's been seven years already?! Since when?!”
You were helpless despite your seniority, Zandik concluded.
When Zandik was 35, he proudly bore the title of the 2nd Fatui Harbinger before you.
The luxurious Fatui facilities dwarfed the desert hospital; his excitement is ever maddening despite the decades. You, however, remained ageless and unchanged beside him.
"You're looking at phase one of an artificial electrolyte solution," he said eagerly, gesturing to glowing vials on a lab table while you two toured his new laboratory. "Based on Khaenri'ahn bio-tech but adapted for human physiology. This allows for a better preservation of the segments I told you about."
He presented his first progress with confidence. Imitating ancient Khaenriahn alchemy as a framework for creating clones resembling him was a new idea, finally entering experimental phases rather than remaining theoretical. You, in the meantime, wandered the polished floors of his lab, a heavy Fatui coat draped over your shoulders as you read his notes on transferring embodied experiences and memories.
“Mortality is nothing but a shackle, and for a segment it would be no burden,” – you remember he said.
“Why would it be a shackle, Zandik? Immortality is more cursed when a person acquires it. After all, a human mind cannot comprehend so many centuries without any side effects.”
“And would you consider your longevity a curse, then?” – He dared you, but you fell silent.
He leans back against the lab counter, arms crossed as he studies your unchanged face. An eternity of familiarity in this world that keeps moving without you, while everyone you’d know and love would pass and fade away.
"The segments would gather information from different times and different perspectives. Yet here I am at my height as a Harbinger, feeling more contempt than ever. None of it bears meaning if you're just going to outlive me by centuries."
Once more, you offered him that easy, distant smile: “You have much more to achieve than pursue me throughout centuries. You are a scholar after all, so I can only advise you so much as a senior. Besides, you now look more mature than I am. Had we remained at the Akademiya, most would mistake you for my senior instead.”
Naturally, a scoff escaped him. Lately, you’ve been using quips about him looking older than you. He hovers close, hand cradles your jaw with careful, gloved hands as if cautious you’d vanish like a mirage in the desert he once fled from.
“If I'm to tear down and spite this decaying world,” – He whispered. “...I can't imagine wanting eternity with anyone but you. Be it through my own flesh or through my segments."
“What if multiple clones of you existed, which one of them would be the closest to the real Zandik?”
He takes another step closer, close enough now that if either of you breathed deeply, your chests might brush: "Does it matter?”
Burdened with decades of unspoken admiration, the Harbinger leaned in to seal his lips with yours. And tragically for you two, you leaned in.
Every time that young junior presented his work, he hoped for your approval. Every coffee break, he sat by your side but never touched. That night at the desert hospital, when it hit him that you'd never age like ordinary people, and never see him as an equal in mortal life, it became a condemnation to yearn for you more. It was his unspoken ‘I've loved you since forever’ – except for a mortal, his forever was merely decades, a minuscule blink of an eye for an immortal like you.
Still here you were, hands clutching at his coat as you kissed him back. The Harbinger only pushed on with hunger to pour all his unspoken words against your lips, grasping your body flush against him even when pulled away in search of air.
“We shouldn’t, you know why,”
He knew. But his gaze hardened with pain of the expected rejection: “Do you regard me as a small blink in your life? Do not pity now, you of all people…”
“No, no,” – you shook your head, forehead pressing against his chest as your shoulder shook. “Don’t act as if I am an untouchable being incapable of understanding love. You know we shouldn’t because I-”
“Because you will outlive me, and it will break us both?”
Your eyes glistened at the thought. The Doctor only drew you closer, his head pressing to the crown of your hair.
“Or… you wish not to meddle with a heretic and let him grow old on his own?”
Thinking about it now, you should've smacked Zandik on the head more often for such words. Instead, you yielded, if only this once, to the desire between you, letting him lift you onto the table as he devoured your breath with a hunger shaped by years of discretion. Just this once, even if it meant your refusal would fracture yet another part of him.
When Zandik was 80, you watched him create segments from various stages of his life.
The lab grows ever more fervent with work and experiments. The various fragments of his own becoming have now meticulously embodied his personality and ticks from different thresholds of his life. Through it all, Zandik himself grew older. He may not have achieved immortality to stand beside you as an equal, but you chose to remain as an enduring friend. The day when he was 35, a Harbinger in his prime, you refused him. Not out of antipathy, it was a mutual decision you both agreed to. Would a heretic allow himself to wallow in his own longing till his elderly years? Each Dottore segment will give you a different answer.
Today, a familiar chorus of boisterous chatter spills into his lab. You had arrived for a visit. The youngest of the segments, the 8-year-old little Zandik, runs quickest to cling to your legs. The 18-year-old follows suit, already eager to show you his recent essay and research notes. Perhaps some things never change.
“Easy, easy there! One at a time!” – you laugh, holding packed baklava confectionery away from 8’s grabby hands as you greet everyone with little treats from your travels. Even the 65-year-old segment cannot help but play the old charmer when greeting you with a bow of his masked head.
Old man Zandik will have to reprimand his segments to respect your personal space. What a bunch of flocking children.
“You spoil the youngest too much,” – His voice rasped as he set a cup of coffee for you. Taking his seat opposite, he kept his cane in his grasp. “But I see you are eager to correct 18’s research notes. He says if he can’t get others to advise him, he’ll have you as his supervisor instead.”
You chuckled, a cup in hand.
“Ah, doesn’t it remind you of someone when they were a Trainee Dastur?”
Old man Zandik scoffed. Of course, they inherited his bodily experiences, perhaps even their adoration is part of him. Notably, you no longer looked as intimidating as you had when he remembered you from his youth. Poised as always, you sat ever the same, physically unchanged in posture and youth. Meanwhile, Zandik aged; his hair grew longer, and his skin wasn’t spotless. It’s basic biology; his reflection did not offend him.
“You know, I think you have changed,” – The Harbinger noted.
“...Me? Do we have matching wrinkles at last?!”
“Do not mock me now,” – he shook his begrudgingly, until his weary gaze settled deep into your eyes. “You look different. Your eyes look ever more distant. I assumed it was fatigue in your eyes at first, but you are not one to skip leisurely repose.”
You said nothing. Your gaze was indeed distant, despite the ever-gentle smile.
“Maybe you should get back to wearing glasses, then, because nothing in me has changed. Which, by the way, they looked good on you when you wore them at 25.”
“Hmph, my eyesight is perfect. At least you remember the years now. It’s unlike you.”
The bickering between the senior and their junior resumed back and forth. Except that by this coffee table, it looked like an old man scolding an ignorant juvenile for being absentminded, while you chuckled and humored him over coffee.
“Then in that regard, you haven't changed at all despite your years.” – your youthful hand came cradling his wrinkled one. “It's like I'm looking at the same 18-year-old I first met who sat across from me in the Akademiya library.”
The contrast was clear in your shared touch; his skin was now papery with prominent veins against your ageless one. Alas, you refuse to concede that your accumulation of decades had numbed you with inferential grief. He turned his palm upward to intertwine fingers with yours. For a moment, neither of you spoke.
“We didn’t meet at the Akademiya first.”
You blinked in confusion, “Eh? Yes, we did. You shared your outline papers and whatnot. That’s the first time I met you.”
The old man regarded you with a wistful smile, “Hm, are you certain? I recall it differently.”
“Hey now, don’t pull my leg. We were both Akademiya students, though I was about to graduate when you were still a junior. I know that much for certain!”
“Ah, you are right, you are right. Never mind, perhaps my mind was just wandering.” – Zandik didn’t insist on the topic, softly deriving a different question quickly, "Will I see you tomorrow? The younger clones always ask when their senior advisor is coming by."
“Same time, as usual,” – You stood up. “I need to check on Feofan again since his corneal repair surgery. He seems to be faring well so far. But I will see you tomorrow.”
“Suit yourself.”
With a quick peck to his temple, you scurried off without further words. His cup of coffee remained untouched till it cooled, while Zandik watched you silently depart. Once again, the heretic would rather let decades go by instead of confessing the unstated. He did not lie - he actually knew you before the Akademiya.
When Zandik was 8, you stumbled upon him as he ran away from a swarm of kids hurling rocks at him. You, of course, don’t remember it, for you never asked for his name then.
Tears blurred his vision when he ran. Scratches stung skin until little Zandik collided with your legs by accident. Fallen backward, he remembers lying there sniffling. With a stern bark, you reprimanded the street children and shooed them off. And why would you remember a fleeting encounter where you kneeled by a small kid, checking his scratches and mending him? The little child only stared at you with big ruby eyes that day, shakily explaining what happened.
When Zandik died on his 85th birthday, you didn’t come to visit.
I'm scared of 6.6. There are rumors about leaked dialogs which I'm not going to read and avoid no matter what. But still, it makes me nervous.
Dottore means a lot to me in a weird way. Having to deal with serious health issues and illnesses for years and meeting with dismissive doctors, I found a strange comfort im the one who was, despite all madness, still the one who was the closest to finding a cure for Eleazar.
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