Price of Knowledge: Part 3
Part 1, Part 2
Zandik x female reader, reader has Khaenri'ahn lineage
Word Count: 1696
I wrote this as a backstory for my yumeship/ oc x canon, but it can be read as canon x reader. I didn't mention any name or appearance, but reader has a backstory. Nothing detailed, tho.
Reader is as sick in the head as Zandik, but she hides it better!!!
This fanfic will have 6 parts. It contains lore (I did my homework). It follows Zandik's (Dottore) backstory, more than the reader's, more exactly his time in the Akademiya.
The Price of Knowledge: Part 3
The One Who Stayed
Another year passed. It was Zandik's fourth year in the Akademiya. They had become even closer. He had always hated physical contact, so when she'd lean against him, he would shoot her a disgusted look. He wasn't disgusted by her, but by the actions. Despite all that, he wouldn't react impulsively. It wouldn't be like him. He'd mutter a quiet "Move."
It wasn't long until the rumours started.
"Did you hear? He dissected a living fungus!"
"I've heard he rebuilt its whole nervous system afterwards. From memory!"
Every detail was worse than the last. The students started avoiding one laboratory, then one dorm. Whenever Zandik reserved a room, the others would quietly choose another. The teachers began to supervise him more and be stricter with him. They would check his experiment requests more carefully.
Zandik never cared. He knew he had the greatest mind in the whole Akademiya. It didn't matter that the people around him quietly walked away whenever he showed up. Their minds couldn't comprehend his intelligence. That's why they thought he was weird and cruel.
She heard all the rumours. Eventually she entered his lab without knocking. He was dissecting another specimen. A stench hit her.
"This smell is foul. Don't you think it's rather cruel, what you are doing?"
"Sacrifices are a must for knowledge. And you're still here. If it were that disturbing to you, you would've left within seconds."
"Well, I'm here with a purpose and I won't abandon it. I have a proposal. Would you give up on your dissected specimen for a lesson about Khaenri'ah?"
He didn't answer right away. He glanced from the specimen to her, considering the exchange.
"...How extensive a lesson?"
At that, a slightly unsettling smile appeared on her face.
"It depends on how long you're willing to listen."
"Specifics."
"I guarantee that you won't be disappointed."
"You assume I value your knowledge more than my experiment."
"I know you do. I have information directly from the source."
That made him pause. He thought about it analytically. The specimen wasn't unique. The process could be redone the following day. But a firsthand source of Khaenri'ah knowledge is almost impossible to obtain. After several quiet seconds, he set his scalpel down.
"Very well."
"That's what I thought. But we are not doing this here. It stinks. Let's go to my dorm, there's where I'm hiding all my materials."
With that, he stood up, opened the door of his lab and headed toward her dorm. All this before she could even move.
She reached her dorm several minutes later, Zandik was already waiting in front of the door, visibly impatient. He ignored any person he encountered on the way there.
"...You walk slowly. We wasted approximately two minutes and twenty-eight seconds during which I could have already learned about Khaenri'ah."
"I walk normally. I simply don't care about time, unlike you."
She unlocked the door and stepped aside to let him enter. The room wasn't messy. It was ...full. She stepped inside after him and locked the door.
"I'm not trying to lock you up here. I just don't want any unannounced visitor while talking about this."
Zandik said nothing about it. His eyes swept across the room once. Books occupied every shelf, stacked both vertically and horizontally. Wooden crates were pushed beneath the bed. More were piled against the walls, each neatly labeled in careful handwriting. Scroll cases stood bundled in one corner. A wardrobe strained to close around more clothes than it was meant to hold. Every object had its place. There was simply no empty space left.
"I expected worse."
"I feel insulted."
Without another word, she knelt beside one of the crates and lifted its lid. Inside were dozens of notebooks. Another contained maps. Another held carefully wrapped stone fragments covered in faded symbols. Meanwhile, Zandik continued examining the room. No decorative objects. No family portraits. Nothing displayed for sentiment. Only things with practical value.
His gaze settled on the crates.
Every one bore the same worn travel marks. Not recently purchased.
"You brought all this here. You couldn't have accumulated this after enrolling."
"No. Before I enrolled, I was renting a house. I gave it up when I came here."
His eyes wandered again. Still no family photographs. No letters. No indication that anyone else had ever lived with her.
"Where are your parents?"
That finally made her look up from the crate, to him.
"This might be the first time I hate how observant you are."
A pause.
"I assume you know what my eyes mean. I'm Khaenri'ahn. Or at least my parents were Khaenri'ahn. I've never been there. I was born after it was destroyed. I am the same age as you. I am not immortal like them. They disappeared when I was little. I don't know where they are."
There was no bitterness or sadness in her voice. Only acceptance. Zandik watched her for several seconds. He recognized the pattern. Not grief. Adaptation. People usually expect sympathy after statements like that. He had none to offer. Instead, he asked the question that naturally followed.
"So every possession you own is in this room."
"Exactly. Now, let's see whether you're actually as intelligent as you think you are."
She pulled out dozens of documents, sketches, journals. Everything was authentic. Sketches of Khaenri'ahn machinery. Sketches of the original designs of the Ruin Guards. Notes about Gods, elemental energy, the Crimson Moon dynasty and the Eclipse Dynasty.
He picked up one of the sketches.
Ancient mechanisms. The proportions were precise. The annotations were detailed. Not the work of someone who had simply copied what they saw.
"You drew them yourself."
"Yes, though I drew them using my parents' notes."
His eyes moved to another page.
A diagram of a Ruin Guard's internal structure. Another showing possible energy systems. Another comparing Khaenri'ahn technology with Sumeru's current engineering.
"You weren't trained by the Akademiya."
"No, I've been doing this since I was 6 years old. Well, of course, I couldn't understand most of it back then."
"And yet your understanding of these mechanisms exceeds most students in Kshahrewar."
A smile appeared on her face.
"Was that a compliment?"
"No."
A pause.
"An observation."
She laughed quietly. The sound was unexpected. He wasn't accustomed to people laughing around him without mockery.
A silence followed. Not uncomfortable. Just unusual. Then Zandik looked back at the papers.
"Why show me these?"
"...I'm not interested in machines themselves. I'm more interested in the secrets of this world. And what happened in Khaenri'ahn. I showed you these because I think someone must bring them back."
"You realize the Akademiya would confiscate all of this."
"I know."
"And possibly imprison you."
"That's why you're the person who sees all this. I know you won't tell anyone. Because you believe no one is capable to understand any of this. And because you'd do anything for knowledge."
For the first time in their conversation, Zandik looked genuinely thoughtful. Not because he'd been praised, but because she reached that conclusion through observation alone.
"Your powers of observation are... adequate."
She laughed.
"I'll take that as a compliment."
He looked back at the documents.
"Don't..."
"Don't what?"
"...Take it as one."
But the corners of his mouth lifted ever so slightly before he returned to reading.
With that, the strange Akademiya student who avoided everyone had started spending time with the mysterious girl who studied forbidden history. The interesting part was that she never tried to make Zandik kinder. She didn't tell him to be less arrogant. She didn't ask him to change. She simply treated him as someone worth speaking to. And Zandik, who was used to people either fearing him or trying to correct him... Found that he preferred someone who could challenge him.
The meetings did not stop after that afternoon. If anything, they became increasingly frequent. At first, they were excuses.
"I found another inscription."
"I require your opinion on this mechanism."
"I translated another page."
"You mistranslated line twelve."
"I did not."
"You did."
"...Show me."
Hours disappeared into arguments.
Not hostile ones. Neither raised their voice. Instead, they would spend an entire evening debating the meaning of a single sentence carved into a piece of stone.
Gradually, the conversations stopped requiring a reason. Sometimes Zandik would simply appear outside her dorm. Knock once. Wait. When she opened the door...
"...What happened?"
"I finished today's research."
"...Congratulations?"
"I wished to continue yesterday's discussion."
"...You walked across the entire Akademiya..."
"...Yes."
"...Just for that?"
He looked at her as though the answer were obvious.
"...Naturally."
She stepped aside without another question. Eventually she stopped asking why he had come. He stopped explaining. It became routine. The library staff noticed first. If one was present...the other would arrive shortly afterward. Rumours spread almost as quickly as those surrounding Zandik's experiments. Some students would be scared for her, wondering why would she spend time with him. He was dangerous in their eyes. But they didn't know she was like that too, but unlike Zandik, she hid it better.
The first real sign that something had changed would probably not be a confession. It would be something small. A few months later, she gets injured during an exploration. Some defensive mechanism struck her. It wasn't fatal. But enough that she couldn't continue and had to wait for the rescue team.
Zandik became unusually irritated. Not because the expedition failed.
Because she was careless.
"You should have informed me."
"Why? So we can play doctor and patient together?" she said jokingly.
He looked at the gash across her arm before answering.
"No." His voice was flat.
"So the injury could have been treated immediately instead of after unnecessary blood loss."
Without realizing it, Zandik began making small adjustments. When collecting samples during field expeditions... He automatically gathered duplicate specimens. One set for himself. One for her. When copying inscriptions...He no longer wrote only one transcription.He wrote two. When the Akademiya announced access to a restricted archive...His first thought was no longer "I should investigate." It became "She'll want to see this." He never acknowledged the change. Not even to himself. It simply became... Expected.
