kokunylou

Dottore did not dream. 

He used to dream before he was forced to abandon his original body but even then dreams were sparse and short. If he was lucky, sometimes he dreamt of answers--his mind always on his research even while resting. If he was unlucky, he would dream of fire, red and orange and yellow flames too close to his eyes; he would dream of the day he had received the scars that marred half of his face and his hands. 

But now he was sitting in an unfamiliar home, reminiscent of the estate in northern Fontaine where the Delta segment was focusing on his research. It had to be a dream. He remembered laying down in his bed, he remembered feeling his soulmate’s exhaustion. He had been back in his estate in northern Snezhnaya and now he was here.

It had to be a dream but Dottore didn’t dream so it must be something else.

But what?

He didn’t have time to dwell on the issue, he found himself moving, standing up from wherever he had been sitting and confusion began to itch at him, realizing that something was wrong. He was shorter--stood barely taller than the couch he had been sitting on--and he had no control over his actions. 

He tried to catch a glimpse of himself in the glass of an ebony cabinet that seemed to be storing some sort of antiques but he couldn’t make out his features. His features? Something felt wrong. His hands moved down on their own, smoothing down the cloth draped across his body--loose fitting, softer than anything he owned, it only reached his knees. 

A dress?

There was a strange feeling bubbling in his chest--excitement but it wasn’t his own. He was pacing back and forth and as he turned on his foot for the fifth time, he caught his reflection in the mirror: bright eyes glowing with anticipation, a wide smile. It was a girl, a young one at that--no older than seven. Something warm and heavy stirred, this was of his own.

This was her. His soulmate. He knew it.

Dottore suddenly felt uncomfortable. He didn’t know how to wake himself up. He tried searching for something to read, he tried yelling, he tried blinking repeatedly--tactics that he had used all of those years ago when he found himself dreaming of the unpleasant years he spent back in his village but none of them were successful this time. His body wouldn’t cooperate… or he supposed it was her body, not his.

This was not ideal, he thought to himself as she continued to pace around. He had somehow managed to let himself get attached to the faceless being on the opposite side of the thread, however minimally that attachment may have been, he did not want to put a face to them because he did not want to risk this attachment becoming any stronger. He had to focus on severing the thread, freeing them both of the shackles that this bond placed on them. 

There wasn’t much he could do, he realized. There were no tricks that he could use to wake himself up, he just had to wait this out, watch whatever was going on from behind the eyes of his soulmate. Exasperated, he resigned himself to his fate, instead trying to make the most of the situation and figure out where exactly she might be.

Not to find her, he told himself. 

Or, it was to find her, he corrected, but only so that he could send Lambda off to keep an eye on her. He was the only one that Dottore could trust to make sure that she stayed alive without forming any sort of attachment to her and without even making himself known to her. All of the others would take advantage of the opportunity but Lambda would do what was necessary--he was livid enough over this whole situation and how it has been affecting their research. He would make sure that their soulmate stayed alive and unharmed long enough for Dottore to figure out how to sever the thread. 

“Moooother,” the words left his lips, but the voice was young and happy, a soft singsong of a call that trailed into a gentle giggle. Innocent, sweet, untainted. “I’ve been waiting forever.” 

Dottore felt another emotion that was not his own, this one more familiar to him--a growing anxiety, a creeping sense of doubt as the girl began to look around. He could feel her lips twisting into a frown, the excitement dying as she left the room to go look up and down the halls. Dottore tried to push away her growing distress, instead focusing on the windows that she was passing by as she ran up and down the halls. 

Rolling hills in the distance, snow dusting the thick grass, the skies were clear and there weren’t many trees in sight. Dottore’s eyes narrowed in suspicion, it was very reminiscent of the labs he had set up on the Fontaine border. 

Was she from the Fontaine countryside?

He would call Lambda back from Sumeru to send him to check it out, and order Delta to take his place in Sumeru with Theta. Theta would be livid but Dottore didn’t particularly care about how Theta felt. He had only barely been able to replicate all of the lost research before the deadline Dottore had set for him and Dottore had a feeling that Lambda had done the majority of the work because he had been furious over his research being interrupted. 

Unfortunately for him, it would be interrupted again. 

But where in the Fontaine countryside? Dottore tried to figure it out, irritation growing as she came to a stop in one of the hallways, no window in sight. It had to be somewhere in central or eastern Fontaine--if it were western Fontaine, there would be no snow powdered across the grass, the heat from Sumeru and Natlan melting it before it even touched the earth.

Northeastern Fontaine or north-central Fontaine. It would be easier if he could sic Rho on the job. He would be able to track her down with a general location--they’d have her whereabouts in a matter of a week… but he couldn’t trust Rho to not tell the Gamma segment, and if the Gamma segment knew, he would tell the Iota segment, and the Iota segment finding out was how this whole mess started in the first place. 

“Miss Elyna!” she called and Dottore was moving--or she was, he corrected again--this time down a new hall, lips tugging down into a pout as she tugged down a cloak from a hook. Dottore winced as she pulled too hard, tumbling down to the ground. He could feel the hardwood floors scraping against her elbows. It hurt more than it should’ve, he had gone through worse but he supposed he was feeling what she was feeling, severity and all. Dottore wanted to roll his eyes when he felt her eyes water up, sniffling. 

“They left me,” she said to herself, voice wobbly as she pushed herself to her feet and pulled on the cloak. It was too big for her, dragging against the floor as she made her way to the door. 

Pleased, Dottore realized she was going to go outside, which would give him a better chance of figuring out where along the Fontaine countryside she was living. As soon as she pushed open the door, brisk air met his face. Her nose wrinkled, drawing her hands up into the sleeves of her cloak as she began to make her way out of the house.

The town seemed to be up a rather large hill, a mile or so away from where the estate was situated. She was of noble birth, that much was obvious, only the aristocrats of Fontaine could afford such a large estate with that much property. 

Dottore frowned as he caught something in the distance--dark clouds rolling over the town that she was making her way to, too fast to be just the average storm. Even further in the distance was a sight he could barely make out: a mountain range, large, ragged peaks that were very, very familiar. 

Dottore felt uncomfortable. Again. The storm was not of a natural cause--it was one of the harsh winter blizzards that should have buried Snezhnaya’s capital city, deflected by the Tsaritsa to batter Fontaine instead. His soulmate remained blissfully ignorant of the coming danger, bounding up the hill in the direction of the village, at a pace too slow to beat the imminent storm. He could feel the air around them getting colder, the wind picking up. He could feel the first snowflake sting her cheek, bitter and sharp.

There was a sinking feeling in his stomach--he couldn’t tell if it was his or hers. It was hers, he realized, because she was now looking around nervously, realizing that the storm was about to come down on her and she was too far from the estate to make it back there and she was too far from the town to make it to one of the houses on the outskirts. 

Snezhnayan blizzards were dangerous. They never lasted for too long, especially the ones that were deflected to the south, but they came on fast and they were harsh--the winds were wicked and the snow came down half as ice. 

“Mother!” she called, voice loud, and panicked. Dottore’s heart was racing--or he supposed it was hers, now that the severity of the situation was finally beginning to set in on her. “Mother!”

Fool, he thought to himself, you’re going to fall. His chest felt tight--this was his own, not hers, he recognized--as instead of trying to run back to the estate, she kept going up the large hill, intent on finding her parents rather than trying to get back to safety.

Just as he expected, it only took one strong wind for the girl to trip over the too-long cloak and go tumbling down the hill. She was shrieking but the wind was drowning her cries and Dottore couldn’t do anything but watch, watch through her eyes as she tumbled down the hill, nails clawing against the dirt as she tried to slow the fall. 

Dottore did not do well with these sorts of movements. He felt woozy, light-headed--or maybe it was her feeling it, or maybe it was both of them, Dottore really couldn’t tell. By the time she came to a stop at the bottom of the hill, she could barely even stand up. The wind sent her tumbling down each time she tried to rise, and the snow was coming down hard, whipping around her so that she could barely even see a few steps in front of her and Dottore was suddenly back in northern Snezhnaya, four hundred years prior.

Beta, Dottore thought to himself and he felt sick and he wasn’t sure if it was because of the dizziness or because of the reminder of his first segment and its destruction. He willed himself to wake up to no avail, and he couldn’t even shut his eyes because he was forced to watch through hers as she tumbled to the ground over and over again, trying to make her way blindly through the storm. 

You’re going to get yourself lost, Dottore wanted to spit out, livid, stop moving. But his soulmate was terrified and frenzied, shrieking even though no one could hear her, sobbing for her mother, trying to cover her face with her cloak but she kept getting knocked to the ground, taking facefuls of mud and snow. It was hard to remember that it was the past--that this had already happened years ago as he lived through it himself through her, as he felt her fear and her pain and her panic.

He hated this. 

He hated the lack of control. He hated being forced into this situation. He hated having no choice in what was going on. 

He hated having a soulmate

And he hated even more that there was the chance that she was also dreaming of his past and he had no way of knowing what she could be seeing.

You were sitting by a window. You blinked, brows furrowing softly as you tried to figure out what had happened and how you had got there. The room was unfamiliar--the furniture was a pale wood instead of the ebony dressers that decorated your room and it was small, it seemed to be some sort of living room but it was barely even the size of your bedroom.

You wanted to stand up but you couldn’t and you weren’t entirely sure why. You frowned, trying to push yourself off the windowsill you were sitting at but your body wouldn’t cooperate, locked in place. You felt a bit panicked over it but you couldn’t feel panicked, you didn’t know how to describe it. It was a muted feeling, suppressed--what was more intense was the odd sense of longing tugging at your gut, the weight heavy on your chest. 

Your gaze moved on its own from inside the house to back out the window. You couldn’t help but notice how the window was bolted from the outside--less like trying to keep people out of the house and more like trying to keep someone in. You felt uncomfortable suddenly, but again, it was a muted feeling, one that you couldn’t seem to feel strongly no matter how much you felt like you should.

There were kids outside, across the dirt street, lounging in the lush grass. They were smiling, happy, making the same motions you would when you pulled at your string and you felt even more alone, sad--you felt sad and you didn’t even know why.

You looked away, down to your lap, and then you felt confused because you realized, slowly, that you were not in your own body. You were wearing a pair of loose shorts--a thick rough material that felt icky against your skin, you were used to the soft silks and cottons that you usually wore. Your legs were stick thin, the bones protruding through the skin. Your knees and shins were bruised and scratched up and your hands were small but rough and calloused.

What…?

“Zandik,” you heard an unfamiliar voice call. Your head turned, but you weren’t controlling it. Again, you felt alarmed, and again, you couldn’t really feel alarmed. Instead, there was an anxiety pooling, one that you weren’t in charge of. You looked to the side--a woman was standing there, tall with pale blue eyes and dark hair. “Why are you watching them?”

“You never let me go outside,” The words were leaving your lips but the voice was not your own, it was that of a boy--a young one at that--quiet and vulnerable, loneliness echoing in his tone. “Why can’t I go outside? I want to explore. The other kids go exploring all the time, I see them.”

“Zandik, come away from there,” the woman ignored his pleas, pressed together tight as she watched him--you? you thought to yourself, confused at the whole situation. “You’re going to make them uncomfortable. We don’t need more rumors going around.”

“I want to go outside and explore,” the boy was adamant, his words edging on desperate. “I hate being stuck in here all day, I want to go out. I want to explore. Why don’t you let me out?” 

“You know why, Zandik,” the woman had not one ounce of sympathy for the boy and the hurt that you might have felt personally at the harshness, he felt tenfold. You could feel yourself sniffling--he was sniffling, you corrected, his lip wobbling and his vision going blurry. 

“I don’t get it,” he said, voice cracking, the telltale sign of a meltdown in most kids but he seemed to be controlling himself, somehow. You had never seen a kid mature enough to hold back their tears and wails. “I don’t get it, you keep telling me they don’t want me outside because of my soulmate but that’s not fair. I’ll get my mark soon, why are they being so mean? I just want to go out and explore.”

Oh, you realized suddenly as you finally began to feel tears track down your cheeks and as the boy finally let himself cry. This was your soulmate when they were younger. 

You had heard rumors of this, you read about it in some of the books in the palace’s libraries. There were certain half-stages or rare effects of the bond that soulmates could experience, some called them mutations, others called them extra blessings. There were rumors of people not being able to see certain colors until they met their soulmates, rumors that some had two different eye colors--one of their own and the other to match their soulmates, and then there were dreams. Dreams were a frequent mutation, be it seeing each other’s past through the dreams or it being a shared space for them to talk to each other in. 

You assumed this was the former. 

And suddenly you were angry. The woman, who must be his mother or caretaker, was watching him coldly even as he cried. She made no attempt to console him, no attempt to calm him down or reassure him, not even a single word or action of comfort. She watched him cry with empty eyes, unmoved by the tears. It was hard to only be able to watch--you wanted to scream at the woman, you wanted to slap her, you wanted to comfort the crying boy, but all you could do was watch it happen from his eyes, feel his distress.

“It has been over five years Zandik,” the woman said, tone void of any sort of empathy for him. “No one has gone this long without receiving their mark. It is a bad omen for the village, you are a bad omen--they say the divine have cursed you. They do not want you around and if you continue testing your father’s patience, he will stop advocating for more time with the village elders. Do you understand?” 

He was crying, hard, and you could feel him shaking his head. “I don’t understand. I do-”

The glass behind you shattered and the boy didn’t have any time to react before a rock flew past him into their house, shards of glass cutting through the skin of his cheek and his arm--shallow cuts, but you could feel the warm, thick liquid dripping down his cheek. He had stopped crying suddenly, stunned by the sudden pain and the loud sound of the glass breaking. 

The woman was staring down at the rock in the middle of their small living room, making no move to get a wet rag to help Zandik clean up. You could hear the kids laughing as they ran away--evil little demons, you thought to yourself, personally aggrieved by the situation.

“What was that noise?” 

A new voice--male, deep, and Zandik was forced out of the state of shock, heart-racing and nerves returning, this time way more intense as he looked at the woman, “Moth-” he began, voice dripping with anxiety but he didn’t even have time to finish the word before a man had made his way into the room. 

He was tall, taller than your father was with wavy blue, fair skin and sharp red eyes. He was intimidating, you weren’t even really there and you could feel your nerves beginning to heighten… or maybe it was just Zandik’s emotions forcing themselves onto you, you couldn’t tell at this point. But the man, his father, was livid, his lips were twisting in an ugly sort of fury as he stared at the broken window.

You thought he would storm outside, yell at the kids who had thrown the rock into their home and hurt his son but instead, he was moving toward Zandik. Your stomach dropped as you felt yourself--him--trying to scramble away, unintelligible, panicked babbles spilling from his lips but his father’s legs were longer, strides too big for him to escape. 

He leaned down, a large hand wrapping around Zandik’s thin bicep and you winced at the bruising grip he had on him as he yanked him to his feet so hard that the boy went stumbling. “How many times do I have to tell you-” his father started to spit out, cutting himself off as he dragged Zandik through the small room and toward the hall. 

“Zakai,” his mother began, following Zandik and his father, exasperated and maybe even a bit nervous.

“Stay out of this,” his father said roughly, turning down another, smaller hall that led to a single door at the end of it. 

“No,” Zandik was panicking, desperately trying to rip himself out of his father’s grip. “No, I don’t want to go in the dark room. I don't want to go in there.”

He went ignored, flinching as his father yanked open the door and a sharp pain flew up your back as he pushed Zandik into the room--the closet, you corrected, horrified. It was a small space with no windows and barely enough room to sit comfortably, and his back hit the wall hard before he crumbled to the ground.

“This is for your own good,” his father told him. “It’s hard enough convincing them to let you remain in the village as it is. If you continue to give them reasons to want you gone, I’ll have no choice but to concede.” 

“I didn’t even do anything,” Zandik choked over his words, you could barely make out his father’s face now from how much his vision was blurred with tears. “I was just sitting there.”

“They don’t even want to look at you, boy,” his father hissed, grabbing Zandik’s cheeks and squeezing them together hard. “They see you a monster, do you understand? The same type that rose from the damned lands and razed our villages  to the ground--those cursed people had no mark either, you know? Are you like them? A monster? Cursed? Are you? Answer me!”

“I’m not!” Zandik shouted, pulling his face from his father’s hands. “I’m not!”

“Then prove it,” his father snapped before slamming the door in his face, drowning the small, enclosed room in darkness and leaving Zandik in there alone. 

In an instant, the scene warped--another dizzying sensation that had Dottore sick to his stomach. Gone was the ferocious wind and the snow pummeling his soulmate’s small body, gone was the panic and the fear. Instead, it was replaced with beams of sun warm against his face, a bubbling excitement that was overwhelming any sort of irritation he might have had. 

She was older now. He caught sight of her reflection through the window that she was running past--still young but probably closer in age to the Iota or Gamma segment. She looked happy, she felt happy. It was a far cry from what she had been feeling before and it was giving Dottore whiplash as he tried to figure out what exactly was going on. 

She was clutching something to her chest--a flower, purple hydrangea--and there was a hop in her step. From what he could tell, she was making her way to her family’s estate from the town. There was nothing in her field of vision that could give him any hints as to narrow down where she might be.

But it was warmer, and he remembered how the mountain range encasing Snezhnaya’s capital had been visible in the distance when she had been walking to the town. It had to be a town along the Snezhnayan border--central Fontaine, most likely, considering the positioning of the mountain range and the warm weather. Central and western Fontaine frequently dealt with waves of heat drawn in by Sumeru’s desert and Natlan’s fields of magma while northeastern Fontaine rarely ever got warm, surrounded by the mountain ranges of eastern Snezhnaya and northern Mondstadt on both sides, it was pretty much a pool of cold air… and he couldn’t see any mountain ranges to the south, so it had to be central Fontaine.

But central Fontaine was large and he had no way of knowing where exactly the town could be. It was somewhere up by the Snezhnayan border in the western sector of central Fontaine, yes, but dozens of towns could match that description, more than that even. Fontaine was littered with small towns in its countryside, even without adding in the city’s population, Fontaine was the most populous of the seven nations. 

Lambda’s issue, Dottore told himself as she finally got to the front doors of her family estate, pushing it open and stepping inside. He had more important things to worry about than her location, he had narrowed it down far enough that Lambda would be able to figure it out.

“Mother!” she called loudly, making her way down the halls. Dottore could feel how happy she was--it was strange. He had felt her happy a million times before but now it was as if he were feeling it himself. It wasn’t that distinct muted feeling he had learned to decipher from his own and locked away. It felt like it was his, it felt like he was happy and he wasn’t sure he had ever felt like that before.

He didn’t like it. He felt warm, at home in a way that he usually only did in his labs and even though he knew, realistically, that these were not feelings of his own, he didn’t like the way it was affecting him. 

“Moooother,” his soulmate repeated, louder this time, but it lacked the singsong lilt it had years prior before the storm. “Moth-”

“What is it?” an unfamiliar voice asked, sharp and cold, interrupting her call. Dottore felt the change in mood instantly, the giddiness replaced by hurt, smile fading for just a second, and Dottore felt livid, murderous, but even that was displaced because he was feeling her own emotions more strongly than his own. 

His soulmate turned to face the other direction, where walking down the side hall toward her was a taller woman that looked just like her, although her eyes were sharper and her lips were pulled down. 

She shifted uncomfortably on her feet and Dottore could tell that she was bothered by the woman--who he assumed was her mother--and her coldness. 

Despite the discomfort, she still managed to smile again, “I made a friend down in town,” she said, excited. “His family owns the flower shop. He gave me a flower.”

Irritation pricked at the back of his mind, he pushed it away.

“That’s nice,” she did not sound interested. He could feel his soulmate’s smile falter again--the irritation grew, developing into subtle anger. “You were supposed to be back for lunch.”

“He was really nice,” his soulmate continued, perturbed but trying not to let it show. Dottore wanted to roll his eyes, he had no desire to hear about a childhood crush. “And guess what? You’ll never believe it! His soulmate, she’s up in the north too.”

Dottore felt her mother’s change in demeanor instantly. His soulmate remained oblivious, giddy, and excited. He didn’t have to look in the reflection to know that her eyes were shining and her smile was wide, he could practically picture it on his own. He felt tight, having a bad feeling about what was going to happen next.

“How do you know that?” her mother asked, icy. 

Blissfully ignorant, his soulmate looked down at the flower she was holding tight to her chest. “We talked about it, he said he was going to go north to find her one day and I asked to come with and-”

Her head snapped to the side, hard, and a painful, stinging sensation spread across Dottore’s face. At once, Dottore felt a wave of emotions all at once--only one was his own and that was rage, rage at being slapped, at her being slapped--but more predominantly, he could feel her shock and he could feel her distress. He was reminded of the day all of those years ago when he had gone to meet Pantalone for the first time when he had been cut off mid-sentence by a slap on her end. 

Her mother grabbed her face hard, squeezing her cheeks together, and Dottore was livid--he wanted to rip his face out of her grip, grab her by the throat, and force her off but he couldn’t, he couldn’t control anything because he was stuck in his soulmate’s body, watching it all happen from behind her eyes. 

The worst part was that he didn’t even know if he was angry because it felt as if he had been the one slapped, or if he was angry that she had been slapped.

“How many times must I tell you?” her mother spit out. “No one can know. No one, you and I, your father and Miss Elyna, they’re the only ones to know of your thread. To everyone else, you have no soulmate. How many times must I tell you?”

Dottore was taken aback. So taken aback, that he didn’t even register his soulmate’s response—something along the lines of a stuttered ‘but he was nice, I trust him’, but it only infuriated her mother even more.

To everyone else, you have no soulmate. 

Why? 

Were they able to figure out who he was through the words? No. That wasn’t possible, this was right after the beginning of the second stage. She hadn’t received any words from him at this point. 

Then it had to be something else. His location? Was Fontaine so anti-Snezhnaya already? 

They had expected it considering their archon’s stance on Celestia but how was it even possible? The Hydro Archon should have no way of knowing the plans of the Fatui but Dottore wasn’t sure what else would turn the deity against them like that.

… unless there was a spy. But even then, they should know that if that was the case, Arlecchino had implanted one of her spiders into Fontaine’s court.

Dottore was frustrated as he was forcibly ripped from his thoughts, drawn back into the situation at hand. Her mother was still going on, and his soulmate was still quiet, but she was crying now, silent tears spilling over her cheeks.

“… and your stepfather was right. Ever since he came into our lives, ever since the twins were born, you have taken every chance to act out or put our family at risk. Getting yourself lost in that storm after you told him you didn’t want to join us in town, refusing to show up for your siblings’ birthday, constantly talking back, and now this-”

“It’s not true,” she hiccuped, trying to pull away from her mother only to fail. “I wanted to go to their birthday, he never told me where it was, and I wanted to go to the town but he left me, and-”

“Enough!” her mother shouted and his soulmate flinched. “The lying is getting out of hand, all of this is getting out of hand. Do you understand how much risk you just put our family in? Your siblings?”

“I didn’t mean-“

“I will handle this,” her mother spit out, voice dripping with venom, “but this is the last time. The next time you act out of line, you will be living with your father indefinitely.” 

She left her standing there, alone, and the happiness from before was gone, leaving her as cold and empty as Dottore felt normally. Her flower lay limp at her feet, and she made no move to pick it up. 

Dottore didn’t like it.

She didn’t move for a long time, not until another figure came into the room—another woman, with dark hair and kind gray eyes, who let out a sigh when she saw her standing there alone, tears still tracking down her face.

“She doesn’t mean it, little one,” the older woman sighed, patting his soulmate’s head gently as she kneeled to pick up her flower, placing it back in her hands. “She loves you, she’s just scared.”

Dottore wasn’t so sure about that. Resentful and angry, he wasn’t sure he had ever felt such a visceral desire to kill since his days as a Fatui recruit when he was volatile and ready to snap at any given moment. He hated how a person he didn’t even know managed to draw out all of the worst aspects of himself, the aspects that he had killed and carefully tucked away a very long time ago.

“I don’t understand,” she sniffled, rubbing her eyes. “I hate it here. She’s so mean, and she always believes him over me, and he hates me because of father, and he’s always trying to leave me out and he tells her that it’s my fault, and she believes him.”

“Love is blind,” the woman murmured softly. Dottore wished he could roll his eyes. “Your mother never thought she’d find her soulmate… now that she has-”

“It’s not fair,” his soulmate interrupted, shaking her head and turning to face the woman. “Miss Elyna, he’s a liar. He’s a liar and he hates me. I didn’t even do anything wrong. And I have no friends because of my stupid soulmate and I finally make a friend and I’m not allowed to, and I always get in trouble when I don’t even do anything. I want to live with father. I hate it here.”

Dottore thought he should be offended--stupid soulmate, he thought to himself, irritated, but he couldn’t be offended because he was intrigued, trying to piece together what exactly she meant by the fact that she had no friends because of him. He was clueless as to Fontaine’s stance on those that never received a mark… and if that was the issue and she had to pretend she didn’t have one…

“You cannot go live with your father,” the woman, Elyna, sighed. “You are bad enough at hiding your bond here in the countryside, your father is still living in the city. You will have all eyes of the court on you once you’re there, and if you slip up once…”

Confirmation that it was Fontaine, he already knew it but it was good to have it confirmed—only Snezhnaya and Fontaine had courts. 

“It’s not fair,” she was melting down, shrieking. Dottore could barely even see through her eyes because they were blurred with big tears. “It’s not fair, I don’t want to hide it. I don’t want to. Do you know how mean people are because they think I don’t have a soulmate? They call me cursed, they say Celestia rejected me.” 

“Are you like them? A monster? Cursed? Answer me!”

Dottore felt cold but more than that, he felt something heavy in his chest. He didn’t know what it was, he didn’t want to know, so as always, he pushed it away. Instead, he found humor in the situation because he thought it was all ironic—he was persecuted for not having a soulmate, and she had to pretend she didn’t have one to avoid persecution. Not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, he spat at Celestia’s wicked sense of humor. 

“… hate me either way, so I might as well-”

“Enough,” Elyna hissed. “You can’t speak like that. It is not a matter of hate, it’s a matter of freedom and imprisonment, life and death. Your father sent a letter warning your mother that Her Excellency was becoming even more extreme in her position on Snezhnaya, you have to be careful.” 

There had to be a spy, Dottore realized. Someone leaking information from the higher levels of the Fatui to other nations—this had to have been nearly a decade ago. How had they gone so long without knowing?

He would have to bring it up to Pantalone, he would be able to work with Pulcinella and Arlecchino to weed out the rat.

“He lies to her,” his soulmate cried harder after being scolded. Elyna wrapped her arms around her and Dottore felt uncomfortable, claustrophobic. He wanted to yank away but his soulmate appeared to have no intention of doing that. “Who lies to their soulmate? If he loved her, he would love me. I didn’t do anything wrong, I was nice to him.”

“Hush now,” Elyna said gently. “You-”

“No, it’s not fair. None of this is fair. Soulmates are supposed to be good and he’s not. He ruined my life, and my soulmate is ruining my life, and none of it is fair. I have no friends, I just want friends, and now mother is going to ruin that too. And if father cared about me, he’d want me to live with him but instead, he makes me live here with them.”

“It’s safer-”

“I don’t care,” she shouted.

My soulmate is ruining my life, he echoed in his head. 

Bitterly, he thought, well that goes for both of us but at the same time, that heavy feeling returned and this time, he couldn’t bring himself to push it away. 

You were running. He was running. Your heart was racing, beating outside your chest as you slammed into a tree, stumbling past it to continue in whatever direction you were running in. It was so hot, it felt like the air around you was suffocating you; it felt like your mouth was stuffed with cotton. You couldn’t tell what was going on--you felt panicked, frantic, as if you were fighting for your life against an invisible enemy.

Invisible. 

As soon as the word crossed your mind, an explosion rocked the earth beneath you, sending you flying ten feet forward, slipping on wet, mossy rocks, and rolling down a steep hill. You hurt, your whole body ached, branches dug into your skin, rocks scraped against your face--ordinarily, you would have given up, the pain too much for you to handle, but somehow he kept going. 

You felt him push himself to his feet, you could feel blood tracking down his arm and the side of his face, but he didn’t cry nor did he falter. Wheezing for air and eyes wide and wild, he continued.

Something large was behind him, large and metal with a glowing orange and gold orb in the center of its head--a ruin guard, you realized, horrified. You had heard there were a lot in southern Fontaine, on Sumeru’s border, but they couldn’t traverse the mountain ranges and vast rivers and lakes that littered central Fontaine, freeing the north of their destruction. 

But you had studied them. You had studied ruin machines for a long, long time once you began receiving words from your soulmate and had access to the palace’s extensive library. You received odd words like chaos cores and circuits and bolts and oculi that you learned were associated with the old, destructive technology. There wasn’t much information on them and you thought that in itself was telling. The Hydro Archon censored any material that could be interpreted as fostering dissent against her rule, or the heavens, expunging the history that she didn’t like. 

You wondered what exactly was it about the ruin guards that she wanted to prevent the masses from learning.

Zandik gasped as the ground beneath him trembled again--the ruin guard had caught up already, heavy steps tracking after him. You could hear a whirring noise behind him and you knew it was going to let out another blast of energy in his direction. Your throat felt swollen with anxiety, or you supposed that was his anxiety, but he was focused ahead. You could see a village in the distance, in a small clearing of the dense forest he was running through.

He didn’t cry for help, he didn’t scream, and you remembered the last dream of his life. You wondered if he didn’t call for help because he knew no one would answer and you felt sick. 

The explosion didn’t hit close to him this time, veering off into a tree, and Zandik spared a glance behind him to see the ruin guard falter as it skidded on wet rocks, the same ones that Zandik had slipped down. He let out a shaky breath and you could feel his relief as he made a break for the village. 

The ruin guard did not stray too far behind. 

When he got to the village, the people were oblivious. Some spared him looks, mostly of irritation and distaste, but most ignored his presence. 

Zandik made no effort to warn them of the imminent danger and a part of you hesitated, uncomfortable, a foreboding feeling bearing down on you as you realized what might be about to happen. 

He kept sprinting through the small village, past a small bakery, and right through a crowd of people who cursed him for his interruption. He was running somewhere specifically, or to someone, you realized as he set his eyes on a woman you recognized from before: his mother. 

She looked angry but more than that, she seemed distressed, grabbing Zandik’s forearms as he nearly crashed into her at full speed.

“Where have you been? Your father and I-”

“We have to go inside,” Zandik said, voice little over a wheeze. “We have to-”

He didn’t have a chance to give any further explanation because at once, there was a massive explosion, one that shook the ground beneath the entire town as the ruin guard finally set its target on the villagers. 

Zandik turned his head, eyes wide, and you wished he would look away because you felt sick to your stomach at the gory scene before you. The blood, the fire, the screaming--every single one of your senses felt overwhelmed as catastrophe met the peaceful town, ravaging the unexpecting villagers.

But as much as you felt sick, you realized, slowly, that Zandik did not feel that same horror that you did. You wondered if he was in shock… you wondered if it were something else. He stared in the direction of the destruction, lips parted, unable to draw his gaze from the ruin guard as it prepared itself for another attack, energy swirling around the orange and gold orb. People were running, calling desperately for family members and friends, trying to hide behind houses and wells to escape the onslaught. There was blood. There was so much blood and so much death, and it was readying to attack again.

But he felt no guilt. No fear. No shame.

There was only satisfaction… awe. It was subtle, bubbling beneath the surface, but it churned your stomach. You told yourself that you didn’t know the whole story, that you didn’t know the extent to which the villagers had put him through hell--you hadn’t even scratched the surface with that previous event in his life you had dreamed of but-

“Zandik, Zandik,” it was his mother screaming, tearing him from his trance as he watched the ruin guard and forcing you from your thoughts. She was shaking him violently, fear stretched across her face. “What happened? What did you do? What did you do, Zandik?” 

“It followed me,” his voice sounded hollow, void of any sort of emotion. “I went exploring.”

“You brought it back here?” his mother was on the verge of tears and Zandik remained unmoved, standing there limp as she continued to rattle him around. “You stupid boy, they’ll kill you. They’ll kill you.” 

“Not if it kills them first,” you wondered if he intended to say that because you felt a jolt of surprise that was not your own. 

His mother stared at him, horrified, but she jolted as a figure grabbed her arm.

His father.

There was an unreadable expression on his face. “Inside,” he said, voice brusque and cold. He grabbed Zandik by the arm, dragging him inside after his mother and slamming the door behind them. 

He felt empty. You didn’t like it. It made you uncomfortable, it made you sad. You didn’t think anyone should feel like this, much less your soulmate. Even as his father let go of his arm, Zandik just stood there, gaze trained out the window much like how he was years earlier, watching the kids lay out in the grass--except this time, he was watching as they ran for their lives, screaming for their mother and father, hurt and bleeding. 

You didn’t know how long he stood there watching the horrors outside. Eventually, they managed to destroy the ruin guard, and as the sun set in the distance, they began to collect the dead and the wounded. Every now and then, you could hear his parents shouting at each other: “They’ll have him burned! We have to do something!” and “They already thought of him as one of the heretics from the cursed land. There’s nothing left we can do for him without us meeting the same fate.”

Zandik didn’t react to any of it--there was a vacuum where his emotions should have been, a cavity where his heart should have been. He felt cold and numb and you couldn’t tell if it was because he was in shock over what had happened and what he had caused, or if it was because he truly did not care. 

It seemed like an eternity when the shouting finally began again, you could see the torches lit outside, the crowd of survivors in front of his home. They were angry, bloodthirsty, out for vengeance, and still, Zandik remained apathetic, standing in the same spot. 

“Bring the boy out, Zakai,” the man at the head of the crowd called loudly. “You can’t protect him anymore.”

Neither his father nor mother responded but the words broke his stupor. Finally, he turned to face his parents and you could feel a bit of anxiety start to pool in his stomach as if he were finally realizing what was about to happen.

You were starting to realize it too and you wanted to throw up. 

“The Celestial gods have turned their backs on us for harboring a heretic. We have faced famine, drought, plague, and now this, all within the ten years that abomination has resided here. Our wives, elderly, children were slaughtered because he brought that monster from the cursed lands to our homes. If we don’t do something about it, it will happen again and again and again until we’ve atoned.”

“Zakai,” his mother whispered, shaking her head.

No way, you thought to yourself, horrified, as his father refused to meet her gaze, looking away from both Zandik and his wife. You could feel Zandik’s stomach drop and you could feel the fear begin to settle in his stomach.

“Zakai, you can’t,” his mother said desperately. “It was an accident, they’ll-”

“Enough,” his father responded quietly, and finally he looked at Zandik, only for a moment before he made his way to the door. “There’s nothing else we can do for him. It’s time to let go.”

When you woke up, you knew you had dreamed of your soulmate. You could remember the pain, the shock, the loneliness, and that terrifying sort of satisfaction he felt after he had accidentally led the ruin guard back to his village but you couldn’t remember anything that mattered and it made you want to cry. 

Cursed, they called him, you could remember that but not his name, not the place he had been living, not the faces of the people that had been in the dream, not even his face--you couldn’t remember any of it. It felt like a distant blur, something you could picture but all of the distinct features were smeared into something you couldn’t recognize and you were frustrated. 

Two and a half years. You had two and a half years and then you’d finally be able to get some answers out of him. 

You stared at your forearm, waiting to see if his word would change, wondering if he had dreamt about you too. 

Dottore was livid. He bit back a string of vile curses as he paced around his bedroom. He had dreamt of her. He knew it. He could remember it—he could remember her fear, he could remember her anger, he could remember her desperation. He could still picture the vague memory of her smile, and the way she felt as everything came crashing down around her, but he couldn’t remember anything of importance.

He knew he had figured out where she was. He knew it. But every time he tried to think back on it and remember, he was met with a frustratingly blank slate, an answer that was on the tip of his tongue that he couldn’t figure out.

The gods were fucking with him—again—and he was sick and tired of it. He could picture them laughing at him, mocking his situation, jeering at his failure. 

He tried to take steady breaths. He tried to calm himself down. None of it worked. He felt like he was in his late twenties again, unable to control his wild emotions and bouts of anger after being cast out from the Akademiya. 

He braced his hands on the edge of his desk, leaning over it as he shut his eyes and tried to settle down, counting slowly—an old tactic he had used back when he had first been brought into the Fatui. It worked, albeit slowly, but it cleared his head enough so that he could think.

What could he remember? 

A winter storm. A warm summer. A large estate. He could remember what had happened in the dream—memory? He could remember her getting lost in the storm, an unwelcome return to a past he tried to forget, and he could remember the argument with her mother, the slap.

She had to hide her mark, he remembered, eyes widening a bit. A winter storm. A warm summer. A large estate. Having to hide her mark. The answer was on the tip of his tongue, again, but again it dissolved before he could capture it. 

He let out a heavy, shaky breath—running a hand through his hair as he returned to his pacing. 

There was something else. He had figured something out beyond just where she was located—something important—but he couldn’t remember what. 

Squeezing his eyes shut, he inhaled, turning his mind to a different subject, something else to focus on before he destroyed half of his room in a fit of rage. 

Her. She must have dreamt too, and if her dreams were anything like his, it must’ve been of his childhood. 

Dottore suddenly felt uncomfortable, gaze drifting down to his forearm. No one knew of his past—no one besides him and his segments—and he liked to keep it that way. It was a history he had left behind, a name and a face that had died centuries before that he did not want unearthed.

He only hesitated a second before he rolled up his sleeve, intent on trying to get an idea of what she might have dreamed about his past through whatever word passed to him through the bond. 

And he stared—cold, empty, the rage returning but this time it did not burn, it froze. It froze everything, all of the emotions that had been rattling his body, any desire he might have felt to try to locate her, and most importantly, whatever attachment that might have grown in the past thirteen years as he was faced with the word that had haunted him his entire life, branded on his forearm as a searing accusation from the one person that was meant to be his.

His body moved on autopilot as he shuffled through his desk to find the notebook he had kept of all of the words passed onto him. Once it was in his hand, he took two long strides to the opposite side of the room before flinging it right into the fireplace, watching the flames engulf it before leaving his room and making his way down to his labs.

Cursed. 

rbs appreciated!