#dottoscara

this iteration of zandik is, like, maybe 19? He is immediately enchanted by this mysterious scholar who has defended him from the Establishment, something that has never happened before. The criticism wanderer wrote afterward has zandik going kind of like, What the hell is his problem. But, even if it's written much more rudely than he feels he deserves, it isn't *wrong*; it is in fact the sort of debate and reasoned criticism the Akademiya *should* be giving him. Someone engaging academically with his ideas, rather than writing them off as heresy without actually analyzing their content? That's a dream come true.

So Zandik has written a polite response to the critique, defending some parts of his paper, and then asks how the hell this guy got into his personal things to write directly on his paper, and also who is he, and can they meet up sometime on campus?

...wanderer is aware that he probably shouldn't engage with this. he should bring it straight to kusanali so they can find a way to shut down whatever is going on here. in fact, the most sensible thing would be to just shred this paper like he planned.

...he writes back.

of course he writes back.

zandik and wanderer wind up as penpals across time, writing back and forth to each other for *months*.

zandik is zandik, so he figures out pretty quickly that wanderer is from the future and has some sort of beef with his future self, even though wanderer never says this. zandik does not let on that he knows these things bc he (correctly) figures that wanderer will freak out and stop writing to him if he does.

(again, idk how the timey-wimey part works really. maybe it is some kind of a stable time distortion, where their timelines are synced so that it's linearly progressing from both their points of view?? thus allowing the penpal thing to work. and whatever is happening in the past, i don't think it is altering wanderer's future. it's some sort of split timeline/alternate dimension thing, because anything else gives me a headache.)

the point is: they get along well. *really* well, actually.

at first wanderer is snappy, rude, short in tone, overly critical & even condescending. he keeps the conversation mostly to academics, though he sometimes throws in random personal attacks that maybe show he knows more about zandik than he should.

zandik doesn't care - he is extremely charmed by this guy. enthralled, even. despite his sharp tongue, he's showing zandik a degree of academic respect he can't get anywhere else, he's a fascinating mystery, he's cynical & critical about many of the same aspects of society/gods/fate that zandik is, & he's clearly quite intelligent, able to keep up w zandik in debate even if he lacks understanding of technical details & for some reason likes to downplay his scholarly inclinations. zandik has just found what he feels is a kindred spirit for the first time ever. he quickly becomes obsessed.

for weeks, wanderer tells himself this is the last time he'll write back - but he always finds himself doing so again. their conversations slowly drift from strictly the scope of zandik's papers to discussing & debating philosophy, ethics, history, sociology, religion, & more. then to semi-personal things - day-to-day happenings, casual conversation. though wanderer of course remains vague and guarded about everything on his own end.

wanderer can't help continuing their correspondence; zandik is *interesting* to talk to. even in the earliest days when his relationship to dottore was less horrendous, he and scara never really talked like this- dottore never took him seriously as an intellectual equal. this young zandik clearly also knows he is more knowledgable & talented than wanderer in many areas, but is still eagerly engaging with his critique and occasionally even asking his *advice* about things. zandik is actually a fun conversational partner when he's not being obnoxiously condescending all the time, & he's clearly desperately hungry for social connection.

wanderer gradually gets to know this young man who is so different & yet so similar to the dottore he knew. he seems so different even from the segment closest to him in age, who would have diverged a lot in behavior due to their vastly different circumstances, even if his worldviews & emotional profile were preserved as they were at that age.

wanderer can clearly see all the factors already in place that will someday make him dottore: his callousness, arrogance, ambition, and so forth. but that callousness is not yet outright cruelty; this zandik has not yet done anything truly awful. his arrogance is dampened by his insecurity & desire for approval - for someone, anyone to recognize him as worthy (something wanderer finds uncomfortably familiar). zandik's ambition is not yet so grandiose in scope, nor has he been given the power to commit atrocities in pursuit of it. nor does he truly seem to have much inclination to commit any, although his curiosity is as transgressive and limitless as ever. as time goes on, it seems more and more obvious to wanderer thar this zandik is a lonely young man struggling to understand why the world seems to have no place for him.

gradually wanderer relaxes to some extent, becoming less prickly & defensive around him. sometimes zandik *does* say something that reminds him too much of dottore, and he'll get spooked and stop writing back for a bit... but he always returns. he is forced to reckon with the fact that he honestly just... enjoys zandik's company. that absent all the factors surrounding his nightmare of a relationship with dottore - absent dottore's actions at tatarasuna that cast a pall over everything whether scaramouche knew it yet or not, absent the concerning power dynamics that formed between them, absent scaramouche's physical form as a locus of obsession & transaction, absent zandik even knowing there's anything particularly interesting *about* wanderer's physical form - they genuinely just... click as people. like, on a personality level.

zandik is *funny*, with an acerbic wit to match wanderer's. he has something interesting to say about any conceivable topic. he responds attentively to every point wanderer brings up, never dismissing him out of hand. yeah, he's difficult and quarrelsome and stubborn, and has some funny ideas about ethics already, but frankly all that goes for wanderer too, and every time they wrap up a heated debate zandik cheerfully, cheekily writes that he's looking forward to the next.

wanderer has to wrestle all over again with the knowledge - something he always knew but tried to suppress - that zandik/dottore was just... a person like any other. one he could have liked if things were different. it brings up a lot of complicated feelings. it brings up memories of moments with dottore that *weren't* awful, moments when they had something like a camaraderie (especially early on with og zandik), which he usually tries not to think about for the sake of his sanity. it brings up self-hatred for connecting so easily with the person who ruined his life. and yet, despite everything, he finds himself grieving for the brilliant young man zandik was. for the injustice he faced and how the world broke him... as surely as dottore would later break the kabukimono.

when you hate a person, it is easy to retroactively justify their mistreatment. but zandik didn't deserve what happened to him.

neither did kabukimono.

...

from there, i have an idea that zandik eventually figures out what is connecting them across time, the leyline disturbance or whatever, and is able to tamper with it, catapulting himself to the future. he wants to finally meet this so-called hat guy and to unravel the secrets of the future. yes it was reckless, but he has to know!

...wanderer is significantly more upset to see him than zandik predicted. yes, he knew wanderer would be angry to have it sprung on him, yes, he's gathered that his future self wronged this person in some way, but he didn't expect to be attacked on sight & immediately frog-marched before the archon, where wanderer has to shamefully fess up to the correspondence he's been holding with him for the past several months.

things zandik correctly gleaned about the future thru the letters:

- kusanali has likely been freed in the future (*i think he probably woulda figured out she was locked up all on his own)

- the time difference is in centuries, so wanderer is some kind of immortal and probably not human

- wanderer knew and hated zandik's future self

things he did NOT correctly glean:

- wanderer is the archon's right hand

- wanderer is some sort of fascinating semi-mechanical creation

- wanderer hates zandik's future self to a genuinely murderous degree.

timeline-wise, i have just made the executive decision that i think this should take place *after* truth amidst the pages of purana - wanderer has had several years of character development & healing in sumeru, and dottore is no longer an extant threat in the world. so wanderer should have been done with him forever. but he couldn't help himself & now zandik is here & wanderer is once again the source of this guy propagating himself across time & space. fucking great!

in addition to that wanderer is losing his shit because zandik has been hiding things from him - he hid that he knew more about the situation than he let on and that he was planning to pull a stunt like this. wanderer is kicking himself for trusting zandik even a little bit - of course, of fucking course he'd lie and hide things and manipulate them for his own agenda, that's what he DOES! is wanderer a fucking idiot or something?? apparently, yes! how much of all that was even genuine?? was their apparent connection just zandik manipulating him to get more information about the future? has this all been part of some crazy, evil scheme?!

...zandik has no idea why wanderer is reacting so strongly to all of this. i didn't tell you because i knew you'd react badly, he says, reasonably. (wanderer is pissed that even this version of zandik can predict him accurately.) but look! isn't it nice to be able to talk in person, instead of waiting for each other's letters? incidentally, what are you made of? i can't help noticing you aren't fully organic-

^this is another point of difficulty, because it's one thing to be penpals with a younger version of the guy who tortured you when he has no way to physically reach you or turn that overpowering curiosity on your physical form at all. it's quite another to have him standing right next to you, immediately turning the full force of his fascination on you, because you unexpectedly turned out to be his special interest in human(-shaped) form. wanderer is probably pretty good at not letting on that a ptsd thing is happening here. unfortunately some ptsd things are absolutely happening.

nahida is not upset like wanderer imagined. oh, i knew about that, she says. it seemed like it was doing something therapeutic for you. i figured you'd tell me when you wanted to. this is certainly unexpected, though.

(...*wanderer* is now somewhat upset, because he thinks nahida really should have stopped him, then feels stupid for thinking that, because she is neither really his keeper nor does he truly want her to be. even so.)

well, says wanderer, let's just throw him in jail until we can figure out how to get rid of him.

(zandik is clearly quite hurt by this. the guy he saw as a kindred spirit is suddenly treating him as a dangerous monster like everyone else does. wanderer is attempting to feel no guilt about this. he is not fully succeeding.)

well, says nahida, standing several feet away from the cage where she was locked up despite not doing anything wrong, i'd really prefer not to lock up someone who hasn't yet done anything wrong :(

...fine. FINE!! but he can't exactly go unsupervised, can he? and OBVIOUSLY wanderer can't trust anyone else to supervise him. no one else knows dottore like he does. they wouldn't be properly cautious. they wouldn't know his tricks. and it's wanderer's fault that he's here at all, so this is wanderer's responsibility.

...wanderer and zandik are now metaphorically handcuffed together for the duration of zandik's stay in present-day sumeru.

i only have vague ideas of where it would go from there. but there would be a lot of crunchy things you could do; wanderer gradually coming down from his knee-jerk reaction and realizing his initial assessments of zandik weren't wrong, that their connection was genuine. zandik finding out the extent of his future crimes (and about his exile from his homeland), eventually finding out the reasons wanderer hated (hates?) him, etc. there could be some interesting zandik & nahida interactions too. and it could be funny/interesting to make the traveler show up and react to this mess...

how does it eventually end? do zandik and wanderer get closer, despite everything...? and even if they do, what then? leyline disturbances don't tend to last forever, after all...