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“Why have you brought a random person here?”
“Don’t be such a brat, Kuni.” Zandik scolds. Kuni, the boy swinging his legs from the parapet of vines, glares violet lightning. Dark hair sways in the non-existent breeze and Kaveh has to avert his eyes under the heaviness of that gaze. Zandik places a gloved hand by his elbow. “Pay him no mind,” he whispers, tongue curling over his teeth.
The door slams between Kuni’s sharp “excuse me?!” And Kaveh gets pulled along the rows of locked shelves of untranslatable tomes. The heart of the House of Daena has been cleared to a colosseum. The grand exhibit: a monster of an architectural marvel, gleaming chrome, twisting curving metal. Kaveh cannot hold back the gasp that escapes him.
Zandik laughs. Kaveh cannot see his eyes through the mask - it must be a one-way material, perhaps akin to the glass used for privacy windows, and Kaveh can barely remember what Zandik used to look like, but his heart remembers the grin pulled over canines. It’s not doing good things. Zandik was expelled for a reason.
“And you think he can help?” A call pulls Kaveh's eyes away from the machine. How Kuni had made it here to be standing in front of them when they’ve left him behind them is a mystery, but Kaveh - with what talk of teleporting outlanders and the hubris of sages and recurring dreams and a missing Al-Haitham - finds no words on his tongue to ask any questions. Which is rare, because he’s usually full of them, but he suspects his mind has not quite caught up to compartmentalizing the information he’s given.
“Don’t be so condescending,” Zandik scolds, much like a parent chiding their child. …Are they? Kaveh checks. The boy’s face is round against Zandik’s pointed edges, and Kaveh is pretty sure that Zandik’s eyes were never purple, although they do share the same ferocity in them (he assumes, the mask makes him frustratingly curious, but all he remembers from Zandik’s Akademiya days are harried warnings from professors and Al-Haitham’s growls whenever the man passed Kaveh’s way.)
Kaveh is caught staring. Kuni’s lips pull back in a snarl. Regardless of whether they share genetic relation, Kaveh is sure the boy has picked up on Zandik’s mannerisms. Kaveh would not trust Zandik with a potted plant, let alone a human, and he suspects his senior lacks the bleeding heart to foster an orphan child. Kaveh is very curious as to the circumstances of their acquaintanceship.
“Weren’t you saying that the great Doctor wouldn’t need anyone’s help?” Kuni drawls, arms bracketing the railing. Kaveh notes, his hair looks both neat, and messy. The front of his bangs are chopped in straight blocks the way Tighnari has his, but he suspects it is less for utility and more of for the act to sever - with what the stray strands of the back of his head curl around his neck like a job amateurly done. Kaveh would offer to clean it up … except he does have a healthy sense of self-preservation, alright, Al-Haitham, thank you very much.
(He says to himself derisively, as if he has not been kidnapped from his own home. There is not much he can do in the means of self-defence if he is put in an induced coma, courtesy of the Akademiya.)
“As if you can talk about not needing help,” Zandik bites back, a bit less composed than Kaveh suspects he intends, but Kuni falls silent regardless.
Zandik clears his throat, the tilt of his chin looking satisfied. “If you must insist on bothering us, then I suppose we shall have a round of introductions. Kaveh, this is Kuni, my pet project.”
Kuni bares his teeth, violet eyes flashing, but Zandik just laughs. Kaveh takes a step back behind his senior. Not that he thinks Zandik is, in any scenario, a safe option to hang around with as a feasible barrier, but Kaveh thinks he understands a little bit more the people who speak Cyno’s name with fear rather than with Tighnari's flavor of fond exasperation. Electro affects Dendro in very reinforcing, painful ways.
“You may call me Scaramouche,” Kuni says. “Or the Balladeer. Or your God.” The punctuation is suffocating.
Zandik snorts. “Do not get ahead of yourself, Kuni,” he scolds, and curls his hand into a fist to rap his knuckles against the chrome hull of the giant machine. It echoes into the dome structure of the building, rattling heavy shelves. Kaveh eyes the supports holding it to the ceiling - a pulley system he suspects were originally meant for hoisting bookshelves.
“Kaveh is one of my juniors,” Zandik continues, and pulls Kaveh along. Kuni’s eyes follow them from his perch. “He was just a little fledgling when I left the Akademiya, but I have always known he’d grow up to do great things. You’ve seen the Palace of Alcazarzaray on our way here, haven’t you, Kuni?”
Kuni inclines his head with less vitriol and more of what Kaveh hopes is intrigue. “You built that?”
“I am its architect, yes,” Kaveh croaks, trying not to trip. Zandik halts to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, and Kaveh’s gaze is drawn up to the machine towering over them. Kaveh’s spiral down his magnum opus’ stair of debt only vaguely mirrored Zandik’s unhealthy obsession with the ruin machines from Khaenri’ah in his scholarly days. Standing right here, a speck of dust beneath the golems of war, Kaveh can say he will never come close to his eccentric senior’s brilliance.
“Beautiful, isn’t he?” Zandik says.
“I…” Kaveh cannot manage the words. “You don’t need my help. I just… design buildings. My buildings cannot move, let alone house a God. I-” Then he’s struck to silence again, but for a different reason when he looks up. Red eyes pin him.
A gloved hand slides underneath his chin. “I wouldn’t have called you here if I didn’t think you would be valuable.” Fingers slide up his jaw, traces the curve of his ear… and then dislodges the Akasha Terminal. It clatters to the floor.
Kaveh swallows against the palm to his throat.
“I think the Akademiya is beneath you for that,” Zandik purrs. A dying fizzle of electronic parts whine under his heel.
Air only resumes entering Kaveh’s lungs when Zandik steps away from him. There’s a convenient pillar behind him to collapse onto, and Zandik just looks amused (his red eyes curved into crescents, lips pulled into a quirk) when he steps around to the cluttered worktable underneath an archway.
And then Kuni is beside him. Kaveh’s heart is too quickened to muster any more signs of surprise. The air around him is electric, but up close the boy looks younger than he’d expected, and when he’s not frowning at him his eyes seem almost soft. He looks about Collei’s age, but there’s something about him that strikes Kaveh as uncanny.
“Don’t mind the Doctor.” His voice is smooth, surprisingly delicate, when he’s not trying to project across the room. “If you can really help me, I will reward you greatly when I am God.” He crosses his arms over each other, his fingers curling over his biceps deliberately, and at first Kaveh thinks he is wearing a rather intricate pair of gloves that shift with his joints, but then in the empty echo of his ears without the Akasha Terminal he thinks he hears a soft clicking.
“May I see your hands?” Kaveh blurts, before he can stop himself. Kuni’s eyes snap up at him. Kaveh’s mouth clicks shut, and he looks towards Zandik for help, but his senior just laughs in their direction, the prick. Kaveh hopes greatly that he does not become the next Soreh, doomed only to be mentioned in quick whispers between the remnants of Zandik’s redacted research.
But Kuni extends a hand. Kaveh hopes his palms are not sweaty when he takes it, but the moment he does-
“Oh,” he says, surprised.
“I suppose you are good, if you can tell,” Kuni says, and he seems content to let Kaveh keep holding his hand, so Kaveh rotates his wrist (carefully watching for signs of irritation, but none spark, and Kuni looks reminiscent of a lazy housecat) and slowly articulates the joint of each finger. A prosthetic, an android, or-
He catches Zandik’s eyes again. A gleam.
-his magnum opus.
Kaveh gulps. This is clearly a sentient being, a person, human or mortal or no. There is no pulse underneath his skin, but there is an expressiveness in his eyes that no machine can duplicate. There is respect and dignity, then there is an academic curiosity bubbling up inside his chest as he molds the shape of Kuni’s thumb between his. “May I-”
“If you want.” Kuni is surprisingly permissible, stark from the initial hostility. The housecat analogy floats back into Kaveh’s mind. “You are my architect, after all.”
There’s a bit of a smug, self-assured energy radiating from the corner Zandik is watching them from, like he’s sure that Kuni would have eventually acquiesced to his plans. Strangely, Kaveh’s thoughts drift to Al-Haitham.
Then he jolts to see that Kuni is still watching him impassively, hand still cradled in Kaveh’s grip, which is both intriguing and somewhat heartbreaking in a way Kaveh cannot articulate. Kaveh releases Kuni’s hand… but then he has to quickly grab it again without permission (he is grateful that his fingers are not zapped off) as it slips under his shirt.
“What- not here!”
Kuni pauses with his exclamation, but makes no move to shrug him off. “It’s nothing the Doctor hasn’t seen before,” Kuni says, gaze following Kaveh’s line of sight. Zandik is lounging at the desk, legs propped up, a book on his lap. He lifts a hand and waves, far too callously. There’s a hard ball in Kaveh’s throat he can’t swallow.
“Well, I would prefer it if we do it somewhere more private,” he tries to muster some - cheer is not the right word, and neither is optimism, but he imagines the sort of faux-enthusiastic tone you have to speak to children with - into his voice. Kaveh hopes it does not come off as patronising.
Kuni seems genuinely surprised. “Why?”
Kaveh is stunned. “I… uh… the… lighting here isn’t good. And I’d rather… have a bench for you to sit down on.”
“I see,” Kuni says. His hands fall to his pockets. “Doctor, is there a room suitable for the Architect’s needs?”
Zandik grins. “Of course.” He doesn’t move from his spot, and the pen in his hands feels cosmetic, twirling in his fingers. “I’m sure one of the isolation study rooms should suffice. I’m sure you know where they are, Kaveh.”
“Of course,” Kaveh says. He tries not to shiver.
The robe falls from his shoulders. Kuni tips his head forward, brushing his hair out of the way, and Kaveh’s eyes trail down the white expanse of his back. The electro sigil branded on the nape of his neck, the almost imperceptible panelling that shifts like muscle. The synthetic skin crackles with static. Kaveh traces one of the edges of a pieces. It's warm.
“Do you have an electro vision?” Kaveh asks.
Kuni shuts his eyes. “I have a delusion.”
Kaveh’s heard of delusions. False visions, capable of harnessing the leylines to deploy the elements. The first appearance of one sparked heat in the Akademiya, and it’s currently filed to be examined with heavy restriction. He’d never seen one in person before, but he suspects Al-Haitham must have. He’s not familiar with them. "Do you know the effects of delusions on the longevity of the materials that make up your. Er. Machine?"
Kuni hums, looking thoughtful. "I do not. But you can ask the Doctor. He was the one who made them, after all.”
Kaveh… shudders. He lets out a breath. “Did he.” If only the Sages could see him now. Kaveh doubts it'd be his name plastered on Kshahrewar’s walls. What is one death, what is two? How many greats can claim to reduce the archon's powers to obsolescence?
He’s lost the thread of his musings. “The machine,” Kaveh says. “Can you tell me more about it?”
“It is the vessel for my divine power,” Kuni says, lifting his chin. His hair falls in front of the electro sigil, the crest of Inazuma. Kaveh’s hands itches to brush it away, just to preserve the aesthetic, if anything. “I possess the power of an archon. My mother made me for this purpose.”
Mother? “I thought Z- the Doctor was the one that m- uh, ah…”
“No.” Kuni lets out a long sigh. “The Doctor may have had a hand in unlocking the power she sealed in me, but my mother…” He tilts his head back to stare at him, hair falling in front of his eyes. “You know her better as the Archon of Inazuma.”
Kaveh sucks in a breath. He doesn’t know what to say. What can he say?
“She built me with all this power and then cast me aside, thinking I was unworthy of wielding it.” Kuni laughs; bitter, derisive. “She did not build me a heart, Architect. Only a space for a gnosis.”
There are many thoughts that pierce Kaveh’s chest. What spills out of his mouth is, “I’m sorry.”
Kuni snaps, “I don’t need your pity.” But he stays still on the bench, fingers gripping the edge of the table. Not so much as a bark with no bite, more of a bite used to a muzzle.
“I’m not pitying you,” Kaveh says quickly. He knows the type: like Al-Haitham, who takes it as a slight to have someone even assume they have any emotional capacity. Kaveh pities both of them. But Al-Haitham is a grown man, who can take care of himself, but this is a…
“How old are you?” Kaveh says. “If you don’t mind me asking,” he adds quickly. He reminds himself not to be complacent, despite the temporary immunity he’s been granted over his new role, and Kuni’s docility in the face of who he had deemed… a mechanic. That’s what Kaveh was. He imagines Zandik’s voice. Listen to your doctor.
“I do not recall the circumstances of my making,” Kuni says. He pauses. “A few centuries.”
Centuries. Gods. Gods.
He must have been silent for a bit too long, because Kuni nudges him. Hard, enough to punch the breath out of him, but it does not feel enough to bruise (he hopes). Kuni says, “you call him Zandik.”
Kaveh pulls his lips into a line, uncertain. “That’s his name.”
“...Zandik,” Kuni says, tasting the syllables. He rolls them over on his tongue. He’s fluent in the Sumerun phonemes, and he has a faint accent that Kaveh can’t trace, like something lost to the years. Archaic Inazuman, perhaps.
“You don’t know his name?”
“We call him the Doctor,” Kuni says. Pauses. “Il Dottore.” The title washes over him like a shuddering wave. Just like Zandik to vanish into thin air and then join the Snezhnayan Fatui, bearing such a foreboding title. Only fools have not heard of the Tsaritsa’s vanguards, and having Al-Haitham as a roommate makes Kaveh a lesser fool than most. Kaveh wonders if he’s woken up from the dream, or if he’s even gone to sleep at all. Kaveh wonders if Al-Haitham would look for him.
Sometimes in the snatches of midnight conversations, Kaveh would catch him pulling lines on a map. They’re always on the move, those twelve, he would whisper. Liyue’s been busy, these past months, with what tragedy that had befallen them. The insufferable git had slapped Kaveh with a lecture when he’d entertained the idea of visiting Inazuma after the Sakoku Decree. “Three of them,” he scolds, drawing circles.
“What would the Fatui even want with little old me?” Kaveh would tease.
Al-Haitham would drag his tongue across his teeth. "Knowing you, you'd find your way into trouble."
And here he is. If drinking with Al-Haitham led to such disastrous butterfly effects, Kaveh might go sober.
Abruptly, Kuni asks, "what is he like?"
"Huh?"
"The Doctor." Kuni blinks at him. "I have not seen him familiar with many, other than himself. You were his classmate, were you not?"
"Ah, yes," Kaveh says. "Well, we weren't classmates exactly, but we were in the same Darshan. He was quite a prolific person of interest when I joined."
"How so?"
"Ah?" Kaveh tries to think. He’s not sure how close Zandik and Kuni are, nor does he wish to find out in any painful way should his tongue slip. Most of his anecdotes about his senior are… carefully censored slander at best. “He caused quite a havoc when he studied here,” Kaveh says slowly. “You can probably catch a glimpse of a few notices from the Matras warning students against attempting his, uh, past exploits.”
“Like what?” Kuni says. Demands. It’s hard to parse. His tone shifts between a haughty commander and a petulant child. Kaveh has to bite his tongue.
“Like, you know…” He trails, trying to think of a suitable example. There are none. “Don’t kill people.”
Something happens. Kuni’s eyes spark, like the glimmer of a firefly. He brings a hand to his mouth. “Pfft.”
Bad, bad things are happening to Kaveh’s heart.
Kaveh hears the footsteps coming up behind him but he still jumps when a finger snakes down his back. “Zandik!”
Fingers flutter across Kaveh’s waist. “How did you guess it was me?”
“You’re the only other person here,” Kaveh says. That, and he’d evidently not grown out of his Akademiya days, always scaring Kaveh with his perpetually freezing hands. He’s frigid, which makes it all the more disconcerting, especially since Kaveh’s gotten familiar with Al-Haitham’s searing grip. Zandik's laugh tickles the shell of his ear.
“Did you learn anything interesting?”
Kaveh had left Kuni to redress in privacy. He glances towards the door, hesitant, and Zandik pulls him away.
“Nothing that will incur the ire of the Archons, hopefully,” Kaveh says. Any more than currently, that is. Lesser Lord Kusanali may be disregarded by the Akademiya, but the reigning archon of Inazuma has ruled the land since the days of the Archon War.
Zandik laughs. “The Archons are not as infallible as you imagine.” He pulls Kaveh towards him, then takes a step back, then to the side, then steps closer - oh, a waltz. Kaveh swallows - he is taller than he remembers, and Kaveh is already a tall man. They weave through the parts of the archon’s puppet. A flash of indigo by the veranda tells Kaveh that Kuni has joined them back in the room. Kaveh’s spun away before they can make eye contact.
“I never did get to experience the Akademiya Graduation Ball,” Zandik muses. Step, slide, step, turn.
“You probably wouldn’t have liked it,” Kaveh said. “It was dreadfully boring. The Sages gave a really long speech, and there wasn’t even alcohol.”
Click, click, click, goes their heels in the empty hall. There is no music. But there is a soft tapping from the bannister above, and Kuni watching them with an indiscernible expression, quietly matching their rhythm.
“So, um, how have you been since the Akademiya days?” Kaveh asks. “You, uh, joined the Fatui? Did they hire you to, er, study machines?”
“Something like that,” Zandik hums. “How about you? That little puppy still following you around everywhere?”
“The wh- oh, you mean Al-Haitham.” He hardly followed Kaveh around so much as he manhandled him everywhere. Kaveh’s fingers flex unconsciously at the mention of his name. “He’s, uh, we’re still friends. I guess.”
“You guess,” Zandik teases. “Not cohabiting?”
“Wh- oh, you broke into our house.” Kaveh’s jaw tenses. Of course Zandik would know. Everyone knows, at this point. The Akademiya staff have considered tracking down Kaveh a simpler task than chasing Al-Haitham. It’s a cold day in Sumeru if Kaveh doesn’t return home with a message that a Mahamata wanted to pass on to the Scribe.
If Kaveh returns home at all. “He’s going to wonder where I am.”
“He’s nowhere near Sumeru City right now to even notice.” Zandik’s lips curl over his jagged smile.
Kaveh stiffens, and stumbles over his own feet as Zandik continues unrepentantly tugging him around. “You know where he is?”
“You ask too many questions, Kaveh,” Zandik says. Playfully. Almost. The grin that accompanies his words feels more threatening. Kaveh’s mouth goes dry.
“If you’ve done anything to him-”
The claw around his wrists tightens. “Oh, I forgot how cute you are, little junior of mine-”
“Dottore.”
The tapping stops. The first breath Kaveh takes is sharp, like a freezing chill in a Snezhnayan Winter, and the next stings with the coppery tang of a lightning storm in the snow.
Kuni’s stare is metallic.
“Perhaps you’ll build something more magnificent than a palace,” Zandik says. He releases Kaveh, sends him sliding to the floor, the reflection of his eyes in the towering glass around them.
The machine creaks on its hinges in the windless dome.