Chapter Text
It was a good few months after Zandik died before Feofan could bring himself to go into his room. However, in a last ditch effort to avoid the segments, who had been desperately attempting to speak to him as if they had not been seen dissecting Zandik’s body not minutes after he died, he found himself there, standing in the middle of the now quiet room, filling with dust. Slowly he paced around, listening to the hollow echo of his footsteps, letting the realization that he was well and truly gone settle within him. He ran his hand along the mantle of the dead and cold fireplace, which previously had always been roaring to keep out the cold Zandik had despised. He pulled open the doors to the carved wardrobe, the few clothes the man had actually owned intact on hangers inside, and the heavy smell of moth balls hit his nose as a few rolled out and onto the ground. His gaze then landed on the desk in the corner by the window, with all its papers still strewn about on it. Feofan was admittedly curious. The drawers were always shut, and Zandik had never opened them in his presence. Besides, the desk was not usually the place he happened to be when he would go to Zandik’s room.
Surprisingly, the drawers were unlocked. He had expected them to be kept under lock and key. He rifled through the top long drawer: receipts, old diagrams, scribbles, sketches, papers…Feofan was about to put them all back when something at the very bottom of the drawer caught his eye. It was a picture, almost like it had been ripped out of a book. It was of two Scholars from Sumeru’s Akademiya, smiling. One of the faces, Feofan knew very well. He had to look at it almost daily, as 18 was very bothersome and very chatty, constantly yammering on about his theories and inventions. The other person standing next to him caught him by surprise. It was a boy with long, green hair and unusual red eyes, wearing gold glasses. Feofan blinked a few times to make sure he was seeing correctly: the boy’s face resembled his own so strongly that he would easily believe they were related.
At the bottom of the page was scribbled in familiar handwriting: Zandik and Baizhu, year 2. Sitting underneath the picture was a folded up letter, written on fine stationary which Feofan recognized from Liyue. It was a bit worn, but the handwriting was still legible, although it would certainly be considered illegible to anyone other than Feofan, who was used to Zandik’s own terrible penmanship. He hesitated a bit. Wasn’t it wrong to read someone else’s affects? But then…the real Zandik was gone. And surely the segments had no strong feelings about the matter, or perhaps they did not even know of the existence of the contents of the desk. And if they did, they could rot in the Abyss for all he cared, he was still upset at all of them. Resolved, he unfolded the letter.