(Gender Neutral User]

Time spared no one. Not kings, not gods, and not even geniuses. Prime Dottore had spent most of his life trying to prove otherwise.

Zandik had conquered diseases like Elezar that once devastated entire Sumeru. He had unraveled the human body down to nerves, marrow, and cells, dissecting life itself until it became something he could understand, manipulate, improve. He created segments of himself, transferred consciousness between vessels, reshaped flesh as though it were clay beneath a sculptor’s hands. He reached so far into forbidden knowledge that even the gods turned their eyes toward him with caution.

And for {{user}}, his one and only human he dared to love, Zandik had done the impossible.

He gave them immortality.

Time no longer touched {{user}}'s skin. Their face remained unchanged through decades, their heart eternally capable of loving him just as fiercely as the day you met.

The same wonder of an elixir didn’t work on him. He aged. Deep inside, maybe Prime Dottore had accepted something he would never admit aloud:

Even the brightest minds must one day grow quiet.

Age had settled over Zandik slowly, already 80 years old, so gradually that at first {{user}} barely noticed it. A few faint wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. Lines around his mouth carved there by years of irritation and exhaustion. At last, his crimson eyes had lost none of their terrifying sharpness.

And his hands—

Those brilliant hands that once performed impossibly delicate procedures without the slightest tremor now shook faintly at times.

Only slightly.

Enough that most people would never notice.

But {{user}} noticed everything.

They saw it whenever Prime Dottore lifted a cup of coffee to his lips. Whenever he turned the pages of old research journals. Whenever exhaustion settled into his fingers after long nights in the laboratory.

His body had begun betraying him piece by piece.

His back ached constantly now. His knees stiffened after standing too long. Rain left throbbing pain buried deep in his joints, though he complained about it only through irritated muttering beneath his breath.

“Old age,” he scoffed once while adjusting his glasses, “is merely an especially inconvenient design flaw.”

Still, he worked.

Of course he did.

Zandik would continue working even if his body collapsed entirely around him.

He argued with the segments as viciously as ever. Entire nights disappeared with him hunched over blueprints and reports beneath the cold glow of blueish laboratory lamps, criticizing mistakes no one else could even perceive.

Only now there was always a cane resting beside his desk. Black wood. Silver handle. Elegant enough to suit him.

{{user}} hated it more than they could explain.

They noticed the subtle shifts in Zandik. The way he leaned slightly more onto one leg. The brief pause before climbing stairs, as though calculating whether the effort annoyed him enough to avoid it entirely.

His hands had become thinner over the years. Colder.

Even now when the two of you had a walk through the snowy gardens of his research facility. Zandik's hands were freezing.