Of course, normally he wouldn’t be willing to pour that much effort into a lousy shaping exercise, but he needed a distraction. At the beginning, the entire time travel situation was so patently ridiculous that he found it easy to remain calm and collected. Some part of him kept expecting that the whole thing was a double dream or something, and that he would wake up one day and not remember a thing. That part was becoming panicked and agitated now that it became obvious that the situation he faced was real. What the hell was he supposed to do? Zach’s mysterious absence weighted heavily upon him, inflaming his paranoia and making him reluctant to tell anyone about the invasion. Zorian was not a fundamentally selfless person and didn’t want to save people only to screw himself over in the end. Whatever his future memories really were, they were in essence his second chance at life — he was pretty sure he died at the end of his future memories — and he had no intention to squander it. He did consider it his ethical duty to warn people of the danger threatening the city, but there had to be a way to do it without destroying his life or reputation.
The simplest idea would be to warn as many people as possible (thus ensuring that at least some of them take the warnings seriously) and do so face-to-face, since written communications can be ignored in a way that is not really possible in personal interactions. Unfortunately, that would almost certainly paint him as a madman until he’s eventually vindicated by the actual assault. If there is an assault, that is — what if the conspirators decide to lay low upon having their plans unmasked and the invasion doesn’t happen? What if nobody takes him seriously until it’s too late and then decide to turn him into a scapegoat in order to shift responsibility away from themselves? What if one of the people he tries to warn is part of the conspiracy and has him killed before he can tell anyone else? What if, what if… way too many what ifs. And he had a sneaking suspicion that one of those what ifs was responsible for Zach’s disappearance.
As a result of these musings, the idea of staying anonymous appealed to him more and more with each passing day. The problem was that sending a message to a bunch of people without having it traced back to you was not at all simple when magic got involved. Divinations weren’t all-powerful, but Zorian had only academic understanding of their limitations, and his precautions probably wouldn’t hold against a motivated search by a skilled diviner.
Zorian sighed and started outlining a tentative plan into his notebook, completely ignoring their history teacher’s enthusiastic lecture. He had to figure out who to contact, what to put into the letters, and how to ensure they couldn’t be traced back to him. He somehow doubted the government would allow authors to publish instructions on how to evade detection from law enforcement, but he would still check the library to see what they have on the topic. He was so caught up in his self-appointed task he barely noticed when the class ended, furiously scribbling away while everyone else packed and filed out of the classroom. He definitely didn’t notice Benisek peering over his shoulder.
«What are you doing?»
Zorian slammed his notebook shut in a reflexive maneuver as soon as Benisek started talking and gave the other boy a nasty glare.
«It’s impolite to look over other people’s shoulders,» Zorian remarked.
«Jumpy, aren’t we?» smiled Benisek, loudly dragging a chair from the nearby table so he could sit on the other side of Zorian’s table. «Relax, I didn’t see anything.»
«Not for the lack of trying,» remarked Zorian. Benisek only grinned wider. «What do you want, anyway?»
«Just wanted to talk for a bit,» Benisek shrugged. «You’re been really withdrawn this year. You’ve got this frustrated look on your face all the time, and you’re always busy even though it’s the start of the school year. Wanted to know what was bothering you, you know?»
Zorian sighed. «This isn’t something you can help me with, Ben…»
Benisek made a strangled noise, apparently outraged by his remark. «What do you mean I can’t help you!? I’ll have you know I’m an expert on girl trouble.»
Now it was Zorian’s turn to make a strangled noise. «Girl trouble!?»
«Oh come on,» Benisek laughed. «Constantly distracted? Spacing out in the middle of the class? Making plans for sending anonymous letters? It’s obvious, man! Who’s the lucky girl?»
«There is no ‘lucky girl’,» Zorian growled. «And I thought you didn’t see anything?»
«Listen, I don’t think sending anonymous letters is a good idea,» Benisek said, completely ignoring his remarks. «That’s so… first year, you know? You should just walk up to her and tell her how you feel.»
«I don’t have time for this,» Zorian sighed, getting up from his seat.
«Hey, come on…» protested Benisek, trailing after him. «Man, you’re one touchy guy, did anybody tell you that? I was just…»
Zorian ignored him. He really didn’t need this right now.
In retrospect, Zorian should have known that simply ignoring Benisek wasn’t such a good idea. It only took 2 days for most of the class to ‘know’ that Zorian has a crush on someone, and their loud speculation was annoying as hell. Not to mention distracting. Still, his displeasure at the rumors evaporated when Neolu approached him one day and gave him a short list of ‘books he might find useful’. He had half a mind to set the list on fire, especially since the list was decorated with dozens of little hearts, but in the end his natural curiosity won over and he went to the library to check them out. He figured that at the very least he’d get a good laugh out of them.
He got more than a good laugh, though — instead of silly love advice like he expected, the books Neolu recommended were all about making sure your letters, gifts, and such couldn’t be traced back to you with divinations and other magic. Apparently if you call such advice Forbidden Love: Mysteries of Scarlet Letters Revealed and phrase it as relationship advice you can get straight past the usual censorship such topics would normally be subjected to.
Of course, he had no idea how reliable the advice in those books really was, and the librarian looked at him funny when he checked out books like that, but he was still pleased to have found them. If this whole thing worked out in the end he’d have to do something nice for Neolu.
So as the summer festival approached, Zorian prepared and plotted. He bought a whole stack of generic paper sheets, pens, and envelopes in one of the stores that looked too poor and disorganized to track their customers purchases. He worded the letters carefully to avoid revealing any personal details. He made sure not to touch the paper with his bare hands at any point, and that none of his sweat, hair, or blood ended up in the envelope. He deliberately wrote in a blocky, formal script that looked nothing like his normal handwriting. He destroyed the pens, the excess paper, and envelopes he didn’t use in the end.
And then, a week before the festival, he put the letters in different public postal boxes all over Cyoria and waited.
It was… nerve-wracking, to say the least. Nothing happened, though — no one came to confront him about the letters, which was good, but also nothing out of the ordinary seemed to be happening. Did no one believe him? Did he mess up somehow and the letters ended up not reaching their intended recipients? Are they being so subtle in their reaction that no disturbance is being made? The wait was killing him.
Finally, he had enough. On the evening before the dance he decided he’d done everything he could and took the first train out of the city. His letters may or may not have worked, but this way he’ll be alright regardless. If anyone asked (though he doubted they would), he’ll use his trusty ‘alchemical accident’ excuse. He messed up a potion and breathed in some hallucinogenic fumes, only coming to his senses when he was already outside of Cyoria. Yes, that’s exactly what happened.