Archive of Our Own ^beta

Kaveh had, at first, felt distinctly out of place in Aaru Village. The plan, which was originally conceived with Badawi, and ultimately ended up being backed by the Akademiya at Setaria’s intervention, was for a multi-story library on the northeast side of Aaru Village. Kaveh would stay on-site for the first few months while finalizing the design and overseeing the construction. 

Candace had welcomed him to Aaru Village with warmth and compassion, and, as she always did when he visited previously, offered Kaveh a place to stay. He had accepted, thinking that it was a temporary arrangement that wouldn’t last more than a few months. 

But the desert itself seemed unwelcoming, each brush of wind rough against his cheek, and the sand crunching under his shoes a constant reminder of the cause of his father’s death. 

Well—not entirely, he supposed. It had taken barely a week for the village elders to warm up to Kaveh.

“Ah, thank you…Granny Kulsoom.” He accepted the package of food and snacks offered to him with a twinge of hesitation.

The lady sure had a lot of energy for someone barely half his height. “Make sure to eat plenty! You’ll be outside quite a bit, building that library–you need lots of strength to make it through a hard day. Goodness, you’re tall, but so thin; I fear you’ll be blown away!” 

She fussed over Kaveh’s sleeves, and he was briefly reminded of Faruzan. She’d be happy that Kaveh would compare her to this old woman, probably. “Have you found the stepwell alright? Make sure you’ve got at least three days’ reserve of water, lest we be trapped by sandstorms. They’re fairly infrequent this time of year, but it’ll start picking up soon.”

Kaveh smiled faintly. “Yes, granny, I have plenty of water, and I’m staying with Candace; she’s been watching over me. She showed me around on one of my previous visits—it’s not my first time here.”

“Yes, yes, but you’ll be around long enough for the toughest parts of the season,” she sighed. “It’s nice to have some fresh young blood around. The only people around long-term nowadays are the children, the elders, and the Village Keepers.”

Granny Kulsoom released Kaveh’s sleeves and placed her hands on her hips, leveling him with a stern look. “You Akademiya folk might have book smarts, but I’ve noticed common sense is not your strong suit. Be careful out in the desert, and always bring a desert dweller with you if you can.”

“Yes, granny.”

“You’re building a library?!” 

His second week in the desert, an unfamiliar woman intercepted Kaveh on his way to the tentative site for the project, just outside the village chief’s house. 

She smelled faintly of flowers and dirt, and her eyes shone with interest. Kaveh startled, caught off guard by her enthusiasm. “Uh, yes, we were given funding to build a library in Aaru Village as part of the Desert Development initiative–”

“So…you’re working with the Akademiya? Kshahrewar, are you?” Her tone of voice was confident, but unreadable. Kaveh couldn’t tell what she wanted.

“Um…yeah,” to Kaveh’s surprise, she seemed to be familiar with the Akademiya’s intentions to repair relations with the desert.  

“How long are you going to be here for?” 

Kaveh hummed. “Hopefully, after re-surveying the area, and making sure there won’t be any issues with the land, we should be able to finish construction within six months. I’ll be around for the beginning, but if I’m needed elsewhere I’ll return to the forest after the basic structure is laid down.”

“Do you…know what books they’re adding to the archives?” She sounded almost shy about asking.

“If you have requests for certain texts, you can ask Badawi about it; I’m not as involved with the curation side of things.” Kaveh had scarcely finished his sentence before the woman excitedly ran off in search of the former Eremite. Strange.

Once, when Kaveh was drawing water with the White Lift, musing over its mechanisms, he caught the attention of the older man operating the lift.

“Young man, are you the architect in charge of the library’s construction?”

“Ah, yes I am. My name’s Kaveh. You aren’t the usual lift operator, are you?” Kaveh usually saw a younger man with dark hair distractedly hanging around the machine.

He laughed. “My son oversees most of the day-to-day operations nowadays, but before him, I was the main operator of the White Lift. I still do most of the finer maintenance and repairs.”

He introduced himself as Kazim, and motioned Kaveh closer to the pulley mechanisms. “What do you think? Pretty handy for supplying the village with water. It used to be that we had to draw water one bucket at a time!”

“So…the platform is attached to a central rope pulley system with a detachable hook.” Looks pretty sturdy. “How much weight has the platform been able to hold at a time?” Kaveh asked.

Kazim answered enthusiastically. “We’re usually able to stack around eight to nine barrels of water per trip. It’s pretty much essential these days, since many of the village residents are elderly and aren’t able to walk the distance it would take to get a bucket up and down.”

Kaveh studied the barrels with interest. “It’s quite elegant. Did you come up with the design?”

“I wasn’t as involved with the design; we had the help of one of the Village Keepers during the construction of this elevator, someone from the same Darshan as you, I imagine, but I know the inner workings of it like the back of my hand.”

Kaveh considered Kazim through fresh eyes. “Actually…so I was consulting Candace about something for the library earlier…”

After three weeks of living in the desert, Kaveh starts to feel the first pangs of homesickness. He wakes up one day with the chaos of Lambad’s on a game night echoing in his ears, craving the taste of his fish rolls. Kaveh touches a finger to his lips at breakfast, still getting used to the disorienting feeling of dreaming.

Kaveh tries getting some work done, detailing out the designs that will be carved on the interior pillars, but he can’t focus. Sometime after noon, Kaveh admits defeat and decides to go out for a walk.

He is reminded by how bad of an idea it is when he’s barely past the village Chief’s house, and he’s already sweating buckets. It’s hot, hotter than the rainforest ever gets in the spring, and even worse it’s a dry heat; Kaveh can feel the skin on his lips cracking and the hair on his arms getting singed. He’s about to give up on his ‘refreshing’ walk, turn around and head back to Candace’s place, when a vaguely familiar voice calls out to him.

“Hey! Kshahrewar! You’re looking a little wilted there.” The woman from before, who asked about the library, is watering some surprisingly gorgeous Sumeru roses on the doorstep of what is presumably her home. “Come inside for some shade and rose custard, before you drop.”

Kaveh’s too sun-dried to put up much of a protest, so he allows himself to be ushered inside. He watches as she whisks the yoghurt to a creamy consistency, then stirs in a handful of sugar.

“...I didn’t know Sumeru roses would be able to grow out here.”

“Oh, they don’t,” She sprinkles on a pinch of nuts and Sumeru rose petals. “The ones I planted by myself never grew, but the ones outside were helped along with a bit of Dendro.” 

She serves him a bowl of the finished rose custard.

“What do you think?” She scoops a serving for herself, and settles down in the chair across from Kaveh, watching his expression carefully.

 Kaveh thumbs at the wooden handle, smooth under his calloused fingers, and lifts the spoon to his mouth. It tastes like home. The cool, sweet treat is refreshing on his tongue, and the fragrant rose flavor has just the right punch, reminding Kaveh of sticky afternoons in the Akademiya dorms, when Tighnari would make some for Kaveh and Cyno during study breaks.

“When I first got here, I had a hard time adjusting to the weather, too. I missed the taste of rose custard so much, but Sumeru roses were difficult to source. I’m glad I’m able to grow them now, and they’re a wonderful way to cool down on a hot day.”

Kaveh’s brain trips. “You’re…not from Aaru Village?”

“I was an Akademiya scholar. Amurta.” She laughs, a little bitterly.

“Oh.” 

“My name’s Sabbah, by the way. Tell me, how’s the state of Pardis Dhyai? Or the Razan garden? Are the flowers along the walkways still there? Have any interesting research papers been published lately? I’m a bit starved for academic drama.”

Kaveh tries his best to sate her curiosity, cobbling together whatever he remembers of the last time he visited Pardis Dhyai and Tighnari’s grumblings about recent botanical catastrophes. In turn, Sabbah asks about Kaveh’s work and the finer details of the library project. They finish the rose custard, but Kaveh stays until the worst of the afternoon heat has passed and the first waves of evening cool start to wash into the house.

As he’s waving goodbye, Sabbah leaves him with some last words of advice. “I’d recommend sticking to early morning walks for now, at least until you get more acclimated. It usually gets too hot to do much of anything by the time the sun’s properly up, but around dawn, the climate is lovely for at least an hour.”

“Thanks, Sabbah. It’s…nice to have another scholar to talk to.” 

“Alright, alright, go work on your blueprints now.” She waves him off. “Feel free to come by for rose custard anytime—as long as you’ve got some Akademiya tea, too.”

Kaveh dreams of the forest again. The details of Sumeru City are fuzzy with dream-haze, but the rich smell of the earth permeates the air, and the calls of the toucans are familiar in their stilted, jarring rhythms. What makes his heart ache the most, though, are the low tones of a familiar voice. He wakes up at his desk, tasting the tang of baklava on his tongue and feeling dewy grass beneath his fingers.

He must’ve fallen asleep on the interior blueprints he was working on. Outside the window, the sky has washed the landscape through an inky blue filter, casting a pleasant blanket of calm over the silent village.

The view must be even more beautiful outside. He picks up his sketchbook and his wrist brace, and hikes to a spot just outside the village, where he can capture the whole stretch of the starry sky within his mortal hands, grasp it in his fingers, and put it all to paper. 

The crests of the dunes seem to cradle the stars, stretching beyond into the abyss, in a way that would never be possible in Sumeru City, not with the skyline carved into by the canopies of the trees. 

The tranquil stillness betrays none of the deadly intent that had swallowed his father. 

The charcoal rubs roughly against Kaveh’s hands, leaving dark smudges against his thumb and index finger, messy and real in a way his smooth, thin quills for drafting are designed to avoid, and he drinks in the rest of the quiet hours alone, where he doesn’t have to meet expectations or deadlines and can simply…draw, for the sake of drawing.

Eventually, though, the horrible posture from hunching over a small sketchbook with no support catches up to Kaveh, and the crick in his neck is too much to ignore. The sun is starting to rise, and the early risers of the village are starting to get up and go about their days. He says hello to Granny Kulsoom, helps Kazim oil the gears on the White Lift, and is deep in conversation with Sabbah about Pardis Dhyai’s adorable new mechanical research assistant when he spots a group of people in Akademiya clothing hovering around his construction site, whispering and frowning.

“…I’ll tell you about the rest later,” he says to Sabbah, dread settling in the pit of his stomach.

"Hello, Master Kaveh," one of the Mahamata says, once Kaveh has caught up with them on the outskirts of the construction zone.

"...Hello Panah, Mahshid," Kaveh greets them each with a nod, glancing at the notepad one of them has out warily. What is Al-Haitham up to? he thinks, because surely this was his doing. "Can I help you?"

"Are you the lead on this village's library project?" Panah asks.

"Yes, I am." Kaveh grips the leftover charcoal from his earlier sketching session a little tighter in his hand. "There were some slight delays, but we're making good progress now."

Panah smiles slightly. "Ah, good, good. Would you like to walk me through your methodology here?"

...Okay.

Kaveh recites the relevant notes from his proposal as he leads the Mahamata through the mostly empty construction zone, pointing out the spots he has marked out for the foundation of the library. "I consulted with the Guardian of Aaru Village when designing the decorative elements, and because of the historical relationship between King Deshret, Nabu Malikata, and Lesser Lord Kusanali, I allocated space for a mural at the front entrance depicting their friendship.” 

“I designed the main entryway in a triangular pattern that opens up into a large central chamber. Over here—Mehrak, zoom into page 30—are plans to carve King Deshret’s seven sages, each one on its own supporting pillar. In the center, I’ve planned for a fountain with a statue of the Jinni Ferigees, and from her hands will flow drinkable water—paying homage to the role of the Jinn in the ancient vassal states of the desert. This way, the design can be educational, artistic, functional, and user-friendly all at the same time."

Kaveh's unease had seeped into his explanations at first, but now the words flow easily, practiced professionalism taking over. He can hardly believe that Akademiya personnel are taking the time of day to learn about a Kshahrewar project, his project; if he sells it well enough, maybe word could even reach the sages! Either way, he'll try his damn hardest to convince them that he's worth something in the precious few minutes of their attention he has.

"This all sounds lovely," Panah says, and Kaveh beams. Finally, finally! "But these...decorative murals and carvings, are they necessary?"

Kaveh's stomach falls, but he won't let it show on his face. "Yes, they are. I already said they incorporate both artistic and functional aspects, so they do serve a purpose. Furthermore, as a library, a center for learning and collating knowledge, I intend for the environment to reflect the intended use of the building; it is a place that will raise well-rounded, educated people. The next generation of scholars at the Akademiya," he adds pointedly.

"It's a building," Mahshid says, unimpressed. "All it has to do is stay up."

Kaveh sighs, exhaling hard enough to blow his bangs to the side. "Design is about the interaction of user-to-object. Buildings may just 'stand there,' but believe it or not, spending time sitting in a place is a form of interaction. Cutting corners leads to an obstructed experience, which is not conducive to the ideal learning environment. The decorative elements are non-negotiable."

Mahshid hums. "Alright, then. About your—toolbox..."

"What about it?" Kaveh replies shortly. He wants to be done with them already. "Mehrak is my assistant."

"Yes, of course, of course. But have you considered using it for more than just showing schematics?"

"Mehrak," Kaveh says, gritting his teeth, "—is a tool. It can do calculations and project 3D spaces, but it can't replace the designer.” 

“I heard it was originally Deshret technology,” Panah interjects. “I’m sure it can be capable of much more than simple calculations.”

A flash of irritation strikes through him. I know what you want to do; cut me out, replace my flawed flesh-and-bone hands with automation and calculation that has only a surface level concept of visualization. 

“I will make myself perfectly clear—" The charcoal has ground to dust in his tense grip. "—Besides undermining my entire life's work, relying on a tool to do the work of an expert is incredibly dangerous. People often forget the precision and ingenuity that is needed for this line of work, because of my affinity for aesthetics. I choose to call myself an artist, but I'm an architect, too, and civilians have died from buildings that were poorly constructed, that crumbled to dust because of negligent planning."

With that, Kaveh shuts his mouth and stalks off. So much for making a good impression.

Three days later, a letter from the sages informs him that partial funding for the Desert Development program has been reallocated elsewhere. Kaveh groans and bangs his head on the wall, before unrolling the paper schematics of the project for the ten millionth time to make some adjustments.

A week later, an inquiry about selling Mehrak itself also arrives in the mail. Kaveh burns that one.

Candace finds him lying flat on the sand, at the top of one of the plateaus overhanging Aaru Village, staring at the sky. It’s well past midnight, possibly even approaching dawn; Kaveh hasn’t been keeping track. A well-worn tanbur hangs at her side.

“You should return to the village, and get some rest. The nights here can be…unexpectedly chilly.”

Kaveh has been shivering, but he won’t acknowledge it. “Did you know? The stars look different in the desert. In the rainforest, they gather in a pattern, like a mandala, towards an invisible center point.”

One of Kaveh's earliest memories was of his father, stringing together a paper mobile of stars, the fruits of the world tree, into a web that hung across his room. Of course, his father had insisted on making it 100% accurate to the sky as it would appear outside Kaveh's window, which inevitably led to an unmanageable tangle of strings that could never be teased apart. In the end, his mother had found them on the floor, collapsed under an ever-shifting blanket of paper stars and twine.

Kaveh's brought back to reality by the biting wind that pierces through his thin shirt. The stars blink back at him, but do not move. “But here? They’re scattered, seemingly…random.” 

His fingers twitch, exhaustion lagging down his arms from reaching towards the tapestry of paper, string, and dust. Kaveh sighs. “My father came out here to study these stars.”

“He was a great man. Aaru Village would not be where it is today if it were not for his good deeds. We owe him a great deal.” Candace sits down next to Kaveh, tucking her legs beneath her delicately.

“You…knew my father?”

She lowers her head in acknowledgement. At that angle, the crescent ornament at her crown catches the moonlight, bathing her in ethereal light. “He supplied our village often with food and medicine. Back then, we were struggling quite a bit, isolated from the rest of Sumeru and shunned by the Akademiya.”

This is news to Kaveh. He had kind of assumed Aaru Village had always been the way it is now; a natural rest stop for desert travellers, providing respite from the sand and the heat. 

“And…I met him, once. I was not yet appointed Guardian; I usually hid behind uncle Anpu when the caravans came, but I got lost one night—couldn’t find my house. He was…very kind.” Candace was naturally level and soft-spoken, but her voice caught at the end of her sentence. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

I'm sorry for your loss. Kaveh first heard the phrase from the scribes that delivered the news that day. Then again, at the funeral. And again, when couriers arrived to deliver what remained of his father's things. Each time, the words rang hollow. Nobody really cared. Not when his mother only numbly absorbed the words, and never said anything back.

Candace's condolences sound genuine, but Kaveh is just so tired.

He laughs, short and bitter. “What for? I only have a few memories with him. More often, I’m reminded of just how little I knew of him.”

Candace hums in response, letting the silence settle over them, and together they watch the stars shift along. She tilts her head curiously when Kaveh stands up and starts dragging a finger in the sand.

“What are you doing?”

“After—” The words catch in his throat, and Kaveh opts instead to focus on the lines he’s drawing, circular rings radiating out from a center point. “After he died, I often stared at the astrolabe he’d constructed at home. It was the first model anyone had created of the desert sky.”

He finishes the rings, then begins drawing a spiral of curved lines cutting across the circles. When he’s finished, he steps back to view the crude representation of the astrolabe’s tympanum. Then, he marks a couple basic guide stars and cranes his neck upward to compare his handiwork.

When Kaveh looks back down, Candace is staring at him with a considering gaze. “Did you ever consider becoming Rtawahist? You might have been a pretty good astronomer, if you’d wanted to be.”

Kaveh looks up in surprise. “No one’s really said that to me before, especially not after I graduated.”

“My father did try to get me interested in his star charts, at first. I learned the basics. But I was clearly more enamoured by my mother’s work, and the toy building blocks they got for me to play with. I would spend hours putting them together, and then taking them apart and seeing how I could rearrange them differently.”

He idly flips through the previous pages of his sketchbook, past the recent skyscapes, and various desert flora and fauna.

“Honestly, I had some interest in pretty much every Darshan, even Haravatat—whenever I could get Haitham away from his true love, syntax and semantics, hearing him talk about phonology and morphology was fascinating.” 

Kaveh remembers a particularly lively evening where Al-Haitham spent hours rambling on about the relation of words pertaining to Celestia being similar in at least fourteen different languages, and how tracking how similar their phonemes were to each other could divulge which points in time the languages broke off from each other.

“But of course in the end it wasn’t really a competition—I could only ever imagine myself as Kshahrewar.”

Early one morning, Kaveh had trekked over to the old Gurabad infrastructure on the outskirts of the village, leaving behind his cape because by then he’d learned, looking to study how the systems were able to pump water to the basin at the bottom. If he could emulate the aqueducts to bring water to the planned fountain piece...

He's backing up, staring up at the structure and muttering to himself, when Kaveh slips on the rocks beneath his feet, arms pinwheeling in a desperate attempt to keep himself upright. Gravity inevitably wins out, and Kaveh lands solidly on his butt in the mushy sandbanks.

Ugh. Kaveh groans. Great. Wet pants and sand in my shoes.

But when Kaveh tries to push himself up, the ground has a strangely goopy consistency under his hands, giving way beneath his fingers. He struggles to get back on his feet, and when he finally manages to, Kaveh realizes he’s sinking. Sand crawls up his feet, swallowing his ankles, and Kaveh’s attempts to wriggle free are only met with stubborn resistance. 

An icy spike of panic shoots through him as Kaveh realizes the full extent of his plight. Quicksand.

He hadn’t told anyone where he was going, and Candace wasn’t expecting him back until late tonight. It’s almost noon, and it’s already sweltering hot; the afternoon hours will only get hotter. 

Ah.

Kaveh continues to sink lower into the sand, breath quickening as he twists around in an attempt to find a method of escape. 

I could die out here. 

Just like his father. Just like—

He’s jostled out of his spiraling train of thoughts by a shrill voice calling out to him.

“Mister architect! Don’t worry, I’ll come pull you out!”

A kid with messy, windblown hair leaning over the walls shouts at him, and runs off, before Kaveh can say anything. The kid comes barreling down the sandy slopes, coming to a careful stop on the rocks Kaveh slipped on. He reaches into his bag and pulls out a length of rope, tossing it to Kaveh. 

They spend a few minutes trying to tug Kaveh out, but the kid struggles against the weight, balancing precariously at the edge of the rocks so as to not fall in himself. 

“Wiggle your legs slowly to loosen the sand around them,” the kid instructs Kaveh. It helps a little, but it feels like no progress is being made; in the time it takes for Kaveh to pull free an inch, he’s already sunk down by another.

He’s growing more winded, and Kaveh can tell the kid’s running out of strength. Panic starts to creep in again, but before he can say anything, the kid notices his distress.

“Hey, don’t panic! A lot of rainforest people get really worried about quicksand, thinking they’ll drown from it, but Granny told me it’s not that dangerous! Calm down and we can figure out another way to get you out.”

Kaveh takes a deep breath. “Okay.” They’ve stopped tugging with the rope so much, and now that he’s not moving as much, the rate at which he’s sinking down has slowed down.

He scans their surroundings, looking for something to work with.

The kid relaxes his grip on the rope, biting the inside of his cheek. “If you’d be okay by yourself for a bit, I can see if Kazim is—”

“Actually, let’s try one more thing.” Kaveh surveys the layered cliffs and the tough foliage growing out of the gaps in the rocks. 

He’s thinking more clearly now, and they eventually wrangle up a pulley system using one of the nearby trees as an anchor point.

After Kaveh is finally freed, he thanks the kid profusely, who he finds out is named Nawaz. He was running around looking for scarabs when he spotted Kaveh in the quicksand. Luckily, Kaveh only ended up sinking down to waist-height, so after rigging the lever system, it wasn’t too much of an ordeal to get him out. 

Luckily.

His father wasn’t so lucky. Kaveh swallows, throat dry at the realization of the personalized trial run of death he’d just experienced. 

Kaveh’s starting to feel dizzy, spots clouding at the edges of his vision, so he takes a moment to recover, the adrenaline making Kaveh acutely aware of the rush of blood to his knuckles.

The sun glints sharply in Kaveh’s eyes, so he lifts a hand to block it. For some reason, the surroundings look washed out, the sand bleached white and rocks a murky grey. If he passes out, it’ll be extra bad, so Kaveh staunchly ignores all further thoughts of his father, sitting down in the shade and taking deep breaths until his vision returns to normal.

Something Nawaz said earlier snags in Kaveh’s mind. “What did you say about quicksand not being dangerous?” he asks. 

“Something about your body density, I think.” Nawaz scrunches up his face, like he’s trying very hard to remember the details. “Every so often we find folks like you who got caught, that think they’re going to drown like in those Herman’s Heists picture books. But it’s just a story. It can’t happen in real life.”

“I see…” Stupid, stupid. You just had to get caught in quicksand, and then get rescued by a kid! Kaveh thinks. It wasn’t even that dangerous!

“It can be dangerous if you’re alone, but don’t worry, there’s lots of people around here!” Nawaz says cheerily, unaware of the mental storm brewing in Kaveh’s mind.

“Alright, thanks for the help,” Kaveh sighs. “I’ve got to get back to work, and I’m sure your scarabs won’t hunt themselves.”

Kaveh returns to Candace’s late that night. She’s already there waiting for him in the common room.

“I heard you got caught in quicksand this afternoon. Are you alright?”

“Physically? Got out fine, not a scratch.”

She side-eyes him. 

Kaveh huffs a nervous laugh. “Okay, could be better. Still a little shaken.”

At Candace’s concerned look, he sighs. “I keep thinking about it. His last moments. Did he have regrets? Did he curse me, for leading him out here, one last time?”

“...Your father.”

I know what it’s like, now. Feeling utterly helpless. He was only alone in the sand for a couple of minutes at most, but it was long enough to have struck a deep fear within him.

And one other thing. You can’t drown in quicksand. But his father—

Candace interrupts his train of thought. “After we spoke about your father the other day, I looked through some of our documents from that time, and found some books your father brought over from the forest. Would you like to see them?”

“Oh. Sure.”

“It looks like these were introductory Rtawahist textbooks, and a couple of children’s books. He would read to the other kids, sometimes. I think he meant to take them back with him when he returned, but…”

“...Thanks.”

Later, in his borrowed room, Kaveh glances through the books. He picks one up, caressing the bent corners of the worn boards. The pages are smooth against his fingers. An illogical pang of bittersweet hope swells up under his skin. Kaveh doesn’t know what he’s looking for, a sense of what his father might have been pondering, in the days before his death, or maybe even a message for him—he knows it’s wishful thinking, but still, Kaveh hopes.

Some of the picture books spark blurry memories from his childhood. He flips through them, remembering the precious few moments he’d had with his parents, before everything turned upside down. Soon it becomes too hard to think about, so Kaveh closes them and moves on.

He opens the textbooks, expecting to see only lecture notes and practice problems. Instead, an unsealed envelope falls out.

There’s no indication of who it was for. Kaveh briefly debates internally if he should read it or not. There’s a part of him that desperately yearns to know more of his father, and another part that insists it would be an invasion of privacy.

If he were a good son, he’d listen to the second.

He opens the letter.

The date is postmarked in a year when his parents were both still Akademiya students. Kaveh is shocked still for a few moments, hands trembling, unsure what to make of any of it.

Kaveh clings to the pieces of his parents, even still. Stories of their Akademiya days from Zaha Hadi, his father’s old lecture notes tucked away in a box under Kaveh’s bed, whatever snippets of Faranak’s past life she’s willing to share through their sporadic letters, whenever Kaveh feels bold enough to ask. Slowly, he’s been building out the puzzle that was his father.

His father was an idealist. His father was foolish. His father died saving others.

Another piece slots into place. His father wrote terrible poetry—for his mother. And, seemingly, never sent it.

Kaveh tucks it in a thick envelope, alongside his next letter to his mother with a note explaining how it was found.

“...Are you done arguing with him yet? I’m getting tired of carting your petty squabbles across the Wall. If you’re gonna send stuff, make sure it’s important.”

After delivering the most recent letter from Al-Haitham, the messenger leveled an impatient look at Kaveh, his shoulders slumped from carrying the heavy canvas backpack. He had clearly just crossed Caravan Ribat, through one of the seasonal sandstorms, and was not happy about the constant string of letters going between the Akademiya and Aaru Village. Kaveh apologized and promised to only send things in cases of emergency in the future.

Things return to a relatively stable routine.

After Nawaz saved him from the quicksand, he seems to have taken a liking to Kaveh. He hangs around the construction site sometimes, bringing some of the other village kids along and asking to see the blueprints. Kaveh pulls out Mehrak and allows it to entertain them with the hologram schematics of the library sometimes.

They’re in the middle of oohing at Mehrak’s projection of the entrance mural when someone dressed in Akademiya uniform shows up.

“Setaria!” Their eyes collectively brighten and they crowd around her figure. Nawaz tugs at her dress.

“Miss Setaria, tell us about what you’ve been doing in the forest!”

She smiles warmly down at the children. “I have to talk to Master Kaveh first. But then, I’ll tell you all about the Akademiya.”

She turns to Kaveh. “How has the project been going?”

Kaveh brightens. He likes talking to Setaria; she’s serious and direct, but she’s got as much stake in this project as Kaveh does, so he knows she cares a lot. In any case, she’s a lot better than having to put up with the Mahamata. “It’s been going well! We’ve been making progress at pace and are on schedule to complete as planned.”

They chat for a while longer, the children chasing each other around their feet, until eventually they get bored and start to droop, exhausted. The conversation starts to wrap up when Ramiz tugs at Setaria’s hand and signals to her. She bends down to let him whisper in her ear, and smiles fondly at his request.

“Kaveh, the kids would like to ask if they would be allowed to walk through the site to see the current progress on the library compared to the schematics Mehrak showed them. Of course, if it’s at all dangerous, I’ll tell them they’ll have to wait until another time.”

Kaveh shakes his head. “The foundation should be solid, and the walls are just a framework, so it’s completely safe at this stage. Let me just clear out some of my tools and make sure there aren’t any hazards in the way.”

After a quick sweep of the main areas, Kaveh returns to the group gathered outside.

Setaria has her hands at her knees so she’s at eye level with the tallest children. “Now, Kaveh has been kind enough to let us all take a look, so stay close to me and don’t run off, okay?”

A chorus of yes, Miss Setaria echoes back at her, and she stands back up to face Kaveh. 

“All clear!” Kaveh reports. “We can go in through the main hallway, pause at the main chamber, and then go back. Sound good?”

Setaria nods, and they head in.

Nawaz walks next to Kaveh, wide eyes curiously looking around. All the kids seem to be interested, which is of course a good thing, but makes Kaveh start to get nervous.

“It’s very bare-bones at the minute, but since Mehrak already showed you guys the schematics, I’m sure you can fill in some of the future details.” He laughs shakily.

“So, all of this space…is gonna have books in it?” Nawaz asks.

“Well, there are going to be a few spots for benches and things, places to read,” Kaveh explains as they reach the main chamber. “And in here, there will be a fountain. But yes, a lot of the space will be dedicated to books.”

“Hm…” Nawaz inspects the empty spot in the middle of the room, marked by just the holes for drainage. “Cool!”

Kaveh glances back at Setaria, who’s starting to struggle to corral the rest of the kids. She sends him a dismayed expression and a very meaningful nod back towards the entrance.

“Okay, looks like it’s time to go.” Kaveh turns around and ushers the kids back the way they came before a stray child can cause disaster to strike.

They’re mostly out when a sharp crack! pierces the air.

Everyone freezes.

Cold dread spikes through Kaveh’s stomach. He looks down, and a thin crack has slashed through the foundation, reaching across most of the width of the hallway. Kaveh glances back up and meets Setaria’s unwavering gaze, which pierces through him. Still, she waits for his direction.

After a quick assessment, Kaveh nods. “Continue exiting calmly and quietly. No need to hurry, but don’t make any sudden movements. Got it?”

Setaria exhales, and leads the children safely out. After a quick headcount, they’ve confirmed that all the kids are accounted for. 

Kaveh turns back, touching the crack lightly with his fingers. The dread continues leeching past his inner organs into his limbs, as he tests the foundation again. The crack doesn’t grow, but he can almost feel the ground underneath shift uneasily.

“Mister Kaveh…” Ramiz hangs his head. “We’re sorry for causing trouble for you…”

“No, no, it’s okay.” Kaveh rushes to console them. “This wasn’t any of your faults. The building is supposed to be able to hold the weight of many, many people. It’s something that would have shown itself sooner or later, and an oversight on my end.”

Setaria’s demeanor is still borderline hostile, and Kaveh is quick to bring her up to speed. “Nobody was ever in imminent danger. I’ve made a mistake somewhere with the foundation, which could have been bad had we been anywhere past the stage of the first floor walls; luckily, we were not.”

“I’ll have to take some more detailed scans with Mehrak to pinpoint the root of the problem. Hopefully, this won’t delay the project much. I’ll let you know a status update and the updated schedule within the next few days.”

 She nods, satisfied, but still stern. “Fix this, Kshahrewar.”

“Don’t worry,” Kaveh smiles shakily and brings Mehrak up to hide the despair growing in the pit of his stomach. “I’m a professional.”

It’s official. The ground underneath the foundation is unstable.

Kaveh shows up at Sabbah’s doorstep late that night, miserable and not drunk enough.

“Please tell me you have good wine.”

She raises an eyebrow, but lets him in. “What’s wrong this time, Light of Kshahrewar?”

Once they’re inside, Kaveh drowns his sorrows in Zaytun peach wine and explains the predicament with the foundation of the library. He’d dug deep enough for a foundation of a normal rainforest building, but the loose nature of the desert sand meant that it’s still pretty unstable. If he goes forward with the project as is, there’s a chance the foundation cracks majorly within only a few years.

“I met with Candace about this already, and it was an oversight on both our parts. She told me about some of the methods the original builders of Aaru Village used to anchor the structures securely. If I incorporated them into the foundation, I’d have to completely rework my designs…”

“And if we choose to relocate instead of reworking my designs, it’ll put us even further behind schedule.”

Sabbah’s listening, although he isn’t entirely sure he’s coming across very well. At some point he started to give up on detailed explanations and give in to his wine-addled brain.

Kaveh sends her a pleading look.

“I don’t think you’ll be able to get away without having to completely redo the foundation. It sounds like it could be a serious structural hazard if you continue. However, I think I have a solution for the dilemma you’re having with the sandy soil not being solid enough…”

Sabbah describes a process she discovered when trying to grow Sumeru Roses in desert soil. One of the many problems with trying to do such a thing was that the plants couldn’t take root well because of the loose consistency. By dampening the soil with Hydro (with help from Candace) and adding a mix of finer grains of sand in between, the soil could be packed down more tightly.

“Even after I solved that problem, it wasn’t like the soil had the right nutrients to support rainforest plants anyway, so they still died,” she sighs. “But it might help for your library. This way, you won’t have to completely redo all of your design work.”

“Thank you, Sabbah.” Kaveh says, voice muffled in the crook of his sleeve. “At least I’m one step closer to fixing this mess.”

Kaveh wallows for a few more hours, anyway. Thinking about restructuring the timeline for this project and how much work he has to undo makes him want to stuff his face in a pillow and scream. He settles for more wine.

It starts to become obvious how behind schedule Kaveh really is after he finishes the new foundation. It’s nearing autumn—the days are cooling down earlier, and the nights are becoming absolutely frigid. 

Fortunately, Sabbah’s advice worked, and after tearing down most of his previous work, the soil packed down into a solid layer swiftly and easily, with a little help from Candace. Kaveh puts the new foundation through every possible stress-test he can think of, but apparently all it needed was a bit of Hydro to be completely foolproof. Kaveh has never hated the ground more.

After re-arranging the construction schedule, and cringing at the new projected completion date, Kaveh sends a letter off to the sages explaining the hiccups in the project and the adjustments to the timeline. 

One day, Kaveh realizes that it has been almost one year since he moved to the desert. Three-hundred and twenty-seven days since he packed his small travel bag and waved goodbye to Tighnari and Cyno in the forest, to be exact.

He misses them, misses the chaos of late nights at Lambad’s, and the easy banter that flowed between him and his cohort. 

But Kaveh’s resigned himself to staying until the project is done—he doesn’t trust the Mahamata not to show up and change things behind his back. He’s fed up with them and their insufferable attitudes. 

Can you cut this section? Do you need these parts? What if you used a different material? Sometimes he entertains the thought of grabbing one of them by their collar and yelling, did you even look at my blueprints for longer than two seconds? 

The worst part is, he can't argue with them, not when most of the funding for Desert Development has come from the Akademiya, ever since Al-Haitham overthrew the government or whatever. He can't drop the project, either, because Kaveh knows how important this library could be for future desert dwellers. He can’t let some other third-rate Kshahrewar take over and half-ass the job just because he couldn't hack it. 

And—he’d be letting everyone down. Sabbah, Nawaz, the other desert kids; they’ve seen all of his ideas and plans, Dehya has even been kind enough to lend a few of her men in the Blazing Beasts for extra support. 

Kaveh has to follow through. 

So the routine continues. He wakes up at dawn, hauls himself to the construction site, and doesn’t leave until the early hours of the morning most days, falling into a fitful, restless sleep until it’s time to repeat the next day. Not even his father bothers to show his face in Kaveh’s dreams anymore; he hardly dreams at all.

Often he is the only person left after dark, double-triple-checking measurements and materials, weight tolerance and capacity and making sure there are no more mistakes. It’s exhausting, but Kaveh is determined to make it work, because he can make the deadline if he stops going on his morning walks, and maybe skips a few meals here and there, because in addition to the ever-present ghosts, a new, horrible voice in the back of his head whispers you are already overextending Candace’s graciousness, to just finish and then be done with it all.

The letters pile up on his desk. There’s a few from Tighnari and Cyno—and Al-Haitham—but the rest are likely from the sages, probably offering increasingly ludicrous amounts of money for his dumb toolbox. Kaveh ignores all of them. 

He stops seeing Candace at all, on account of him leaving the place before she wakes up and coming back long after she’s gone to bed. He wouldn’t be able to bear her concerned looks and soft scolding anyway.

The rainforest seems so far away, now, like a distant dream.

On an especially hot and dry day, unexpected for this time of year, Kaveh reaches his limit. He’s been outside for hours, the hot desert sun beating incessantly at him without a moment of rest. Somewhere in between measuring clay and marking the spot for the sixth column, the ground starts to wobble and black spots crowd the edges of Kaveh's vision. 

Funny, I thought I'd adjusted to the desert climate by now, Kaveh thinks. He's barely able to catch the nearest mercenary's attention before he hits the ground.

When Kaveh wakes, the shadow of Candace's silhouette is all he can make out, her voice muffled but stern, and it's enough for his brain to catch up. Kaveh sighs and braces himself. I’m going to get a fierce scolding, for this one.

Except, she's not talking to him.

"...from dehydration. I’m making sure he gets plenty of shade, rest, and water." Candace looks over and meets Kaveh's gaze.

"Oh, good, you're awake," she says, and Kaveh must still be unwell, because that cannot be Al-Haitham she was talking to.

But when he blinks again, Al-Haitham is still here, standing in Kaveh's temporary desert room, looking around and taking in the chaotic notes and scrolls and rulers and everything else that seems to follow Kaveh wherever he goes, clinging to him like a deep seated mold. 

Candace’s gaze flicks to Al-Haitham’s tense back, before she says, "I'll let you off easy on the lecture this time, Kaveh." 

She leaves the room with a whirl of her cape.

Then it is just Kaveh and Al-Haitham, so Kaveh asks, "Why are you here?"

Al-Haitham doesn't respond, at first, choosing instead to look over Kaveh's room, (that is, the room Kaveh is currently using, but does not own, not that he owns his room in the forest either—) eyes skipping over all the papers on the floor and the untouched blocks of charcoal and the empty bottles of ink marching along the back edge of the desk that steadily increase each month this drags on for. Eventually he lands on the shivering tower of letters next to his wrist brace, which has grown tall enough to compete with the height of the window.

"You never even opened them," Al-Haitham says, like that was an answer to anything Kaveh asked.

"What?"

This question, Al-Haitham does not even deign to reply. Instead he picks up the top half of the stack of letters, sorting through them, and Kaveh realizes just how much of the neglected pile is from Al-Haitham himself.

"I told you, I've been busy," Kaveh says defensively, and repeats his original question: "Why are you here?"

“I came to check up on the library project,” Al-Haitham replies.

Kaveh shifts, propping himself up in the bed to glare at him better. “Bullshit. You were just fine before with sending the Mahamata after me; they’re clearly not very happy about being reduced to babysitters. Why are you really here?”

He looks down, avoiding Kaveh’s eyes. “You…should come back to the forest.”

And it may have been one year and two months since Kaveh moved to the desert, but it has been one year, two months, and three days since he last spoke to Al-Haitham face-to-face. The last time they saw each other, which Kaveh has desperately tried to avoid thinking about, and stubbornly refused to acknowledge in all of their letters, which they have been tip-toeing around this whole time, looms dark overhead, swallowing the walls of Kaveh's temporary room, suffocating the both of them.

Kaveh scowls at him, crossing his arms. “You of all people shouldn’t be telling me what to do.”

“This project is becoming a detriment to your health.”

“Oh, so we’re picking up where we left off?” He laughs bitterly. "Unfortunately, I seem to do my best work on the eve of a deadline and on the verge of a mental breakdown. So, actually, it’ll work out fine! I’ll finish the project, pick up a new one, return to the forest and everything will be back to normal. Now go away."

“You’re wasting your time here.”

Kaveh narrows his eyes. He can’t read whatever emotion is lurking under Al-Haitham’spinched expression.  “You know, none of this would even be a problem if Kshahrewar wasn’t the least funded Darshan in the Akademiya. We all know the sages don’t value my cohort. I have been working my ass off my whole career to prove that what I do has any meaning!”

Kaveh knows Al-Haitham isn’t actively malicious towards him.

“You had a chance to change that, when you were Acting Grand Sage; so why didn’t you?”

This decision of his, this inaction, is the one Kaveh understands the least—and cuts him the most deeply.

Al-Haitham blinks once, slowly. Inscrutable, infuriating, as always. “There were many reasons. But, mainly, it was because it is a complex issue with no easy solution.”

“Are you kidding me? So you just couldn’t be bothered!” Kaveh staggers off of the bed, grabbing the front of his cape and pulling Al-Haitham close. His voice comes out low and unwavering. “It was just too inconvenient for you! I’m building a library in the desert so we can give the kids there a better education, and it seems to me like you’ve just been sabotaging my project.” 

His stomach clenches from the bitterness pulsing through him. He feels sick. He might have stood up too fast, but it doesn’t matter.

“You’ve never cared about Kshahrewar, or thought that my work has any worth!”

Four days before Kaveh was supposed to leave for the desert, Al-Haitham had knocked on his door. He was in the middle of folding his cape into a small travel bag, so he called out, “Come in!” without even looking up.

Al-haitham stumbled in, swaying slightly.

“Are you…drunk?” Kaveh asked incredulously.

Al-Haitham blinked slowly, like a cat. “Drunk-ish. ish.”

“Is that even a word?”

“It is now, because I said so.”

“Okay, Haravatat.” Amusement tickled at Kaveh. “What did you want?” 

“Are you still leaving for the desert?”

“Yes, the library project requires me to be on-site. At least for the preliminary stages, I have to be there to make sure nothing goes wrong in the beginning. I’ll try to come back to visit once the main structure is up, but if there are delays, I might have to stay the whole time to ensure everything stays on track.”

“I don’t understand why you’d choose to do a project like this instead of taking any of the countless proposals for developments in the rainforest. Why not just hand the library over to someone else, and keep working here, where you’re already well-respected and comfortable?”

“I—” Kaveh exhaled. “I’ve done a lot in the forest, already. After the Palace, I started feeling like things were getting a little…routine. This is going to be different, I’m going to talk to Candace about the kinds of decorative motifs I could reference, and I’ll have to design around the desert wear and tear instead of rainforest humidity. It’ll—it’ll be nice.”

Kaveh fell silent.

“That can’t be all.”

Kaveh sighed. “I could—I could also find out more about my father.”

“I thought telling you the truth about what happened would give you closure, so you could move on.” Al-Haitham’s eyes narrowed. “Instead, your selfish goals remain fixated upon chasing your own sources of guilt.”

“Selfish?” Kaveh’s voice came out several octaves higher than usual. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “How dare you! I have never—”

His voice cracked. He inhaled, and tried again. “I only want to know more about what he was like; what could possibly be wrong with that?”

“Every time the opportunity arises, you choose to wring out every detail of his death, and twist it to implicate yourself further. Anyone with sense would say you had nothing to do with his expedition to the desert, yet you continue to purposefully seek out your own misery.” Al-Haitham’s fist clenched at his side, a rare and barely perceptible crack in his usually infallible demeanor. “Time and time again, you continue to make decisions that cause yourself financial and emotional strain. Have you even thought of how you’d pay rent while out there?”

Even drunk, Al-Haitham’s words were precise and articulate, stabbing at Kaveh with pin-point accuracy.

“Disguising your intentions with altruism and self-importance. A library for the desert dwellers. Opportunity to further your career. Why must you always rush to put out other people’s fires, while fanning your own flames? You know why.”

“I—” Hot tears pricked the edges of Kaveh’s vision.

“—Because you believe yourself to be a martyr. Because you think you deserve it. But suffering is neutral—not deserved, nor a form of retribution. And at some point, optional.”

“You really think I chose this?”

Al-Haitham’s gaze was cold, looking down on him with indifference. “Running away to the desert, chasing hollow representations of your lofty ideals; was that not your choice?”

Kaveh had blinked in disbelief, stunned briefly into silence. Then, he gritted his teeth and snapped back.

“When my father and my mother left me, I clawed my way into the Akademiya and forged a path to secure my future.” Kaveh had felt as if he were choking on the magnitude of his seething indignation, anger dripping low and hot from every syllable. “When our thesis fell apart, I dragged myself through another one, and endured a graduation without you, without any of your heartless actions and snide comments.” 

Kaveh had never run away when it mattered the most. “When the Palace of Alcazarzaray crumbled under my feet, I dug myself out of the rubble and begged Dori to let me try again. I rebuilt it, brick by brick, on borrowed time with my own mora.”

Kaveh had been crying, then, because of course he was, his voice wavering at the ends of his sentences.

“It was never hollow, because it was me, it’s all of me, my choices, the sum of my practice and product of my ability, seized by my own hands and wrenched into corporeal existence. How could you say that it—that I was hollow?”

Kaveh had been so distraught he left his own room despite not being done packing. He locked himself into the study, stewing in bitterness and rage, waiting for Al-Haitham to retreat to his own room. For the next two days, he and Al-Haitham did not speak a word to each other, and when the time came, Kaveh left for the desert without even a goodbye.

“…I thought we were pretending that didn’t happen.” 

Al-Haitham’s avoiding the topic. 

“We were. It didn’t. Get to the point.”

“There seems to have been a misunderstanding,” Al-Haitham sighs. “Let me lay it out for you. The lack of support for Kshahrewar has indeed affected you, but it is not the core of the problem. You have always worked yourself to death to overcome adversity, no matter if it is caused by your client or a higher authority."

He brushes past Kaveh to run a hand over the back of the desk chair. "No matter what I do, whatever policies I’d be able to enact, you’d inevitably seek your death over some other obstacle. You also seem to overestimate the amount of power I had as Acting Grand Sage. It’s not like I was particularly well liked."

"You must have realized by now that this path isn’t sustainable. You have just narrowly avoided heatstroke. How much longer can you go before you collapse from exhaustion? How much further can this continue before it all comes crashing down?" Al-Haitham’s eyes drift to the pile of letters and tools scattered across the desk. 

Kaveh moves to block his view. “That’s not going to happen.”

“It’s not entirely unrealistic. It has happened before,” Al-Haitham refutes. “Your so-called magnum opus.”

“Really?” Kaveh replies hotly, disbelieving. “You’re bringing that up now?” 

Kaveh glares at him, hurt. Only Al-Haitham knows how much of a sore spot the Palace of Alcazarzaray really is for him. 

It was his favorite project, at least in the beginning. The initial design and subsequent iterations came so easily to him—everything fitting together naturally like the components of a machine. When Kaveh would return to his blueprints with fresh eyes the next day, he was always pleasantly surprised to find he still loved it. Usually, he always had to do some last-minute adjustments, or cater to the client more, but with the Palace, everything was…perfect.

He had known no hubris, until it crumbled overnight.

The dream quickly became a nightmare, and Kaveh had no time, no money, and no more of himself to offer Dori. He pushed himself through the rest of the construction, wrist burning, hot tears pricking in the corners of his eyes from the pain. In the end, it was a miracle he managed to complete it at all.

Al-Haitham only stares back coldly. “Nothing’s changed since then. I might as well stop wasting my breath.”

Al-Haitham left without a word, the only sign of anything amiss being his tense stance and narrowed eyes, barely perceivable to most. Candace threw suspicious glances at Kaveh for a couple days afterward, but Kaveh has long been an expert at deflecting any Al-Haitham related questions. 

Granny Kulsoom finds Kaveh not long after he’s been cleared from bedrest.

“I heard about your fainting spell, son. I expected you’d be mature enough to know better, but I suppose you are from the forest. Reminds me of this other foolish boy who used to come around every so often. Here, I made some Aaru mixed rice for you. Fills you right up; it’ll be nourishing to your recovering body.”

Kaveh accepts the bowl of food. “Thank you, granny. I, um. I’ll try to be better about it.”

“That you will! In the comfort of the village, it’s easy to forget–the desert is a tough and unforgiving landscape. It will chew you up and spit you out without a shred of remorse.”

Kaveh does not think of his father. “...Right.”

“But you know,” Granny Kulsoom’s gaze shifts past Kaveh, piercing far into the distance. “That’s what makes us desert dwellers so special. We know what it’s like. Everyone who’s survived long enough’s had to weather their fair share of bruises, so when it comes to supporting our own, we’re reassured that we’ve got each other’s backs in a way no one else would.”

Must be nice, Kaveh thinks.

“You may not be a child of the desert, but you’ve got that desert tenacity in you, too.” Granny Kulsoom refocuses on Kaveh and smiles, the crows feet wrinkling up in the corners of her eyes. “You’re fighting for this library as fiercely as any mercenary fights for their children.”

At this point, Kaveh has been running on zero sleep and obscene amounts of coffee for an indeterminable amount of time. Funnily enough, it’s reminiscent of his stressful final years in the Akademiya. He had yet to prove his skill, as a young student with potential but nothing to show for it. He’d spent hours refining each assignment until they hurt to look at any longer, and even as he turned them in, he would think, I wish it were better. 

Because good enough wouldn’t be enough to graduate.

Because the Akademiya had no lack of Kshahrewar students, each of them talented enough to have passed the entrance exams, each of them scrambling for chances to secure their future, to grasp a slice of success, and have a chance of making it.

Even at his current status, with his reputation and track record, Kaveh is still deeply afraid of falling behind.

New talent emerges every year. A commission today does not guarantee a commission tomorrow. So he continues to ensure that no matter the cost, he always brings his best.

Kaveh briefly considers getting up to stretch, maybe taking a walk and doing some errands, until he remembers that Candace is likely in the common room and would find a way to cleverly distract Kaveh for hours on end just to get him to rest. He has to have the interior layout of the built-in bookshelves sketched out for the mercenaries to help build by next week, otherwise it’ll cause the project to be delayed even further. 

So Kaveh dutifully picks up his pencil and ruler, pointedly ignores the letters piling up on the corner of his desk, and starts drawing.

For the next few weeks, Kaveh continues working on the project diligently, until at last, the final brushes of paint are layered on and the finishing touches are completed. The Vahumana archivists Setaria arranged for arrive, and once he’s updated them on the empty shelves allocated for books and feels comfortable handing the project over to them, Kaveh heads back to Candace’s house to start packing up.

While Kaveh clears his borrowed desk for the last time, he finally allows himself to think of—of going back home, and what he’ll work on next. Something smaller for sure. Maybe a collaboration with Nilou for an upgrade to Zubayr theater, or a mechanical card deck holder for Cyno as an apology for missing his birthday. Oh, gods, he missed all their birthdays.

Before he can get too ahead of himself, there’s a knock at his door.

“Come in,” he calls, not looking up from his desk. He’s left the pile of letters for last, figuring he’ll open them all at once after he’s packed up most of his more unwieldy things. Gods, Al-Haitham really did send a lot, in the months before his dehydration stunt. Does he have nothing better to do all day?

“There’s someone here to see you,” Kaveh hears Candace’s voice call out from the hall, but it fades out as he looks up to see the person entering his room.

“Hello! I want to commission a project,” Sethos says, “for the Temple of Silence.”

...

..

.

Kaveh’s packed up pretty much everything else in the room. Only one thing remains; the pile of letters waiting for him on the corner of the desk. Kaveh picks up one of the older ones, and scans through the unopened letters from Haitham, sent in the weeks before his fainting spell.

Kaveh, all at once, sees clearly what will happen if he accepts the Temple of Silence project. Demand in the desert is high, and after the initial success of the library project, Kaveh is the ideal candidate for many future developments in the desert.

He could be doing the most fulfilling work of his life, in the land that served as his father’s tomb, that raised some of Sumeru’s brightest individuals, and accepted his most painful memories, cradling them until they dissolved like grains of sand in the wind.

Strangely, Al-Haitham’s letters stop after mid-February. He must’ve given up, after so long with no response. Kaveh sorts through the rest of the other letters methodically, until he reaches the bottom of the pile. 

If he rejects the project…

It would be an easier decision to make if Kaveh hated the desert. He thinks of his father, who died desperate and alone in a place he did not recognize. He thinks of his mother, who fled to a faraway land and managed to mend a lifetime of heartbreak.

Kaveh spots something caught in the crack between the wall and the desk.

There’s one more letter.

It’s dated from almost a year ago. She must’ve written it right after his letter arrived. Kaveh’s eyes burn reading over the offer in the last sentence. What must she think of his silence, his failure to reply? He’d forgotten about that first letter, in the chaos of all his mishaps.

True companions…

He tucks the letters away in Mehrak’s compartment, and prepares to leave.

After days of travel, Kaveh finally returns to Sumeru City. The minute he steps foot back into Al-Haitham’s home, he feels it is blanketed in an odd, eerie silence. The air feels heavy, like something is weighing down the walls, the only sound being the muffled click of the door closing.

Al-Haitham is reading a book on the divan, his back turned to the door. His shoulders are tensed, which means he definitely heard Kaveh come in.

He’s not sure how to start. Their last interaction had been at Candace’s, and that had gone…well.

“You know, even if I didn’t read those letters right away, I’d probably have gotten to them eventually.”

Silence.

“You wrote like you were mostly talking to yourself, yet you sent them anyway,” Kaveh questions. “What did you want—by using me as a diary?”

Alhaitham is as unflinchingly unresponsive as ever. “I don’t particularly make an effort to obscure my intentions.”

“I know. I know you. Every little thing you do has ten reasons behind it. You never say anything you don’t mean. But just knowing that isn’t enough. It’s so frustrating. I’m basically transparent to you, but when it comes to you, I can never tell what you want.” Kaveh sighs when Al-Haitham doesn’t deign to grace him with a response. “I’ll…go pack up some things from my room, then.”

He turns to leave, but then Al-Haitham finally speaks. “You’re…not staying? I thought you finished your library project.”

“...Sethos came to me with a proposal for an expansion of the Temple of Silence.” Kaveh says, squinting at a new painting Al-Haitham has hung over the mantle. “I’m going back to the desert next week to take some preliminary measurements.”

Al-Haitham grabs his arm, and when Kaveh looks down, his expression is intense, but as unreadable as always. The book falls to the floor. “You should choose a different project. One that’s based in the forest.”

Kaveh huffs. “...So it’s about this again.”

“Kaveh.”

“It’s just another…four months. I go where my work requires. Unlike you, I can’t just up and leave my job to gallivant away on a fun vacation to the desert.”

Bitterness stings at his chest. “I’m jealous, actually. What would it be like, to not have to care so much? If I could do something that didn’t take so much of myself, every time I took on a new project.”

Kaveh knows he’s being petty. Still, he can’t help but feel just a little bit wronged. “If I had a job that didn’t consume all of me, would I even live a better life? This is all I’ve known.”

Kaveh glances back at Al-Haitham when he receives no reply. He’s silent, staring out the window, seemingly having heard none of it.

“Are you seriously spacing out right now?”

Al-Haitham snaps back to attention. He blinks a couple times, as if he’s suddenly coming back to himself. “...Cyno’s complaining that game nights are getting too repetitive.”

Kaveh sighs, shedding the frustration that always seems to build up when he’s around Al-Haitham. He acts absolutely insufferable, but most of the time, it’s harmless. 

Kaveh mutters, “I’ll come by this week,” and brushes past Al-Haitham.

His room looks untouched, his desk and bed exactly the way he left it, the only difference being his plants. They’ve grown a lot bigger, almost taking over the windowsill completely.

On his way to TCG night, Kaveh runs into Nilou. Physically. He’s late, and shivering because he forgot his cape and it’s colder than he’d expected it to be, and she bumps into him with a soft, ‘oh!’, dropping the box she was carrying scattering feathers and ribbons everywhere.

Kaveh immediately bends down to help her pick them up, and when she realizes who he is, her face immediately brightens. “Kaveh! It’s been so long, how have you been?”

Kaveh’s chest fills with warmth, seeing her familiar cheerful face. “It’s good to see you, Nilou. I’ve been…good, I just finished up the library project in the desert.”

She gasps. “Oh, wonderful, I did hear about that from Dunyarzad!”

“How have your performances been recently? I’m sorry I haven’t been able to catch any, it’s been a while since I was last in the city.” Kaveh plucks a few feathers out of his hair, and offers them to Nilou. 

She takes them with a small giggle and tucks them beneath a floppy purple ribbon. “We have one called ‘Shirin’s Lament’ going on right now! It’s coming up to closing weekend, so if you’ve got time you should come say hi!”

“Sounds fun,” Kaveh smiles, until a distant crash coming from the general direction of Lambad’s tavern snaps him out of the happy bubble of seeing Nilou again. “I gotta go, I’m already late to Lambad’s for game night, but I’ll try to make tomorrow’s showing!”

After waving goodbye to Nilou, Kaveh finally gets to the tavern, out of breath and still shedding a couple loose feathers. 

He finds Al-Haitham and Cyno at their usual table, deep into a TCG match. Tighnari looks up from his side of the table, and smirks when he spots Kaveh.

“Well, well, look who’s finally decided to grace us with his presence.” Tighnari says. “May Al-Haitham’s complaints finally cease.”

Al-Haitham doesn’t look up from the match. “When was I complaining?”

“Sure.” Tighnari rolls his eyes, watching Al-Haitham make his next move, and snorts when Cyno’s eyes widen with glee, no doubt having succeeded in some long-term strategy. “Kaveh, you look tanner. How’d the desert treat you?”

They turn their attention away from the match, and Kaveh orders a glass of wine and fish rolls.

“Better than it treats you, thankfully. It did take some getting used to, but I did eventually come to like it there.”

Tighnari’s eyebrows rise from behind his wine cup. “Really? I never imagined you’d have such an affinity for the desert.”

“It was a bit of a surprise. Considering…” Kaveh bites his lip, then changes the topic. “—well, Candace, she’s the pinnacle of hospitality, and the older village residents are just happy to have someone to talk to.”

“Yeah? What about the sand? Doesn’t it get all over the place?”

“Oh, man, does it ever. I’m pretty sure—” Kaveh takes off a shoe, and turns it upside down, a shower of grains falling out. “—yep, I’m going to be doing that for the next few days.”

Tighnari snickers. “It really is the worst. God, the desert sucks.”

Cyno chimes in. “Perhaps switching to a desert’s favorite shoes would fare you better. Sand-als are all the rage with them.”

“I’ll kill you. I really will,” Tighnari replies.

Kaveh rolls his eyes. That was something he hadn’t missed.

…

“It must be difficult, being…so incompatible with your place of origin.”

Tighnari’s ears twitch. “Hm…” 

There’s a moment of pensive silence, but before Kaveh can change the subject, Tighnari speaks.

“At first it was, because I had built it up in my head to be all these things it wasn’t.”

Tighnari swirls the remaining wine around his glass idly, staring at his reflection in the liquid. “My desert heritage gave me a lot of expectations of what I should be like, how I should act. My first visit to the desert was a bit of a, let’s say shock, when I realized the gaping chasm of difference between myself and the people living there.”

Kaveh hums in response.

“It’s okay, though. My kind might be originally from the desert, but I wasn’t raised there, so I can’t say I qualify as a desert dweller. I have my own hardships, which come from my rainforest upbringing and my time in the Akademiya. The desert is just a distant part of me, and I’m perfectly happy to live my life out in Gandharva Ville as a Forest Ranger.”

A shout of betrayal interrupts them before Kaveh can even try to formulate a reply to that, and they both look over to see Al-Haitham lean back against his chair, folding his arms with a smug smirk.

Cyno grumbles about bad dice rolls and pokes Kaveh with his deck. “It’s literally been a year since I last played you. I was beginning to think you’d…deserted us.”

“Okay, okay, I’ll play a match.” Kaveh huffs a laugh.

The next day, Kaveh makes sure to catch Nilou’s performance at Zubayr Theater. It’s a retelling of the Fall of Gurabad, and Kaveh’s surprised at how well they’ve managed to piece together a cohesive story from the fragmented records of history; Parvezravan, Shiruyeh, and Liloupar’s performers all get their chance to shine, and of course Nilou as Shirin is absolutely stunning onstage.

Kaveh claps politely with everyone else after Shiruyeh kills his father and takes a bow, and when the curtains close, he hurries backstage to congratulate Nilou with a small bouquet of padisarahs. He catches her relaxing in the green room. It’s always a little startling to see the heavy theater eyeshadow and liner up close, when Nilou’s day-to-day makeup is usually much more subdued. The bold eyeshadow and thick falsies still suit her, in a different way.

“Kaveh! Did you enjoy the show?” Nilou is sitting at one of the mirrors, fiddling with the dangling hair ornaments that match her costume. “I must admit, today wasn’t my best performance, but I think I hid the mistakes pretty well.”

Kaveh laughs and hands her the bouquet. “I didn’t notice a thing. You were as elegant as always.”

She glows from the praise, then drops her hands to take the flowers with a sigh. “Could you help me take these hair ornaments off? They might look really nice on stage, but they’re kind of unwieldy, and it’s giving me a bit of a headache. This whole costume is a nightmare, actually. I’m glad we’re almost done.”

Kaveh’s happy to help, and they fall into a comfortable silence as he carefully teases out the parts where the ornament tangles in her hair.

Kaveh’s brain is stewing, though, still thinking about the project for Sethos and his argument with Al-Haitham. Hesitantly, he asks, “Nilou, were you ever…afraid to pursue a career in theater?”

She thinks for a moment before answering. “Hmm…yes,” she leans in closer to the mirror, delicately peeling off the false eyelashes. “I’ve loved dancing ever since I was a child. I remember being nine or ten, following along with my teacher and feeling the rush of happiness when I got it right.” 

“But when performing is your job, it can’t just be a careless pastime anymore. You have to play the part that is demanded of you, whether you like it or not, and you have to do it well. There's no getting around that. However—”

“When I think about the alternative, I feel a little lost. Who am I without my dance?” She dampens a clean cloth, and starts gently wiping the makeup off her face. “If I dedicate my career to some other profession, I’ll lose all that time to honing different skills. Dance will become something I have to squeeze in during my free time, and become a lower priority.”

Kaveh finishes getting all the hair ornaments out, and places them neatly in a pile on the counter.

Her expression turns uncharacteristically serious. “When life happens, and things come up, I’ll have to sacrifice that free time. If it happens often enough, I could risk getting out of practice. I love performing too much to subject myself to that.”

The moment passes, and Nilou’s face brightens. “If I'm doing something I know I enjoy, I'd willingly dedicate the rest of my life to my work!”

Kaveh breathes a sigh of relief. “I knew you’d understand.”

“What brought this up?”

At her curious glance, Kaveh reluctantly replies. “I had an argument with Al-Haitham, and he told me that throwing myself too far into my work would ultimately become a waste of time.”

“Al-Haitham? Hm…I think, objectively, he’s correct,” she says. 

At Kaveh’s sputtering protests, she elaborates. “If you’re overworking yourself to the point of harm, you’ll eventually burn out, or injure yourself, and be left with a slew of unfinished projects with nowhere to go. But I think it’s also a little flawed to look at it in such black and white terms.” 

Nilou lowers the cloth, having removed the rest of her makeup. She folds it in a neat little square, then packs it away before continuing. “Artists tend to have a much more personal stake in their work than most other professionals. It might be harder for him to understand this aspect of our work, because we’re in such different fields.”

“It’s like…” Nilou hums, drumming her fingers against the counter. “You know how when you’re so entrenched in your particular niche, it’s difficult to look at it from an outsider’s perspective? And when doing so, you tend to make assumptions about how they might feel. Talk to him again, and remember that believe it or not, there’s a lot you know that he doesn’t.”

Kaveh sighs. “You’re making a lot of sense, unfortunately.”

“Good luck! I’m going to head to my dressing room to get changed. Let’s grab dinner after with the rest of the cast, I’m absolutely starving!”

After a lovely celebration with Nilou and the rest of Zubayr theater’s regular cast and crew, Kaveh heads back to his home with Al-Haitham. He mulls over what he’s going to say to him, but Haitham’s already there waiting for him in the doorway.

“You’re packing up again. You’re going back to the desert?”

Kaveh slips off his shoes in a practiced motion, and flicks a hand to let Mehrak switch to idle. “Yes, I already told you; Sethos’ project?” 

Al-Haitham frowns, a confused furrow creasing his brow. “How long are you leaving for this time?”

He motions for Kaveh to turn around. He obliges, lifting his hair out of the way so Al-Haitham can reach the clasps of his cape. “I…I still don’t know if I’m going to accept the project. I do miss the forest, and if he didn’t need it in time for the Sabzeruz Festival, I’d ask him if the project would be able to wait a little longer. I could still contract out the construction to someone else, but…”

Kaveh glances over at Al-Haitham, watching his expression shift as he slides Kaveh’s cape off of his shoulders. Something in his eyes looks off, but Kaveh can’t quite tell what. “Is something…bothering you?”

“I don’t understand your motivations here. If you could easily hand off that part to someone else, why wouldn’t you?” Al-Haitham grasps the tail of Kaveh’s cape, and helps him hang it up. “Something else is stopping you.”

“Well—” After the past year, Kaveh has grown to love the desert; it was more than just the work. The desert had given Kaveh things he hadn’t known he was missing. The sky is broader there than it ever will be in the forest, and clearer than it ever will be in the city. 

It is a place which has given me people like Candace and Granny Kulsoom, who have shown me pieces of my father, and passed forward the love he gave to them, twenty years ago. People like Kazim and Sabbah, who have shown me the worth of my own hands? Desert folk are tough, and bloom bright like henna berries, because everything that grows out there must adapt to survive. 

The way Al-Haitham stares at him makes Kaveh realize he must have said at least part of it out loud.

Kaveh looks away.

“Then, what’s stopping you from accepting the project?” Al-Haitham’s voice sounds careful, guarded.

“…I know I’ve been absent, lately,” Kaveh thinks back to the past few days, of dinner with Nilou and chaotic games at Lambad’s. “I don’t know what cards Cyno’s been favoring in TCG, what research Tighnari’s been up to, or even what shows Nilou has been putting on. If I stay in the desert, I’ll slowly lose the connections I had with those I left behind.” 

In his final year at the Akademiya, the rainy season had lasted for weeks longer than usual. The night their thesis fell apart, it was pouring like the sky had split open, and above it was an ocean waiting to descend upon them. It was still trickling when he had celebrated his graduation months later, remnants of Kaveh’s despair thrumming steadily like the beat of a drum. Tap. Tap. Tap.

While he worked in the desert, Kaveh felt the absence of every friend he once had, their presence peeking out above the Wall from across the forest, linking him back to the land of his youth. Looking across now, from the forest, Kaveh sees the connections that tether him to the desert, too. They tangle in his hands, tearing him apart, each calling for pieces of him he’ll never be able to give.

“Of course I love the forest. I miss the humid nights and the toucans and the chaos of Lambad’s on game nights and the way you can smell the rain lingering in the air after a downpour. I miss Sumeru City, and home with you.” At the last part, Kaveh flushes and looks away, embarrassed. He didn’t really mean to let that much slip, but, well, it’s true, isn’t it? “It isn’t as simple as staying or leaving. You always turn things black and white.”

Desert. Tap. Forest. Tap. Desert. Tap. Kaveh will never have enough of himself to give.

“Even my mother has written to me, telling me to cherish the friendships I have, and not to lose myself in my dedication to my work. But…in some ways, the desert has made me better. I’ve grown as an artist, and a person.” Kaveh lets his shoulders droop, craning his neck to study the knots in the ceiling. 

“It also made me realize that as long as I am an architect, as long as this is my career, I can never be a child again, drawing freely wherever and whenever.”

Kaveh hadn’t known, back when he first decided on Kshahrewar, how much of himself he’d dedicate to his career. He’d briefly thought, I like it, and left it at that. It had made sense, and it was what everyone had expected of him. 

What Kaveh had told Candace was still true; it was an easy choice. No other Darshan seemed quite right, but he had yet to fully comprehend the weight of that little tick mark on his application. Throughout his years as a student, then a freelancer, slowly, gradually, the branch he’d chosen twisted and tangled with Kaveh’s image of himself until he could no longer extricate himself from this path.

Al-Haitham studies him carefully. “Is it worth it? All this strife, for an institution that undervalues your work, that perpetually inflicts misery and suffering upon you?”

Kaveh snorts. “What does it look like? I must appear to be out of my mind. It would be a thousand times easier to be you, you know.” Cushy job, leisurely days—life could be easy, for Kaveh, if he wanted that. “But I could never do it.”

He thinks back to his conversation with Candace. Did you ever consider Rtawahist? Nilou’s answer to his question. Who am I without my dance? The ghost of his father, the hands of his mother, guiding him forward, haunting his every action.

“Why?” Al-Haitham asks.

Kaveh squeezes his eyes shut, clenching his fists at his sides. He turns, and faces Al-Haitham to answer. “Because if I stop drawing, I’ll have nothing left. Do you know what Professor Zaha Hadi told me, once? ‘You are not your work.’ She was trying to get me to assign less of my self worth to what I produced.” 

He sighs. “But my first thought was, ‘that’s absurd.’ Of course I am. Of course I am my work. Because I put all of myself into each piece, because I could make use of my wretched hands in this way, and create something beautiful from—from me.”

Kaveh leans against Al-Haitham’s shoulder, burying his face in his cape. 

“Do you get it yet? I can’t give this up, I can't give up on my ideals, because what would I be without it?” 

Convince me. He begs, internally. Convince me that I can be without it. But the only person stubborn enough to rival Al-Haitham is Kaveh himself, and this is a belief that is so deeply ingrained within him, Kaveh knows deep down he would never change his stance for anyone.

“...” 

Kaveh can’t bear to look at his expression, when he can’t even tell what Al-Haitham’s thinking from his voice. Is it sympathetic? Scornful? Or worst of all, indifferent? “There are certain things you cannot compromise on. No matter the reasoning behind it, you only have two options.”

Al-Haitham pauses. “…I know you already know what you want. You’re just afraid to say it.”

Kaveh steels himself. It feels like every nerve in his body is pulling him in different directions, but now that his mind has been made up, there’s only one way to go: forward. “I love the forest, and I love the desert. I can’t be in both places at once, but my heart takes me to where my work is, and it’s leading me to the desert. Goodbye, Al-Haitham.”

He turns to leave. The house feels like it’s thrumming with energy, suffocating Kaveh, clawing at him, begging for him to stay. He stubbornly wrenches himself from its grasp, expending a tremendous amount of effort just to twist the door handle.

Al-Haitham’s eyes widen. “Wait—!”

Kaveh closes the door before Al-Haitham can continue.

Kaveh spends the rest of his time in the forest wandering the Grand Bazaar, browsing the House of Daena, and drinking at Lambad’s tavern. He avoids that house as much as possible, only returning in the early hours of the morning to collapse into bed, ignoring the growing waves of longing seemingly emanating from the building.

Soon enough he returns to the desert, trailing behind Sethos as he gives a tour of the Temple of Silence. The crisp crunch of the sand beneath his feet is familiar, molding around his sandals as if welcoming him back.

The climate around the Temple is similar to Aaru Village, but it’s built around a large oasis instead of the ancient ruins of a stepwell. Kaveh relishes in the dry wind that brushes against his shirt, relieving some of the heat that seems to rise straight out of the sand. They quickly head inside, and Sethos points out several parts of the Temple that could use reinforcement.

Inside, the thick desert warmth feels comforting instead of stifling this time, and Kaveh marvels at how acclimated he’d gotten to the temperature, even after a week of being back in the forest.

Sethos’ proposal calls for a partial remodel of the current Temple, as well as an addition to the room housing their sacred texts and the main ritual chamber. Kaveh quickly measures out the dimensions of the place, and starts jotting down notes for later on what to include in Mehrak’s schematics.

After he’s got the measurements, Sethos leads him back to the entrance.

“What do you think? Doable? I’d like to have it done before September, so we can make use of the new additions for this year’s Sabzeruz festival. It’d be nice to get some Akademiya input approved by the archon herself.”

Kaveh hums, and shares his outlined production schedule with Sethos, taking in the light breeze that circulates through the temple. “It’s definitely possible at my usual pace, and there’s even a bit of breathing room for unforeseen complications.”

They spend a couple hours hashing out the more minute details. Later, as they leave the Temple, the conversation drifts from the temple project to other things.

“So, what was the Akademiya like?” Sethos asks curiously. “As a student, I mean.”

“Oh, you know the reputation. High-stress, low-sleep, constantly being buried under a pile of work,” Kaveh starts. He’s not sure what Sethos is wanting to hear, but he seems receptive to a longer spiel, so Kaveh continues.

“But…when I got into the groove of things, it was a lot of fun. I genuinely enjoy solving mechanical puzzles, and finding a unique solution to a tough problem is really rewarding for me.” A pang of nostalgia hits Kaveh, then, and he allows a small smile slip.

“I was able to make friends, good friends, and connect with peers that would become future connections in my work life. I even found family, again, long after I’d given up on the concept.”

At least, for a time. His relationship with Al-Haitham hadn’t been uncomplicated for a long, long time, but when it was…it felt like every problem had a clear solution.

Sethos tilts his head slightly. “Sounds…fulfilling.”

“It was. I…don’t know if you’ve been to the forest much, but it’s quite different from the desert.” Kaveh laughs nervously. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure if I should take another long-term desert project. I missed the rainforest a lot, during the long stretches I was working on the library.” 

Kaveh shifts uncomfortably. He starts organizing the proposal papers and puts them away in Mehrak’s compartment, just to give his hands something to do. “When I first arrived, the desert felt alien and unwelcoming. I only thought about how this was the place that had killed my father. The people in Aaru Village were nice, but only welcoming to the extent that they’d treat any other scholar. Eventually, though, I found there were many things to like.” 

He pauses. “I’ve grown to love this place, the people here, and the work I’ve done.”

Kaveh finds that Sethos is easy to talk to, easy to confide in. He’s friendly and sympathetic and responds in all the right places, without interrupting Kaveh during his train of thoughts.

“I guess I just don’t know how to reconcile it with the rainforest.”

Sethos hums. Kaveh doesn’t have much else to say, after that, so they walk in silence for a while.

Sethos breaks the silence first. “Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like, if Cyno and I had swapped places; what it’d be like, if I had grown up in the rainforest, and he, the desert.”

“It usually doesn’t amount to much. The culture is different, our societies have different values, so it’s pretty much impossible to tell how we might have developed differently in a what-if scenario,” Sethos says. “But there is that part of me that thinks about it, every time I step foot in Sumeru City, and I’m accosted by its distinct sounds and smells. Every time I miss a social cue, and every time I’m excluded from an Akademiya in-joke.” 

He bites his lip. “Things are different here. The Akademiya isn’t the only way up like it is in the forest. But even so, I’ve…always wondered what it’d be like to attend. I don’t know if they’d take a chance on someone like me.”

Kaveh smiles. “It’s not too late. You should give it a shot—take the entrance exams, and see what happens. If you go for Kshahrewar, I could even write you a letter of recommendation.”

Sethos grins back, and nods. “Maybe I will, one of these days.”

After the tour, Kaveh returns to Aaru Village for the evening. The warm lights wash a gentle orange glow over the buildings, and the afternoon heat finally relaxes into a more comfortable temperature. Kaveh waves at Kazim, who’s heading home for the night.

He didn’t realize how much he missed it here. It might not be too bad after all, staying in the desert for a while longer…

He stops by the library, which has just been opened to the public. Setaria’s there, reading a children’s book to the kids sitting in a circle around the fountain. Nawaz waves at him, and Kaveh grins and waves back, a spark of happiness flooding through him. 

As he’s walking through the halls, he spots a familiar face sitting on one of the reading benches, holding a thick textbook. 

“Sabbah!” Kaveh whispers brightly. “How are you finding the library?”

“Kaveh!” Sabbah lowers the book, revealing the lower half of her face. “Oh, it’s wonderful! I have so much more to do here now—my to-read list is thriving, and I’ve already put in requests for the archivists to include more on floral classifications and rose misnomers. You did an incredible job.”

Kaveh laughs nervously. “It wasn’t all me—Setaria and Badawi had a lot more to do with its success by getting it off the ground in the first place.”

Sabbah levels him with an unimpressed look. “Don’t diminish your efforts, Kaveh. Badawi said you were the only one to actually take his commission seriously. You designed this place from top to bottom, and managed to finish construction even through a rough production schedule. And I of all people know just how difficult it is to get the sages to give you any grace, let alone get them to let you finish it instead of just flat-out cancelling the project.”

“Thanks, Sabbah.” Kaveh’s smile eases into something a bit more genuine. “Actually, I brought something for you!”

He opens Mehrak’s physical compartment and pulls out a few small packets of seeds. “I asked my Amurta friend if they had any spare Sumeru Rose seeds. I told him about your attempts to grow them out here, and he gave me a few different strains for you to experiment with. Hopefully at least one of them does well in desert climate.”

Her hands shake slightly as she opens one of the pouches. “You have other Amurta friends? How dare you.”

Kaveh gently nudges her side. “You can say thank you, you emotionally constipated scholar.”

Kaveh spends the next week or so traveling back and forth between Aaru Village and the Temple of Silence. He finishes up the paper schematics, and provides the 3D renderings from Mehrak for approval. Once he can meet with Sethos and make sure nothing needs refinement, they can get the project going.

Late one night, Kaveh heads to Candace’s for dinner. Dehya’s in town for the next few days, and they all sit in the common room, laughing and telling stories. Dehya has the most to share, apparently having just returned from an eventful job.

“We spent ages pulling his whole cart out, along with the poor Sumpter Beast. He’s never going to be able to live this down. I mean, falling into quicksand is an understandable mistake for an Akademiya guy like Kaveh, but he’s been a mercenary his whole life!”

The mention of quicksand snags in the back of Kaveh’s mind. His smile fades.

He doesn’t want to ruin the good mood of the night, so he waits until conversation has died down to a lull and Candace is cleaning up for the night to bring it up.

“Candace, about my father…”

He hadn’t questioned the story before, but now, with more pieces of the puzzle… “They said he died in quicksand, saving others—Candace, Nawaz told me you can’t drown in quicksand by yourself. This—”

“It’s true. The density of the sand will outweigh your body before it even reaches your neck.” Dehya’s standing in the doorway with her arms crossed, having been roused from her comfy spot at the couch due to Kaveh’s anxious tone.

He frowns, agitated. “Then, if there were other people around when he was caught, why didn’t they pull him out?”

Candace lowers her gaze, her hand pausing in the middle of clearing the table. “The bonds between desert dwellers are oft forged in blood and necessity. Our unforgiving environment produces stronger friendships, but also vehement enemies. Betrayal—or perceived betrayal—is not taken lightly.” She’s using her soothing voice, which is normally reserved for negotiations.

“Yeah, you do not want to get on a merc’s bad side if you can help it.” Dehya takes the cleaning cloth from Candace and continues wiping down the table.

Candace continues. “It’s possible that the people he saved secretly harbored feelings of contempt towards him for leaving for the Akademiya; when he fell in, they may have taken it to be an opportunity—”

“You mean they just left him to die?” Kaveh hits one hand down on the tabletop, the other gripping the edge, but it slams harder than he intended.

“Hey,” Dehya snaps, a warning edge to her voice, but her expression is sympathetic.

Candace lifts a hand to placate her. “I’m sorry, Kaveh. Many dishonorable mercenaries are able to get away with abhorrent actions using the harshness of the desert as an excuse; if I knew who they were, we could—” 

“I could teach them a lesson for you.” Dehya cracks her knuckles with a fist, but Kaveh isn’t really paying attention. “Just say the word, and I’ll start tracking—”

“Whatever. It doesn’t matter who they are.” Yeah, right. But Kaveh knows a lost cause when he sees one. The chances of finding them are equal to what, a few grains of sand in an hourglass? Collecting enough evidence to follow a trail that might’ve been covered up decades ago? “I—”

Before Kaveh can finish his thought, the front door bursts open, and Cyno steps in. The howling night wind blows sand through the entrance.

“Kaveh, you have to come back.” Cyno’s stone cold work face is on, but there’s a thin glaze of panic in his eyes.

“It’s Al-Haitham.”

“What do you mean, ‘it’s Al-Haitham’?” Dehya asks.

“What has that asshole gotten up to now? Overthrowing the government again?” Kaveh laughs uneasily, distress and contempt and a bundle of other emotions turning his stomach. “I’m sure he can handle things without me. I’m busy, I’ve got work to do here.”

Cyno shakes his head, brows furrowed tightly. “Something’s wrong, really wrong. He’s sick or—or something, and he’s not letting anyone near enough to figure out what. You can pretend all you want that you don’t care, but—”

Candace interrupts, placing a steadying hand on his arm, dropping the usual pleasantries. “What symptoms is he showing?”

It’s so unusual for her to display such bluntness it shocks Cyno into focus. “At first, it was just small stuff, low-grade fever, and stumbling after getting up—dizziness, probably. Then during work, he’d ask me questions about simple stuff. I had to keep reminding him of things we just talked about.” Cyno allows himself to be escorted further in by Candace, continuing to gesture as he explains. “Eventually, he started calling out sick. I thought it’d be okay, he’d get over it in a couple days, but a week passed and I went to go check on him. He wouldn’t let me in—he wouldn’t let anyone in.”

He sighs, rubbing a hand to his forehead. “That’s when I started thinking back to those first few days; he looked—out of it, confused, he never—”

“Okay, Cyno, I got it.” Kaveh brushes off the lingering touches of unease. He’s still shaken from the earlier conversation about his father, and an ugly tendril of irritation curls in the pit of his stomach at the interruption. I’m not his mother. Al-Haitham can go see a doctor himself.

“Tighnari’s watching the house right now in case anything happens. Kaveh, please come back.”

“He’s such a hermit, this is hardly anything out of the ordinary,” Kaveh grumbles, avoiding Cyno’s eyes. He can’t help but think of the last few days he’d spent in that house, and the suffocating aura that seemed to surround it, trapping Kaveh within. “I don’t know what I’d be able to do that you guys couldn’t.”

“You’d be able to get through to him, get him to see a doctor, something. He’s completely shutting us out.”

Candace glances at Kaveh. “...You should go see him.”

At her steely look, Kaveh relents, sighing. “It’s getting late. I’ll talk to Sethos in the morning and see if I can figure something out.”

“Cyno, you can stay over for tonight,” Dehya says, turning to Kaveh. “I can take you to Caravan Ribat first thing tomorrow, but you’ll be on your own from there. I trust you can handle yourself, right?”

Kaveh nods. “Cyno, would you be able to get the message to Sethos that I’ll be taking a break from the project?”

“Of course,” Cyno replies, relief coloring his voice. “I’m sure he will understand; your personal life takes precedence.”

After they get Cyno settled in for the night, Kaveh lights a candle by his desk and prepares to send a letter. He can spare some extra mora for the messenger to make it quick.

That night, Kaveh dreams of the rainforest, and of his shared research lab with Al-Haitham—well, the lab that had later become their residence. The months before their fallout about the desert had been…not amicable, but peaceful.

The dream starts as a routine morning, with Kaveh making coffee and Al-Haitham reading at the table. It’s quiet, with only the clinking of their mugs breaking up the muffled chirping of cicadas. In the afternoon, they settle down in the study as the routine downpour taps rhythmic patterns on the windowsill. 

After hours of working in parallel, Kaveh realizes neither of them have said a word all day.

He wakes feeling uneasy. 

He probably won’t be able to fall back asleep, so instead, Kaveh gets up to grab a glass of water. To his surprise, he finds Cyno already in the common room.

Kaveh might as well update him. Dehya and Candace are likely still asleep, so Kaveh keeps his voice quiet.

“I’ve asked for someone to come take over the project while I’m gone. I trust that she’ll do well, but if Sethos needs anything, tell him he is welcome to send a letter at any time. I’ll…I’m hoping to be back soon.”

Cyno nods. “I’ll make sure he gets the message.” 

After a quick goodbye, he heads out to the Temple of Silence. Kaveh spends the next hour sitting by the fireplace, stewing in his rattled emotions from the dream. It had been so ordinary, real, yet so foreign; he suddenly realizes they hadn’t had an ordinary day together like that in so long. His chest aches at the thought of things going back to the way they were. Before the desert, before the Interdarshan Championships, before all of the Azar business.

Eventually, Candace and Dehya both make their appearances. They have a quick breakfast, before Candace sees them off at the door. Kaveh thanks her for her endless hospitality, as always, and turns to Dehya to see if she’s ready. 

At Dehya’s curt nod, they set off for Caravan Ribat. The journey is mostly quiet, their labored breaths interspersed with Dehya offering Kaveh a drink from her waterskin. By noon, they can see the Wall of Samiel looming over the horizon, the rainforest canopies barely peeking out behind it.

Dehya motions for Kaveh to take a break in the shade of a nearby outcropping. 

She holds up a pouch of candied Ajilenakh nuts. “We’ll be there in maybe an hour or so. Snack?” 

Kaveh takes a square gratefully, and pops a chunk in his mouth, before Dehya does the same. They chew in silence for a while, looking at the path leading into Caravan Ribat.

Thoughts of Al-Haitham, his father, and Sethos’ project swirl and clash in Kaveh’s head, all vying for attention. It’s all a mess.

Dehya must notice his frown, because after swallowing her portion of the nuts, she says, “You know, I really would help you track them down.”

“I…It’s okay.” Kaveh shifts on his spot in the shade, scrunching his lips to prod his tongue at the spots where the honey sticks in his teeth. “Even if you found them, what good would it do, to know?” I wouldn’t have the Mora to pay you, anyway.

Dehya gives him a pitying look. “Closure? I dunno, I thought you scholars were all about the knowledge-seeking.”

“Even at the Akademiya, there are things you shouldn’t pry into. Or, I guess, aren’t allowed to.” The next chunk Kaveh breaks off of the candied square crumbles to pieces. He allows the smallest crumbs to fall to the ground, scuffing the sand up to cover them.

“Even there?” Dehya narrows her eyes at a distant point on the horizon. “Huh. Guess they are fond of their rules and restrictions.”

Kaveh follows her gaze to meet the Wall of Samiel. “...I don’t think she meant for that to become the barrier it did. The God-Kings were friends.”

“Lesser Lord Kusanali?” Her words sound careful. “I’m sure she meant well, back when she made it. But good intentions don’t automatically lead to a good outcome—it’ll always be a physical reminder of our separation.” The pouch wrinkles under the strength of Dehya’s grip, no doubt crushing the nuts within. “My father was like that, too, rushing into solutions without thinking about the consequences. Always got him into more messes than he bargained for.”

“Maybe there were other things he was taking into account that you weren’t aware of. Usually there’s always another piece to the puzzle.” Kaveh wonders if he’ll ever stop finding fragments of his father, even if he ends his search in the desert.

“He did a lot with his life before I was in it; doesn’t mean he learned from any of it.” She sighs. “It does seem a bit unthinkable, on a timescale—the fact that my father had decades’ worth of experiences, before finding me. All I have, of course, are my own memories of him, and whatever scraps of stories I’ve squeezed out of the brigade.”

“It’ll never be enough, though, will it.”

“No. I admire your ability to draw the line of what’s realistic.” Dehya glances back up, towards the silhouette of Caravan Ribat on the horizon. With a huff, she gets back on her feet, offering Kaveh a hand. “And prioritize. C’mon, let’s get moving.”

When Kaveh finally arrives at their house, it’s late in the evening. He waves Tighnari away, who’s sitting cross-legged in front of the door, and mutters what are you still doing here, loser, promising to send an update in the morning if Tighnari agreed to leave within the next five seconds. 

The rustle of leaves and chirping of cicadas usually surround the rainforest, even in Sumeru City, but the foliage creeping up the branch of the Divine Tree that cradles the house is strangely still. Kaveh opens the front door gently, expecting an empty living room. 

Al-Haitham usually goes to bed before the sun goes down, because he is an old man stuck in a young body. Instead, he’s surprised to see him still awake, on the divan. 

“Al-Haitham?”

Kaveh’s voice echoes through the hollow hallway. The house still feels dampened by the same weeping loneliness Kaveh had spent so long avoiding, the last time he was here, and has somehow become even more suffocating. 

There’s no response to his call, and when he walks over, Al-Haitham isn’t reading, or writing, or…anything. He’s just staring out the window, hands clasped over his arms, digging into the flesh at his biceps.

He’s pale, shivering slightly, but what makes Kaveh’s chest squeeze tight is Al-Haitham’s glassy expression. He’s never looked like this before, even in the few times Kaveh has seen him sick and feverish.

“Haitham!” 

He crosses the room in three quick strides, heart in his throat.

“Al-Haitham, what’s wrong?” Kaveh’s hand hovers over Al-Haitham’s form, unsure of how close he’s allowed to get.

Al-Haitham reaches up to press a setting on his headphones. “...Kaveh?”

Kaveh repeats his question. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“...I don’t know.” Al-Haitham grimaces at the sound of his own voice, scratchy and hoarse.

“You’re sick. Let me get you some water.” As soon as he turns away, Kaveh lets out a shaky breath. 

Calm down. But it’s like every breath he takes meets a wall of resistance, and the house itself wants him to lie down and give up.

“Cyno told me you’ve been calling out of work?” He sets down the glass on the coffee table, but Haitham doesn’t move to touch it. He doesn’t answer Kaveh, either, which makes his frustration start to bristle. “Are you sick? Why weren’t you letting anyone check on you?”

Silence.

“If you’re sick, why won’t you go to Bimarstan? This isn’t like you.” Al-Haitham finally shows a reaction, scowling in response to Kaveh’s increasingly persistent questioning.

“Just…leave me alone,” he replies shortly.

And now he’s upset. For what, Kaveh showing concern about his health?

Kaveh sighs. It seems like there’s no getting through to him. At least not tonight.

“Go to bed, Haitham,” Kaveh coaxes in the most placating, least antagonizing tone he can muster. “At least get some rest.”

To that, at least, Al-Haitham gets up and retreats to his room.

Kaveh cleans up in the common room, putting away some of the books and knicknacks that inevitably creep out from their rightful place in the study. Strangely, there seems to be fewer than usual, and a thin layer of dust clings to the furniture instead.

Even stranger, when Kaveh pivots to the kitchen, there are a number of items out of place. Most of the utensils they own lay in a pile like he hadn’t even bothered to put them away, and are instead lying openly on the counter. Pots clutter the stove, empty, but clean. 

The plants in his room are drooping, the leaves browning and brittle at their tips.

Kaveh doesn’t know what to make of it.

Hours later, Kaveh’s sitting in the study, thoughts spiraling about Al-Haitham, when the doorbell rings. He frowns, because they aren’t expecting anyone. If Tighnari had returned despite Kaveh’s threats, Kaveh was going to give him a piece of his mind.

He opens the door cautiously, then releases the handle in shock.

Mom. Kaveh shakes. “Why did you come here?” 

Faranak smiles in the doorway, the soft glow of the moonlight framing her hair. “It’s on the way to the desert, dear. Of course I’d stop by. Can I come in?”

At Kaveh’s nod, she steps into the entryway, setting her briefcase down and looking around the place, humming. “I set out as soon as I received your letter. I’d be happy to take the reins on your temple project, but what’s caused you to leave so abruptly?”

“I—” Kaveh droops, crossing his arms. He doesn’t even know!

Something’s wrong with Al-Haitham, for reasons unknown, and Kaveh’s returned to the place he rejected in favor of his work to take care of him.

Kaveh doesn’t know what to do.

He wants to be folded into his mother’s arms again, like a child, but he isn’t sure he deserves it. His arms sting from where his fingers dig into his shirt at the shoulders.

“Oh, Kaveh,” she whispers. “Come here.”

She stretches her arms out and clasps around his frame, fingers grazing his hair clips. Kaveh tucks his chin at the crook of her ear, breathing in the floral scent unique to the air of Fontaine.

She smells so…unfamiliar. Despite his efforts to pursue pieces of her image, it seems he will never really know his mother. 

“Amma, was…was this the right thing to do?”

He’s not just asking about the Temple of Silence. She seems to understand this, because her shoulders droop, and she pulls away. “Difficult decisions, in the moment, almost never feel completely right.”

The accumulation of the past decade of his life has taken him to this point. When Kaveh had still been a student, the path ahead seemed so simple and straightforward. Now, despite the years of experience, he feels more lost than ever.

“It’s hard to tell how you might feel about it in the future. But I trust you’ve done your due diligence in considering the potential outcomes.” She grasps his hands in hers, thumbs rubbing across his knuckles. “The fact that I’m here at all proves it.”

“Is it enough?”

“You’re trying. That’s all we can do, isn’t it?” She frowns, “Kaveh—”

She pauses, and Kaveh wants to curl up into a ball of misery on the floor.

“To be truthful, I wasn’t even sure about having you, at first.” She smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. “I was never very good at committing to things, to following through. I have always been a bit scatterbrained, especially during my Akademiya days—for every completed project, there were three more languishing in various states of unfinished.”

“When I married your father, I promised him, this is a commitment I will honor. With him by my side, you could be another. My list of vows, we called it. He was so hopeful, believed so passionately that I could—that I could be a good mother.” She fidgets with her fingers, smoothing them over her ruffled dress. “And then—he passed, I no longer had his unwavering belief, and suddenly I was left with pieces of a life I couldn’t figure out how to fit back together.”

She sighs. “I don’t regret my new life in Fontaine. And I will never regret having you. But Kaveh, it was wrong of me to leave you on your own. I can only hope to atone for this by helping where I can. If—if you’re willing to ever forgive me.”

At his silence, her shoulders slump, and she starts to turn away. Kaveh doesn’t trust himself to say anything yet, and instead wordlessly pulls her into a fierce hug. She melts into it, relief spreading through her slender frame.

They hold each other for a minute longer, until the chill from the doorway reminds Kaveh of the open door that’s probably letting in bugs. He steps away, and latches the door with a soft click.

“There’s…something else I want to discuss with you. About Father.” 

“Hm?” She doesn’t question the abrupt topic change. “Anything you want to know, Kaveh, I will try my best to answer.”

His father’s interest in the desert sky. Granny Kulsoom’s practiced scolding and secret smiles. Perceived betrayal is not taken lightly. 

“Was…he a desert dweller?” Kaveh asks.

She purses her lips, frowning. “He never said much about his childhood. The few times he did mention it, though, it seemed like he spent a lot of time in both the desert and the forest.”

Kaveh nods, slowly. Finally, finally, a clearer image starts to emerge from the sea of jumbled pieces.

The next morning, long after waving his mother goodbye, Kaveh attempts to get answers. He checks Al-Haitham’s forehead, and the fever seems to be gone, for now.

“Do you remember what happened last night?” he tries.

Nothing.

Kaveh tries his best to recreate the normal routine, going through all the motions of a regular day before he’d left for the desert. He sweeps the floor, washes the laundry, and hangs it up to dry while Al-Haitham lays on the divan. Kaveh cooks butter chicken, keeping Al-Haitham in his sights at the corner of his eye the whole time. Haitham is quiet, but instead of going through a pile of books at an alarming rate like usual, he’s staring vacantly out the window, distant.

When Kaveh’s almost finished washing all the used bowls, the sauce bubbling gently on the fire, he turns around to find Al-Haitham staring at him. 

“What are you making?” His voice is raspy, thick from morning-sleep. 

“Butter chicken. It’ll be done soon. Go set the table, and I’ll bring it out.”

Al-Haitham hums in assent, and heads into the dining room.

Kaveh brings the dishes over, one hand holding chicken and the other rice, but almost runs into Al-Haitham in the doorframe. “Haitham? What are you doing?”

He looks over at the empty table and frowns.

“What was I supposed to do?”

“Set the table, Haitham,” Kaveh reminds him gently.

“Right. I’ll get the plates.”

Haitham returns soon after with the plates. They eat in silence, Kaveh trying and failing again to get something, anything out of Haitham that might explain his eerie behavior.

Later, he’s washing their dirty plates while Al-Haitham leans over his shoulder, watching.

This is strange. Really strange. But Kaveh doesn’t want to say anything yet, in case he breaks the odd tranquility that’s settled over them, and spooks Al-Haitham back into hiding.

After he’s set the plates to dry, Kaveh turns to Al-Haitham. “Why haven't you been reading today? What’s going on?”

Al-Haitham only hums gently, barely a response at all.

“Haitham, you should go to a doctor.” Kaveh places a hand on his shoulder, brushing a thumb over Al-Haitham’s collarbone.

That gets a reaction.

Al-Haitham’s eyes flash, banishing the earlier murkiness in his pupils. He pauses, then cracks an uncharacteristic smile. It twists his features in a humorless parody of his usual expression. "Who could fix something like this?"

"Al-Haitham!" 

Kaveh remembers back in the Akademiya, when they were students, it felt like their minds were matched, track for track, step for step. A squeeze of nostalgia floods through him, and then, a deep worry. He hadn’t ever imagined a time where Al-Haitham would be the one to falter, to fall out of step.

Kaveh gets up. “I’ll call for Tighnari.” 

But before he gets very far, he feels a tug at his sash. Al-Haitham presses a hand to his temple, gripping Kaveh’s forearm with the other. “...Don’t leave.”

“...Alright,” Kaveh sighs. “I won’t, Haitham, I’m right here.”

When he meets Al-Haitham’s gaze, the fear in his eyes bolts Kaveh’s feet to the ground. 

Kaveh bites his lip. “Are you having another headache?”

In pain isn’t necessarily any better than before, but at least Al-Haitham seems more lucid. Why does he look so uneasy?

Al-Haitham blinks. He cups Kaveh’s face, fingers pressing softly into his cheek. His eyes are startlingly clear for a moment, and Kaveh’s left breathless under the full weight of Al-Haitham’s scrutiny.

“...Are you real?”

A wave of bewilderment washes over Kaveh. “What do you mean? Al-Haitham—?” 

But Al-Haitham’s pupils have gone hazy again. Kaveh frowns, worry churning in his stomach. 

It seems this runs deeper than a simple fever. But…what can he do about it?

Kaveh goes to bed, but doesn’t fall asleep for a long time.

Something’s different about Al-Haitham the next morning. His eyes seem clearer, more present. He’s reading a book by the window, an emerald green tome with gilded edges. It’s the only one he hadn’t let Kaveh put away yesterday, stroking the embossed cover idly with his thumb. 

Kaveh tests the waters. “Good morning, Haitham.”

Al-Haitham looks up for the first time since he’s returned. His gaze still isn’t quite focused. “Kaveh.”

Kaveh can’t read the emotion in his voice. But it’s the most normal he’s heard Haitham in so long, so he continues probing, hopeful. “Haitham? Are you feeling better?”

“Did you read my letters?”

The letters? Kaveh blinks. “Yes, of course I did.”

Then he bolts upright. The letters! 

“You said you found something, but everything you said was vague, like you didn’t want to talk about it directly. What did you find? Where did you put it?”

He gets no response. Al-Haitham only continues gazing out the window, the open book lying forgotten in his lap.

Kaveh spends the rest of the day determined to find whatever Al-Haitham had stupidly gotten into. He starts with the study, since Al-Haitham mentioned he first found it there. An initial scan with Mehrak reveals nothing out of the ordinary, so he consigns himself to rummaging through the shelves by hand. Kaveh finds the blueprints Al-Haitham mentioned the object was next to, but no sign of the mystery box. Even after thoroughly combing through every shelf and drawer, Kaveh comes up empty-handed.

He moves into Al-Haitham’s room next. There—on the desk. An open box, but empty, with no indication of what might have been held inside. Kaveh huffs in frustration. He’d taken it out, then…what? Kaveh’s not even sure what he’s looking for. He scans around the room again, but nothing looks out of place. 

Time to start digging.

He rummages through the closet. Nothing unusual there. Kaveh turns back to the desk, the letters, he said, and is greeted by the sight of a small stack of letters behind the empty box Kaveh had glanced at earlier.

Kaveh approaches the letters with apprehension, but he picks up the first and looks to the address. It’s addressed to Candace’s residence in the desert, and Kaveh is the recipient. 

He opens the letter.

The letters stop having addresses. Kaveh opens them anyway. 

Long, rambling letters, in a style Kaveh would never have expected to hear from Al-Haitham before, his unfiltered thoughts and even, on occasion, emotions. They cover a wide variety of Al-Haitham’s daily thoughts, from musings on the impressive-but-limited abilities of dusk bird mimicry to commentary on recent Akademiya publications from every Darshan. Kaveh reads all of them, devouring letter after letter after letter until he’s surrounded by the mountains of paragraphs Al-Haitham had penned to Kaveh.

Why now? he wonders. Why let me in on all of these things only after half a lifetime of companionship, after I’d uprooted myself from the rainforest?

As Kaveh makes his way through the final few letters, the average length sharply declines. Instead of a full page, they start to fill only half, and by the end, only a few, fragmented sentences.

Kaveh scans the sheet of paper, flipping it over to the back to find the aforementioned notes. At the bottom are an additional few paragraphs, scrawled in Al-Haitham’s distinct lazy handwriting.

At the end of that note, the swell of guilt finally becomes too much to bear, and Kaveh grips the desk from his position on the floor. 

The letters he'd received had been less than half of the total Al-Haitham had written. Despite his failing mind, Al-Haitham had tried to understand Kaveh. 

He had read Kaveh's books, and...tried to understand them.

Between his fingers was the tangible proof of Al-Haitham's care, and Kaveh hadn't even known. He ignored every warning sign that something wasn’t right, and allowed it to progress to this point. He had almost brushed off Cyno's worry in order to remain in the desert, in favor of pursuing his own selfish goals. 

A sob escapes Kaveh, a tangled knot of emotions more hopeless than his father's star mobile choking him from the inside. He lays there, in Al-Haitham's dusty room, clutching the unsent letters to his chest. 

Minutes pass, and the grief loosens with it. Wallowing on the floor isn’t productive. Kaveh can still help Al-Haitham. So he hauls himself up and continues searching.

Kaveh opens the bedside drawer, not expecting anything, but is instead greeted with a mess. Keys, spare mora, useless receipts and important documents stuffed on top haphazardly with no rhyme or reason.

Al-Haitham never keeps the contents of his cabinets in a state other than precisely arranged. Kaveh remembers when they were still in the Akademiya, he’d organize his spices meticulously by frequency of usage, and file all his past work in folders marked by year and subject.

He frowns, and starts pulling out the top few papers.

Receipt from Menakeri's Treasure Shop. Zubayr theater tickets. He didn’t even go to see the show? Tax forms?!

“Al-Haitham, what…?” Kaveh whispers. He catches a glimpse of something glowing softly beneath the mess of papers.

Kaveh brushes aside a pile of loose mora and pulls it out, cradling the cool, smooth objects between his hands. A pair of asymmetrical earrings, delicately carved in the shape of Fontainian curves, illuminated with turquoise. An artifact.

It tingles in Kaveh’s palms, the weight of the memories carried within it filling his bones with lead. He rushes to set it down before he can get caught up in the echoes.

Oh. It wasn’t the house.

Uncertainty pools in the pit of his stomach. “Oh, Al-Haitham, what have you gotten yourself into now?”

“So, what do we think.”

Kaveh’s seated opposite of Cyno and Tighnari, the artifact perched in its box on the table between them. The faint green glow casts shadows across their faces, highlighting Cyno’s pinched frown. 

“The presence of unknown artifacts can have dangerous consequences if not prevented from exuding the natural memories within. You found this in Al-Haitham’s room?” Cyno asks.

“Yeah. But I find it hard to believe he wouldn’t take proper precautions when dealing with this kind of stuff. What do you think could have happened?”

Tighnari glances at Cyno. “Hard to say without being able to take a closer look. I wouldn’t recommend anyone touch it, either, so…”

“We could have Nahida analyze it for us. I believe she would have the best chance at diagnosing if this was the cause of Al-Haitham’s illness,” Cyno proposes.

“Lesser Lord Kusanali?”

Cyno nods, covering the box back up and tucking it under his arm. “I’ll bring it to the Sanctuary of Surasthana tomorrow morning. Take care of Al-Haitham until we can come to a conclusion.”

“Alright,” Kaveh says. “Thanks for your help.” 

The next day, in the late afternoon, there’s a light knock at the door. Kaveh opens it to find the God of Wisdom at his doorstep. 

“May I come in?”

Kaveh numbly steps aside, and Lesser Lord Kusanali walks through the entryway into the main room. 

She sits by the divan, pulling herself into the seat by her hands, letting her legs swing off the ground. Kaveh follows her into the room, and she motions for him to sit as well.

“I spent the morning with the General Mahamatra, scanning the artifact to determine the contents and reasons for possible corruption. We’ve mostly figured it out, but I have a few more questions for you.” She pulls out the box containing the artifact. Kaveh eyes it warily; it’s still pulsing with that depressing, longing energy. “This formed quite recently, within the last year or so. Are you aware of any nearby ley line disorders or temporary domains that may have appeared in this timeframe?”

Kaveh shakes his head. “I didn’t notice anything, but I haven’t been around much, so there’s a good chance I could have missed it.”

She nods slowly, unsurprised. “I had the General Mahamatra cross-reference our theory against recent Spantamad records, but we didn’t find any mentions of something that would match.”

“Knowing Al-Haitham, he likely took care of it on his own, and didn’t consider it to be notable enough to report to anyone,” Kaveh replies.

“From my analysis, it seems the artifact displayed abnormal energy signatures from the beginning, but the effects only started compounding a few months ago.” She pauses. “Was Al-Haitham showing signs of forgetfulness when you returned from your library project?”

Kaveh thinks back to that week. Al-Haitham had asked him multiple times about Sethos’ project, which he hadn’t thought much about, but now…

When Kaveh relays this to Lesser Lord Kusanali, she hums in understanding. She takes the artifact out of the box and places it on the table in front of them. “The main malfunction in this artifact causes the user short-term memory loss, which can be highly dangerous when paired with the nature of Ley Line energy. If someone were to use it once, but then forget both the contents and the fact that they had used it at all…”

Kaveh’s eyes widen. “Repeated use within a short timeframe could cause headaches, brain fog, and hallucinations. It lines up.”

“A confused mind is a cautious one,” Nahida ponders. “I imagine, after so long of confidently being able to rely solely on his capable mind, Al-Haitham must have been quite afraid.” She turns to Kaveh, eyes serious. “Where is Al-Haitham now?”

Kaveh brings the little archon to Al-Haitham’s bedside. He’s been sleeping in more often lately, but he still blinks awake at Kaveh’s light touch. Al-Haitham’s eyes are hazy, distant, which has become the usual, as of late.

“Are you sure this is going to work?” Kaveh asks.

Lesser Lord Kusanali nods. “We have identified the root of the problem to be, at its core, a Ley Line malfunction. As the avatar of Irminsul, I have the ability to fix it. All I need is for you to both immerse yourselves in the artifact’s memories, and I will be able to take it from there.”

“Okay.” Kaveh places the earrings in Al-Haitham’s open palm, covering it with one of his own, his other hand holding the archon’s. “Haitham, we’re going to help you out, okay?”

Kaveh closes his own eyes, and focuses on the artifact thrumming between their hands. Slowly, over the course of a few seconds, or minutes, the outside world begins to fall away, and the distinct sounds of the rainforest are replaced with a muffled layering of competing voices.

“—Jadda, drink some more soup.”

“Get some rest, dear—” 

“—An outlandish proposal—”

“—have no idea what it’s like, do you!”

“—actually in control of things—”

It’s like Kaveh has stepped through a broken mirror. It’s pitch black; the voices echo from all directions, but just as panic starts to creep in, a new voice comes through, crisp and clear.

“Kaveh? Are you there?” The archon’s voice is a welcome anchor for him to focus on.

“Yes, Lesser Lord Kusanali, I can hear you. But I don’t see Al-Haitham.” Kaveh scans a full circle around himself to make sure.

“Don’t worry about him yet, I’ve got to start piecing things together first.”

Kaveh nods, even though he’s not sure she can see him. “Okay. What should I do? I can’t see anything.”

“I’m collecting the memory fragments that were absorbed through the malfunction, but if you can locate the original memory associated with the Artifact, that’ll be your exit point.”

Kaveh cautiously walks through the darkness, feeling around for something, anything that could tell him the right way to go, but—

“Would you like biryani or fatteh tomorrow?” Al-Haitham’s voice.

He inches closer. Thanks to Lesser Lord Kusanali, the other voices have started to fade away.

Slowly, the darkness faces, and a scene forms. At the center of a spotlight, there is Al-Haitham, speaking to empty air.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get you another one.”

“It’s barely past sunset, it’s too early for me to go to bed.”

“The term starts in two weeks. I’m entering my first year in the Akademiya.”

Nahida’s voice cuts through Al-Haitham’s. “I’ve collected all the fragments. The corruption of unrelated foreign memories has been cleansed. Now, all he has to do—” The rest of her voice cuts off into static.

“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

Kaveh stands across from Al-Haitham, and watches him, afraid to interfere. The surroundings continue to glitch between unrelated memories, Al-Haitham’s voice cutting in and out.

“Jadda, please let go. I can cut the fruit. You’ll hurt yourself.” His hands twitch at his sides.

“There are no more blueprints to work on, remember?” 

Fingers grasping tightly around an invisible object. “Here, I brought this for you. You can use it to help you steady your hands.”

“Sorry for the interruption. All that’s left to do is…” With another burst of static, Nahida’s voice comes in again, sounding a bit harried. “He has to complete the memory. Play it through, all the way to the end.” 

With that, Lesser Lord Kusanali falls silent. There are no more instructions.

The spotlight disappears, and the memory stabilizes, Al-Haitham’s childhood home fading into view. There are no more echoing voices, only the low drone of cicadas from outside the window, soft golden light blanketing the room in a comforting warmth.

His grandmother is sitting on a worn sofa, Al-Haitham himself sitting across from her cutting sunsettias into half-moon slices. 

“Al-Haitham, dear,” his grandmother calls, patting the empty spot next to her. “Come here.”

He complies, dropping the knife, settling down in the spot and tilting his head. It’s rather adorable how obedient he is, despite being so much taller than her.

She sits up straight, eyes clear and mind present. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders,” she says, holding his hand and brushing over each knuckle with a gentle concentration. Her hand shakes, even when anchored by Al-Haitham’s grasp. “I would know, I raised you.”

She laughs, more of an airy huff than any vocalized sound. 

“...But I won’t always be around to protect you,” she continues, growing solemn. “In the future, there will be people who want to hurt you, who want to control you, and make you feel powerless, because of it.” 

She grips his hand tighter and sits up, looking into Al-Haitham’s eyes, her expression serious. “Never, ever let anyone else tell you what to think. Your mind is your most important asset; no one can take that from you.”

“Your thoughts, your conclusions, your decisions—no one can control them. I know you will be able to protect yourself. But—” She breaks off into a cough. Al-Haitham pats her back lightly until she recovers. “—Part of me still worries. I know it has been difficult for you to make friends. Do you have people to keep you company? Those that you trust, who will stave off the loneliness of isolation?”

Al-Haitham’s eyes are wide, unblinking. “I’m okay by myself. I don’t mind the lack of companions,” he reassures her quickly.

She lowers her gaze, frowning slightly. “I hope, that after I am gone, you will not be alone.”

Kaveh’s heart aches at Al-Haitham’s stricken expression.

“Promise me you’ll make an effort,” she says, barely above a whisper. “Promise me, Al-Haitham.”

Al-Haitham frowns. “I—”

The backdrop abruptly disappears, the sofa, the table, and Al-Haitham’s grandmother melting away in a smear of colors. Al-Haitham remains, alone, the spotlight illuminating his face in a harsh white light. His face is still scrunched up in that conflicted expression, halfway through his answer. 

“Ah,” Lesser Lord Kusanali says, the sudden reappearance of her voice startling Kaveh. He was so caught up in watching the younger version of Al-Haitham, who acted so vastly different in some ways yet so familiar in others. “There’s been a bit of a snag.”

“What?” Kaveh asks, but then the memory starts up again, the room piecing itself back together. Al-Haitham is back to cutting fruit. 

“Al-Haitham,” his grandmother calls. “Come here.”

As Kaveh watches him shuffle over for the second time, things start to click in his head.

“It seems that last part is stuck,” Nahida says, sounding puzzled.

“I think…I understand.” Because how long had Kaveh spent replaying in his mind, those last minutes of his father, of his family, together? How long did he watch his mother haunt their old home, clinging to scents that had long faded away? How long did he himself twist in despondent uncertainty, begging for an anchor?

It was foolish of him to not consider Al-Haitham similar to him, in any of the ways that mattered. Kaveh had spent so long insisting on their differences, he had forgotten what had drawn them together in the first place.

Kaveh steps closer, kneeling on the rug in front of the sofa, until he’s face to face with Al-Haitham, but it seems that Kaveh is still invisible to him.

“Al-Haitham?” He whispers.

Still no response, but his grandmother’s voice has faded, conversation petering out.

Kaveh reaches out, clasping Al-Haitham’s solid hands with his own calloused, tired ones.

A memory surfaces of their time working on their thesis together at the Akademiya. Al-Haitham had been scrawling the results of their data, Kaveh at his left scribbling his own notes, their free hands entwined beneath the table.

At another point in time, these hands had steadied him after his incident in the desert. Grounded, assured—yet gentle, through it all. This time, as Al-Haitham falters, Kaveh reaches out first.

Kaveh whispers, “I’m here.”

And for the first time in days, Al-Haitham lifts his eyes, and sees him.

Later, after Kaveh thanks Lesser Lord Kusanali for her help, they sit together in the study in silence, the artifact lying between them innocently in its box. It no longer gives off the miserable energy it had when it was drenched in memories, rendered completely harmless after Nahida’s purification. 

They haven’t said anything since ushering their archon out the door. Kaveh works on some designs in his backlog, while Al-Haitham reads.

Kaveh tries his best to pretend like everything is back to normal, but eventually the quiet becomes too heavy to bear.

He broaches the topic as delicately as he can. “The…original memory in the Knowledge Capsule, of your grandmother...”

Al-Haitham doesn’t look up. “It was the last real conversation I had with her. Before…”

Kaveh dips his head in acknowledgement. Being her primary caretaker in the final years of her life, Al-Haitham must’ve had to witness the toll of age on his grandmother firsthand. Hands that grew too unsteady to hold a drafting pencil, and a deteriorating mind he could only watch erode from afar—Kaveh’s heart aches.

Al-Haitham understands, more than anyone, the permanent consequences of Kaveh’s trajectory.

“I’m sorry I said you didn’t care,” Kaveh says, the words coming out in a rush. “I know you do, but sometimes it would be…simpler, if you didn’t.”

“Simpler? Or easier on your conscience?” Al-Haitham doesn’t mince his words.

Kaveh grimaces. “When we fight, I say a lot of things I don’t really mean, because you say things that hurt me. And…I know you always mean it.”

Al-Haitham isn't always right, but his barbs are always rooted in a solid argument. That's what had made it so fulfilling, to debate with him, when they were students. And when they grew older, it had become the bane of Kaveh’s existence, the greatest strain on their relationship.

Al-Haitham lowers his gaze. “I suppose my interventions didn’t exactly…help the project along.” It’s the closest thing to an apology Kaveh has heard from him.

Kaveh draws a deep breath. “I won’t stop taking desert projects, because I really do care about the people there. It’s not just about my father anymore, even though it…might have been, originally.”

He can concede that much.

Setaria and Badawi, Sabbah and Candace, Nawaz and Granny Kulsoom...they all deserved the best that Kaveh had to give. And he might not know Sethos very well yet, but Kaveh already liked his good-natured demeanor and friendly conversation.

“I can’t promise that I’ll never overdo it again, because I’d be lying through my teeth and you’d see right through me,” Kaveh tries to smile, but it comes out as more of a grimace. “…I believed that since the sages looked down on me, I had to work twice as hard and twice as long. Make up for the lack of money, and lack of support, somehow, with my own failing hands. Every project became a defense, a fight to prove my worth.”

Kaveh flexes his fingers, rubbing his wrist gently. "And I keep paying for it."

Does he regret it? Kaveh has a feeling Al-Haitham wouldn't like his answer. “I won’t apologize for my past actions when defending my work, and I think you understand that it’s not something I can just magically solve by achieving a perfect work-life balance.”

On the other hand, there are things that Kaveh could have done better, too. Time tends to slip away from him, when he's focused on a project. There are simple preventative measures Kaveh would often be too absorbed in his work to remember to take.

“But I promise I’ll try my best. I’ll come back.” Kaveh thinks of the dying plants on his windowsill. “I won’t…purposefully make things harder on myself.”

Keep yourself healthy, he hears in his mother’s voice, even if you don’t believe in the viability of your own future.

“I’ll make time for the forest, to see Nilou’s shows and catch Cyno and Tighnari at game nights. We can sit in the study together and read, debate, cook dinner and wash dishes and do laundry. I’ll even let you pick out some furniture.” Kaveh smiles. "As an apology for being away for the past year."

“Do you mean it?”

Kaveh nods.

“You left, again,” Al-Haitham takes in a shaky breath. “But you came back.”

“I did.”

“You put your project on hold to come to the forest.” Al-Haitham remarks, with a hint of disbelief.

“Well, actually, I got my—but…yeah.”

“Then that’s enough for now.”

“Is it?” Kaveh smiles weakly.

Kaveh did not follow his father to Rtawahist, but in seeking out the source of his own guilt, he found echoes of his presence.

Kaveh is not his mother, but he has retraced her path in a few, important ways. He remembers the advice she had left for him long ago, scrawled between the pages of her notebook.

Instead of 'understanding', perhaps all we need is 'companionship.'

The guardians who raised him will forever guide his heart and hands, for better or worse. The people who will continue to shape him exist in both the forest and the desert, and there will always be room in his life for more. But what matters the most is in this moment, the people right in front of him.

In the present, Al-Haitham is here, and he is patient. Kaveh is lucky to be able to fill his life with so many people, but he is luckiest of all to have retained Al-Haitham's undivided attention for so long.

In the end, his ideals have carried him this far; but his companions are the ones who will continue to support him in the ways the industry fails to. 

With a sly grin, Kaveh holds up Al-Haitham's unsent letters he's been keeping in his pocket. 

“For the record, I missed you, too,” Kaveh mumbles, pulling Al-Haitham into a gentle kiss.