Chapter Text
This was wrong. Against all expectations, predictions and measures.
But this was a variable, as nothing could be called out to be assured on Teyvat; maybe it was a mean lie from the sky or the world during their research that led them astray.
Just that very morning they had woken up expectant for answers that would satisfy the goddess of Knowledge’s curiosity. The General had complied to braiding her hair into the desert’s style and made sure her white cloak was well tied before departing into the sands in high spirits. The stars told them where to go during the early morning, so they obeyed. Until their ground sunk and, thus, they fell.
Consecrated beasts were strong creatures, but they were also loners —as depicted on the records—. To have so much of them reunited and in such a violent state could only refer to an anomaly on the surrounding ley lines. This soon was revealed to her to be the cause, for the electro energy surrounding the area was asphyxiating her flow of dendro.
She had to get herself and her General out before the beasts noticed their fall.
She had to get herself and her General out, but, again, the electro energy surrounding the area was asphyxiating her dendro. She was a being of elemental nature and soon remembered which were those few opportunities where human beings were stronger than them. The electro, in other words, was asphyxiating her. And her General Mahamatra noticed it; his upbringing darshan too aware of the working of elements, him, a remarkably graduated scholar.
“My Lord” he stood in front of her, purposely covering her view from the angered scorpions, and knelt to look her in the eyes. “There’s an exit on the other side.”
There had to be another entrance aside from where they fell from, of course, it was too small a passage for those creatures to fit. She felt the tension slightly shove out of her shoulders, only for it to raise back tenfold.
“Cyno, I won’t allow any foolhardy decisions” she adverted with all the resolve she could muster along a trembling voice but her General barely blinked to this, entirely unfazed. “I might need a while to get used to this ambient but I can get us out of here” and this was true, but, her General knew so too.
“The conditions for adaptation, my Lord, are largely unfavorable right now” he bowed his head. “In this time, they could notice us as we wait and the end would be the same. I came to protect you and this I shall accomplish. So, please, hide here and be quiet.”
She wanted to shout back that he was being imprudent, just as she told him not to be. But that would result equally imprudent. So she stared with the same frustration that came when losing a deeply-cared for flower during fall season, as her General Mahamatra stood and turned against her in order to fight. She couldn’t stop him.
The electro from Cyno’s Vision outshone that of the consecrated scorpions as it armored him. The view made her relax again as she decided to think on the positive aspects of the situation; the electro flowing was positive for Cyno’s energy maintenance; the scorpions were attacking each other and taking them down as they were distracted with a different objective should result in reduced damage —they had lost all group preservation sense, had they had any to begin with—; the faster the electro activity deceased, the faster she could recover.
Still, she’s seen her General being dressed by his own Vision lots of times before, but never had seen him become this violent. Maybe because his opponents were not people but mindless (due to the ley lines’ interference) creatures. Before, she thought those small moments of solitude where the General mumbled to himself about a judgment yet-to-be-made were astonishing as the Scribe thought them stunning. Cyno was a rightful man, always conscious of consequences, and there was not a time in which she failed to rely her own faith on him.
The scorpions managed to blow and pin him down a couple of times, but they fell just as soon as Cyno got back onto his feet. As expected from the General Mahamatra.
By the time only three beasts remained standing, Nahida could breath again.
By the time she decided to head on and help, Cyno’s condition was undoubtedly critical as he kept on fighting without giving a second to calm his furious breathing. Had the ley lines managed to affect him too? Improbable but not impossible.
She couldn’t yet manifest her Court of Dreams, so she urged to visualize the scorpions and prayed for her scheme to work. Grow, grow, grow, please!…
Just as the dendro attached to the beasts, Cyno lunged against one and the resulting buzz went to affect the others. Yes! she beamed internally, not getting too close in favor of not making the General get conscious of her presence.
Soon all the beasts were finally defeated and, hopefully, the ley lines would turn back to normal due to the lack of activity. But as Nahida approached her General, he stood wary and armored, his sight still covered by his element.
“Cyno” she called his attention and the man turned on her direction right before falling to his knees. “Cyno!” she rushed forward.
“It seems… My judgment has failed…” he stared up to her as she took hold of his shoulders. His amber eyes shone gold. “Ru-” he chocked on air as his energy drained off, releasing him of the electro armor.
Nahida made a flowerbed before the General finally fell, him being too heavy for her to carry alone. She covered his wounds and took his hands to make sure his blood and elemental flow were stable before deciding to get out and back to Aaru village.
“There’s not a single scratch on me, you did no wrong” she declared as she made sure the entrance to the cave was clear. “But next time, I’ll see that you take your own safety into consideration.”
After all, wasn’t it absurd that an archon had to (still) be protected by her apostles?
As soon as they arrived, the guardian of the village, Candace, made no questions about what happened and went straight to take Cyno inside the new medical facility, regardless of the moon standing past midnight hours. It made sense, since Cyno had gotten unfairly cold. Of course it was to be expected, as a result from the chilling desert night, but since Nahida was too worried for returning soon, not getting lost into the endless sands, and not suffering temperature the same way humans did, it was a detail she overlooked during half the road.
She considered following the woman but resolved not to. Candace spared a room for them to use at night and should’ve been expecting their return sooner, if she wanted to speak or interrogate her it would be more comfortable for her to do so at home and without curious Akademiya witnesses. Nahida went back to the room in silence. There were three bowls of cold soup on the dining table and the bread was left untouched as she passed by.
It made her sigh with some relief to see that Cyno’s acquaintances outside the matra did care for him, considering how weary people had a tendency to be around the General. This, didn’t lessen her guilt.
Nahida was the archon of Sumeru, and, as such, she was the one meant to protect her people. Yes, to preserve and evolve their knowledge was a must, but who’s knowledge would be left there to encourage if she wasn’t able to grant them life first?
As she found herself alone in the room meant to be shared with her General, she resolved to clear her mind and think. Think, about where or when, exactly, things turned downhill.
Maybe it was cause of her own selfishness and impulsivity.
The stars that were signaling ‘towards a secret’ might have simply been pointing the ley lines anomaly out to her and she misunderstood them in favor of her hopeful delusions. Everybody makes mistakes.
She touched the flower lace that held her hair into twin braids. It took Cyno three tries to get them done right.
When they departed from the Sanctuary of Surasthana and the citizens’ minds were plagued by incredulity and amazement, instead of insecurity or precaution, Nahida had believed everything would be fine. Even her Grand Scribe’s last thoughts were coherent to his short “Enjoy yourselves” goodbye; his inner lament predictable ‘No other matra has such detailed writing technique, I hope they don’t take too long’ as the General turned his back on him.
She sighed again, more profusely this time.
There was no point in staring into the sky that night, as no prediction could solve what had already happened.
Candace’s letter on the situation had indeed arrived fast as she promised. As Alhaitham was waiting for them inside Cyno’s house.
The Scribe opened the door to allow them inside, his appearance collected and regal as always, but the undeservedly sharp-edged words he directed to the young Amurta scholar who took the General back home made his play falter even if just a bit. The scholar hurriedly bid his goodbyes and left as soon as the General was put to rest on his bed.
Nahida couldn’t blame her Scribe, not when the man’s thoughts were plagued by worry and confusion, leaving few place for enlightenment or reason. This was not the comeback they expected barely more than a week ago. How would it be?
Nahida now ruled over Sumeru as she should’ve been allowed to since the day she first opened her eyes, but unlike what her one-sided deliberations resolved, she found out the task not to be a lonely one. She had the Grand Scribe to help her manage Sumeru and the General Mahamatra to keep its inhabitants safe, even the Sages who kept discussing and debating each time they reunited, played their roles on keeping the Akademiya afloat finely. All of them stopped to hear whenever she spoke and none feared to speak their mind when necessary, something she was grateful for as it meant she soon quit confirming the veracity of their words.
Still, she sometimes came to use this method when caution came to be the wisest choice, even with her Scribe who spent most days by her side. The only person she absolutely refused doubting, happened to be the righteous General who spent way too much time in the desert; from Cyno, she had never needed a confirmation for the veracity of his statements, for the good intentions of his acts or even the logic behind his reasoning —if she did, then, she just had to ask and a detailed answer would be delivered—.
She had never ‘confirmed’ anything with him even when, at the beginning, she had fair reasons to doubt his loyalty. As Nahida was set free from the prior Sages’ will, she was also given the freedom of acting in regards to her own will. Said own will told her that Cyno had also been freed when the verdict against Azar was dictated and, imagining herself on his place, the man wouldn’t appreciate her (or anyone else) intruding inside his mind to predict or prevent his actions. The mere idea made her core sour.
Consequently, there was no human in Sumeru who Nahida had more trust put into than Cyno. Thus she asked him to take her to the desert where the golden sand covered life and history in depths too far from her reach and-
“My Lord… I have to ask, how did it come down to this?” as Alhaitham spoke, sitting at one edge of the bed, his eyes didn’t abandon Cyno’s form; staring at each bandage as if they were offending him, each an unfairly difficult puzzle.
“This was no ambush” led by humans, at least, “we went to explore the desert and found ourselves inside a pit corrupted by ley line’s overflow. The flow affected me severely and he protected me, as you can expect” as a Spantamad graduate, Cyno was apt to decide the actions to follow in such a situation, regardless of the result. “He is in stable physical condition, and formerly we couldn’t notice anything off about his elemental flow… But he won’t wake up” she almost apologized, but Alhaitham was in no position to blame or forgive her, and such he would say.
Two days she spent clearing any corruption that could dwell inside her General as the man slept peacefully —or so it seemed—. She waited one more day after the cleansing was done, but as Cyno failed to show improvements on his recovery, she decided to make an anticipated return.
Alhaitham finally looked to her.
“Can I assume you treated any elemental damage?”
“I did.”
“Then, what about the mind?”
Nahida lowered her gaze. She did check the consciousness of her General, finding that it was active, but she stopped just by the door of his thoughts. If there was any occasion worth her intervention, then this must be it… But she couldn’t open that door.
“Cyno is conscious to the point of hearing and feeling. Although he doubtfully can process any of it, as in a deeply anesthetized state.”
Alhaitham keep staring at her blankly, for quite a long time. Nahida didn’t need to read him to know he was judging her words, building possibilities and writing his conclusions. It was an habit of him and a process she found entrancing whenever she heard it. The Scribe nodded slowly.
“I understand” his voice was gentle, as gentle as it could fathom being on his state. “The last thing he’d want is for you to feel conflicted on his behalf, Lord Kusanali. I’ll look after him and his labor until you’re ready.”
The dendro archon blinked. Had she shared her thoughts unconsciously? No. Alhaitham was simply this much observant. He must have noticed her reserves towards the Mahamatra. The leads were probably written all over her face and posture anyway.
“Thank you” she complied although she hoped for the General to wake on his own.
“It’s my job to assist” the Scribe stated, back to his typical demeanor as he got up from the bed and gestured to a chair instead of the door. “Speaking of which, would you like me to undo those braids? They’re tangled and your hair might hurt soon if it doesn’t already.”
She hadn’t taken the time to remember about those. The care and gentleness on the General’s hands as he spoke of a companion from his teen days that teached him how to braid, and then reminding her that she should undo them before sleeping. She forgot, for she hasn’t slept since then. Maybe she could think better inside her dreams, more clearly for sure.
“Please do.”
Nahida walked up to the chair and Alhaitham followed. Cyno’s home was comfortably small and quite neutral in terms of decoration or signals to individual preferences, minus for the loads of Genius Invokation TCG paraphernalia that laid around; if she stopped to think about it, it wasn’t like the man spent much time off work and even during vacations he still chose to go out; this ‘tiny house’ seemed more like a ‘big treasure box’.
Every some time, as Alhaitham carefully detangled her hair, she looked in the bed’s direction and wondered if her General’s dreams would be as wonderful as his intakes on that game’s logic.
Her dreams were showered by bright lights coming from, apparently, different suns. Although there was no heat to fear, the roads were blinding, as walking on clouds rather than sand or grass. She was not able to see the path ahead, and barely her shadow allowed her to see where she came from.
They had gone, Kusanali and her General, to the desert because the Akademiya was implementing new infrastructures and educational programs over there that she wanted to observe personally. But things, first, had to calm down and she had a preference for the forest when wanting to elope from her new responsibilities even if just for a little while.
Then, the stars signaled a direction; the sky whispered to her in a song long forgotten; and the children’s tales stole her attention. The godly triad formed by the Lord of Sand, the Lord of Flowers and the Lord of Verdure. As much as the stories piqued her interest, she couldn’t find the correct feelings inside her upon hearing about them. She lacked yearning, longing or any disruption that should come along the reminiscence of something dear. The stories undoubtedly included her, but there was alienation from her mind to her memories, as they were settled long before she first remembers being awake.
To find the cause of this dissociation, she thought, the world led her into the sands.
She must not be so trustful of the world’s intentions next time.
The uneventful (in terms of projects’ supervision) visit to the desert and the sudden fall of the General Mahamatra made things become hectic once again. The matra were questioning about their leader’s condition daily and resorting to ask the Grand Scribe about any doubt they might have, that Cyno should have been attending. The meetings with the Sages went unusually fast, as a looming sense of inquietude kept them from their usual bickering —which Cyno’s interference would usually break down with his humor, to evade having them trail off into meaningless speeches—. The silence was worst than the arguments, for they also were curious about what occurred but feared to ask.
Alhaitham, increasing the amount of unusual attitudes, took most of the speaking into his ‘tasks’.
Hearing the Scribe speak was enlightening but not entertaining —in fact, she got tired of his tranquil explanations by the third meeting—. The Sages thinking about the missing presence on the room were making her guilt return, for she was the one to appoint Cyno into their meetings as the matra was not to be left out of the planning anymore. Every decision she made was in the pursuit of her people being clear and open about everything and, now, even Nahida kept her mouth shut; all distaste silenced.
The General Mahamatra would be disappointed.
Her dreams couldn’t bring her the usual comfort, as nothing she did could make the blinding light tune down. She could escape from it, but it wouldn’t disappear, always present on the background.
“Buer” the wanderer found her on the Divine Tree’s gazebo one night. “To mourn for humans is not a task fit the gods.”
His voice and posture were harsh, but his eyes showed opposite intentions.
“One cannot mourn for something that still has to leave” she countered. “And my General’s time is not close to an end.”
“Then, what is it that scares you this much? To the point of not helping him wake up.”
If even he came to notice, then Nahida wasn’t as publicly nonchalant as she hoped.
“The entrance to his mind is sealed” and she could’ve broken the seal and intruded, but this would equal her betraying his trust. “As a son of the desert, I do wonder if Cyno actually has the same faith on me as I harbor for him.”
Never stepping into his mind, meant Nahida was only aware of what Cyno decided to share with her. The more she searched through her memories, the less open he seemed to be, at least, when topics touched the past.
The wanderer uncrossed his arms and searched for something inside his belt.
“Your Scribe asked me to see over the General today, as he’s been getting restless” he presented a small object to her, ignoring how easily his words could be pointed out as a lie for Alhaitham wouldn’t allow even the medics to replace him on his caretaker duties. “I found this inside one of his decks, which seemed strange, considering how much he treasures those cards of his” Nahida must’ve shown her surprise. “I enjoy sparring with him, but he’s also offered to teach me how to play so I was researching” he explained.
“Sure” the archon couldn’t help her smile as she accepted the object.
It was a sundial. A crafty little thing that Cyno had explained he uses for finding his path during sandstorms when skies, too, turn gold. So, the General guarded the black-and-gold sundial with much care as his cards. Who would have thought?
She turned it around as her fingertips felt slits. There, it read; The king shall, in wisdom, revive the golden past.
The wanderer was already gone as she looked up to thank him. The sundial may seem like any other relic from the desert’s ruins, but it harbored a special meaning to the General Mahamatra and, in all truth, it resembled a ‘clue’.
Or maybe, even, a ‘key’.
A month had passed since the Mahamatra last opened his eyes and things were running a tad too fast, at least, for a being that spent five hundred years in quietness.
The matra were growing nervous by themselves as new recruits shared the discomfort of their elders even without knowing the cause. Cyno had been the most prolific General in Sumeru’s history, and some of those who worked with him were starting to doubt the motives of the Scribe for keeping him secluded, or, in other words, keeping him alive and inactive. They would become dangerous sooner than later and they would do so in stance of someone who probably would disapprove their actions (not so much their reasoning).
Citizens who thought Cyno was still at the desert, as his condition was reserved, were starting to bet on his whereabouts; mostly those who enjoyed playing TCG with him at the Puspa Café and missed a ‘valuable opponent’ during their lunch breaks. And the general feeling of unsafety, due to the Corps of Thirty joining the matra in expeditions outside the city to supply the lack of their Mahamatra, became stronger than that of misplaced freedom.
The Forest Watcher, Tighnari, had paid his own visit in secret and confirmed that Cyno’s state wasn’t critical but the numbness he’d have to deal with after waking up —no matter the regular exercises Alhaitham practiced to keep muscles active— would relent him out of work for more time than the man could appreciate.
Nahida’s hopes were crumbling but she still refused to cross that door. That is, until her Scribe spoke one afternoon as they were sharing coffee in solitude while attending to some paperwork.
“I miss him” Alhaitham would mutter, looking towards the casement that Cyno would usually take seat at, staring at the sun.
A quiet comment that made her realize she, too, missed her General.
And it was nonsensical, thus unfit the goddess of Knowledge, to not try to solve the feeling.
She hugged the sundial to her chest as she went to sleep that night.
The dreamland was a purely cognitive space, built from memories, feelings and assumptions.
Those of the first kind could bring a person back to the happiest or most terrible moment of their life in the spawn of a ten minutes nap. The second usually carried the current situation along, if there was physical discomfort, it would somehow translate into the dream situation —like being trapped in a obscure or small room, or, being hugged by a raspy sponge—. The third kind could make one suffer a recurrent event that people of Fontaine titled ‘déjà vu’, if their slumbering predictions came to concreteness.
Nahida had an almost complete domain of the dreamland (at least in regards of her own dream-space), thus, she set her mind towards the goal of finding her General’s feelings. In the blindness that still covered the path ahead the clock still generated a shadow, so, the forest’s child walked towards the sun with its guidance; further and further away from her domain.
Then remembers hearing once; the three Lords were not close to each other for their purposes didn’t match, but, none had any meaning to exist without the others. A contradictory symbiosis. They shared a vision for the future and tried to build it into reality. Thus, they had always been there for the other in times of need.
Night after night, the Lord of Verdure followed the sun.
Nahida started to visualize the ground below her feet on the third ‘day’. When maybe ten minutes had passed.
The archon of dendro feared the desert for the nature of it was too afar from her own, but, at the same time knew that it beheld any answers she could conceive about her origin; for the birth of life originated from dust and to it shall life return.
It came to be expected, that when one of the God-Kings fell, the others would follow sooner or later.
The Lord of Flowers fall led her friends to grieve and continue living with heavy hearts. The Lord of Sand succumbed to loneliness and his people kept on hurting on his stead. The Lord of Verdure tried helping those people for the memory of their old times and, in exchange, lost herself.
This was, in theory, the source of Nahida’s forgotten past. Whichever price she had to pay to maintain the desert alive made her stop being the great archon from the myths of old and the forest people resented her for this, during five hundred years.
Then came the ‘night’ when stars finally replaced the sun. She was in the desert.
She kept following the sundial up to a ruin’s entrance. There awaited the same door she had found protecting Cyno’s mind, the same one she refused to force open, the one she hoped the small sundial could unlock. Nahida offered the artifact to the ruins and, soon, it was accepted.
The archon stepped in carefully, thrilled to discover that a deep feeling of cold surrounded her General’s mind, alongside a thin cloud of electro that covered the ceilings like a forming storm —or, a different barrier—. She breathed in deep, as unnecessary as the action came to be, before starting to walk into the ruins.
The ruins were, predictably, shaped as a labyrinth.
How was her honest and gentle General Mahamatra able to build up such strong defenses?
Was he… actually hiding from her? Everyone knew she could tell what people thought, after all.
With no sundial around, Nahida choose to practice the old method of always following the same side on interjections. There were no traps and the storm above her head wasn’t active. Regardless, she felt observed.
There were more doors on the road, filled with memories.
She stopped to peek into one where the legendary Lisa Minci read a bedtime story to a younger Cyno as academic work was weighing heavy on them. She felt her shoulders relax as the reminiscences laughed by a way-too-sudden change of style in the narration that children would love but for youngsters like them seemed too nonsensical a decision.
This foreign happy memory, though, was not what the archon was searching for.
As the archon intruded deeper into the maze, the storm above seemed to break down but, aside from the lighting and increasing humidity, no raindrops fell and no sound was heard. The feeling of electro was worryingly real, almost physical, but it was blocked by something… Nahida had ventured in the dreams of some of her people after the deactivation of the Akasha system, but no other cognitive space had been as troubled and stuffed as this —others were like her first attempts, devoid of logic and lacking inspiration—.
There was a corridor with no doors, until that one at the very end.
Nahida pushed a button on the side, similar to those down the old ruins, and it opened with no setbacks. There was light (no that purple one from the storm) and a silhouette on the middle of the ‘room’. It was an open desert again.
She walked up to the figure in the middle of the room only to realize that it wasn’t a lone one and, most impressing, that the typical headpiece with jackal ears was not worn by her General. Her steps grew quieter as she approached.
“Child” she stopped upon hearing the unfamiliar voice, “why won’t you wake up? Can’t you see that the forest awaits for you?” the figure turned their face around and looked towards the archon. “Great Lord of Verdure, I can only apologize for not prostrating to you right now, after your long road to find us.”
Nahida blinked.
This seemed to be the place she was looking for, but this wasn’t the person she was looking for. A conscious entity inside a conscience. Apparently, the priest everyone kept theorizing about at the Akademiya. What a wonderful thing.
“There’s no need” upon the person’s nod, she resumed her walk to see the other figure resting on their lap. “Oh” there was Cyno, sleeping even inside his mind.
Nahida knelt in front of the priest and her General. Cyno looked small, as he actually was, and harmless, which was a great misconception.
“I’ve been trying to wake him up, just like that Scribe” the priest spoke. “I’ve never found him to be this mulish about anything aside our mission.”
“What mission?”
“Protecting Sumeru” a firm and direct answer.
“I must thank you, then…” Nahida laded her head.
“… If you’re asking for a name, I shall apologize again. It’s been long since I’ve forgotten.”
Despite her curiosity, the archon nodded, for she could empathize with that situation.
“You were there when this happened” the archon started, placing a hand upon Cyno’s forehead. “Did you notice the cause?”
The priest shifted uncomfortably, at least, their shoulders did, growing stiff.
“I might be the one to fault, to an extent. I was incautious to speak through him whilst we fought” the priest’s stare grew concerned, “and I must request you not to ask what I’ve said.”
“Why not?” she kept her voice firm, indicating that she needed to know. The priest shook their head.
“You must understand, there are things this world wants to forget. I’ve cut my ties to it long ago and should not interfere… It was my mistake, I was too contented to see you again, but I won’t commit the same mistake twice” the priest bowed their head. “Please, I know only you to be able to do this… Erase his memories from that cave and don’t look into them. If this was punishment, he’s being condemned in my stead.”
Nahida heard the plea and couldn’t refuse, still, she wondered out loud.
“Even if you can’t tell your own name, you remember mine from when I was greater, don’t you?” the priest made no motion to answer. “It’s fine, I won’t ask. It simply amazes me to find new ways of saving knowledge” she hurried to explain.
“That sounds like you” the priest finally seemed to relax and their attention went back to the sleeping man.
“If this is punishment, you think erasing the reason for it will truly wake him up?” the priest lost no time to confirm. “It’s a very strange logic.”
“When Cyno got promoted to General Mahamatra, we studied cases from the past and found that some resolutions were either unfounded or invalid. It truly bothered us to investigate again cases long called to an end, but a dozen out of them were null and we freed those people. We promised them their wasted time would be compensated and not brought back up… It took us a while for them to believe us.”
“I see” Nahida smiled and placer her free hand over Cyno’s heart. “You two seem to have built a beautiful place here.”
“We thank you. My boy here was as unable to dream as the rest of your people when we met, so we made the most out of our resting time.”
Despite the great curiosity that the formulation of a shared cognitive space brought her, Nahida knew she couldn’t prolong her interrogation as she felt the nearing time to wake up. She nodded to the priest and promised them;
“As I leave, you won’t be alone here anymore.”
Then, she put her mind in searching for those last active memories to erase.
“Of course you would say that” the priest hummed as the archon closed her eyes. “I thank you now, for chasing that mute storm away from our palace.”
Nahida woke up in Alhaitham’s arms. They were strolling up the streets in the too early morning and the Scribe smiled slightly to her as he noticed her eyes open.
“How did it go?” the man asked but his steps never faltered.
“Let’s ask him” she decided to answer, for there was no other place they could’ve been directing to.
Cyno’s tiny house received them with the usual warmth and a groggy voice mumbling nonsense, that is, until;
“Who touched my decks?” the General Mahamatra was sitting cross legged on the floor of his room, entirely focused on inspecting his TCG cards. Medical white didn’t suit him too well, as his hair matched his clothes.
Nahida had to contain her laughter upon taking just a glimpse of the happiness her Scribe was experimenting. Still, a happy sound managed to escape from her mouth and it called the sitting man’s attention. Cyno wasn’t startled by their presence, or maybe he just wasn’t ready yet to be too physically expressive.
“Lord Kusanali, Grand Scribe” he gestured for them to get closer and Nahida jumped out of Alhaitham’s arms to race there.
“How’re you feeling?” she asked, taking seat beside him.
“My calendar tells me I’ve been out for over a month, and I feel that to be true. But I find myself curious as to how it happened.”
“The ley lines affected you severely” the archon lied, directly and honestly, for the first time in front of Cyno. “I, too, thought it would only come to affect beings like me; but you’re a Vision wielder. We had to investigate for a solution, but it was easy, on the end.”
The General Mahamatra looked —stared— at her for a while, as if he could sense the lie but didn’t dare to call his archon upon it. He blinked and something seemed to go into his mind, for his frown disappeared as he nodded.
“I don’t seem to remember how things went precisely” he admitted, to Nahida’s relief. “Still, this means I must thank you for bringing me back and, also, I must apologize.”
“Cyno, there’s no-”
“I must” oddly enough, he had to cough right after interrupting her. Alhaitham’s faint steps directed to the kitchen. “I promised to show you some golden scarabs and we found none, I’m sure. I wouldn’t have forgotten that.”
“Oh” she entirely forgot about such a promise, but it was made indeed, as her hair was being braided. Probably his current last memory was that of them departing from Aaru. “We’ll search for them in a different occasion, there’s no need to be sorry.”
“Cyno, here” Alhaitham walked back to them and knelt to offer the General a glass of water which the smaller man gladly accepted.
“Thank you” then his frown came back, “Alhaitham.”
The Scribe seemed to want to say something, probably along the lines of ‘it’s my duty’ but, of course, this didn’t count into any of his duties. The taller man remained there, watching intently as Cyno drank the water, as if contemplating a miracle.
Nahida thought, suddenly, if something about the past had changed, if a bit more of sincerity and passion was shared between them; would the three Lords had been able to escape their lonesome demise?
“Alhaitham here has been taking care of you as you were unconscious” Nahida decided to inform and the General almost chocked on the water.
The Scribe hurried to hold the General’s back and, when Cyno looked up to him, a deep red ran up their faces.
Nahida advised that Cyno was able to both, hear and feel; the priest sure did and, by extension, the owner of the body must retain some ghost memories from the time. The archon smiled as the Scribe took the General’s left hand into his and Cyno’s astonishment switched into affection.