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Imagine that the world is ending. What do you see? Is it breaking in two?
Maybe there is fire, and there is smoke. The land cracks open and thrusts fistfuls of magma out, rejecting itself, fiery cannonballs of plasma formed from the usually loving hands of the planet. When the birds flee, there is nowhere to run, the sky imploding upon itself and crackling into pieces. The ocean surges, angry, roiling, a wide expanse of boiling sea foam and waves that could smash mountains open. Teyvat is upset, and it hurts, and it protests, and Celestia reaches down with reckless fingers and expunges the threat.
In actuality, the apocalypse is very quiet. It is beautiful. If there were any way to die, this would probably be it. But it is at Celestia's hands because if there were anyone who had secrets dire enough to kill over, it would be the gods.
Instead of fire, a vine trickles over the ground. Instead of sirens and screams and the cacophony of a world disturbed, there is only the ancient creaking and groaning of the soil, of rock, its layers shifting to make way for intruders and roots. At its very heart, the trunk of Sumeru and the epicenter of innovation and decay, a tree flexes its feet in the ground and shoots up. Before it, the sky parts.
Imagine that the world is ending, and the apocalypse is upon you, but it is very graceful and it is gentle and you cannot tell that you are suffocating until sleep is upon you. Who do you turn to first?
In Sumeru, the streets are quiet. There is a kind of resignation that comes with the burden of knowledge, and everybody who knows anything in this city knows there is no hope. Perhaps in other nations, they are crying. In Sumeru, there is only celebration.
The sky itself is tinged with sorrow. Homes light up from within, warm light cascading from windows and shadows adorning the glass. Embracing and embracing and embracing. When Al-Haitham walks down the street he sees two people holding each other as if they will die with it.
The tavern is full of people and sound. Some are slumped on the ground and they will be asleep when the sun cracks itself open. Others, in large parties of people, some still wearing their Akademiya robes, most of their faces bejeweled with tears of awareness, clink their glasses in the last cheers of their lives.
A stray cat lying on the sun-warmed pavement of the street gets up when it catches sight of a large rope of rough green in its peripherals, and it bats at the plant. In response, it curls up as if to reach out, and the cat mewls and darts away.
Al-Haitham walks on.
Street merchants with carts decked out in flowers set aside their signs and offer bouquets to anybody who will walk by. Some are abandoned, stray petals decorating the floor around them, presumably left behind in search of the merchant's loved ones.
In the halls of the Grand Bazaar, a theatre troupe performs their last dance on the stage of Zubayr Theater. An audience watches their last performance. In the House of Daena, scholars crack open books frantically when their Akasha terminals stop responding, and they whisper theories about the Goddess of Flowers and of karmic retribution and repentance.
The sages, elsewhere in the Akademiya, sit in grim resignation.
In the Sanctuary of Surasthana, a god left unattended to the whims of nature, overgrown and shaking with a terrible energy, pulses and trembles in her chains. Waves of viridescent energy emit from her chest, from the hollow cavity that once housed a heart but now only cultivates resentment. What else happens to love when you leave it to rot and bruise?
It is not her fault. It is not her fault. Nobody will know, because they will all be dead.
Imagine that the world is ending. Who do you turn to first?
For Al-Haitham, there is only Kaveh.
If Al-Haitham were a different person, then maybe he would try to stop it. For the greater good, as Kaveh would say. But he is Al-Haitham. The risk of spending his last breaths fighting an enemy with no arms or legs or face but only suffering is not possibly worth the moments he could spend in Kaveh's arms.
It is a very special kind of sentimental that he does not voice very frequently, but then again, it is not often that the world ends.
And so, with that in mind, he walks past the Akademiya and its open doors, past the people crying on the street and the countless toasts to friends, and when he gets to his door it is unlocked already.
As soon as he passes the threshold, Kaveh is there. As if he cannot stop himself, he reaches out to touch Al-Haitham, ghosting his hands over his body as if he is ephemeral.
"You are here."
"I am," Al-Haitham says simply, and Kaveh sighs out a breath, relaxing. He tugs him away from their parlor, where Al-Haitham stops mindlessly to shake off his shoes as if tracking dirt into the house matters when everything will be overgrown in flora soon enough.
"I am sure you have heard of the news. It is you," Kaveh says. Al-Haitham only nods in response. Kaveh's Akasha terminal sits abandoned on their table; he must have figured out that when the land began to decay, so did the system managing it. Al-Haitham's terminal has long been modified to protect his mind. Kaveh's only gets used when he wants to bother Al-Haitham through its communication channels.
"Of course. It was inevitable."
Kaveh scoffs and leans against the wall, kicking one foot over the other. "Damn sages. Never know their limits because there's no higher power to set them for them—oh wait, there is, they only stuck her in a cage and expected that she wouldn't turn her punishment onto them, fucking us all over in the process."
"'We'll all learn their lesson," Al-Haitham says dryly, and Kaveh barks out a laugh, shaking his head immediately after.
"Archons, don't make jokes about our demise, you morbid man," Kaveh complains, but it doesn't seem to bother him what with the way he hauls himself up and takes Al-Haitham by the hand, leading him out to their living room. "Help me out."
Together, the two of them push the table out of the way, leaving a large clearing. With quick feet, Kaveh rushes to their room to grab his music player. Fiddling with the machine, he gets it to play something, a recording that the band Nilou's troupe dances with had created.
"What are you doing?" Al-Haitham asks amusedly when Kaveh's hand finds his waist, drawing him close and then swaying side to side.
"Dense idiot," Kaveh says, his breath brushing Al-Haitham's ear with their proximity.
"Right," Al-Haitham says, and then he gently removes Kaveh's hands to link them around his neck, pulling him close by the hips. He doesn't dance—he didn't know Kaveh was interested, otherwise he would have complied earlier—but it's easy enough to move back and forth gently to the rhythm of the music. The lilt of the song washes over them, cascading eighth notes tripping over themselves.
Kaveh sighs against his chest, leaning his face against Al-Haitham. Like this, it is easy to forget the growing wildlife around them, surging up in such great volume that it begins to swallow everything whole.
Al-Haitham imagines that from the outside, their silhouettes paint a dashing figure through the warm light. Maybe from afar, with the flowers reaching their evergrowing hands into their home, it is even beautiful.
The song drifts into a minor key. Mournful. Haunting. Kaveh's feet, leading the two of them this way and that all over their living room, are less sure. When he swallows Al-Haitham can feel his throat work.
Outside, the sun has hit its peak. At this time of the day it shares the sky with the moon. They're fighting, each wanting to make a lasting impression on the eyelids of the people. Closer than they have ever been before, Al-Haitham imagines that none of the Rtawahist scholars had predicted this cosmic activity.
Sumeru's divine tree is now so large that its shadow begins to blot itself over the city. It grows and grows and grows. Under its aching shade, people fall to their knees. Only now that divinity has wielded its true power do the people of Sumeru prostrate. Only now that Celestia has lifted its sword do the people beg for Kusanali's mercy.
In the villages, leaves choke the ground and cover the paths. The waterways flood with algae. The forest is the first to go, running rampant with flora. From above, the foliage all blends.
Al-Haitham doesn't want to know how the melody ends. The chromaticism makes him uneasy. When he slows, Kaveh does too, allowing him to put their macabre waltz to a halt.
Al-Haitham looks out the window. Kaveh draws in a breath, and then he sighs it out, retaining his hold on him. "You want to see, don't you?"
Fascination has no room for gruesomeness, for cruelty. If he lives a life in which the world must end, then he will watch it end on his terms. He has never closed his eyes to the curious.
When he nods, Kaveh sets his shoulders in response and walks with him to the door, grabbing his sketchbook on the way out. "Then we will go."
Out on the street, the celebration has yet to cease, though it is quieter. The scholars slump over their cups, diluting their wine with tears. The cast on stage makes their last bows to thunderous applause. Above all of them the sky creaks.
A child tosses a coin into a well. Her wish goes recognized and unanswered. Flowers bloom tenfold, bursting from their shells in a bleak replication of life born anew. When they blossom from their leaves, revealing their shades to the sky, they do not stop, their insides and guts spilling out grotesquely.
A Statue of the Seven, its cloak and cloud-seeking hands held out in offering, is overgrown in green. Vines loop around it in an embrace and it falls.
Al-Haitham and Kaveh are already near the top of the city, their house neighboring the Akademiya. They do not have to travel much farther to make it to a decent vantage point of the city.
As far as apocalypses go, it is a delicate one. Birthed by the land and nurtured by its soil, the world succumbs again to its eternal ruler. From the very top, Al-Haitham can see how the lower part of the city has been completely swathed in plants. They move faster the more of it there is like a body turned inside out. When he inhales, so does the mass, trembling in shaky breaths and releasing them in a steady rhythm. Living and breathing.
"Don't get too close to the edge," Kaveh warns, holding one arm over Al-Haitham's chest. "Talk about an untimely demise. 'Scholar hurtles off the edge of balcony watching his death consume him.'"
Al-Haitham gives him an amused look. "How cheerful. Time and place, Kaveh, time and place."
Kaveh shrugs and flips open his sketchbook. "Whatever. You know me. Be quiet, now, I'm busy."
Al-Haitham rolls his eyes but obliges, settling back to watch Kaveh get to work. Kaveh sits, so he does too, lowering himself onto the ground and letting the other rest his weight on him. When Kaveh rests, the vision at his waist clinks softly as it hits the marbled floor. It's a cruel reminder of the landscape in front of them and a cruel reminder of human audacity and human ambition, two things often mistaken for each other. In their desire for control, they had created the uncontrollable. Mere weeds in the face of roots that seek to plunder their bodies for what had been taken from them.
Across Sumeru, the vividity is startling. The wild grows, sounds of grass rustling and the wind whistling a cheery tune at odds with the quiet panic thrumming through the veins of the city. It is tall and thick and lush and more beautiful than Al-Haitham has ever seen, even as someone who doesn't put much stock into aesthetics. In the beauty there is paranoia. In the paranoia there hides resignation.
The sun should not still be this high at this time of day. The moon with its merciless slivers cuts a clean line through the horizon. When he had checked earlier, they had not been this close. Now it is as if they are drawn together by invisible strings, inexorable in their mission and unsympathetic. Celestia, with its hands in the skies, dips down from the heavens to compress the clouds together, juggling the sun and moon like children's toys on its fingers in such deft motions Al-Haitham can almost imagine it. Unsmiling face and fingernails curved like knives.
The sky cracks like an egg over Teyvat. If someone were to shoot an arrow into the air, the sun would bleed. The sky is… the sky is much too close. With the sea of flora rising beneath them and the ceiling with its impenetrable roof of clouds remaining steadfastly stubborn, the people of Teyvat will drown.
The sky is fake, some people would say. Rumors are not common in Sumeru, but by travelers and word of mouth, this is the one theory that holds water in the nation. The stars are but decorations pinned up by Celestia. Nobody realizes they are in a cage when they are inside of it.
The Divine Tree longs for divinity. Its branches reach for the sky. Within its crown, nestled like an ornament, Kusanali awaits her ascension.
Kaveh's drawing is coming along. He sketches quickly in rough motions, broad strokes and lithe flicks of the hand. On the paper, Al-Haitham can make out Sumeru from a distance, the tree rising above the forest and the spiraling sky behind it. Larger than life, it seeps back into the ground, a reverse of the destruction the sages had wrought upon the planet.
When Kaveh's hand rests and he looks up again, Al-Haitham is staring at the sky. He tilts his head up, copying his mannerism.
"It is strange, isn't it," Kaveh muses. "As if it is pressing down upon us. When I breathe the air is thick." He glances at Al-Haitham. "You want to go higher, don't you?"
"Yes," says Al-Haitham, "but if you do not want to, then I will not go."
Kaveh snorts. "Now it is a challenge. We will go if you want to. I do not mind. It will all be over soon anyway; it does not matter if we are by the ground or the sky. In the end, not even the scholars could outrun their fate."
"If only you were always this insightful. Too many of your words go wasted."
Kaveh shoves him but not hard enough to make him topple over, looking away in disgust. "Not even in our last moments will you hold your tongue. I'm not sure what I expected."
Despite his words, he helps Al-Haitham up anyway, and they set off to the highest point of the city.
Sumeru City's streets are too convoluted for their good. Long and winding, they go against every claim for instantaneous knowledge that the Akademiya has worked toward all these years. For a nation that prizes conciseness, its capital is surprisingly romantic. Perhaps it was designed by people like Kaveh and it is a triumph in its own right.
For all its unnecessary complications, it allows Kaveh and Al-Haitham to take their time through the city, arm in arm. Kaveh clings to Al-Haitham as he usually does when they go shopping every week. Like this, it is easy to pretend that they are taking a lazy weekend as tourists to their home.
"We've almost run out of the good coffee beans," Kaveh says.
Maybe it is an attempt at normalcy, or maybe the overwhelming green is starting to get to Kaveh. Either way, Al-Haitham responds.
"Only you think they are good, and that is because they were the most expensive beans you could find on the market. They taste no different than the ones I have always bought."
"To you, maybe," Kaveh says, rolling his eyes. "But you have never paid attention to detail in the things that matter. Who cares about all your musty old books and the languages that no one will ever speak? Be honest, Al-Haitham, with whom are you planning to practice those ancient runes? The only people who could understand you are boring old scholars, and even then the conversation they make would lull you right to sleep."
"Kaveh," Al-Haitham says, strangely defiant, "there are very few I can stand to talk to, and that includes you and me. Do you really think I learn for any other reason than for myself?"
Kaveh sighs, defeated. "I guess not. Still, it would do you some good to put some practice into appreciating art. Life. A hobby outside of your manuscripts. The kind of enjoyment that comes from your favorite coffee beans and the afternoon sunlight and summer freckles."
"I think I have studied that adequately enough," Al-Haitham says, looking at him and meaning Kaveh, but Kaveh must take it differently because he frowns and looks off in the same direction, utterly ignorant to the fact that Al-Haitham is referring to him.
"Hm? The horizon? A basic answer, even for you. Try again."
Al-Haitham shakes his head in endearment and lets it go. A strange kind of longing has taken root in his chest. He is almost unable to diagnose it with how unfamiliar he is with the sensation.
But he is sick for it, for a mundane life, for Kaveh's coffee breath and their tangled silk sheets and Kaveh sitting across from him for their meals, their feet entangled underneath the table. How tragic that the moment it is most desired it must be ripped out of needy hands.
It is difficult to ignore the stench of flowers now. Rich and perfumey, it wafts over the entire city, so dense it is almost visible. Sickening in its scent. In the tails of the smell, there lies a current of rot, hinting at mold and browning leaf. It is the natural stench of decomposition. Growing too quickly and dying twice as fast, the plants make their presence known. With this rate of death, oxygen is siphoned out of the air much more quickly than usual.
The vegetation seeps through the cobblestone of the city streets. The moss has always been there, but now it creeps over everything, blanketing the entire stone in viridian shades. The streets are lost to the flora. It begins to sneak up the buildings of the city, homes overtaken in lush and flower. Blooms blossom along the walls as if screaming to make their voice heard. If they moved just a little faster, they could reach out and touch Kaveh and Al-Haitham.
They walk a little quicker. And then they are there.
The Sanctuary of Surasthana beats like a heart. The sages had never been clear on what exactly they were sanctioning in their so-called Sanctuary of Surasthana. Now that they are here, though, there are whispers of a god and of her captivity and five hundred years of starvation, handing her crumbs of bread through the bars of a cage.
Kaveh doesn't seem too interested in the jail, however, settling back down on the ground, and for once Al-Haitham lets it go. Instead, he closes his eyes and focuses on the moment. His hand on Kaveh's thigh. The feeling of his chest expanding and contracting with every breath. Kaveh's silhouette, a golden imprint stamped onto his eyelids even when they are closed.
Here the air is thicker. For a little bit, they have escaped the smell of rot, and even the overwhelming stench of blossoms fades into the background.
The forest is closer. They have either sunken or it has risen to meet them. From above, the sky presses down, an indomitable reminder of fate's fickle mind. The sun and the moon grow ever closer. Al-Haitham thinks that at some point they will eclipse each other, and for a few moments, when the world has been plunged into darkness, they will remember how to forget the anguish. What you cannot see, you do not fear. A shapeless god strikes no loyalty in its followers' hearts. Only when it takes form is its power revered by the people.
Each second that the sun remains hanging in its unrightfully stolen place sends the world into tiny increments of unease. Like this, the animals cannot sleep, and when they move about, the forest seems alive.
The waves of an ocean lap the shore with greedy tongues. The metaphorical swell of the foliage clings when it latches onto the waterside, and like that it encroaches on land. Every second that passes is another bit of Teyvat lost. In the face of this truth, Al-Haitham closes his eyes to it only to find that they are already shut.
Somehow, without falling asleep, Al-Haitham has succumbed to slumber. He jerks to wakefulness, blinking and looking about. When he locates Kaveh his heart calms again. "Kaveh," he says.
Kaveh is still hunched over his sketchbook. The sketch is of Al-Haitham, staring out to the horizon, his proud back and distinctive shoulders. "You make the end of the world look beautiful," Kaveh says, straightening. "I suppose I am done. If that is the last work of art I will ever create, then I will be happy that it is you."
"Kaveh," Al-Haitham says again, urgency entering his tone. While they had been sitting, the vines had crawled over to them, sneaking over their feet and legs quietly and chaining them to the balcony. Kaveh blinks down at the flora all around them, uncomprehending. "Kaveh."
This close, it is hard to dismiss its beauty. There are shiny large leaves in the shape of arrowheads and bursts of small flowers in dizzying shapes that look like stars. Some ways away from him, there is a patch of glorious red flowers, rearing their mighty heads like wildcats. By Kaveh's feet, an entire tiny forest has grown, stubby trunks and little canopies creating a patch of shade the size of his splayed-out hand.
With such a ferocious hold on their bodies, the plants are managing to tear the two apart. When Al-Haitham tries to struggle to his feet the vines prove to be as strong as chains. They bend to the sharp end of his sword like rubber. Across from him and now a fingertip's worth of length out of touch, Kaveh goes through similar motions, trying and failing to escape his restraints.
"Al-Haitham—you—" Stretched out like this while Kaveh reaches his arm over the space between them to grasp fruitlessly at his responding hand, he looks desperate. "If the world ever ended, I was supposed to be with you."
"I am here, I am here," Al-Haitham repeats mindlessly, his arm aching at its socket with how far he is leaning. Despite all of his effort, the plants are moving him and Kaveh away from each other, two solitary islands in an ocean that moves without the intention of letting their shores touch.
The sky, somehow, is cracking open. The sky is fake . The Divine Tree, in its incessant climb for Celestia, has broached the borders. Its overreaching branches break something up in the heavens with a splintering noise. Beneath its rough edges, there shines something that looks like the gaping maw of a chasm. Miasma twists and folds in oily, viscous waves. Where the edge of the sky bends it looks molten and runny as if it is a sweltering day and the heat waves are distorting his vision. A contract with fatal consequences. A secret not for mortal eyes.
"Reach farther," Kaveh says, urgency leaking into his voice. "Al-Haitham— Al-Haitham—"
"Kaveh!" His muscles ache with the exertion. Sweat coats his palms and soaks through his gloves. Faintly, Al-Haitham can hear ripping noises as he struggles his way to reach Kaveh's outstretched fingers. If they could only just touch hands as the sky descended in fury and the flora rose in rage, he would let the world end. If only it were Kaveh he was with, the nation could go up in flames and he would close his eyes to the destruction.
Kaveh slips a little further out of his reach. The plants are actively moving now, pushing with all their might to separate the two of them. He can feel them squirming over his legs and feet and hips.
When Kaveh closes his eyes the next time, a tear slips out from beneath his eyelid, making its way down his cheek. In response, Al-Haitham's heart roars and rages, helpless in the face of grief. His vision, the encapsulation of all his ambition, pulses and glows brighter than it ever has in his life.
Once, Al-Haitham had sworn to himself to never let any of Kaveh's tears go unwiped. With him around, Kaveh would have no reason to cry, and if he were to, for some unknown reason, then Al-Haitham would be there to catch it before it fell. Today is the first day his promise will go broken.
The world is getting darker. At first, Al-Haitham thinks it's his vision giving out after so much strain on his body. He ignores it, struggling further toward Kaveh.
Kaveh opens his eyes, and now the tears flow freely, his mouth wrenched open in a wretched sort of plea that is covered up by the noise of vines scraping against each other in a vicious onslaught of constant sound.
Al-Haitham thinks he may be crying too. Their hands slip a little further apart. He cannot recognize his voice. "Please, please—"
A snow-white petal drifts between the two and settles somewhere in front of them. The roiling ocean of foliage in the city rises in waves. The world goes darker, darker, and then Al-Haitham realizes it is not his vision failing him but the moon eclipsing the sun.
"Al-Haitham," Kaveh says, barely audible. "Just know that to the very end, I am yours…"
The screeching of the plants, animalistic in their uproar, reaches a high. With one last cry, Al-Haitham reaches for Kaveh, and then the moon falls in front of the sun as if it is a pendulum making its last swing. A clock ringing one last time, like a sentencing, like a conviction.
And Sumeru goes black.
In the wake of an apocalypse, on a dead wasteland of barren dirt, a single sprout is a blessing.
In a world turned inside out and bloodied by its own body, it is a phantom.
But in its remaining desolation, Teyvat forgets its own self-hatred.
When Al-Haitham picks his way across the dead zone, he is not aware of anything except that he must reach the tiny plant. It is a haggard thing, limp and wilted. In this Teyvat, even the bones of the centuries-old trees have dissipated, leaving only emptiness. The bud stands alone.
The wind blows incessantly. It whips up the dirt all around him, the roots usually holding it in place gone. Little tornadoes swirl around him such that he has to lift an arm over his eyes to keep going. Despite the gusts, the plant holds still. Through the haze that the soil throws up, it emits a faint glow.
At the points where the wind blows ferociously enough to tear, parts of the landscape disappear and are replaced as if the world itself is glitching. In those incremental flashes of torn reality, Al-Haitham sees what can only be described as chaos—vines as thick as the oldest tree roots moving like snakes throughout the city, leaves mutating upon themselves and reaching up, up, up, flowers breaking out of their shell and pointing at the sky.
The Divine Tree has broken through the border of the sky. Somewhere on the other side must be Celestia, but the hole is plugged by its branches. The highest pavilion on the tree is overrun with flora, a carpet of green and purple and orange. In the faint snatches he can see, disappearing and reappearing around him in dizzying flashes, there is a man with golden hair and a bowed head, slumped over so that he is lying on the ground. One arm reaches in front of him.
This is important. He does not know why.
The flickers of this distorted Teyvat slow and stop. Now in front of the plant, Al-Haitham kneels and examines it. Amid the dust storms around him, it clears a small area of clean air around itself. It is a curious matter. Ever inquisitive, Al-Haitham extends one finger to brush the underside of a leaf, intending to examine it for any foreign marks.
Upon the first touch, he is gone.
The dirt and the desolation and the waste drop away under his feet, but he does not fall. Instead, the land reconstructs itself around him, slowly coming to life and filling with color in broad brushstrokes around him. Artistry. It reminds him of golden hair and a honeyed voice.
When everything has been restored, he is perched atop one of the highest branches of the divine tree. If he moved perhaps he would fall.
"Hello!" a voice says to the side of him.
Carefully turning his head, Al-Haitham comes into view with a small girl with vivid green eyes and pale hair, clothed in white and green. When she bobs her head to the side, her ponytail follows the movement.
"Should a child like you be this high up?" Al-Haitham muses, turning back to observing the city. From here, it looks peaceful. In his periphery, he sees creeping green, but when he focuses his eyes on the sides everything is normal. The only sound is the wind and the birdsong and the echo of his voice when he speaks.
"Shouldn't I be asking you the same thing?" the girl retorts in return, and Al-Haitham dips his head in acknowledgment. "Besides, this is my dream. If I wanted to, I could play hopscotch on the clouds. If I were to fall, I would have wings. I've always wondered how it is to take flight, anyway."
A dream. Now that Al-Haitham focuses clearly, he can see the edges where the tree is too stark in comparison to the sky. The clouds, blotted on by an artist's sponge, are so random that they look deliberate. The birds chirping have never been so sweet or quite so in tune.
"And if I were to fall?"
The girl looks at him, considering. "You would have wings too, I suppose. At the very least, you would fly freely. Nobody has dared to cap your potential."
Despite her words, Al-Haitham is not interested in finding out. "Who are you? What do you know about my potential?"
This time when the girl smiles, something bitter sneaks in. "Call me Nahida. Did you know you are the first to ask me that? They've always pointed at me and called me by their labels. God. Archon. Turns out the only thing to limit omnipotence is its appellation."
"Ah," Al-Haitham says, comprehending. "You are—"
"Lesser Lord Kusanali," Nahida says.
"No. You are Nahida. Isn't that what you just told me?"
She blinks at him, shocked for the first time since their conversation started. "I… I suppose I am. You are right. Al-Haitham."
"So you know my name."
"Yes. All the people who know what they are supposed to keep watch for should know it. That is why I know it. Even the sages were getting wary. But even still, this does not explain why you are here."
"You did not summon me?"
"No."
"Then I do not know either."
Nahida gestures, making shapes with her small hands. "I was dreaming—as I usually am, I have not been called upon much for the past few years—and then you appeared. Like this; zip." She demonstrates with a sound. "And now you are here. I suppose it's a little worrying that you do not know why you are here. The sages have never let anything like this happen before, so you must be a messenger of some sort."
A dash of green slinks into Al-Haitham's vision. When he turns sharply, it retreats as fast as it had appeared, as if it had never been there before. What is it trying to tell him?
A dust bowl of destruction. Patches of foliage torn through his very reality. The plants growing, greedy, greedy, greedy. A man bent over in his grief—painted on clouds over the horizon's canvas—an artist's brush and a pencil and a voice calling him to bed—a person, a heart, tears that fall like rain—
A realization makes a home in Al-Haitham's lungs, deep and dreadful. This Sumeru exists only in dreams because it no longer survives as a reality. In this pristine city there lies fantasy and delusion and a secret tucked between its unforgivable folds.
He screws his eyes shut.
A person—golden hair and honeyed voice—a name written in the language of the heart, repeated over and over with each pulse of the organ—
They both come to the same realization at once.
"We are almost out of time." Nahida's voice is sorrowful. She stares over the expanse of the city with misty eyes. "In this nation, all dreams must end."
"In this nation, there exists a reality that can be shaped to look like a dream," Al-Haitham says.
"How can we…" Nahida turns to him, small hands open and pleading. "How can I do anything when I am known as a 'Lesser Lord'? A diminutive? Five hundred years of absence and my hands have grown soft. Five hundred years in chains and I have been shoved into a box. Do you know what the sages did to me? Do you know what they did to cause the world to end?"
"Celestia is enraged. The sages did something—nobody in the city knows what it is, but they know that the world is ending."
"They were manufacturing another god," Nahida says, clutching her hands to her chest where her gnosis would presumably lie. "The sages, that is. To replace me. It is good to know that Celestia will not completely abandon one of its own… but to this extent, and with this fervor? I would never have asked for that. I would never have wanted this."
"The sages have made you complacent," Al-Haitham responds. "There is no cage fit for a god, and yet they have tried."
"And they succeeded," Nahida reminds him. "For five hundred years, my name fell out of the people's vocabulary. For five hundred years, their plan was working."
"Not anymore."
"Not anymore," Nahida agrees grimly. "When they were siphoning power from me, they must have stored it somewhere. They have been collecting it for hundreds of years. Not even a storage facility built for centuries could store that amount of energy. When it coalesces like that, without a home, it feeds on itself exponentially. With a push from Celestia, it overflows. It works like an enhancer. A fertilizer, if you will."
"And then it runs rampant," Al-Haitham says. The vines, snapping and growing without restraint, pure unbridled anger in their movements. In its path, it consumes everything. The Divine Tree, imbued with godly energy and pulling from Nahida's wish for freedom, shoots for the sky and beyond. Its only reprieve is Celestia.
"So what will you do, Nahida?" Al-Haitham asks, turning to her.
"I will have to draw the excess energy back into me," she says. "I will have to break this dream world and return to reality. If you can appear in my dreamscape, then my chains have broken, but I am likely weak. I will need your help. I will need your determination."
Al-Haitham is no hero. He has never wished to be one. He shies away from the spotlight and what is difficult in favor of what is comfortable and pleasing.
But his life must be infinitely more joyful than this dream is terrible because his heart is drawing him back to Sumeru City. It is only one person that does so. He is sure of it. Al-Haitham cannot recall his name, but he is the man bent over in grief outside of the Sanctuary of Surasthana.
Golden hair and a honeyed voice and a soft exhale on his collarbone and their fingers tangled in passing and a slow dance around the living room and hugs from the back and singing in the shower and carmine eyes drunk on wine and laughter and
A hand infinitely too far from his own. Their fingers only iotas away in touch. A plea and a promise.
"And if this determination is for one person only and not the city as a whole?"
"Then it is enough."
"Alright. I accept."
Nahida takes his hand. "If you are with me in my dream, then you must be in a comatose state. Your consciousness travels. If I source it to the body, then we can escape the fantasy."
She closes her eyes. After a second, the leaves around them flicker, and then violently the scenery tears away like an unveiling. It is frozen in time.
Al-Haitham can see himself, fingers curled towards the other man, whose body, still wracked in tears, reaches uncompromisingly. Flowers grow plentifully around them. The vines suffocating the city are almost high enough to swallow the balcony. When the wind howls, it rings emptily.
"Right now, the moon is eclipsing the sun." Nahida's voice is eerie, echoing around the silent and still picture of chaos around them. "It is moving quickly. Celestia is fickle; soon enough, the two will move apart, and that is when our time is up. We have our only chance when Sumeru is cloaked in darkness. When the first ray of sunlight hits, we will know for sure whether we have succeeded."
"And what do you need me to do?"
"You will return to your body as soon as I release the magic. When that happens, I will return to the Sanctuary. Even with my power being used against me, I still have a connection to the flora. Do you see where you are chained to the ground? You must send energy through there so that my connection to Celestia remains stable while I siphon up the excess power."
"And if we fail?"
Nahida pauses, staring out over her wrecked city with a multitude of centuries worth of grief heavy in her eyes and body. Still, she does not let it bring her down, standing proudly regardless. "I cannot. I owe my people that much."
Al-Haitham nods. His gaze drifts back to his body. Never before has he pictured himself on his knees. Never before has he even fathomed that he would pray. To place his fate in the hands of another is an unknown; to even subscribe to ideas such as fate and destiny is out of character for him. And yet here he is. Broken down and bent at the waist for a man who carries Al-Haitham's life in his hands.
"Are you ready?" Nahida looks apprehensive. Together, they stand at the precipice of something that has no name. If they tilt the wrong way, it will never end. Plummeting and plummeting and plummeting and plummeting. An eternity's worth of free fall.
They had never parted hands. Al-Haitham squeezes Nahida's gently. "Yes."
"Alright."
In the next breath, he is back in his body. The screeching of the plants raging is all-consuming and deafening, louder than he had remembered it being. The dark is sudden and disconcerting. His hands are clammy, his arm aches and his clothes have begun to tear at the seams. The flora pulling him away dig into his skin with little thorns, reluctant to let go of their prey.
And there is Kaveh. The force of it slams into his mind relentlessly, his name like a mantra itching on his tongue and his throat and through his fingers—kavehkavehkavehkavehkavehkaveh. Golden hair and honeyed voice. One of the few in Sumeru who had ever dared to dream. The only one who could coax Al-Haitham down to pacify and ratchet him back up to anger again.
But he will lose this if he does not focus. The plants in his ankles are angry, biting him over and over with little mouths that exist only in Al-Haitham's imagination. Nahida struggles in the jail cell only a few strides away from him, fighting against her own energy. She needs him. He needs her so that he can need Kaveh.
When he thinks of the plants boring their way into his bones and slithering their way over Teyvat he feels nothing but disgust. The tree reaching for the heavens and threatening to plunder Celestia makes bile rise in his throat. Watching the sky fold and tear around its extremities makes him feel sick.
It is a lot to ask that Al-Haitham use the remaining energy he has in his body and send it through the plants themselves, even if the recipient at the end of it is Nahida. His body aches to use it to clamber toward Kaveh instead.
At the very least, the darkness hides him. If he were to see Kaveh face to face, Al-Haitham may not have the willpower to do it.
His vision, though its light cannot be seen, glows and glows. With all of the force he is exerting, it grows warm where it is attached to his body. Sending his energy to Nahida makes the process more intensely painful. Hot flashes of hurt spasm up and down his entire body, stinging at each point his skin makes contact with the foliage.
He grits his teeth and thinks of his future. He thinks of Nahida cradled among her broken chains. He imagines the vegetation receding from the city and leaving them be. He imagines coming home to Kaveh in a land no longer under threat.
His heavy shoulders and the blood boiling under his skin is unbearable. At the very last second, he cries out. Kaveh must hear it because Al-Haitham catches his gasp in return.
Nahida opens her eyes with a silent exhale, arms and legs extended in paralysis as tangible energy makes its way back to her in a visible vacuum. Slowly, the teeth in Al-Haitham's body release their hold.
The sun breaks over Teyvat once more.
Al-Haitham can breathe, which is a good sign. The pains in his body are abruptly gone, but the ache and strain in his muscles remain. Fearful in a way he has not been since he was a little kid, he does not open his eyes. It is bright. He can see sunlight through his eyelids, orangey yellow. There is the silhouette of a man.
There is Kaveh.
His eyes fly open, and he lunges forward with his arm, blinking rapidly against the sudden onslaught of landscape and grasping at random to reach Kaveh.
"Kaveh—"
"Al-Haitham!"
Their hands finally, finally come together. When they meet, everything in Al-Haitham's body immediately quells. Kaveh scrambles for more, as greedy as the vegetation had been, pulling himself up haphazardly and dragging the two of them together with the ferocity of a man bereaved.
"What happened?" Kaveh says frantically, checking Al-Haitham up and down for injuries. "I know this had something to do with you. The world was going to end and then it didn't. What did you do? What did it do to you?"
"Kaveh," Al-Haitham says, reaching up to still his hands. "Kaveh. I am okay. We are okay."
The tears that had not yet dried run anew. Kaveh's lip trembles when he sucks in a breath, carmine eyes pooling with liquid and ruby in the light. When he blinks they overflow, rivulets making their way down his cheeks. Fulfilling a promise made to himself years ago, Al-Haitham takes his shaking fingers and thumbs each of them away before they can hit the floor.
"Al-Haitham," Kaveh says. His voice is wobbly. He snakes his hands around Al-Haitham's neck and pulls his face closer. At this point, he is practically in his lap, legs wrapped around his back and their chests pulled flush to each other. "Won't you tell me what happened?"
Al-Haitham slots him impossibly closer and leans their foreheads against each other, their bodies curving together against the horizon. "The eclipse hit. I met a god. In the darkness, we figured out how to reverse it."
"Incredibly detailed, as always," Kaveh mutters. He has yet to stop shaking—or perhaps it is Al-Haitham that is trembling. "I expect a full explanation once this entire situation has calmed down a little. What's even happening to the plants? To the sky?"
Al-Haitham could care less. He runs his hands up and down Kaveh's back, relishing his existence and the feel of his face against his own and every whisper of his voice.
And then the doors to the Sanctuary of Surasthana swing open, and out stumbles Nahida.
"Al-Haitham! We—" She stops when she sees the two, and a smile breaks out on her face. "Oh. This is him? Your dedication?"
Al-Haitham nods. Gently pulling away every so slightly, Kaveh evaluates Nahida. "And you are?" he says, not impolitely.
"You probably know me as Lesser Lord Kusanali," Nahida says, then bites her lip and glances at Al-Haitham. "But… I would like to be known as Nahida. Please."
"Nahida, then," Kaveh says, ever graceful. "You must be the other half of the pair to thank for saving the world. Wow. What a sentence. Al-Haitham, have you realized you saved the world? Good luck trying to propagate your little 'rationale' agenda! Archons, I'll be able to lord this over you for the rest of our lives."
"Please, senior," Al-Haitham says aggrievedly. "Don't think for a second that I would have done it for anyone other than you."
Kaveh turns suddenly red and drops his face into Al-Haitham's shoulder. "Calling me that is a form of psychological warfare and should only be utilized as a proper title of respect. You're not supposed to attach it with stupid sentimental stuff like that."
"Sure thing, senior," Al-Haitham says, then turns to Nahida who is failing to hide a smile behind her hands. "How does freedom feel?"
"It is… liberating. I did not realize how heavy the chains were until they had been taken off of my back. And a Sumeru outside of my dreams! It is not quite as vivid as I had imagined, but that's probably for the better. That's part of what makes life worth living, isn't it? The ups and the downs?"
"Yes," Kaveh chimes in, "and you have to find someone who is somehow capable of giving you both the ups and the downs. Like this idiot." He points a finger roughly into Al-Haitham's chest.
"It is unbearable," says Al-Haitham in agreement, though its effect is somewhat negated by the way he is still clutching onto Kaveh.
Nahida smiles sweetly. "I am sure it is. You two are very lucky. So is the rest of Teyvat, if you think about it. The only man with the will capable of completing the task and he had done it only for you, Kaveh. If it weren't for that fact, maybe the eclipse would have never ended."
"Whatever," Kaveh says, definitely blushing. Al-Haitham can't see his face from the angle but he can feel the heat emanating from his cheeks.
"What happens now?" Al-Haitham asks.
"I will need to make my presence known to Sumeru," Nahida says. "The people must have their fears abated. I will extend communication to the other archons to see how their nations fare and explain my five-hundred-year absence. The sages will need to be punished. I suppose I will have to elect new officials in their place—could I possibly trouble you to take on that job?"
Ridiculous. "Absolutely not," Al-Haitham says. "If you can, do not even mention my name at all. I want none of the attention that will be attached to it then. I will be called a hero. If I deserve any god-given mercy, then it is to remove me from this entire situation."
Nahida wrinkles her nose in amusement. "Well, if that's what you want… At least with the archons, some mention of you will be inevitable, but I will try my best." Clamor on the streets and the sound of people mingling about starts to erupt from the city. "I will have to leave now. The people will want answers."
Al-Haitham nods in farewell and Kaveh lifts a cheery hand goodbye. When she has left, the two sit in each other's silence for a moment more before Kaveh starts to heave himself up.
"I don't know about you, but I cannot sit in the same place I watched you get torn away from me for a second longer," Kaveh says. "Let's go home?"
Home, even when Al-Haitham had been unable to recall it, a mere shape and sound in the outline of a man and warm hands, is a comforting word. After all, lost in a dreamscape and surrounded by destruction, had his north star not been Kaveh? Had that not been home ?
"Home," Al-Haitham agrees, and then the two set off together, arms linked together and meandering down the winding street.
"Now that we know there is a tomorrow morning, we should christen it with my favorite coffee beans," Kaveh says, nudging Al-Haitham in the side. "Doesn't that sound nice?"
Al-Haitham rolls his eyes, but he's feeling generous. "Whatever you want."
When the moon had slid over the sun, it had closed with the finality of a tomb shutting. Succumbing to rot, the people of Teyvat released one last breath of acquiescence. A door that locks from the outside is impenetrable from the inside.
Corpses are not meant to resurface. The dead stay dead. But in the sliver of a moment in which the last breath is exhaled and the eyes slide shut, there lies possibility. When taken and extended for minutes through godly power, you avoid death. Thus the world remains in balance and law is unbroken.
It is in this belief that Celestia allows the people to live on. Mere loopholes—but exploitable nonetheless. Nahida bargains for the lives of her people. After five hundred years of isolation, they grant her one wish, and one wish only.
The plants recede. Amplified only by misplaced sacredness, they return to their original state. The streets fade back to gray. The cobblestone shows its face. Houses that had surrendered to the vines return to normal.
The forest sinks. The waterways clear. The smell of rot and the decomposing organic material return to the land.
The Divine Tree, the tallest and most distinctive feature of the nation, shrinks back to its given size. Up above, the sky patches itself up neatly—the secrets of Celestia remain hidden. When it had once seemed like an oppressive ceiling, the horizon opens up once again.
Each tear mends itself as if it had never occurred. Many of the people, so preoccupied with the plants licking at their feet, had not seen the sky until it was too late. That roiling, miasmic mass remains unknown to most civilians.
The canopy of the tree and the tips of the branches that had reached beyond the sky turn golden.
Across Teyvat, celebration breaks out once again. This time, it is not overshadowed by grief. The taverns overfill with people. Citygoers spilling into the street embrace each other as if they are all members of the same family. Even the scholars holed up in the Akademiya venture outside the bookshelves for a breath of fresh air.
In Al-Haitham and Kaveh's house, through the warm-tinted windows, two figures dance a waltz.