Work Text:
The journal is worn, the dark cover faded from black to grey over the years, the binding once meticulously and carefully repaired, the pages crackly and slightly warped. The state of it is not a sign of misuse or neglect but rather a sign of how preciously it was used–a gift that was never allowed to go to waste. Inside the leather of the front cover, a name is embossed, those the embossing has worn a little over the years. Inside that cover, a small slip of paper, fresher and newer than the pages, awaited its recipient with dark, shimmering green ink, almost black until it caught the light.
It is an explanation, of sorts, of what the book is, and what it is for, left out on a desk on lazy rainy day.
—
Long ago, I was told to write down my questions, and record the answers. Some questions are difficult to verbalize aloud, and others are difficult to answer without contemplation; in both cases being able to organize ones’ thoughts is useful for furthering one’s own understanding. It may also aid you in your ability to analyze what is said to you.
…This book has been with me for many years. It may serve as the answer you have been asking for. When you have finished reading, I would have your answer, in return.
–
The earliest entries were in two sets of handwriting, one elegant and delicate, almost spindly, written in a hand that could not grip the pen as tightly as it once had, but retained it’s steadiness, and the other sharp and harsh–unused to the ink and the pen but still meticulous about spelling.
They were as simple as questions and answers, call and response, the trusting hands of a child who cannot quite express how fast his mind goes, and the patient guidance of someone who loved him with all her heart.
Grandmother, why does the grocer do a job he complains about so much? Would it not be more logical to do something enjoyable?
Sometimes, to ensure a stable life, one must do troublesome things in order to provide resources for peace. The grocer wishes to have enough mora to live comfortably, thus, he tolerates some annoyance in return.
Or, later.
Grandmother, why do the aunties in the Bazaar call me brave when I tell them I am not lonely?
They see their own grief reflected in the mirror of your face, my child, and imagine it must be a terribly brave thing, to live with loss, without understanding your reality is not the same as theirs. This, too, is inevitable–we see ourselves reflected in others, and must take care to see the person underneath our reflections.
I have not lost anything I can remember…but you have. Doesn’t that mean you are terribly brave instead, Grandmother?
It is easy to be brave when I am given so much joy, my kind child.
And, much later.
Grandmother, all your instructions are prepared, but I still…don’t know what will become of me.
I am afraid I cannot answer it for you either, my child. But know wherever you go, you will bear my wishes and my blessings. I only regret I shall not be able to see the man you will grow into, but I know that you take care, and discern your path with wisdom and courage.
I shall always remain in your memories, when you need me, my brave hawk.
There were smudges on the inked letters, carefully written back over to leave the words clear. But here, at least, in this secret place, there was a record that a young man once grieved. This, too, was an answer to a question, wasn’t it?
But that was far from the end of the journal. A page had been left blank, for the old photograph laid in it, carefully taped, of a kindly old woman and the severe-looking child sitting with her, but the following page bore a date and a much crisper, steadier hand.
—
Grandmother,
While I am aware it is ridiculous to write to the dead, Vahumana research indicates that keeping a regular journal is an excellent practice for maintaining a clear and healthy mind, and furthermore, the most common advice for difficulty in journaling is to pretend to address the entries as though writing a letter.
I have never had anyone else I have desired to write or speak to, and so these are addressed to you. I know you would have laughed.
The Akademiya’s lecturers have not grown any less boring or noisy over time. But I can access the House of Daena freely, so I will continue my studies as I have done, and I do not expect graduating to be difficult, or to take very long. Haravatat’s classes are, at least, sufficiently interesting, even if they are not particularly difficult. I don’t find the other Darshans classes very engaging, but as you went through the trouble to allow me to take those electives, I won’t waste that effort.
The aunties at the market have taken to calling me brave again. Aunt Hadi offered to help take care of your houseplants…I’ve turned them over to her care. I believe she misses you as much as I do, and she doesn’t have your library as a memento…and I am still quite bad at taking care of plants. This way works for us both.
The house is not any bigger nor smaller with one person in it. The architecture has not changed. Yet it does somehow seem different, without you in it. I can’t imagine that anyone could make this place feel like
it used to.
—--
Grandmother, are the standards for becoming a tutor or a professor in the Akademiya lower than they used to be? I expected my yearmates to be dull, but these teachers seem to be less concerned with wisdom than the sound of their own voices.
If they are simply going to instruct us on using the search function of the Akasha, then they may as well be replaced with a voice recording and save us all the time.
—--
Auntie Hadi says I should try to learn your recipes instead of just getting takeout or letting all the aunties in the Bazaar keep feeding me. I have enough of a stipend it doesn’t really matter…but my classes are so boring that learning to cook might be a better use of my time.
If it wouldn’t get so much attention, I’d see about graduating early. The classes are boring and no one seems to think for themselves outside of using the Akasha. I wonder how you ever stood this, Grandmother.
—---
Grandmother, today I met the most irritating boy in the world. I am actually quite impressed that he has achieved this at such a young age, but he is quite talented in being noisy and meddlesome. If he is often in the House of Daena, I fear I might have to find a new place to read.
—----
That boy came back to argue with me again today. He read the book I was reading just to try and prove his point. He was still wrong but I’ve never seen anyone else here do that. He even wrote annotations in the House of Daena’s copy of it.
Maybe I won’t have to find a new place to read after all.
—------
His name is Kaveh. He’s a Kshahrewar, like you were. That’s where the similarities end. He can’t cook, he burns the coffee because he’s in too much of a rush, and he argues about everything at the top of his lungs. If being a designer doesn’t work out, I have suggested he could become the new fog horn at the lighthouse in Port Ormos. He did not seem to appreciate this insight into his available career options in the slightest.
Today he told me that Haravatat has no passion or romance, nor any appreciation of beauty whatsoever. In order to prove him wrong, I’ve started going through Father’s notes on Dahri poetry. He’ll be able to disprove any argument I make if I don’t put in the proper legwork.
If even a percent of students here were more like him, I think I might even bother to turn up for class.
—----
The more poetry I read, the less I understand. The words are pretty enough, I suppose, but when I think of something beautiful…they don’t capture that feeling at all. He tried to explain it to me too, and showed me his designs…I hate to admit this, Grandmother, but they’re too advanced for me. Maybe you would have understood them, though.
I asked Auntie Hadi about it, but she just laughed at me and said I was probably a little too young for this. I don’t see what age has to do with any of it.
—---
Today, Kaveh fell asleep on me while we were reading in the Razan Gardens. He isn’t quiet, even in his sleep. It seems as though he has frequent nightmares, as he started crying, though when he woke up he denied anything was wrong.
It makes my chest hurt. The Bimarstan says there’s nothing physically wrong with me as of my last check-up, though, so I’m not sure why his tears would cause such symptoms.
The poems I found today talked about the sunrise and the myth of a man who made wings of wax to try and court the sun…Kaveh said it was horrible and sad, but I thought it was pretty. He knew it would kill him, and he chose to love anyway.
It lingers in my mind that way. I’m not sure why.
—--
I thought Kaveh was much like Icarus, and I told him so, but he didn’t seem to understand why. He never seems to understand why. He stretches himself too thin, argues it is just the compassionate and right thing to do, but no one will ever burn themselves for him in return. He can’t go on like this. He’ll melt away into nothing.
But he still persists. Does he know, and do it anyway?
I don’t know what to do.
He is the one made of wax, and yet I think I am burning.
—---
He is gone. He is gone. He is gone.
I was right. I only told him the truth. So why did he look as though I had crushed his heart in my hand before him?
How audacious, when he was the one who broke mine.
I was right. I am right. I know this for a fact.
Grandmother, please tell me, why does that feel so hollow now?
—-
There is a considerable gap in the dates on the pages, but tucked inside one blank page and the next are journal clippings. Not taped in or bound, but carefully tucked together, as if bundled for the reader to discover they’d been saved.
Now, also, there are fresh droplets staining the page, to go along with the ones faded into the paper over time.
—-
His condition is far worse than I ever anticipated. His physical health is dire–I can’t be sure, but he can’t have been eating much. He must have been in bad shape before the Palace was completed. I suspect he’ll get quite sick once the exhaustion sets in, so I will have to discreetly consult the doctors at Bimarstan when he finally falls asleep.
The mental exhaustion…I don’t even know where I would begin.
But he’s here. He’s here, and he’s safe. I can fix this.
Grandmother, it has been a long time since I wrote to you this way, but I cannot find it in me to believe the gods could help either him or I. So I beg you…do not let me fail twice.
—--
Each entry marks a day. They are never skipped, always recounting the health and recovery of the Light of Kshahrewar–meals eaten, hours slept, rent paid or missed, everything is recorded. Everything is presented, too, in full honesty.
—--
Day 4
His fever broke and he’s apparently feeling well enough to critique my interior decorating. He still flinches every time he gets upset with me, as though I will kick him out for not liking wood carvings or practical furniture. He has tripped over the books at least twice, so there is some credence to his complaints that I perhaps need more shelves.
There is color back in his cheeks. He is refusing to get a check-up at the Bimarstan, so I’ll have to keep an eye on him myself. He refuses to not look for work, either, but I have directed him towards lectures at the Akademiya for now.
I must find a way to inquire into Vanhumana’s studies on psychological stress without it being noticeable. His insistence on hiding his predicament is ridiculous, but I can’t say I see a reason to advertise the toll on him, either.
—------
Day 15
Well, it seems he’s feeling well enough to have completely commandeered the bathroom counters. Why one man needs this many hair products is a mystery to me, and he grows quite defensive about it when questioned, or when I point out I’ve never needed anything like that.
…Everything in the house smells like vanilla. How does he manage to get his scent everywhere?
—---
Day 28
Yesterday Kaveh wandered out to the desert in a morose mood and came back with an empty wallet and a machine core. Today he has built a sentient suitcase. He claims he just wanted someone to talk to, like he does not live in this house with me.
Then again, I suppose I am a poor conversationalist, in his view. What good did being right end up being for either of us, after all?
I warned him to not let the sages see the suitcase–Mehrak, he called her–but he doesn’t think it’ll be a problem. Like she isn’t on the borderline of violating a cardinal sin. But in truth, he’s right not to worry–unless the sages see him, no one in Sumeru will ever turn Kaveh in.
I wonder if he knows how deeply beloved he is to this nation. I don’t think he really comprehends.
—
Day 41
I think I must be going insane.
Kaveh’s bad temper hasn’t gotten any better with time–if anything, he is more impulsive now, not less. But there is no reason provoking him into debate should cause my heart rate to increase so dramatically. There is no reason I should feel my skin burn where he touches me. There is no reason his voice should still cut out other noise.
There is no reason for me to still love him so much. So I must have finally lost my mind. They say lunacy is common among geniuses. Perhaps it was only ever a matter of time.
…I would rather he not find out. This is not his burden to carry, not while he has so far left to go. I must not become another thing that cages him. This too shall pass.
—-
Day 67
I wanted him to feel comfortable here but I don’t recall him falling asleep on my bed in the middle of sorting my books–which I did not ask nor give him permission to do–being an acceptable level of comfort. He wasn’t even embarrassed by it. He smiled at me, too, before he woke up enough to see who I was.
What was he even thinking, smiling like that? He’s been quite clear it wouldn’t have been about me.
The bed still smells of vanilla and his paints.
I have no choice but to love him here in silence. There is little use hoping he will ever be selfish enough to love anyone anything but purely, and I don’t want his guilty benevolence. I shall not build him another set of wax wings.
–
Day 91
Today Kaveh demanded to replace the furniture in the living room, vanished for two hours with my wallet, and came back with rugs and the materials for three whole divans. Which he constructed himself, in the living room, in under twelve hours.
He is asleep in the sunniest spot of the living room and his hands are covered in blisters. He didn’t even wake up when I bandaged them.
I didn’t know the light coming through the windows could look so beautiful, until I saw how it fell on him. There is so much I can still learn from him. When will he learn anything from me?
—---
Day 124
Kaveh decided that finally unpacking his boxes was something that warranted celebrating, and that this needed to be celebrated with an entire case of wine. Apparently, when he hasn’t worked himself to the brink, he is a rather…flirtatious drunk. He also mistook a lightpost, a tree, three potted plants and a grey cat for me, in the time it took to get him home, so I am uncertain I should be flattered by these attempts at flirting.
Scratch that, I absolutely should not be. Unfortunate, that I seem to be anyway.
Given his drunken admiration of…much of my physiology, I may need to test his reactions to them under the light of day. And find whoever he learned the phrase “mommy milkers” from and strangle them with my own hands.
—---------
Day 135
He has infected this house with sunlight. Why is it, that something as simple as his presence makes the world seem brighter? That colors and sound are more vibrant?
He says he does not belong here but spreads himself out across the house until he’s written himself into every corner of it. If he could still read me as he once could, I could not hide anywhere or anything from him.
I thought I knew so little of who he’d become. But despite everything, he’s still Kaveh.
How can he be the bravest man in Sumeru and still such a coward at the same time? He is a wonder, and I don’t know how much longer I can pretend I am not melting.
—------
Day 156
Kaveh has a long-term project in the desert. Given how hard the sages are making his work, this is a good thing. He’ll be gone for three weeks.
He took all the color and light with him. When did I come to need him around to feel at ease? Or have I simply always been seeking him?
Seeking peace from a man on fire. Now there’s a certain irony to that, isn’t there? How ridiculous.
…I wish you could have met him.
—----
Day 175
We orchestrated a coup. Of course, Kaveh was gone for all of it. He should be back tomorrow, and he’ll probably try to strangle me.
I can’t believe I’m looking forward to it. That man has a stunning gift for inspiring lunacy. Maybe I should introduce him to Paimon.
—------
Day 200
Introduced him to Paimon and the Traveler. He was as wary of them as I thought he’d be, but he’s already started asking me more about them now that he’s calmed back down. Curiously, he seems to be a little upset with me about befriending them, too, particularly the Traveler.
It’s as though he’s jealous. I hardly dare hope it’s true. If he keeps giving me hope like this, I can’t be patient forever.
I promised myself I’d let him go if he wanted to, and I meant that. But I’m not sure if I’ll survive it. There has to be some way for him to understand…
Maybe this requires more research.
—-----
Day 221
The Interdarshan Competition is going to be an absolute disaster. He wants to move out. He wants to move out. He never said anything about it before.
I can’t let this distract me. Looking into Sachin is more important. Even if he leaves…even if he leaves, he needs to know.
Nahida Grandmother Ka …please. Please. I am not a man acquainted with prayer. But please. I need him to stay.
—
Day 225
Three cracked ribs, severe bruising of several other bones, hairline fractures in his tibia, a concussion and severe dehydration, and this absolute idiot didn’t even want to go to the Bimarstan at all. They gave him enough painkillers to knock out a Sumpter Beast. Lord Kusanali promised me she’d ensure he’d stay asleep for the whole night.
If I didn’t love him so much I’d kill him myself.
It might be faster on both of us if I did. Despite everything, he refused to even take the medication until I sat here and watched him. And now he won’t let go of my shirt. I had to convince Mehrak to bring me the journal.
I don’t think I can stand to wait for Kaveh to notice anymore. I must convince him of the truth of my intentions.
…Why is that more daunting than rescuing a god?
—-------
Day 227
It turns out he had his own ideas about this.
The sun is in my bed and I have melted entirely. I never thought this was what peace looks like. I don’t think I’ve ever minded being wrong less.
I think tomorrow I shall purchase a Kamera. There is one last thing to work towards, and I’d rather he not notice I’ve moved his.
It’d spoil the surprise.
—--
The remainder of the journal is filled, page after page, with photos. The early ones sloppy, growing in skill with time, but none fail to capture their subject. The joy, the laughter, the bright rage and incandescent fury, of a blond man, exceptional in his beauty and beloved by the Kamera. No matter how messy he is. No matter how disheveled or graceless. Cooking food. Losing at cards. Asleep on the couch. Covered in paint and half-dead. Excited and babbling under the starlight. Always shining, as though the one holding the Kamera wished for a record of how brilliant love looks in his eyes.
It is a symphony without words. A song without sound. Art without form.
There is one last page left.
—-
Kaveh.
I am sure by now you’ve started to cry. You don’t need to hide that…I have never been any good at comforting you, but you don’t need to hold yourself back, either. I will be home soon, I imagine, based on your typical reading speed, so before I do, please read this closely.
This journal has ever been a means to answer questions I could not on my own. As it so happened, you are the answer to almost all of them. You have always been the answer.
I am not, nor have I ever been a romantic man. You have despaired of this yourself, many times before. But I could not think of any better way to tell you this, but to entrust you with the most secret parts of myself, and ask you one more question.
There is very little in this world you could ask of me that I would ever refuse you, so I beg you to allow me the sole selfishness of wanting to keep you, myself. I would have you, for all our lives, or I will have no one else. The decision is yours to make, as it has always been.
When I walk through the door, I will have flowers, and a ring, as you expressed many times is correct. But I wish for you to immortalize your answer here for me, too, so that we might always remember.
Kaveh, you may laugh if you wish. But I am nervous even to write it.
Will you marry me?
—---
On that final page, there is the most brilliant handwriting, a looping and beautiful script only slightly smudged by drops of water, as though the writer could not contain their tears.
They sing only one word, three times, the three last notes to a song over a decade in composing.
Yes, yes, yes.