Work Text:
There was much work to be done.
Between dismantling the Akasha Terminal, uprooting the corrupt sages, and salvaging the organizational structure of all of Sumeru, there was not a moment to lose. There was also the added factor that the people needed to be assured during this tumultuous time. Unfortunately, Nahida was a practical stranger to them, and assurances from strangers never seemed to have the same effect. The fact that she was their archon only helped a little.
But, since Nahida was Sumeru’s archon, it was her duty that things be handled as swiftly and calmly as possible, all while ensuring the peace.
It helped that she could rely on people like Alhaitham and Cyno during the process; Nahida did not need to wonder or fear if her changes would stick or she would be blindsided by some other plot, be it from the Fatui or within their walls once more. She felt bad relying on them in that way, but it was… safe. And very efficient. With so many people working together, they were all afforded more ease and speed. It was proof that these connections could remain even as the Akasha was removed.
So Nahida set to work. For the first few days especially, everything was nonstop. It was vital that anyone with ill intentions were caught soon and that anyone else who was hurt by the schemes was saved. Azar had been very thorough in his work, and while Nahida could appreciate the work ethic, it was a thorn in their side now.
Alhaitham was wonderful at managing Azar’s duties and unearthing his mess. Working under him as a scribe must have helped, though Nahida could tell that much of the credit could go to Alhaitham’s powers of reasoning and his diligence.
He was still human, though. Even as Nahida was waist deep in the Akasha, she could sense that he hadn’t left the building. Tired minds hindered both success and health, and Nahida would not witness any needless degradation. That was one of the many qualities encouraged by the Akademiya that she had always questioned.
“Have you taken a break recently?” she asked when she entered his new office, causing the Acting Grand Sage to jump a little.
“Oh. Lesser Lord Kusanali, it’s you.” He relaxed. “Not recently,” Alhaitham admitted freely. “People have been in and out of here all day.”
“Do you have any more urgent appointments today?”
Alhaitham shuffled some papers around the desk until he was holding his schedule, and he considered it with a grimace. “Some of these are pointless formalities, but I will admit that the meeting with the collegiate association and the follow up with the Bimarstan are significant.” He closed his eyes and sighed, and Nahida could feel the way his life energy wavered. “I can manage it, but I will have to deny all of these walk-ins…”
He ended the statement in a mutter, and she could see the way he mentally planned around all the things he still insisted on doing.
“Rest is a crucial component of life,” she reminded him gently. “How about you postpone or allocate the smaller meetings, take a nap, and then come back to meet with the doctors? I will meet with the collegiate association in your stead.”
He raised his brows slightly—whether in surprise or incredulity, she wasn’t quite sure. “Are you certain?”
She nodded. “I am. The issues with recording grades and examinations stems from my removal of the Akasha anyway, so it is fair that I handle the ramifications of it.”
Nahida wasn’t sure if it was a testament to his sensibilities or how tired he truly was, but Althaitham agreed readily enough. “If you insist, Lesser Lord Kusanali. Thank you.”
“Nahida,” she corrected, because the title felt far too formal from someone who she owed so much too.
Alhaitham blinked, once, twice, and then smiled slightly. “I’ll be back later, then, Nahida.”
—o0o—
Adding more duties to her plate was admittedly precarious, but Nahida owed it to Sumeru to be their Archon, so she carried on with grace. Or as much as she could muster, when the days began to blur.
Truthfully, Nahida was not accustomed to the constant activity. Her body did not operate the same as a human’s, but the sensation of physical movement was starting to wear on her. It was a bit disheartening, to feel herself grow tired after only a few days, when she had spent so much of her life asleep, but she could not deny the nature of things.
Except… Except Nahida eyed the meditation chamber which served as her place of rest, and suddenly, she did not feel tired. The thought of going back in there was…not pleasant.
It wasn’t that necessary anyway. She was an elemental being. It was more about her mind being refreshed than it was about resting her body. Perhaps… she could close her eyes somewhere else.
—o0o—
Nahida, seated at the old sages’ console of the Akasha she had been dismantling—the only furnished area of the Sanctuary—lasted a full thirty-three minutes of sleep before the unease snapped at her, making her question where she was. (Making her question if she was trapped again.)
Nahida, unable to calm herself or muster the courage to try again, returned to work.
—o0o—
She wasn’t trying to be obstinate. Not really. Nahida did not particularly have any delusions about her poor constitution, tired after a short two weeks, but she could never manage to sleep for long. She could reach out her consciousness and wander the world of dreams, yes, but that was not really restful. Rest was about letting go and allowing one’s body to still and their subconscious to wander—except Nahida always wandered straight back into awareness, because she could not remind herself of her new present circumstance when she was asleep.
That in itself was a little frustrating, if Nahida were being honest. She had spent her whole life in the Sanctuary, floating in and out of sleep and dreams, and she had found her contentment, but now that she was free, the whole experience was painted with a brush of horror. She did not consider her entire life—or rather, the last five hundred years of existing, and the only five hundred she remembered—to be nothing but horrible, but her subconscious seemed to think so. (And truly, the thought of going back to the way things were, unable to help anyone and unable to leave and unable to feel anything but elemental energy and her own skin, terrified her to her core.)
Sleeping was just too similar to the sensation of nothingness, and it put her on edge. She could barely stand the walls of the Sanctuary as it was, too open and too gray and too familiar, so it was only natural that this was heightened when she tried to rest.
Fortunately, Nahida could circumvent it to a degree, being a god. (She bet the other archons could last longer, without resorting to utilizing catalysts and outside elemental energy to boost them, but she knew that she was weaker and unused to these simple things.) She could ensure she had the energy to keep going, and the list of tasks helped to keep her focused.
It was a dwindling list of tasks, though. A good thing, categorically, but something she secretly dreaded because she was unsettled by something as simple as sleeping.
—o0o—
“I believe we’ve found the last of Azar’s accomplices,” Cyno reported. “I will remain diligent for any signs of more, of course, but I am pleased enough with the investigation.”
“That’s good,” Nahida replied, feeling as if there was something else she should say in light of such big news—that the General Mahamatra came to personally deliver to her, no doubt—but any additional response was just out of reach.
Perhaps because of her tired response, or Cyno’s impressive powers of perception, he paused to scrutinize her with a tight frown and creased brow, his eyes briefly darting around the tall ceilings of the Sanctuary as his displeasure settled.
He cleared his throat. “Nahida…” he started, awkward either at her name or the question. “Are you alright? You look… tired.”
“Huh?” She blinked. Nahida knew humans showed outward signs of exhaustion, but was that true for her? (Out of stasis after so long, and she was still unfamiliar with the full ins and outs of her own body.) Fascinating. Though perhaps unfortunate. “Oh.” How should she respond? Honesty was a good policy among friends, but it was also a good policy not to worry anybody needlessly. “Thank you for your concern, really, but I am fine. I am just…adjusting.”
Yes. Adjusting. Because soon, Nahida should be able to slot into a new pattern, which encouraged a healthy lifestyle. She just had to…find that pattern.
Cyno’s thoughts didn’t show on his face. She could have looked harder, but that would be discourteous of her in this scenario. Plus, she wasn’t sure if she really wanted to know. “Very well. Take care, then.”
—o0o—
Nahida didn’t need to drop off the salvaged but innocuous knowledge capsules left behind in the Sanctuary personally, but she hoped that stretching her legs would do her good. (And a chance to leave the Sanctuary and its dark walls, even though there was still work to be done in dismantling so much of the mess left behind.) Though perhaps the heaviness she felt in her limbs was evident in her features, because even Alhaitham looked at her with clear concern.
“Cyno said that you haven’t been sleeping well,” he said, skipping all pleasantries or preamble and catching her off guard.
How… How did Cyno know? Though she did admit that she wasn’t well rested, but those things weren’t exactly synonymous…
“It’s… only a minor setback,” she admitted, keenly aware that she could never sleep peacefully whenever she tried, unable to get off the edge of terror and therefore never able to properly rest. “As an archon, I have a different relationship with sleep cycles anyway.”
“Rest is crucial to life,” Alhaitham replied, cleverly parroting her own words. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
Nahida wasn’t sure how to answer, even though she knew that Alhaitham had found the connection that eluded even her, and that he was fundamentally correct. The nuance of her plight was still lost on the both of them, though, and Nahida felt all the more useless for not being able to solve her own riddle.
—o0o—
“You called for me?” Nahida asked as a formality, even though it was uncontested that Cyno had indeed sent word to her to meet him out in the forest. Finding him in turn had not been difficult, since he was one of the few that she communicated with via mental links enough times that the paths through their subconsciouses were well-worn and familiar.
Nothing seemed to be immediately evident, however. She reached out her power to search the area herself, but she found no corruption nor any other lifeforms that did not belong to the forest.
“I did,” Cyno agreed. “I didn’t interrupt any pressing matters, did I?”
All she had been doing was failing to sleep properly even in the cot she found in one of the workrooms built into the Sanctuary. “No, there’s no need to worry about that.”
He nodded. “Good. In that case… sit with me?”
The awkward delivery was met with her own awkward response, as she blinked at that hammock he gestured to and Nahida once again took note of the plain campsite. He…was inviting her to hangout? The notion made sense by itself, but not now, not to her. Or maybe she was too tired to think properly.
“Okay…?” She didn’t know quite what to do, but Nahida saw no reason to turn him down. Not when the alternative had been her own, private source of frustration. Though this was a new riddle that she didn’t yet have the propensity to solve. Meeting people in the place where they are comfortable was important, and Cyno was one of the individuals she owed her respect. (The General Mahamatra was the modern equivalent of her priest, and there was a kinship in that. Maybe beyond that, though similarly to her relationship with individuals like Alhaitham and Dunyarzad, Nahida wasn’t sure how to ask for any more, or if she even should.)
(But those were wandering thoughts that she should not overly indulge in when it distracted from present company.)
Cyno sat down on his own hammock, and she had to float to reach the one allotted to her. She knew about the furnishing, of course, but this was her first time experiencing it first hand. It, too, had a floating sensation, even after she settled.
“Forgive me, for being presumptuous,” Cyno started. “But I thought that a change of scenery would do you some good.” His gaze was as piercing as ever—though soft—and Nahida knew without even consciously searching for the information within his mind that he knew. “You’ve spent a long time within the Sanctuary of Surasthana.”
A whole lifetime , went unsaid.
“You’re right…” Perhaps she really had been understimulated, physically speaking. She enjoyed her few excursions out into the rainforest, the dendro energy of nature a song to her lifeblood, but there were always more pressing matters inside the city, and Nahida had no intentions of neglecting them.
In that, perhaps she really did neglect herself.
She and Cyno exchanged a few more pleasantries, and she recalled the promise to engage in a real match of Genius Invokation in the near future, which excited her, but she began to lose track of the conversation as the pull of exhaustion tugged her, far more gently than it usually did. The hammock mimicked the floating of the meditation orb, but the fabric at her back was swaddling and grounding enough to prevent a perfect replica. The noise and the energy of the rainforest was melodic and soothing, and the wide open sky—bright and starting to turn a plethora of colors as the sun set—was a comfort. So, too, was Cyno’s presence, and the Aranara that slowly started to fill the campsite in lighthearted curiosity. Nahida was not alone, and it provided a sense of… of safety that she had been unable to achieve. If Nahida closed her eyes, then she could believe that she would not wake up trapped.
For the first time since she could remember, Nahida slept peacefully.