Chapter Text
Alhaitham was five when he saw his first ghost.
The sight began with a faint blue haze. He mistook it for a wandering Seelie at first, but soon noticed that the shape didn't match. The apparition appeared far too…human, despite its featureless limbs and face. He rubbed his eyes to see if that would make the blur go away. It didn’t.
“Grandma, grandma–” He tugged on her sleeve, attempting to grab her attention as she was finishing up her payment at a market stall.
“Patience,” she said, tugging back. She held open her wallet and began counting cash for her purchase. “Give me a moment and then I can help you out, okay?” Without letting go of her sleeve, Alhaitham watched as the vendor handed over her change. She bowed in thanks, and the two walked away to the side of the road. “Alright,” she said as she turned her full attention to her grandson. “Is something the matter?”
He looked over to make sure the figure was still there. After locating it again, he stretched his arm out to point in its direction. “What is that?”
“You'll have to be a little more specific than that, dear,” she replied as she scanned the area of his inquiry. “There's a lot going on in the bazaar right now. I can't tell what you're referring to.”
“That blue thing,” he clarified. “It's right there.” It was so out of place that he failed to understand how she didn't know what he was talking about.
“Oh, the café sign?”
“No, the thing that's moving a little.”
“The tapestry?”
“No!” he whined. “It looks like a person!”
His grandmother squinted, tightening her brow. “It's not the merchant with the blue dress, is it?” When he shook his head, the wrinkles on her face relaxed as she gave him a soft smile and a pat on the head. “I'm sorry. My eyes aren't as good as they once were. I'm afraid I can't see what you're talking about. Maybe next time?”
The next time he saw a ghost was a year later.
"Unfortunately, Amir’s illness worsened and he will no longer be able to come to school," was the only piece of information his teacher offered. His passing was never mentioned.
Perhaps his teacher was not yet ready to explain the concept of death to a room of six-year-olds, but the children soon realized why Amir was gone. A single fate stood at the end of an Eleazar diagnosis. In the walls of Sumeru, it was impossible to grow up unaware of what it was.
There was also an obituary for him in the local paper, and you don’t need to be old enough to read to pick up on the city’s gossip.
"It progressed so fast", they said. "He was much younger than the rest of the patients."
Still, his teacher’s announcement didn't make sense. Every day, Alhaitham saw a boy standing in the hallway, looking out the window, unmoving. His facial features were hard to make out, but Alhaitham was certain it was Amir. The boy’s attire remained much the same, school uniform and all. However, the scales and scars that had wrapped around his neck were gone, as if he had never developed them at all.
“Amir?” Alhaitham asked as he peered over, hands on the straps of his backpack. When the boy, translucent and hazy, did not respond, Alhaitham moved closer. “Hello?” he asked, louder this time, waving his arm in front of the boy’s face. After waiting again for a response and coming out empty-handed, he reached out to shake Amir’s shoulder. Instead, his hand passed through the boy’s body. Parts of Amir’s shoulder dissipated like smoke particles. As Alhaitham removed his hand, the figure in front of him re-formed as if nothing had happened.
“Haitham?” Two of his classmates had turned into the hallway. One of them made a puzzled look. “What are you doing?”
“Huh? I’m just…”
That was the moment he realized.
"They can't see him ."
“Nothing,” Alhaitham grumbled. “I’m going to class. You should too.” Before leaving, he snuck one final peek and saw Amir’s ghost looking at him. Or, more accurately, he saw Amir looking through him and at the other two classmates instead.
"Ah, weren’t the three of them friends?" he mused.
A few days later, the boy at the window was gone, never to be seen again.
The sightings grew more frequent over the years. As Alhaitham grew older, the bodies and faces of these beings became clearer, sharper, and more colorful. The more familiar he became with them, the easier they were to recognize. He soon accepted them as part of his life and often observed them as they floated around Sumeru City. He wanted to understand their patterns and “rules”.
Most looked young and regretful, as if they weren’t ready to give up on living. However, the ghosts often disappeared after a couple of days. Alhaitham rarely ever saw the same apparition more than a handful of times. Perhaps there was no reason to linger around. A limbo with no ability to communicate with the living seemed to not be an existence worth existing in.
It was ironic. Alhaitham, the one person who could see these ghosts, seemed to be the one person the ghosts could not see.
After further observation, he realized that the ghosts could watch the people of the living world, but failed to do much else. Alhaitham wondered if they could do anything at all or if their limbo was a world of immaterial silence.
He considered confiding in someone about his unusual ability, but he didn’t have many close confidants. The only person he had that kind of relationship with was his grandmother, but telling her was the one thing he could never do. He feared that if she knew of his strange “gift”, then she would be unable to move to the afterlife when her time arrived. He feared she would force herself to stay for his sake.
When her time finally arrived, he never saw her ghost at all.
He continued to search every day from the day of her death until her funeral, but he never found her. Even when he was sure she was gone, he kept looking, just in case.
The night after her funeral, his rigid mask cracked. He knelt in front of her grave and cried. He cried tears of relief, grateful she could pass on after a long and successful life without regrets. He cried tears of sorrow, knowing he could not say his goodbyes to her one last time.
When Alhaitham entered the Akademiya, he spent his first several days at the House of Daena doing what he did best — reading and researching.
After a childhood of confusion about what these ghosts were or why he was the only one seeing them, this was his best chance for answers.
His first hypothesis was that it had something to do with the ley lines. There was a lot of documentation on ley line disorders, but none that lined up with what he’d been experiencing. Ley lines were a local phenomenon and should affect everyone in a given area. Disorders that had a chance of producing anything remotely close to a “ghost” were a rare occurrence, especially in a place as well-regulated as Sumeru City.
He found a paper on the existence of ghosts on one of Inazuma’s islands. Likewise, that was said to be regional and also seemed to be caused by a curse. Many who tried to verify did not return alive. Either way, it didn't fit his criteria.
The last paper he looked at was from Liyue, written several decades ago by the owner of a funeral parlor. It detailed a border between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Souls trapped there required assistance in moving on. It was a fascinating piece, but it didn't seem to be the answer either. Not to mention, there was no “border” that he knew of — unless all of Sumeru City was one. It was difficult to conclude based on this single account.
And so, he dropped the subject for the time being. There was a wealth of other fascinating books in the House of Daena that were more worthy of his time. His tentative conclusion was that this was just his weird quirk, and out of all the weird quirks in the world, this one wasn’t too bad.
As the school year continued, Alhaitham found himself growing more and more intrigued by one of his peers at the Akademiya. Not because of the student’s loud voice, constant complaining in the library, flashy feather hairpiece, or bright red hair pins adorning his blond hair — the reasons that others turned their heads.
No, it was because this blabbermouth always had a ghost watching him.
Colors were still hard to pick out on these beings. Their blue-toned and translucent quality made it difficult, but Alhaitham had seen enough to figure out that the ever-present ghost had the same hair color as the student it followed. A family member, likely a father, Alhaitham deduced. The ghost appeared too old to be a sibling.
When he first saw the ghost observing the student in the library, he hadn’t thought much of it. It wasn’t even the first one he’d seen in the House of Daena. But the other ghosts preferred to hang around for a few days and then vanish, per usual.
This ghost stayed. Weeks and months passed, but it never left the student’s vicinity. And as finals season grew closer and closer, the blond-haired boy spent more and more time at the library studying, and without fail, the ghost would follow and watch over him.
“His name is Kaveh, you say?” Alhaitham asked in a conversation with one of his classmates. He often prided himself on not being the nosy type. He was often the opposite, not caring about something until it affected him personally. However, this could get him some answers about the nature of these beings. Or at least, that’s what he told himself whenever he felt his curiosity growing.
“The Kshahrewar pretty boy, yeah? Why? Is he your type?” his classmate teased, nudging Alhaitham with his elbow.
With little reaction, Alhaitham responded. “That part is irrelevant.”
“They say he’s a genius architect. One of the best Kshahrewar students. I think he’s on track to graduate with honors. Though I’ve heard he’s not very good at things other than architecture.” He shrugged. “Supposedly, he's a bit eccentric.”
Alhaitham didn’t bother asking for more information after that. It would be easier, and less subjective, if he just talked to the haunted library go-er himself.
Alhaitham arrived at the House of Daena later that evening. Kaveh sat in one of his usual spots, but there were three other students surrounding his table. Alhaitham, assuming they were friends, fell under the pretense that he should wait for another day to introduce himself. He was about to turn around and head back before overhearing the conversation turn sour.
“What are you going to do? Get all high and mighty on us about the arts?” said the first.
“Just because you get good grades doesn’t mean you’re allowed to have an inflated ego,” said the second.
“E-Ego?” Kaveh stuttered. “I don’t have–”
Alhaitham walked towards them and stood his ground, with a wide stance and his arms crossed, glaring at the group. “Hey, some of us are trying to study. Do you guys have nothing better to do?”
“...He started it,” said the third.
“I don’t care. He’s not the one disrupting the quiet of the library. I will call the staff on you if the situation persists. Leave.”
One of them made a sound of disgust and then made an arm motion to wave the others to the exit. The other two seemed more indifferent, but followed and left.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m…fine. Thanks for standing up for me, even though I probably deserved it.”
“I highly doubt that. What was all that about?”
“I may have gotten a bit fired up earlier today about some students looking down on the arts. They’re to the point of openly dissuading people from studying architecture!” He shook his head. “I just... want to make sure the younger students don’t get peer pressured into joining a Darshan they don’t enjoy as much for the sake of job prospects.”
“That’s not an excuse for them to heckle you, but the line of reasoning makes sense. I’ve heard that architecture doesn’t pay very well.”
“Hah! Of course you would say that. You’re a Haravatat student. Hell, some other Kshahrewar students say that,” Kaveh scoffed. “What do they know?”
“You know who I am?”
“How could I not? Everyone’s always spitting warnings about you. Genius with a bad attitude, they say.”
“Hm, not a bad title to have.”
Kaveh groaned. “The fact that you find pride in that just proves their point, you know.”
“Let them believe what they want, but do be sure to make an impartial judgment of your own.”
“I think I just did.”