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It's Frenzy who wakes her, the adhan alarm on her phone having failed to rouse her. Head buried under her pillow, body heavy and slow, Zainab tries not to consider this, too, a personal failing.
"C'mon, this one's important, right?" Frenzy urges, prodding her shoulder through the weighted blanket. He kept warning her not to fall asleep under it, worried she'd be crushed, worried she'd be too relaxed, worried she was too squishy and human and she'd suffocate under it. Zainab wasn't worried about it; she didn't linger on the quiet voice in her head asking why she had to be so squishy and human, anyway?, dredging herself from the depths of her couch cushions as laboriously as a deep sea submarine trying to breach without crumpling in on itself. She wondered if this was what it felt like for submersible Cybertronians and pushed her loose hair out of her face, watching Frenzy's blurry figure as he went off to sweep the floor where she'd lay her prayer rug.
She wondered if Nautica, cheerful as she was, also felt like she was drowning except when in water, her element. Zainab slowly wrapped the long tail of her hijab under her chin and over her head, her thoughts swimming. She wasn't sure there was a place where she wouldn't feel crushed by an ocean, one that wouldn't cradle her in Her waves and didn't love her back. She held her hijab in place and patted the coffee table halfheartedly for her pin, a deep sadness winding around her heart when she considered never being able to dive again. Her body felt simultaneously too fragile to support itself on land and too heavy for her to tread water with.
Zainab stood outside her bathroom door, hugging her prayer abaya to her chest. Her hand shook when she finally pushed the door open; Frenzy pretended not to stare and Zainab pretended not to notice.
She wanted to turn her head and weakly smile at him. She wanted to ask if it was okay for her to feel afraid of being alone with herself, in her body, with her body. She wanted to ask Frenzy to talk to her later, after salah, about reformats and alt mode attachment and other forms of Cybertronian dysmorphia.
She kept her head down and stepped over the threshold, closing the door behind her softly.
While Frenzy didn't pray, he would join her sometimes, kufiya draped over his helm and shoulders. This one was wine red, for the vineyards of Dura, with yellow, blue, and browns and reds. It embodied heritage. It embodied the ancient history of the village, of people with fingers sticky from grape harvests - People who had re-cultivated the reclaimed land, vineyards once again sprawling. As he listened to Zainab recite thanaa, the cassette wondered if Cybertron and colonised moons and planets like Chaar would ever recover as liberated Palestine was.
Soundwave had spent a long time operating amongst the lava-buried wastelands of Chaar. It used to be fertile beyond his previous comprehension, lush forests and rivers sprawling in every direction. He didn't know if there were any inhabitants capable of harvesting grapes or olives on Chaar before disaster struck. He didn't know who he could ask, either, or if any Cybertronians could tell him.
He wondered if Enemy would have liked Chaar when it was full of life. He wondered if it still was, but no one could tell; maybe everything buried under the lava had been thriving just out of sight beneath the surface, only dead to those unwilling to dig, unwilling to ask.
Zainab recited Tasbeeh nine times, like she always did. She didn't stand immediately, instead reciting it another nine.
Frenzy wanted to ask her what it meant.