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Words travel across the nation, spreading their wings like the dusk birds carrying letters, their knowledge escaping the books and the lesser-known ruins to fill libraries. There is so much a simple scholar can do, stuck between the four walls of an academy that has all the answers and none of the risks. While the safety of the written words –delivered by hand and taught every day–, is enough for most people, Alhaitham could never get satisfied. He knew there were truths untold beyond the limits of the big city, questions that haven’t been asked yet and painful realities that the sages would rather not share with his classmates.
And so, when the opportunity to seek the knowledge, he always wanted came to him, there wasn’t much to think about before accepting.
He had taken a trip to Port Ormos, following the trail of a rumour. Or, more than a rumour, it was a fact that most people still couldn’t believe was real: Inazuma had opened its gates after a long time of isolation. Not only that, but the nation had also made an agreement to share works by their local authors with Sumeru, allowing them to expand their catalogue. In exchange, the land of eternity would receive some of the most distinguished scholars to educate the people affected by the lockdown.
Alhaitham was studying the contents of a novel inspired by inazuman legends when they approached him. The coffee on his table had already gone cold, yet his new visitors took care of it by ordering a new round while waiting for him to finish scanning his newest purchase. Murmurs Alhaitham had learned to ignore became louder once his companions decided to call for him, their patience running short and their drinks coming hot.
“I doubt sharing a table with a scholar is in the job description of the likes of you,” he started by leaving the book aside, crossing his arms and looking at their eyes.
The Gray Heron was well-known but the same couldn't be said about its crew. As the ship travelled through the rivers and seas, the ones behind the wheel and the flags became a legend to most people. On the other hand, Alhaitham had had his fair share of encounters with them before his sailing days, back when they travelled through the waves made of sand instead of crystal-clear water. Cyno and Dehya were the ones he had dealt with the most, which might’ve been the reason why they were chosen to go speak with him. What about? He had a few guesses, yet he knew for sure he was about to find out.
“It’s nice to see you’re still doing good,” Dehya’s smile seemed genuine, something rare when being out for business.
“There is no reason for it to not be the case,” time was flying and Alhaitham wouldn’t let them get in the way of catching it. “What does Candace need that she sent you both to see me?”
“How did you know Candace was the one who sent us?” Cyno started a silent staring contest, trying to read behind Alhaitham’s eyes and finding nothing. “She wants to make you an offer.”
“I’m not interested in any goods deemed illegal by the Akademiya,” Alhaitham was about to rise from his seat, his new coffee untouched, when Cyno interrupted once again.
“A job offer,” Cyno corrected. He waited until Alhaitham sat back down and got to drinking his order to continue. “We will be expanding our deals outside of Sumeru and Candace thinks it’s a good idea to have an interpreter with us.”
“She asked for you, to be specific,” Dehya added. “She still doesn’t trust the Akademiya, but she trusts you.”
Alhaitham stared at his now empty cup of coffee, weighing the positives and negatives of such an offer. The only downside would be his almost obvious ban from the House of Daena. The Akademiya gave up on the idea of punishing pirating by force, closing the doors to its irreplaceable resources instead. There were many books he hadn’t yet read but the prospect of going to places he had only visited through paper before and being able to study the truth of history and language from the main source… it was too tempting to decline. He was familiar with Candace to know he would get nothing but the best treatment and a fair pay, so the pros overruled the cons by a lot.
“Hey,” a familiar got him out of his memory bubble, the captain taking the place next to him and looking at the view from the port at Bayda Harbor. “Contemplating life?”
“Seeking for an escape route for when the festivities get too loud. Dehya won’t let me go once she gets drunk,” he barely heard the chuckle, the affection in her smile might’ve not been visible for Alhaitham from his angle, but he could feel it. “Contemplating life?”
“You could say so,” he turned his head to look at her, Candace staring at the ocean between Sumeru and Fontaine instead. “Our stop at Petrichor reminded me of Aaru Village,” the hurt in her voice didn’t go unnoticed yet it wasn’t mentioned – leaving a home, even if for the better of those left behind, was never easy.
“They have little to no similarities,” Alhaitham pointed out while looking away, because it was a fact but also a way to take the sadness away from the topic. “One is surrounded by water and the other by sand. Petrichor’s buildings remain strong, and history is written in their walls. Aaru was built from the perseverance of its habitants and their culture is tied to their blood.”
“Which do you find more beautiful?” a question whose answer she already knew, though asked, nonetheless.
“None. They can’t be compared. Both have their unique characteristics.”
A quiet sound of approval from Candace and silence settled in. It had always been like that between them, both people of few words unless necessary, both focused on the tasks at hand and staying at the back when not needed. Out of everyone in the crew, she was the one most in tune with him. The lack of noise brought the waves hitting the dock to the front of their minds, cheers and laughs coming from the only inn in the harbour.
“Cyno went out of his way to survey the area earlier,” there was a change in her tone, fondness tinting her voice as she turned around. “The beach is free of danger. We'll be leaving tomorrow morning.”
There were no orders or suggestions, only facts for Alhaitham to consider. The night was young, merchants either asleep or drinking their worries away. Candace’s mind and heart was at the inn, so she would pull through the euphoric crew’s festivities – it was one of the things she deemed imperative of her position as captain. On the other hand, his responsibility was to be on board the next day for their departure – what he decided to make of his free time lacked importance.
Words of gratitude hanged on his tongue, founding himself alone when facing the ghost of her. Had he not seen the door of the inn shutting down, he would’ve thought he had imagined their conversation. Alas, when the night sky became his only companion, the path to the desolated beach presented itself in front of him.
Cyno’s reports were to be trusted blindly, yet Alhaitham chose to inspect the nearby field in favour of ruling out any unexpected encounters. Once he was satisfied with the results, he took his shoes off and crossed to one of the small islands close to the shore. The moonlight brought a calm the sunlight lacked, painting the ocean in blues and whites that could appease the mind. His body and mind were too tired to read, yet his book was resting next to him stubbornly. Pushing his back and head to the natural wall behind him, Alhaitham closed his eyes and focused on his surroundings: the warmth of the moon mixed with the gentleness of the sand, calming down his always working mind; the melody of the waves crashing against each other, accompanied by the sweet voices close by, creating a lullaby that asked for him to become one with the ocean…
Wait. Voices?
Alhaitham’s eyes snapped open in confusion, slowly but surely following the trail of melodic notes right around the corner. Curious eyes of greens and reds scanning the area up ahead, finding figures he hadn’t seen before. A splash of colourful hairs covering chests that ended in shining tails, three of them singing and laughing while the other two looked from the side, one of them nervously clapping while the other one was failing at staying awake.
Fairy tales weren’t new to Alhaitham, having read a good amount of them even at his grown age. Tales about merpeople were nothing but fantasies for little kids and dreams of freedom to adults stuck in a job they hated. He started to wonder if he had fallen asleep, what he was seeing nothing but an illusion created by a tired mind who enjoyed the impossible being made possible. Yet, while he was having an inner debate about whether he was awake or not, waters were disturbed and melodies quieted down – he had been found out.
Most of them retreated to the safety of the unknown, the only proof of their presence being the little waves created by their tails as they left underwater. One of them, the one that had been closest to him, remained in place. At first, Alhaitham thought he might attack him. Or maybe, he had frozen where he stood (floated?), like a deer scared in the face of a possible predator. However, as he stepped closer to the island’s shore, the blond head tilted to the side and stared at him curiously. Once Alhaitham was within hearing range, the merman spoke in a language he had assumed dead for centuries.
“Stay …” he couldn’t understand the second word, but deciphered it was meant to be ‘there.’ His feet kept in place and his hands slowly raised, showing he was unarmed and unwilling to hurt him, Alhaitham waited for the blond half-man to speak. He looked at Alhaitham weirdly, mostly shocked and confused, most likely due to a human understanding him. “Why is a … …?”
It was now time for the scholar to frown. Frustration based on lack of knowledge wasn’t something he got to experience often, even less if it was about a topic he had already learned everything about. He was thankful that his luggage at the ship involved his books and notes from all tongues he had learned in the past, as he was already planning to revisit them once he went back. The merman seemed to catch up on his struggle, repeating his question slowly to see if that helped.
“H-u-m-a-n. H-e-r-e.”
Why is a human here?
“There are more,” he pointed at the harbour with his thumb, clumsily remembering words from a language he hadn’t spoken in years. The merman looked surprised at his response – Alhaitham presumed that he wasn’t expecting anything aside from basic comprehension. “I didn’t know merpeople were hard of hearing,” if he focused hard enough, he could listen to his crew, along with the rest of the guests at the inn.
Apparently, his observation was understood but not well-received. The blond puffed his cheek in an attempt to look intimidating while clearly upset by what Alhaitham said. It was an amusing view –even slightly endearing, though he chose to ignore the warmth in his chest–, which didn’t help alleviate the pouty anger in the merman’s face. The stranger started spouting claims of offense that Alhaitham couldn’t fully catch, the only words he managed to pick up being ‘dumb’, ‘human’, ‘drown’ and ‘disrespect’. His monologue finished with a question that flew over Alhaitham’s head, too distracted by the merman’s mannerisms to catch it.
“What?” dumbfounded, he stared at the blond. It wasn’t an occurring theme for the scholar to be taken by surprise.
“N-a-m-e,” the merman’s tone could’ve been harsher after the treatment he got, yet it was nice to see him still taking his time to communicate effectively. “What is your name?”
“Haitham,” his answer came out faster than he expected, with an eagerness he ignored to have for their first time meeting. “What is your name?”
Perhaps it was the moonlight, bringing with itself the melancholy of a starry night sky and the dreamy atmosphere of encountering a creature who should only exist in fairy tales. Maybe the loneliness ran deeper in his heart than he thought, months on board intertwined with years on the Akademiya, always left by himself. Or, even more possible, it was a fact that struck Alhaitham like lightning on a rainy night: the merman’s smile was bright. Stunning, even. It glowed like nocturnal flowers in the dark.
All of him shined. Alhaitham wondered if the earlier singing had affected his senses or if the blond was naturally as beautiful as looked at that time.
“Kaveh,” he finally replied. “My name is Kaveh.”
Waves came and went, crashing against the wooden sides of the ship as it set sail once more. A hand covered the yawn escaping from his mouth, his dozy mind dissecting the previous night and trying to come to a conclusion: was it just a dream or did it actually happen? After introductions were made, Sethos had called for Alhaitham to join celebrations. When he looked back at the ocean, Kaveh was nowhere to be seen.
“Did you get some rest?” Cyno took the place next to him, looking at the ocean slowly becoming a river beneath the ship.
“Enough to stay awake for a couple of hours,” naps were a must during the sun, a nice weather made him feel drowsy even if he had a decent sleep the previous night. “I could hear Dehya from my room while trying to sleep. I doubt she will join us today.”
There was a quick nod of acknowledgement from Cyno and then both fell silent. Steps could be heard at the back, accompanied by the sound of ropes and grunts. The tides of their nation weren’t prone to causing problems; the narrow path ahead, up until their destination, was the issue. So, when Cyno decided to give a helping hand to the crew, he found no reason to stop him. He knew the basics of navigation in case of an emergency but, after all, his job was to merely connect the group with their clients through translated services.
His so-called nap ended up messing with his sleeping schedule, his body more tired than he had considered and the notes he had been reading scattered all over the floor, next to and under him. His eyes opened to the night sky at the forest, the gentle rocking of the ship inviting him to surrender himself to his sweetest dreams – a barely familiar voice being the only thing waking him up.
Dehya was taking care of the wheel –something she loved to do with a bad hangover, as puzzling as it was for Alhaitham– and Cyno patrolled on deck. He thought perhaps he was just hearing things, a melody he was yearning for under the bright moonlight. At least, until Cyno turned around to look at him.
No, not at him. Behind him.
“You hear that sound?” now he was looking at Alhaitham, a small nod and both of them got closer to the rail.
The song was different. The one sang the previous night was playful, intimate in ways only strong bonds of loved family members or close friends could explain, evoking a feeling of belonging and safety natural to warm family meals on a chilly winter. This song was filled with intense emotions, deeply alluring, like a man trying to seduce his lover to bed him. Having that realisation helped Alhaitham understand the situation a lot better: there was a lack of feminine voices in the melody, only Cyno and him seeing affected by the sweet vocals coming from under the water.
“Kaveh?” Cyno looked at him, confused with his words for a second before the melody trapped him once again, making him snap his head back to the currents.
The passage of time was a torture, the song keeping them close to the railing yet not luring them to take the leap and drown. It felt like they were being edged, played with, unable to break free from the charming voices of mermen but staying in the safety of the ship. Giggles interrupted the melody when they got dangerously close, a red tail peeking above the surface, being pushed down by a green one.
Their dance continued until a splash of water indicated both mermen parted ways. He was unsure of their plan or motivations, wary of the sea creatures once the spell was broken. Or, at least, broken for him. Cyno moved next to him, stepping back to the other side of the ship, ignoring the looks and questions Dehya asked to him, redirecting them to Alhaitham.
“What is going on?”
How could he explain something he still couldn’t believe to be fully real?
“There is something in the water. Nothing to worry about,” I hope, he wished. “We will take care of it.”
Dehya didn’t seem entirely convinced. However, her hangover must’ve been bad enough to decide she was more helpful staying behind the wheel. A noise at his back caught him off guard.
“Haitham,” he turned around and leaned on the rail once more, searching for the dreamy figure in the river.
“Kaveh,” he called once again. “Where are you?”
A blond head peeked from under the water, crimson eyes shaped like crescent moons and a smile distorted by the clear water.
“Did you like the song?”
The blissful expression on his face didn’t match the tempting notes he had sang moments before. Alhaitham was a second away to admitting he had found it beautiful, much like the singer behind it, yet the memory of a pouty blond flashed through his mind. With his arms crossed, he shrugged before answering the question.
“I thought merpeople could lure sailors to the depths easily. It appears your singing still could use some work.”
Kaveh’s face shifted, enjoyment leaving to give room for a frown He emerged from the river, the scales of his tail slightly above water level as he moved his arms around in exasperation.
“I had no intention of drowning you, but now I’m starting to regret it.”
“Oh?” Alhaitham’s mouth reshaping itself to show a grin on his face. “What will you do about it, then?”
Cheeks got bigger as Kaveh’s frustration grew, the view reminding the scholar of a pufferfish. Would the merman appreciate the comparison? Would it rile him up even more? He could picture both reactions, finding each of them appealing in different ways. Losing himself in his own thoughts of the blond, he was quick enough to step aside when Kaveh tried to splash water his way.
“You are the most … human I have ever met,” stuck between a confused look –originated from a word he couldn’t understand– and a proud smile –Alhaitham had just learnt merpeople could blush–, the scholar’s head tilted slightly to the side. “I-n-s-u-f-f-e-r-a-b-l-e,” Kaveh clarified, regretting it the moment Alhaitham’s grin grew.
“And still you followed me here.”
“You-!” He threw water at Alhaitham again, failing to hit him a second time.
Cute.
There was movement underneath Kaveh, his body submerging for a minute before coming back up. Alhaitham discovered that sadness didn’t look good on the merman’s face.
“We need to go,” an invisible string pulled from the centre of Alhaitham’s chest, as if Kaveh had his heart tied to his wrist and was about to take it with him. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Haitham.”
He had no time to process those words, flashes of crimson and jade washed away with the tides and bare steps on wood coming his way.
“What was that?”
“Mermen,” he didn’t turn to look at Cyno, his eyes fixated on the river, a melodic voice repeating in his mind: tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.
“I can see that,” there was no need for him to look at his crewmate to know his arms were crossed, as if Alhaitham had called him an idiot to his face. “I didn’t know you could speak their language.”
“I can speak more than thirty languages,” he reminded Cyno. “The one they speak, however, was decreed a dead language centuries ago.”
“Well, at least now we know why it was that way,” the relationship between the crew and the Akademiya had been severed in many ways, even before the start of their business across the nations. “I only knew about merpeople from fairy tales, I’m not surprised the sages kept their existence a secret.”
A beat.
“I can’t understand them fully, but I think the green enjoyed my jokes.”
That’s when Alhaitham decided he was too tired to keep up with their conversation.
The next few nights went smoothly. If Dehya had noticed Kaveh and Tighnari (the blond had told him his name, he had also told him that he did not find Cyno’s jokes funny), she kept quiet. Alhaitham had a lot of free time while on board, which he used to keep revisiting his notes and make new ones based on the information Kaveh shared with him.
“How many of you are there?”
Kaveh took some time to think an answer. “I’m not sure. It’s always been just the six of us.”
‘The six of us,’ Alhaitham learnt, meant both of their regular guests and four mermaids that accompanied them. He had met three of them back in Bayda Habor: the one who sang next to Kaveh and Tighnari was called Nilou, a redhead who frequently put up a show for animals and creatures equally; Tighnari had adopted the youngest one, Collei, who was currently healing mentally and physically after being held captive for most of her life; and lastly, a narcoleptic mermaid with a bright mind and blue scales named Layla. The one Alhaitham hadn’t seen was an elder mermaid, the oldest they had ever encountered, called Faruzan. According to Kaveh, she preferred to look at humans from a safe distance after falling into an abandoned trap in a sunken ship – it took her a long time to figure out how to get out and she had stayed away since then.
“She is an admirable old lady still. We learnt Sumerian from her, even if we prefer to speak our own language.”
“You know Sumerian?”
Kaveh smiled proudly, as if surprising Alhaitham was the best possible reward to get. “I do,” his pronunciation was a bit off, probably from lack of practice. “But I haven’t spoken it with anyone outside of my family.”
Alhaitham took a mental note on the way he referred to his companions. Family. He had never referred to his crew as a family, even if he had known them for some time before agreeing to set sail next to them. He wondered what a family meant for Kaveh.
“What about your blood family?” Kaveh’s expression shifted, a sombre one on his face. Alhaitham assumed he didn’t understand him. “Sorry, I asked about your birth family?”
“I got what you said,” he submerged until only his eyes were out of water. The scholar was thankful that the ship stood still that night, unlike the previous ones. “I haven’t seen them in a long time, that’s all.”
“Did they go somewhere else?” The way Kaveh was evading looking at him should’ve been signal enough to drop the topic, yet Alhaitham’s curiosity mixed with his difficulty to pick up social clues made him ask the question anyway.
“My mother went to Fontaine years ago. My father…” He came out of the water, up to his hips, and looked at Alhaitham with a sad smile. “Is there anything else you want to know? I should be heading back soon but I can answer one more question.”
He had a list of things to ask, some which the merman had already answered but a lot that not. Questions like: Why did you stay hidden until now? When and how did you find your family? Since when merpeople could speak a language that used to belong to people in the desert? What was the life expectancy of merpeople? Did they know about the fairy tales?
“Will I see you tomorrow?" was asked instead.
Kaveh was taken by surprise, surely expecting more academic inquiries like the ones he had answered for the past few days. Soon, a bright smile bloomed on his face, like the one he gifted Alhaitham after introducing himself. “You will.”
Sumeru City was bustling with activity as expected. The Gray Heron rested at a safe distance from the outskirts of the big city, away from the watchful eyes of the Corps of Thirty. Since they were the ones with the most contacts in the area, Candace chose to send Dehya and Alhaitham as their representatives while taking care of some business. If all the whining and complaining indicated something, it was that Dehya would rather be anywhere but here.
“We still have some time. If you are interested in meeting your former workmates, do it now,” Dehya started complaining once again but it fell to deaf ears, his feet taking him away from their meeting point.
They had to negotiate with people from the Akademiya – students, he guessed, but Candace kept any non-essential information from him per his request. Alhaitham was unsure of where the meeting would take place, yet he knew what to do with his free time until then. Amid chaos caused by upcoming exams, project partners discussing topics and foreign students stepping into the Akademiya for the first time, Alhaitham found his way to the House of Daena.
The smell of books and gentle murmuring of other scholars felt like coming back to a forgotten childhood home. His eyes scanned the diverse sections of the library, heading towards bookshelves from Haravatat to pick up some dictionaries. He passed by the Vahumana section until reaching the fairy tales next to Rtawahist. As he suspected, there was little to no information about merpeople, closest thing being tales about the oceanids, which he had already asked Kaveh about.
“Are your people related to the oceanids?”
Kaveh shook his head. “I asked Madam Faruzan about it, but she said our species was originally from the oasis of the desert. Although my mother told me oceanids learnt human languages too, so she could talk to them after learning the tongue of Fontaine.”
History was written by the ones in power, a fact no one at the Akademiya would believe true in Sumeru. Yet the scarce data about the desert, repeated between authors but never expanded with added information, proved that not even the Nation of Wisdom was free from the corruption by those in power. All the things he knew about the desert, aside from what he had already read at the House of Daena, he’d learnt from his crew. But even them had no clue about merpeople, as indicated by Cyno’s first encounter with Tighnari.
It was fascinating, the way knowledge he never thought could exist ignited something deep within him. And, perhaps, it was paired up with the prospect of being the one to help Kaveh find more about himself. And, perhaps, Alhaitham could get a smile from him again, one that could turn the darkest nights into brightest days. Perhaps.
The meeting ended up being unnecessarily long and extremely tedious. Alhaitham had little to nothing to do during the duration of it since the clients turned out to be desert-dwellers. Even if they changed language mid conversation, the probability of Dehya not understanding what they were saying was very low: she had brains aside from brawns, after all, something he had used as proof of her qualities to work at the Akademiya in the past… before she rejected it on the first try.
“I’ll see if I can find anything at the Grand Bazaar worth buying and then I’m going back to report to Candace. I think Cyno asked to make a stop at Vimara Village, but we should be going straight to Port Ormos after that,” Dehya stretched, interrupting herself every few words with groans after too many hours sitting down at Lambad’s. “We’ll leave tomorrow noon at last, so don’t fall asleep reading your books or we’ll leave without you,” it was a half-joke, he was aware of it now after the many times the crew told him the same thing – but they would always wait for him if needed. He was one of them, after all.
“I’ll be back before morning,” Dehya gave him a puzzled look, trying to figure out what he was planning, but gave up when a minute of silence went by.
“Alright. Tell us if you find anything helpful,” Alhaitham nodded and turned around, a quick ‘see you’ before he started walking on the opposite direction.
The house he used to call a home as a child stayed frozen in time, only visited by the scholar when he came back to the city. In between cleaning and paying debts, he browsed his grandmother’s book collection. He had taken most of the books he thought interesting or helpful enough with his belongings the first day as a crewmember, so he was aware of what was left and where he left it. Books about diverse topics, from all over Teyvat, yet the ones he wanted to find where those fantasy stories about merpeople he had read as a child. At least, he had taken them as storytelling of unrealistic experiences; now he wasn’t so sure and, based on that, he was willing to read them again.
Most of the pages he scanned through had nothing new to offer, either because he already knew about it beforehand, or he had figured it out during his nocturnal dates with Kaveh. After scavenging for something he wasn’t already aware of, he found a short novel by a modern sumerian author, his name ringing a bell as one of the scholars sent to Inazuma. A lot of the information written in there was real, fact-checked by Alhaitham himself, yet there was something he hadn’t find in any other book.
Verifying its veracity, on the other hand, was going to be more complicated than just asking a simple question.
The forest outside Sumeru City was devoid of human activity and most creatures were either sleeping or keeping their safe distance from each other. The crowns of the trees shrouded them from any lost adventurer that could pass by. The stars were shinning, covering the dark blue sky in sparkling whites. Kaveh’s tail, now in full display as he rested his back on a tree –he had told Alhaitham that ‘I will be fine as long as no one sees me, running away is not an option when you don’t have human legs’–, marked a striking contrast against the deep green grass. Alhaitham let himself study the colours and patterns of his scales, Kaveh too preoccupied with reading the novel Alhaitham had shown him to react. Hues of red were the most common on the merman’s tail, the place where his ankles would be if human was the start of a gradient from crimson to gold, the end of his tail splitting in two gold fins. He noticed then that the fins in each side of his head followed that same pattern.
“Is the passage you underlined the one you are not sure about?” he could tell Kaveh was trying to sound nonchalant, yet there was a tiny break in his voice that outed him as being slightly flustered.
“Yes. I’ve checked the rest of them with my notes from other books and what you’ve told me. That’s the only thing I still need to verify.”
There was a moment of silence, both frozen in their positions until Kaveh spoke once again.
“Do you want to find out now?” Alhaitham nodded as Kaveh started retreating to the river.
There was a lot he didn’t know about merpeople yet, so a communication channel through water was a probability he could not be aware of. He looked at the spot Kaveh disappeared to, waiting for a sign from him for a couple of minutes. How long could it take to reach the rest of his family? Alhaitham was aware that Tighnari was the only one that came all the way to Sumeru City with him, so there was no way he could go back and forth faster enough. No matter how many special qualities merpeople had, it just seemed impossible to cut such a long journey short to a couple of minutes.
Kaveh eventually came out, his head peeking out to let his eyes see above the surface while his body stayed underwater. One of his hands appeared and gestured for Alhaitham to get closer to the shore. He assumed it was a matter of safety, maybe he had heard or seen an uninvited guest from the forest, and was taking necessary precautions to not let them get data about his people. However, Kaveh made no move as Alhaitham got closer, which got him more confused by the second. His clothes soaked as he entered the water, something that should’ve bothered him but didn’t. He was steps away from the merman when he realised: Kaveh had been singing, alluring enough to get him close while keeping his consciousness intact.
Questions and complaints started to take shape at the back of his throat. They all died in his mouth when the blond grabbed his wrist and brought him into the water. After a few seconds of delayed reaction, Alhaitham’s head popped out of the river, a new sound coming to him: laugh. Kaveh was laughing like never before, making all anger disappear from Alhaitham’s chest, a warmth replacing it and spreading through his veins. He could only stare as the merman tried to control his laugh; it died down slowly when he noticed he was being watched.
“Haitham?” like a response to a call, he swam closer. The merman stared at him, wary of what could happen, yet didn’t try growing the distance between them.
It would’ve been easy for Kaveh to run away from that situation, being both in the water he had a clear advantage over him. Seconds passed, though, and neither of them moved from the place they were floating in. Alhaitham could imagine that, if he raised his arm, his elbow would reach Kaveh’s shoulder – it was a short distance. Even then, it wasn’t short enough.
He could feel the tail next to his legs as he got closer to Kaveh, the blond barely retreating, slowly. “Haitham?” his tone got smaller, sounding more worried and making it more difficult for Alhaitham to listen to him – so, as the scholar he was, he contemplated his options and got even closer. “Are you mad-?”
He had no chance to finish his question, a hand cupping his cheek shutting him up. His expression shifted, a lot of tiny changes and details Alhaitham hadn’t been able to witness before: his nose scrunching up slightly; his eyes opening more after blinking, an attempt to disguise his peek at Alhaitham’s lips. The hues of red in his eyes, a gradient to an orange-gold colour that matched the one on his tail.
“So?”
Kaveh blinked repeatedly, as if coming back to earth. “So… what?”
Alhaitham could feel his hair sticking to his forehead and neck, Kaveh’s cheek warm under his hand and the way the merman seemed to be struggling to keep a steady breath. “So…” his face closed the gap, their breathing crushing and becoming one before he whispered: “are you going to help me?”
The young man was stricken by the young maiden’s beauty, her tail a deep purple that reminded him of the storms on his hometown.
“Come closer,” she told him. He doubted for a second, still not fully familiar with her.
What if she wanted to take him by surprise, pushing him inside the waters and drowning him like those sailors he had met at the start of his journey? But she could never, he was convinced of it. She had saved him then and became a trustworthy companion on his travels. So why not trust her one more time?
As his feet reached the shore, crossing the limits of sand and sea, her hands reached out for him. And once they were close enough, they embraced each other in loving arms. Before he could react, she had stolen his first kiss, bringing him underwater with her. It took him a minute to realise that she was going deeper, guiding him to her kingdom.
And he wasn’t drowning.
To say Alhaitham hadn’t thought about kissing Kaveh and what it would feel like would be a lie. He would go as far as admitting having dreams about it. Some of them were messy, some unrealistic, some he was sure had been taken from fairy tales he read as a child.
None of them could compare to the real experience.
With his eyes closed and both hands cupping the merman’s cheeks, he could perceive all reactions to his touch. The softness of damp lips, trying and failing to supress pleased sighs at each movement Alhaitham did. The arms wrapping around his neck, almost making him weak on his knees. The goosebumps at the back of the neck when he caressed the blond locks. When Kaveh tried to catch his breath, Alhaitham took his chance to try to deepen the kiss. It worked for a few seconds and then he started needing air too.
Without opening their eyes or moving their arms, their foreheads met as they struggled with heavy breathing. After they managed to get their breathing to a normal pace, they stared at each other in complete silence. A bright smile in Kaveh’s face was replicated in Alhaitham’s before being tainted and turning into a mischievous grin.
“Kaveh,” a sound of acknowledgment was the only response he got. “We’re still on the surface.”
The deep sigh Kaveh let out wasn’t out of pleasure this time around but of lighthearted annoyance. “You are insufferable, ruining a moment like that.”
‘You were the one who lured me in,’ Alhaitham wanted to say, just to tease him a little more, but a pair of lips shut him up before he got the chance to. One moment he was gasping for air under the moonlight, the second he was surrounded by water. He didn’t notice any difference from the average diving experience at first, it took a bit for his brain to register that Kaveh had broken their kiss and started swimming around him.
And he wasn’t drowning.
“How do you feel?” where Kaveh should’ve sounded distorted by the water, there was nothing but a clean voice. He parted his lips to answer to the question, yet nothing came out of his mouth. “Don’t overdo it,” Kaveh rushed to his side, “I don’t know how this is supposed to work.”
Alhaitham gave a short nod as a response. Breathing felt unnatural, his brain still processing the fact he wasn’t going to fill his lungs with water. It took him a couple of tries before he could manage to do it. He swam next to Kaveh, who was making a fuss of him and keeping both of them close to the surface because “we don’t know how long this lasts and I need to make sure I can get you to safety if needed.” Alhaitham thought he was being overly dramatic, something he conveyed through signs and facial expressions, getting an offended look from the merman in return.
Time passed by quickly. Or, perhaps, they haven’t been underwater for too long. Alhaitham could still breathe simply fine, but his legs were starting to sore, so he got to the surface without a warning. A mistake he realised when Kaveh followed him closely, wrapping his arms around his waist from behind.
“Are you okay? Do you need me to take you to the shore?” Alhaitham glanced at him from over his shoulder. He was about to tell him that nothing was wrong –except for his tiredness– when he saw the worry look in Kaveh’s face.
It took all his effort not to let his heart beat out of his chest and run right into the blond’s hands.
“I think I’ve got a cramp,” he pretended to fall from the grip Kaveh had on him into the river. “I don’t know if I can make it by myself.”
A panicked noise escaped from the merman’s lips as he tightened his grip and used all of his strength to carry Alhaitham. Once they were close to the book –long forgotten and luckily not soaked from the tiny waves–, Kaveh let himself fall next to him, lying down to catch his breath.
“Your singing isn’t the only thing that needs work,” he teased.
“You- Shut up!”
He swung his tail and managed to splash water on an already soaked Alhaitham. It took two deep breaths for him to start laughing, not low or short enough to be a giggle, yet not loud enough to be a full-on burst. His gaze went to Kaveh, green finding red as the blond was staring at him. Alhaitham wasn’t used to laughing –there was not a lot he found amusing enough to evoke such a strong reaction from him–, and he wasn’t used to being look at like that. Like Alhaitham’s laugh could cure any disease and end any wars, carving deep into his heart.
He wondered if, when he looked at Kaveh, he would sense the same longing reflected in jade eyes.
Sunrises in Sumeru City were still one of Alhaitham’s favourites. They used to bring him joy as a child, back when he experienced them with his grandmother before she passed away. He kept the tradition alive by himself before joining the Gray Heron, unable to share a moment so intimate with anyone other than her. Shades of pink and orange that would soon turn blue woke him up from a sleep he didn’t remember falling into.
There was a weight on top of his chest, one with golden hair and crimson eyes that were staring at him. “Good morning,” the sun rising from behind him made Kaveh look even more ethereal than normal, making it exceedingly difficult for him not to assume this was just a dream within a dream. “The crew was asking for you. It seems you told Dehya you’d be back early, but they woke up and you were nowhere to be seen.”
‘How did the Kaveh know-? Tighnari.’
“I should go back,” Kaveh made room for him to sit up. His back hurt, the solid ground not being the best bed to fall asleep in. “I’ll take notes on what happened last night,” the memories made him shy away from Kaveh’s glance. “And I’ll read the novel again. I’ll tell you tomorrow if I find anything else.”
Silence. Not a comfortable silence like the ones they shared after a long day. Not a warm silence like the one they shared earlier, when they run out of topics and energy to keep talking. It was odd. When Alhaitham turned his head, Kaveh was avoiding his eyes and staring at his tail, more restless than usual.
“Kaveh?”
“Actually, I came here last night to talk about that,” he sighed, locking his gaze onto Alhaitham’s. “Tighnari thinks we should check on the others. We’ve been apart for too long and there’s so much Madame Faruzan can do by herself. It’s best if we’re close together so… I agreed with Tighnari to go back today.”
He wanted to be selfish. At the sight of cosy waves leaving him, slipping away from his hands like sand on a beach, he wanted to wrap his arms around Kaveh and ask him to stay there. Stay with him, keep travelling the tides by his side until they were both satisfied, until Alhaitham could find all the answers for Kaveh, even the ones to questions he didn’t have.
“How soon?” a little more time, just a little more would be enough-.
“I should meet up with him in a bit.”
Silence. Rubies meeting with jades. The sound of dusk birds waking up. The warmth feeling of the sun rising. And all Alhaitham could do was nod.
“Will…” he felt so small, so insecure. It was a weird feeling, but then again, what wasn’t when it involved Kaveh? “Will I see you again soon?”
Kaveh’s worries washed away from his face and he nodded with a smile. “Yes. In fact,” he turned around, looking for something close to the line where the water met the grass. From a place Alhaitham couldn’t see, he pulled a string with a small precious stone. “Here,” Kaveh put his arms around his neck, tying up the pendant before leaning back and admiring his work.
Once it was hanging from Alhaitham’s neck could he see what the stone actually was. “A scale?”
“Mine,” he was proud, for a reason Alhaitham could not comprehend. “It will help me know where you are once I come back with everyone.”
“I see. You’re going to use this to track me down? Seems like the rumours about merpeople were right after all,” the merman’s puffed cheeks were worth the teasing every time.
“You can say whatever you want but I know you don’t care about rumours,” how much did he figure out about him already? How much did he know? “This is also a token.”
“Of?”
Kaveh looked everywhere but at Alhaitham, his face warming up to the point where he couldn’t hide it from the scholar. He was tempted to make a teasing remark about it, push a little to see what his reaction would be, but something stopped him. Whatever Kaveh was about to say made him more restless than saying they would part ways for some time. “Me.”
For the first time since the night they met, it was Alhaitham’s turn to be confused.
Kaveh let out a deep sigh of resignation. “Giving a scale is part of courting for merpeople. I’ve only seen it happen twice, but…” he was still refusing to meet Alhaitham’s gaze. “When I thought about giving it to you I was only thinking on the easiest way to find my way back to you. If you want to accept it to its fullest meaning that… is up to you.”
Alhaitham’s arms reacted faster than his mind, embracing Kaveh and taking him by surprise.
“Are you familiar with Vimara Village and Port Ormos?” he felt the merman nod on his shoulder. “We will be stopping at the village for a day, then we’ll head to Port Ormos. We’ll stay there for a couple of days; we still don’t know how many. If you make it on time, you and your family can join us there,” he let Kaveh go enough to rest his foreheads together and close his eyes. “I will be waiting for you there.”
He didn’t need to see him to feel the smile and sigh of relief from Kaveh. “We will be there. I will be there.”
A kiss on his cheek and one on his lips, the last one tasting like a bittersweet farewell, and Kaveh was gone. The departure of a lover whom he soon would be reunited with. A goodbye under rose skies and sunny days, marking a new beginning within a new beginning.
Taking his with him, Alhaitham started the walk back to his crew, those he wasn’t sure about calling a family but that would wait for him no matter what. And with his free hand he caressed the crimson and gold scale hanging from his neck, waiting for the night where they would meet again under the moonlight, with alluring songs that would welcome him back home.