Chapter Text
If there was one thing Alhaitham hated about visiting the desert, it was the sand in his shoes. It was just his luck that he had to deal with Kaveh's yabbering along with the irritating feeling of sand being squished between his feet and the inside of his shoes. It was maddening. It felt like this trip was going to be far from favorable. If he was already this irate, he could only guess how he would feel by the time this expedition came to an end.
But he also knew that Kaveh was running on less than four hours of sleep over four days. The idiot had ignored his warnings again and had stayed up almost all day and night working on a commission for another client. While the work he had been hearing come from Kaveh's room had damn near driven him crazy, he was also worried about Kaveh's help. His work hours had been far from healthy and were driving Alhaitham crazy more than his noisy "working" he would do late into the night.
But may Alhaitham get swallowed by a wenut before he ever admitted to being worried.
If Kaveh wanted to ignore all of his warnings about working himself to death, then so be it. If the situation reached the worst case scenario, he would take him to the Bimarstan and them serve him a formal eviction notice. He wasn't going to risk walking into Kaveh's room one day just to find him dead at his desk.
At least, that was what he told himself.
If push came to shove, could Alhaitham make the logical decision and kick Kaveh out instead of being forced to sit back and watch him destroy himself? Maybe it was just the heat getting to him. It wasn't like Alhaitham to give this so much thought, to be stuck on such a topic. Usually, he just followed basic logic, the same logic he would advise Kaveh use instead of letting others drag him under.
But if Kaveh kept this up. . .
"Ah, there it is!"
The excited shout jolted Alhaitham out of his thoughts. He still had his sound-cancelling headpieces on, but he couldn't risk going into the desert deaf, so they weren't activated. Looking over, Alhaitham saw the joyous and foolish smile on Kaveh's face. It seemed like he was in quite the happy mood about finally reaching their destination. Probably because they could finally split up and he wouldn't have to keep talking to someone so lost in their own thoughts that they basically stone-walled him the entire way here. Being ignored must have driven Kaveh crazy. He never did like it whenever Alhaitham ignored him. Alhaitham could readily admit that he sometimes did it to drive Kaveh crazy on purpose. It was funny to watch Kaveh blow up, especially since he never actually seemed to stay mad for long. One day to a week was the most it took for him to get over whatever he was mad about.
Looking away from his excited companion, Alhaitham took stock of the ruins. They weren't exactly anything special like King Deshret's Mausoleum or the Temple of Silence. But the Scribe had learned long ago that appearances with ruins can be deceiving. He was ready to just find what he was looking for and get back out. He would head back whether Kaveh was ready or not. He wasn't gonna stay stuck here just because Kaveh felt like taking forever.
When the two made their way over, Alhaitham noted the lack of the usual locking mechanism on the door. Or, to be more accurate, the door was wide open and clearly unlocked. There was a mechanism just before the door that looked like a book that was flipped open, the transparent pages glowing blue. It seemed that someone else had made their way inside already. Was it Eremites? No, it wasn't just Eremites who went through ruins in the desert. It could be the Fatui, Treasure Hoarders, a different scholar, someone from another nation, etc. There was no telling who was inside, but one thing was obvious.
They needed to be more on guard than Alhaitham had previously believed they previously would have been.
Alhaitham shot Kaveh a look and the architect looked every bit as nervous as he was probably feeling. He was such an open book, the younger man wondered how his senior had ever been able to lie and cover up the birthday surprise for Lesser Lord Kusanali. Not bothering to wait for his colleague to snap out of his worried stupor, Alhaitham went ahead and marched right in, hearing Kaveh squawk behind him and his quick footsteps running up behind him. It almost made him smirk but that would be immature and Alhaitham wasn't an immature brat like Kaveh. He would die on that hill.
Even as he felt the corner of his mouth quirk up.
Together, the two proceeded to make their way deeper into the ruins, going down many flights of stairs and finding multiple completed puzzle mechanisms along the way. Someone had been really dedicated to get to the bottom of this ruin and had left no stone unturned. Every device that was meant to block the way had been solved, every puzzle unlocked, and every door opened. If Alhaitham was honest, he was genuinely impressed. Someone had taken the time to solve all of these puzzles instead of brute forcing their way in. He couldn't lie and say that he didn't want to meet the person behind locking all of these mechanisms.
Just as Alhaitham believed they were coming towards the final floor, he was met with a sword to his throat. He froze on the spot and heard Kaveh make an outraged noise behind him but he seemed to have also frozen once Alhaitham had been incapacitated. It seemed as though they had found their puzzle solver and they weren't exactly friendly. One wrong move and they would likely try to take his head off. Neither he nor Kaveh could act before that sword either decapitated him or slit his throat and he was left to bleed out in the sand.
"Alhaitham?!"
The squeaky voice had Alhaitham turning towards the owner of the sword. A familiar fairy-looking child was floating in front of him with a surprised look on her face. If she was here, that meant. . .
"Lumine, it's Alhaitham!"
The sword at his throat abruptly dropped before he felt a pressure against his chest. Looking down, he found the Traveler hugging him tightly. He wasn't exactly sure what to do about this. Surely, he and Lumine weren't close enough for her to react like this to seeing him, right? If anything, he would have much more understood if she had jumped all over and hugged Kaveh. The two of them seemed closer than he believed she and he were. Checking her over, he found himself noting how disheveled she looked. Her hair was a little messy and she had cuts all over her dress along with a shallow cut across her cheek. Had their been enemies here? He hadn't seen any corpses or parts along the way down the ruin.
They must have been relatively tough if they gave the esteemed First Sage of Buer so much trouble. Or maybe, she just hadn't been at her best condition before she even came down here. Hesitating a little, he stiffly moved his hand until he settled it on her now dirtied blonde hair and softly stroked her head gently. She must be a little rattled. Had something happened recently that had shaken her when it came to fighting enemies? Lumine never seemed this upset after fighting enemies before, though he had occasionally caught her looking at Abyss monsters strangely at times, like she was sad for them.
Had something else happened after she had left for Natlan?
"Are you okay," Kaveh asked worriedly, moving until he was crouched next to her and settling a hand on her upper back, stroking it comfortingly. The architect was possibly more surprised than Alhaitham was to see his friend acting this way. She was usually so fearless in front of them and had never shown any real sign of weakness. His words, however, seemed to be what she needed to hear to at least attempt to pull herself back together. Rubbing her eyes, she looked back up at them and nodded, as silent as usual.
"There were monsters all over the place in here," the white-haired child piped up, looking about ready to burst into tears herself. "They were very far and few between before, but there were so many of them just cramped into this room. They didn't even show themselves until Lumine tried to open the door, then they charged us! Lumine tried so hard to stop them from hurting Paimon that she got hurt more than she usually would. It didn't help that the room being so bug didn't matter with how many monsters had been here."
Looking around, Alhaitham took not of the mostly bare room. Paimon was right to say it was fairly large. It was at least four to five times bigger than his living room and his living room wasn't exactly small. But it was indeed just a little too empty, nothing in the room really standing out except for the familiar open book with the blue pages in front of what was probably the last door.
Something was clearly wrong here and Alhaitham couldn't quite figure out what.
Gently moving Lumine to the side and pushing her into Kaveh's arms, he moved towards the book-like device in front of the door. Something was clearly off about it. If the book was already activated, why wasn't the door opening? The rest of the room was bare and there were no hints of what their next move should be. Maybe they should turn around and leave. The Traveler was injured and Paimon was scared half to death. They could always come back and investigate later.
Just as Alhaitham was turning to go back to the group, he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. Turning back to the book, he found words flitting across the blue pages, white words briefly flickering by too fast really read, even for how fast he could read. However, the book suddenly took in an ominus feeling as the pages abruptly turned red, the words going from white to black. The words were still flickering by too quickly for Alhaitham to read.
Suddenly, getting out of here seemed the ultimately correct decision.
Just as Alhaitham stepped back, every alarm in his head screaming to run away, the words on the book froze. Across the two pages was a single sentece that sent chills down his spine.
I Found You
Before Alhaitham could turn and scream for everyone to run, the doors the mechanism was blocking slammed open. Behind the door was a massive swirling mass of what appeared to be black sludge. Just looking at it made Alhaitham sick. Faster than he could react, the black gunk shot out in the shape of arms before swarming around him, gripping his limbs and torso before dragging him in. He could hear the shouting of the group behind him as the gunk seemed to be swallowing his body.
This certainly wasn't looking good, he thought sardonically.
He just barely was able to look back and saw the Traveler, Paimon, and Kaveh rushing towards him. Paimon was already crying and Lumine's face was twisted in anger and fear. But he wasn't prepared for the look he saw on Kaveh's face. His face was twisted into an expression of utter despair and devastation. There were tears in his eyes but they refused to fall, showing how strongly Kaveh must have been feeling in this moment. He hated himself for being the reason that he looked like that. Just like that day they had originally had their falling out. He never would have guessed that Kaveh would feel this strongly about his safety after all of that.
All he could do was give a regretful smile feeling a little jerk in his heart as Kaveh's eyes widened at the sight.
"ALHAITHAM!!!!"
The door slammed shut.
To Be Continued...