Chapter Text
“In the measurement world, we set a goal and strive to achieve it. In the universe of possibility, we set the context and let life unfold.” — Benjamin Zander
“Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you. Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion. Set your life on fire. Seek those who fan your flames.” — Rumi
———
Kaveh could not go home anymore.
To be fair, he could never really call it “home” in the first place. “Home” implied that it was his, and he didn’t own the place. All he did was pay rent. More than that, nothing—no one—made it a home anyway, whatever that meant. Haitham’s house was four walls and a roof and a collection of work, interests, knowledge. Pragmatic yet unsentimental things. Things that could easily be moved around, moved in and out, instead of giving the place character, telling unspoken stories, of love and triumph and grief and legacy, about the people within.
Haitham had always been like that. So perhaps the house fit after all. It just fit Haitham. Only Haitham. There was never meant to be a story about Kaveh there.
It would probably make more sense for Kaveh to say he lived out of a box of things he had carried since childhood, rather than in a house or even a bedroom. No, even “living” wasn't the right word. He existed. He took up space, molded himself around others—their schedules, their expectations, their tendencies toward gossip—despite his own pride.
Perhaps it was his pride that made him do these things in the first place. No, that was hardly right. Any pride he did have lay solely in his work. If he’d had any pride in himself as a person, he never would have accepted Haitham’s offer to stay with him in the first place.
(He never should have. He never should have accepted. He wouldn’t be in this situation if he hadn’t.)
He’d tried to make it a home instead of a house. Tried to fit pieces of himself somewhere among the restrictions; he knew how to do that much as an artist, as someone who worked on the ideas of others. God, had he tried. With picture frames and coffee table books and glass-blown trinkets. Talking pieces that kept the place from slipping into dated dullness. But every suggestion became a complaint became a fight, and he couldn’t decide if the fact that he continued to occupy that single bedroom was because Haitham had just enough mercy or leverage not to turn him out, or because some foolish part of him thought that one day he could change Haitham’s mind.
Really, who was he kidding? Haitham didn’t make decisions he couldn’t commit to, couldn’t double down on. Not to mention the fact that he could be more stubborn than a Sumpter Beast sometimes—sorry, “so committed to his own understanding because it was the only one with any sense.” And the calm bluntness with which he delivered his statements and reasoning would make anyone question themselves, wonder if they were actually to blame in the fallout. If they were the nonsensical one after all.
Maybe Kaveh was getting ahead of himself, thinking something like that, but he knew himself and his own mind. Someone had to. And Haitham had gone too damn far this time after all, done something soul-wrenching and irreversible, and by now Kaveh was halfway through a bottle of palm wine and too furious for tact. He didn’t look that way on the outside, hidden away in one of Lambad’s corner tables; he’d gotten all the anger out at the house, yelled through the brokenness of his own soul until he was halfway hoarse, and the fact that Haitham looked so unbothered about it all only made everything worse. Couldn’t he, for once, have some modicum of empathy? Remorse, even? Or was that far too tall of an order for a supposedly esteemed scribe?
So here he was. Homeless again by his own hand, with Mehrak on one side and his most prized possessions in a satchel on the floor. Here he was, teeming with the land of numb, mindless fury that only comes with the deepest violations of the self and a spiteful regret that the front door hadn’t fallen apart when he slammed it behind him. The wood was weak and the hinges were cheap anyway.
Here he was, learning to make himself small all over again.
Maybe the palm wine wasn’t the wisest choice; he could have put the money toward something more helpful, and he'd definitely have a throbbing headache in the morning, wherever he woke up. But everyone had a vice disguised as a coping mechanism, and he’d spent enough of the last several years living by could-haves and should-haves, and for fuck’s sake, he deserved something good after all that.
Somewhere inside his head, someone told him that home was a good thing too. Of course it was, but in equal parts he didn’t deserve or want the one he’d just left. A home was supposed to be what one made of it, after all. Not what should have been. Not whatever was left behind for you to deal with until you couldn’t anymore.
It hurt less the second time around, at least. The realization of how lonely he was, how empty he felt, wasn’t quite as crushing this time.
Briefly, he wondered amid the fog of alcohol if all devastating things were like that. If the body and the mind learned how to be immune after every single first time, so that every repeat offense left you stone-faced in the aftermath—or if there were cracks in the foundation to let in the naivety, the stupid hope that perhaps things would be different this time, only to feel every peak emotion after every disappointment. He supposed, after knocking back the rest of his glass, that he had his answer.
He didn't remember the last call at Lambad’s, or stumbling toward an inn; he didn't even remember falling asleep. But he woke up the next morning with blankets over his body and his shoes by the door and a complimentary bowl of fruit on the bedside table, and as he fed himself and nursed the headache he’d predicted he remembered that he could not go home. Perhaps that, and the thought that the tavern owner might have taken pity on him, made the hangover even worse. The last thing Kaveh ever wanted was for anyone to feel sorry for him.
He had done this before. On his own. He could do it again.
He remembered all his old haunts, at least, and while they weren’t quite home they held all the convenience of familiarity. He returned to them the way some children return to their parents’ home when all their prospects have run dry: with the underlying shame that he could not have done better for himself, and the mounting comfort that there was at least one place in the world that would take him in unconditionally. He spent the daylight hours scouring through books in the House of Daena, grateful for its accessibility despite his graduation; by night he frequented Lambad’s or the Grand Bazaar, stretching out the funds he had left in the meantime. He fell in love with window shopping again; there had always been a certain charm that came with passing the time by imagining what he could have one day, and frankly it kept him sane. He fed himself to curb hunger instead of to satiate, if only to stretch the money out. Once or twice he’d run into an old client who insisted or buying him a meal because gratitude never ran out in Sumeru, or there would be an auntie working the stove who piled on more food than he could stomach, because “bright young men like you never take care of the meat on their bones.” They would fall into the cycle of insisting and declining because it was the polite thing to do, and even though Kaveh always gave in first, it was worth it to watch her face light up as she told him, “Eat, please eat.”
Sometimes Kaveh thought the aunties of the Grand Bazaar carried more light than he ever could.
Once, he gave his last scraps of meat to the bazaar’s stray cat who had insisted on winding itself around his legs. Perhaps it wanted food. Perhaps it wanted company. or perhaps it knew he needed the company more than it did. Either way, it would not leave him alone, and it wasn't as though the rest of his meal would hold to the next day, anyway.
What was it with animals being attracted to his presence? First those pesky desert foxes from the Championship, and now this? Was it him, or was it what he had? If it was the latter, that would make them no different from humans. And sure, humans were animals too, but animals never wanted to take advantage of you. They only wanted to take what they needed to survive. And at least they had the decency to always pay you back for it.
So perhaps the cat’s company was payback. And perhaps that was enough for a while. But “a while” only lasts so long before it becomes unsustainable, and mind-numbingly monotonous—and, most importantly, terrible for your sense of creativity and your back. Kaveh could only handle so many nights slumped over a pile of books he’d read thrice over, or tucked away where he couldn’t be found, before it began to wear on him. Either he had become less tolerant of what he could handle in the past because the linear progression of time was, frankly, a bitch—or he wasn’t as immune to devastation as he’d hoped.
He didn’t want to spend another night in an inn if he could help it; he didn’t even have a good reason this time around. Not that “being too drunk to get home safely” was a good enough reason, but that was far beside the point. He could afford a couple of nights for sure once those pending commission payments came in, whenever that was. And he’d already made the mistake of imposing on someone younger than him. It wasn’t the only reason Cyno and Tighnari were out of the question—they were also too busy, and far from his clients, and he wasn’t about to make their space any more cramped than they already were—but it was the most compelling one. That, and the fact that he’d have to explain why he wasn’t living with Haitham anymore. That was the second-to-last thing he wanted to do.
Maybe he could do with another round at the Grand Bazaar. Maybe the back-and-forth with an auntie would take his mind off things. Even if it didn’t fill his belly, at least it might fill his mind.
By the time he got to the bazaar it was close to nightfall, and there were far more people gathered there than he had anticipated, or could even remember. Was there a sale happening on the rugs? Or had some new toys or trinkets just been imported from Liyue?
He could always ask Sahar, he supposed. Sure, she was part of the Corps of Thirty and had her own businesses to attend to, but if anyone knew everything about everything in the bazaar, it was her. She’d probably be relieved to talk about something that wasn’t spice recommendations, anyway.
Sahar nodded in acknowledgement when he approached, thankfully saying nothing about how he looked worse for wear. (He probably did; he hoped he at least looked better than he felt.) “Clients treating you all right?” she said. It was refreshing, to be checked in on in a way that wasn’t overbearing. To have an in-between, instead of insisting he was fine when he clearly wasn’t, or pointing out everything that was wrong to someone who made a point of not seeing it.
He gave a noncommittal shrug, the kind that indicated that things were getting done and he had made himself satisfied with existing instead of living. He’d once heard that Mondstadters had a tongue-in-cheek phrase for feelings like this: Living the dream. Except that it was hardly dreamy and he’d only just gotten accustomed to having dreams in the first place, so what sense did that even make? “What’s happening over there?” he asked, gesturing toward the crowd; somehow it had managed to double in size, or maybe that was just how it felt in so small a space.
Sahar smiled, in the way that knew things but never made you feel bad for being out of the loop, and she pointed toward an elevated stage tucked behind a fountain and spiraling ramps. “Nilou,” was all she said, as though that was all she needed to say.
Truthfully, it was.
Any time anyone mentioned Nilou, it was never without praises. Anyone who knew of her knew she was the star of the Zubayr Theater, that they were lucky to have picked her up when they did. That it was impossible to catch her without a smile, that words of encouragement were light on her tongue the way she was light on her feet, and that being nervous or off-kilter somehow didn’t exist to her. Everything she did, she did with grace. Even defying the Akademiya. Especially defying the Akademiya.
He gathered as much as he did mostly from hearsay—being swamped with work meant he’d never had the time to stick around for a performance, especially when that work took him outside the city. Any firsthand experience he had came from two sources: the few-and-far between times she had spoken with him during the Interdarshan Championship months ago, and the even fewer times he had seen her around the bazaar, laden with gifts from the other vendors who insisted she be taken care of. Knowing her, she probably went through the same back-and-forth that he did with the aunties, but he bet she could play the part a lot better and never once came off as desperate. Theater work did that, he supposed.
He still carried her words in his back pocket. Sometimes it was the only way he could remind himself to breathe deeply, and sigh seldom.
“If you’re lucky,” Sahar said out of the corner of her mouth, “you might be able to squeeze your way to the front before she starts. But I wouldn’t count on it. Nilou’s made quite the name for herself around these parts.”
As far as Kaveh was concerned, he was lucky he was here at all.
He gave Sahar his thanks and shuffled in the direction of the crowd, trying his best to blend in. Which was difficult, considering the brightness of his clothes and the renown attached to his face and the fact that he was accompanied by a literal flying briefcase, but he made do. He didn’t speak to anyone, despite the murmurs of the Light of Kshahrewar; he only watched the stage, waiting for the lights to dim. The only reason he made it to the front of the crowd at all was because the people around him whispered and made way for him. Either they were far too kind, or the only thing they knew about him were his accomplishments. He was willing to bet it was the latter.
It wasn’t the lights that signaled her presence to him. It wasn’t even the people. To be honest, even Kaveh himself didn’t know how he knew she had arrived. He had just sensed it, somehow. Later, to others, he would joke that it was “that invisible connection that all artists have to one another,” but that, like most gossip around Sumeru, was mere exaggeration. Something for people to hang onto so their lives had a little more intrigue.
He looked, just off into the distance, and caught her smoothing out her dress, rearranging her headpiece. Breathing. Not the kind of breathing you do to make sure you’re alive. The kind of breathing you do to make sure you can handle yourself, before you convince other people that you can.
Kaveh knew moments like that. Every time he’d presented a project proposal as a student. Any time he needed to make a change to a floor plan for an ornery customer. Every time he clocked in for his first job after graduating. He knew what it felt like, and more importantly, he knew that no one ever wanted to be seen in those moments, because they were the times that you silently came to terms with the fact that you could never take the advice you gave to others.
The only problem was that she met his gaze before he managed to look away in time, and when her eyes sparked and she smiled at him he didn’t feel the overwhelming joy that anyone around him might have reveled in. He only felt a sense of guilt that he had caused her to put the mask on sooner.
Eventually there was no more room for the shame; the cheers and the rhythmic clapping of his fellow audience members made sure to drown it out. But that was the only purpose it served, because as soon as Nilou began to dance he all but forgot anyone else was even there. He wouldn’t say it was that Nilou had the sort of charm that made people unaware of anything but her, though he wouldn’t disagree with that sentiment, either. And he wouldn’t disagree that her reputation preceded her. It was more that from the moment she lifted her hands to her final curtsy, he saw all the things that art should be. He saw everything he infused into his own work. There was purpose in each step and twirl of fabric and shimmer of metal accents in her dress. There was precision in the roll of her shoulders and an unraveling story in the placement of her hands. And above all else, she struck the balance that every artist yearns for: that the art is as much for the creator as it is for the people it is created for.
In those moments, Kaveh did not know if he had actually remembered to breathe. Of course he had, because the body doesn’t just forget to do things like that. But he didn’t remember doing it. He only remembered the twirl of his compass, and the late-night pencil strokes and erasure marks. And that he held the same attention to detail in his hands. And that he knew how to turn houses into homes. He remembered that he knew how to strike the balance, too.
He wasn’t lucky because he had finally gotten to see Nilou dance. He was lucky because, as far as he was concerned, he had finally found someone who was cut from the same cloth.
The crowd moved, and Kaveh stayed put. And he breathed.