Work Text:
At night, the House of Daena was itself a constellation of a thousand stars—lights and glowing flowers with their lampshade petals, shelves stacked high with page-bound knowledge like the canopies of an ancient banyan tree. It was quiet, save for the faint rustle of pages and the soft footsteps of the last scholars chasing knowledge before the library closed until dawn.
Nahida drifted through the vast sea of wisdom, fingers grazing the edges of scrolls and the spines of books. She didn't know what exactly she sought—only that she needed to learn something. An insightful experience, a fascinating sensation, a little detail she’d seen a hundred times but never noticed—anything new and curious. It was an insatiable hunger, like discovering fresh clay beneath a waterfall, eager to feel the cool, malleable touch of discovery between her fingers—eager to reach out and shape it into something new.
Not every creation had to be a masterpiece—sometimes, it was enough to leave behind a small trinket of unfired clay, just a curious shape in the streambed, maybe a little spark of inspiration for the next wandering soul to find. Even if nothing more than a fleeting impression, before she pressed the clay back to its place, it sparked a thrill—a tiny secret shared only with the cool night winds and the starlight filtering through the canopy. A memory of something that once existed.
Nahida found a loose silver spring to toy with and a place to sit beside a pedantic jade plant (the bamboo in the civil engineering section had been obstinate in their unsavory gossip yesterday so they were getting the silent treatment tonight).
And then, a flash of starlight caught the little god’s attention.
There was a table strewn with books and rulers and loose star charts, and above, braving a ladder to reach a scroll on a high shelf, Nahida saw her. A Rtawahist student—a girl Nahida had seen before.
Her hair was what caught Nahida’s eye first. A cascade of twilight, rich and flowing like the great rivers that breathe life into the lush forest. It was every shade of blue the sky could hold—the indigo of later dusk, the faint lavender of a sun sinking into the horizon, reflections in the deep ocean decorated with golden stars.
She was like a flower, Nahida thought, remembering the very first time she’d seen her—they were both spectators hovering at the edge of a crowd. When the music flowed throughout the tree hollow and Nilou twirled onstage, all amenable eyes in the Grand Bazar were filled with stars. So perhaps first impressions are why moonlit oases and blooming Nilotpala Lotuses grace Nahida’s mind now.
But it wasn’t just the girl’s beauty that held Nahida’s attention. It was the absence of weariness.
Her steps were light, dutiful yet unburdened. She radiated a calm assurance.
In her cushioned corner, Nahida watched, and reveled in the embrace of those flowering vines which connect all life in this shared world. The delicate threads of empathy connecting her to the forest trees, the feelings of her people, and the untethered vitality of this girl.
Layla, Nahida recalled. The name was a soft echo in the quiet library of her thoughts tonight. It was a name like the vast, star-strewn sky above the desert, offering cool respite from the day’s blazing sun. Nahida smiled to herself and the pedantic jade plant—recently moved from the Haravatat floor—that might also appreciate the congruity of this curious phenomenon. A contrast as stark as day and night.
In the Akademiya's sunlit halls, Layla looked like a warrior locked in endless battle with something lurking just beyond the shadows beneath her eyes. Always curled in on herself—cheek pressed against the table, hands tangled in her hair, forehead resting on her knees or against the edge of an open book. Even that once in the Grand Bazar seemed a mirage in the scorching desert heat—a beautiful, captivating moment, but ultimately ephemeral in the face of real stress and fatigue.
Scholars who knew the limits of the body in theory often ignored them in practice. They thought of rest as an obstacle, or for some, it was a luxury that felt so out of reach when reality cast shadows into the clouds. These students, struggling to stay afloat in an endless whirlpool, deserved a reaching hand but didn’t always appreciate reminders to care for themselves—sometimes they startled, recoiled, shame flickering across their faces as if they had been caught in some grave act of indulgence, not a simple, necessary ‘lapse’.
Even if the ominous storm lay amidst the mirages on the horizon, the waiting calm could be suffocating for little birds. The world was scary after leaving the nest and the refuge of the ‘self’ isn’t wholly known yet. Little wings restless, not from flight but from the fear of falling before they knew how far they could go.
Nahida knew this shade of exhaustion well. It carried a reminiscence of a stifling bubble in the center of a pale marble lotus flower. Weary sighs went unnoticed or ignored amidst so many in these halls. Sometimes, the Sanctuary of Surasthana echoed back, but the voice was unfamiliar and unsubstantial beneath the crushing weight of reality.
But tonight—tonight was different. Tonight, the nightingale was uncaged and awake.
Layla glided between the shelves, her fingers tracing the spines of the books, as if reading their stories through touch. She hummed softly to herself, a gentle tune. Perhaps she was unaware of being heard, or perhaps she simply moved with the quiet confidence that her song would soothe any soul fortunate enough to hear it, guiding them towards the golden warmth at the edge of night.
A seelie, adorned with the golden bells of the jinn, drifting through the world, carrying whispers of unseen treasures, something true and wondrous.
Nahida watched, enchanted, as Layla moved through the House of Daena, immersed in her own diligent contentment.
A beautiful nightingale weaving through a moonlit forest. And the moon, luminous and gentle, looked on in quiet wonder.