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First time Nilou came to pay a visit, she walked in with a bouquet of flowers pressed to her chest and a smile so apologetic on her face Kaveh almost started apologizing himself. Just for witnessing her very presence in the same proximity as him, hunched over his bed in a pose that rather resembled one of a dying spider than a human that he awkwardly tried to untangle.
But the feeling soon faded away with the cold realization of her standing here, in his room, in someone else's house. The one she wasn't supposed to know he was even inside of.
“Sorry.” She said as soon as the door behind her clicked closed, bringing the flowers closer to the sun spilling through his bedroom window and putting them inside a glass vase, hiding her eyes. “I… Heard your conversation with Alhaitham.”
Kaveh blinked. That would explain her presence in his, Alhaitham’s, home. Nobody outside of his little circle of friends knew of his living arrangements — or so he liked to think — and nobody in said circle would ever run their mouth to spill someone's secrets. It's always Kaveh giving out his own.
Something cold and heavy took a hold of his heart. She knew now.
But she didn't seem disappointed.
Kaveh sighed. “Don't apologize. It's… I should be more careful with what I say next time.”
She gave him that look again, grounding him with the gentlest of forces. “I hope it's okay I stopped by. I wanted to give you the flowers, but Alhaitham greeted me by the door and let me in so I could… See how you're doing.”
Oh.
“Oh.” The sound echoed in his brain strong enough to make its way to the surface, dropping reflection on the smooth waters of her eyes. “There's nothing to be worried about, really— I promise.”
Perhaps he wasn't the most truthful.
The championship took a toll on his body and mind. A constant ringing pain in his temples and ache somewhere along the back kissed with blue and greenish yellow by the harsh ground never went away. Kaveh's been thinking. He had a lot of space saved up for it, uncomfortable and ugly but beautifully honest. The last couple of days felt like that was the only thing he had the power to do, the only thing left. For Kaveh, there was always something to be worried about. It didn't mean he had to put it onto other shoulders to lighten the load.
There was a pause long enough for Kaveh to wet his suddenly dry lips with the edge of his tongue, wasting a breath to look at the bed sheets crumpled in a fist he didn't realize he was holding firm until now. Hastily letting it go, he instead made an effort to catch a cough inside. “I appreciate your kindness, Nilou. But really, you shouldn't have to…” Waste your time on me. “Worry about it.”
The flowers on top of his desk stared mockingly, waving their blueish petals his way with a breath of wind. Padisarah.
Kaveh heard they're hard to grow.
In Tighnari's report on best floral choices he could make for Alcazarzaray, they weren't even close to the top five recommendations. Capricious and demanding too much attention to compensate with the aesthetics. Kaveh thought they were perfect for a magnum opus.
Nilou's eyes followed the path of his. “Ah, so I guessed right? Sorry, I just picked my favorites.”
“I suppose.” Kaveh said, glued to the charming silhouette of its leaves on the backdrop of the setting sun. "They truly are beautiful.”
“I raised them myself.” She said, and Kaveh could practically touch the smile shining through her voice. “They can be needy at times, but it's the beauty that's worth it.”
Beauty. They said padisarah used to grow everywhere Goddess of Flowers stepped, but all he could imagine was Nilou.
Kaveh was no fool. He always noticed that certain air about her, carried in light footsteps and corners of her smile, so strangely comforting for someone he barely knew.
It didn't hit him in the face, as he would expect. Usually all the romantic endeavors he had the misfortune of going through ended as abruptly as they begun. But with Nilou, he was not thrown straight into a volcano, but rather floating on a gentle wave of familiar waters. Sparing him the rougher landing. And here could be many, many horrifying realizations made before the flood. But the worst of them all, Kaveh couldn't pinpoint a specific moment as the start of this shift.
The feelings taking root in his heart seemed so natural, almost like they were always here. Slowly wrapping their vines along his ribcage, just waiting for the flowers to bloom with the breeze of spring. It was Nilou's rightful place to stay, from the very beginning.
He doubted she would want to. But she came back, again and again.
It didn't help the growth to stop with the way she looked at him. Like she really knew his heart.
Perhaps she did.
And really, who else but her ever could?
With her hair up and no headpiece in sight, baskets full of tahchin or henna curling around her fingers in patterns and dots. They changed places and times, with Kaveh tactfully stepping away from the space of Haitham's peace and unwanted commentary. Puspa cafe. Lambad's tavern. Grand Bazaar. Kaveh's dreams, too realistic to bring himself to function the day after. There was no place in this world Nilou wouldn't make brighter, including his own head.
He was playing a dangerous game, but couldn't feel safer in its deadly arms.
Beauty kills, he thought, watching the outline of Nilou's back shape shift and melt into the sunset on the fields near Alcazarzaray. It's been a while since he properly visited this place.
Nilou, however, didn't share the experience.
“I often go here for inspiration.” She said once they settled on the grass with their backs pressed to the ground and eyes squinting in the face of setting sun. “Sometimes with greatness just a look is enough to inspire someone.”
“You feel this with dance?”
She smiled. “I do. It… Doesn't have to be the same. Just a feeling is enough. Do you think?”
Kaveh's cheek touched the soil when he turned his head to meet hers, catching dirt under the eye but not bothering with anything outside of Nilou's face. So different from what he's learnt to see on it. Happiness, worry, understanding. This time, it spoke nothing but hope. Hope so strong it twisted what's remained of his guts.
There's no use in marveling at wit between the sharp teeth when it bites the hand that feeds it the knowledge. Kaveh always believed his sharpness started and ended at the tip of his tongue.
And now, looking into her eyes that seemed to hold all the wisdom that could not be found along the millions of letters between the dusty pages of Akademiya textbooks, Kaveh wondered how could they ever dare to think it was never here.
“Yes.” That's all he said to her, but he didn't need to say any more. She understood. “I do.”
Nilou was a vision of kindness inside a cruel world. So effortlessly beautiful, so easily dismissed.
Burning unfairness stung the corners of his eyes, great and useless. So much a human could handle. But Nilou's hands held a greater weight than just tears in the eye of the sun when she wiped them clean only for new ones to come, this time her own. "Thank you."
He had no idea it was possible to feel this much love for someone until now. Nilou proved him wrong, every time. And by Archons above he was grateful to lose completely to her loving arms.