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Shuffling paper and scratching pencil reverberate down the dim hall. Neither are sounds one might expect to find particularly loud, and yet they seem to boom with every turned page, every stroke of lead. Echoes bounce from faded wallpaper. The rough carpet and worn boards offer no soundproofing.
The girl’s steps are silent in comparison; the only trace of her presence lies in the glowing shoots that push out of the floor at her feet before fading away again. Her gaze traces boxes stacked high; notably, no other furniture or decoration graces the empty hall. In fact, the only other points of interest are the entryway behind her and the ornate door before her. It’s elegant, hand-carved, yet the wood is dull and worn in places.
She delicately pushes the door open.
A man sits alone at a long table, hunched over. Shadows loom over and around him—a nebulous cloud of mutterings and gloom leeching vitality from the very air; a spilt ink bottle darkening a pristine page. The minimal colour of the room fades to monochrome in his vicinity; whispered numbers and measurements fill the space around him. One hand sends pencil running over paper. The other supports his drooping head. Every laborious gesture and distressed sigh screams of fatigue.
Quietly, she joins him at the table. He seems to not take note of this new presence; perhaps the overwhelming whispers and etchings drown out her approach, or perhaps desperate focus overrides peripheral vision. She remains silent, unbothered. However, her mere presence draws warmth into the room. A faint glow emanates from her, from the buds that sprout beneath her feet. It seeps through the room, pressing the shadows back. Colour blossoms in their place.
And then, all at once, the scene changes. The walls flicker away—a forest trail, a library, a desert ruin, a moonlit balcony—then reform as a dimly lit cafe. The papers have vanished, replaced by an array of aromatic dishes. Coffee and spice permeates the balmy air amidst the chattering of the patrons.
Straightening in his chair, the man breathes as if escaping suffocation. He sweeps his hair out of his face and takes a deep swig from a goblet that had popped into existence before him.
Finally, he notices the unexpected guest seated beside him and nearly jumps out of his seat.
“Archon!”
She smiles, giving him a little wave. “Hello, Kaveh!”
He furrows his brow, looking around the tavern. “Is this”—he presses his palms to his eyes before looking around again—“am I dreaming?”
“It really is me, if you’re wondering,” the Dendro Archon reassures him, “but you are currently in a dream. I’m just visiting!”
“Then…to what do I owe this pleasure?” he asks.
“Nothing much, really. The people of Sumeru are precious to me, so I like to check in with you all from time to time.”
“Am I doing that badly?”
Kaveh gives her a wry smile, tracing his fingertip around the rim of the goblet while resting his chin on the other hand. Nahida tilts her head in inquiry.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve heard the rumours that you visit the dreams of people who are suffering. And out of everyone in Sumeru, you chose me tonight.”
He takes another, deeper drink from his cup. She hums thoughtfully.
“Well you could view it like that. But instead of the Archon, why not think of me as a friend?’
“A…friend?”
“An admirer even.”
He lets out a sharp laugh. “An admirer!”
“I mean it,” she insists, clasping her hands together. “In a land where aesthetics are less prioritised, your architectural design is truly beautiful. Sumeru really would not be the same without your work. Not to mention the carriage of flowers you designed for my birthday!”
“Well…thank you. It means a lot.”
They lapse into momentary silence. The clamour of the tavern continues; mugs clunking, cutlery clattering, people chattering. From the kitchen wafts a mouthwatering symphony of aromas. Kaveh tastes a spoonful of one of the dishes before him, idly swirling his cup, before taking a bite out of another. Further down the bar, a plate of halvamazd and a glass of juice appear before Nahida with a wave of her hand. She takes a sip of the latter.
“Archon—”
“Please, call me Nahida.”
“Nahida. Do you ever feel like…like you’re living your life wrong?”
“Wrong?” Nahida ponders for a moment. “I don’t think there is a wrong way to live.”
“Perhaps. There certainly are better and worse ways to go about it.”
She shrugs. “Good and bad are hard to quantify. Undesirable weeds can be sustenance for woodland critters. A heavy thunderstorm will grant the forests a good drink.”
She pauses for a moment, thoughtful. “However, it is true that the choices you make can influence your quality of life, as can the circumstances you find yourself within.”
“Archon knows I’ve made bad choices,” he mutters, before glancing awkwardly at her. “Sorry, force of habit.”
She gives him a knowing smile. “So what’s been troubling you recently?”
“What hasn’t been,” he sighs, running his hands through his hair. “I’ve been fighting a client over this commission. They’ve rejected nearly all of my designs and keep trying to cut down on the detailing— if what you want is mere pastiche, you may as well hire some philistine to build you a brick cube! And this other commission turned out to be from Lord Sangemah Bay, who somehow got me to put down my own Mora as collateral. Not to mention my rent is overdue again and Alhaith—”
Kaveh cuts off suddenly, his ears flushing as he eyes Nahida and the bemused smile she hides behind a hand.
“I guess you know about that too. My point being, it’s…rough at the moment.”
“It does sound tiring.”
She rests a gentle hand on his arm. Her touch is warm, like evenings in the desert, watching the sun sink below the golden sands.
“It is,” he admits.
“Is there anything I could do to help?”
Kaveh jolts back, staring at her with wide eyes. “You? Oh no, no, I couldn’t possibly— how could I make the Archon do my work for me?”
“Remember, just Nahida,” she chides him. “And you aren’t making me do anything; I offered!”
“Still, this talk is more than enough.”
He lets out a long sigh, leaning back in his seat. “It feels good to relax without thinking that I ought to be working.”
Kaveh downs his cup, only to find it inexplicably full once his lips leave it; Nahida mirrors him with her cup of juice before offering him a candied nut.
“Do you think you’re living your life wrong?” she asks.
He chews thoughtfully on his candy. “I don’t know. Maybe. Some people certainly say so.”
Her expectant eyes give a silent encouragement to continue.
“Like I said earlier, I make bad choices. I’ve been swindled a few times. I spend more than I can afford to, and I really don’t know when to quit.”
A beat.
“Someone once told me that my ideals are unrealistic, and that I suffer needlessly over them. I can’t help but think about that conversation from time to time.”
“Having strong convictions isn’t bad,” she says. “Belief in something—a dream, a truth, an ideal—can be very powerful.”
“Have you heard the story of how I built the Palace of Alcazarzaray?”
The question catches Nahida by surprise; she ponders for a moment before replying.
“I heard that there were a lot of setbacks due to the Withering destroying the first site, but you managed to turn it around and finish within expected timeframes anyways. The tale is quite the inspiration to students of Kshahrewar.”
Once again, their surroundings change. Tavern walls fly away as the ceiling stretches upwards into a domed roof. The bar they sit at twists into a balcony railing, the only dishes remaining being the drinks in their hands. The clamour of the tavern fades into the roar of a distant waterfall; aromas of spice and coffee are whipped away by a sudden breeze leaving petrichor in its wake. Kaveh hardly seems to notice the change in scene as he turns to face the Palace of Alcazarzaray in all its glory. From their vantage point, a gazebo offset from the palace grounds, it is painted incandescent in the hues of the setting sun.
“That’s half the story,” he says, staring distantly at the grand, sloping rooftops. “By all accounts, I was lucky. I insisted on the site despite the risks, and my client was well within their rights to lay all the blame on me. Instead, they just wanted to cut their losses after that incident. But this design, this opportunity, was too valuable for me to let it go. I ended up selling my house and borrowing a huge sum of Mora to cover the construction. Sure, I got it built. But I still haven’t paid off my debts from back then.”
He barks a laugh, his tone bitter. “Light of Kshahrewar, they call me. The pride of the Darshan, broke after his magnum opus bankrupted him.”
“Do you regret it?”
Kaveh falls silent for a long moment. His eyes run over each meticulous curve, each precise edge, the carefully maintained pathways and deliberately selected greenery. The palace itself seems to echo Nahida’s question in its looming figure.
“No.”
A bird soars overhead—a bird of paradise, Nahida recognises—coming to rest on the very top of the palace roof. Fiery plumage spills over the jade rooftop as it lets out a warbling call, breaking the silence that fell between the two. In the sunset, the palace takes on a numinous grandeur.
“Let me tell you something I’ve noticed about you,” Nahida says. “The recent expansion to Aaru Village—the children’s school and public library. You worked on that, didn’t you?”
“I did.”
“I heard you didn’t take any pay for that.”
Kaveh sighs. “My client couldn’t afford it. But no one else would take his commission for that cheap, and it was for kids who wouldn’t have an opportunity otherwise.”
“And you remember the Inter-Darshan Championship?” she continues.
“How could I not?”
“I was keeping an eye on the contestants. You know what I saw in the second test? You, helping a group of desert foxes. Instead of finishing the challenge, you went out of your way to feed them and take them somewhere safe.”
“Well I couldn’t just leave them there! That first one was hungry, maybe dehydrated. Who knows what would have happened to them otherwise?”
“Then what about your winnings from the championship? You gave it away, despite your financial situation. You didn’t even keep a single Mora.”
“What was I supposed to do? Sachin expected me to continue his experiments about how people are all inherently bad, using that money. If I had taken that, I would have been no better than him. I couldn’t support such a tendentious argument.”
“Because you believe in the opposite, right? You believe that people can be good, and kind, and selfless.”
For the first time in a while, Kaveh meets her eyes. Nahida’s stare is startlingly intense; her bright green irises seem to pierce right into him.
“Do you know what I see in you?” she asks, and for a brief moment he believes that she can see into his very essence.
“What?”
“I see someone who cares. Someone who cares so so deeply that you can’t help but push yourself to do the very best you can. In your work. In helping those who need help. No matter how much difficulty it causes you.”
Kaveh drops his gaze, taking a swig of his drink before leaning against a column. “You think too highly of me. I’m not nearly as noble as you think.”
And while Nahida can’t really see into him, she can sense it. Guilt. A deep, festering guilt that sears itself into the deepest recesses of his mind. She can tell that prying won’t help—it has seared itself into his very being, despite how hard he has tried to wall it off.
“Maybe,” she says, reaching out to take his hand in hers, “it doesn’t matter what feelings motivate us. In the end, your actions are what others experience. Fireflies glow and flowers bloom for their own purposes, but they still make the world a little more beautiful for everyone else. And I don’t think anyone can live the wrong way, because we’re all doing our best to live by the things that are important to us. That’s all anyone can hope to do.”
This time, when Kaveh meets her eyes, he sees gentle encouragement.
“Maybe you’re right.”
The space flickers. For a split second, everything seems to become intangible. Then the dream reshapes itself.
“You’re going to wake up soon,” Nahida says. “Let me leave you with one more thing—do you remember how I said I was an admirer of yours?”
Kaveh nods.
“I mean that more deeply than you might think. Kaveh, you have the deepest understanding of what it truly means for Sumeru to be a nation of wisdom that I’ve ever seen. When humankind first came to Teyvat, they barely had enough knowledge to fill their stomachs. Over time, they developed and refined this knowledge to craft tools, write books, build cities, out of which grew our nation. However, Sumeru was not built solely upon the knowledge our predecessors amassed. It is the people that have made Sumeru what it is today. That’s why they are the most important things of all in this nation of wisdom—knowledge without a vessel has no home. It should be shared, cherished, not hoarded and controlled. Regrettably, many of the current era have lost sight of this.
“But you, Kaveh, have embodied this truth all your life, and for that I truly admire you. I hope that, under the Akademiya’s new administration, more will come to understand your view. That wisdom can be seen by Sumeru not as some magnificent summit to reach for, but as the steps we can ascend to reach a brighter future for all.”
The forest slowly starts to collapse around them, edges of vision blurring like some Fontainian vignette. Kaveh seems to hesitate over his next words, a flood of unspoken sentiment with no place to start. In the end, all he can utter is simply, “Thank you, Nahida.”
“And thank you, Kaveh. For making Sumeru a more beautiful place.”
She stands on her tiptoes to give him a light pat on the head.
“May you have only the sweetest of dreams.”
<><><>
Kaveh opens his eyes, immediately face to face with the strewn-about blueprints he had been working on the night before. To his surprise, there are tears in his eyes. Rising from the desk he had fallen asleep upon, he sits in a long, contemplative silence.
Then he stretches out his stiff neck, washes his face, tidies up his hair, and heads to the kitchen. He makes two cups of coffee, adds a healthy serving of sugar to one, leaves the other upon the kitchen counter, and then—in an unexpectedly spontaneous decision—flings the windows open. With his cup in hand, he leans out of the frame to greet the rising sun.
From below, the city begins to come to life as if awakening from its own deep slumber. Calls of greeting rise on the gentle breeze carrying the rich aroma of coffee from the tavern, close to the scent of his own drink. The branches above sway and rustle delicately, dappling the pathways with wavering shadows that dance in the dawn light; polished rooftops and pathways gleam lustrous under those faint rays. Overhead, he hears the mellow morning call of a bird of paradise.
For the first time in a long, long time, Kaveh feels…lighter. As if he had finally been unburdened of some great weight—he stands straighter, breathes more easily. With that murky mental fog dispelled, the world around him is cast into dramatic contrast. The flora bursts with malachite and emerald, chartreuse and viridian; the flowers’ resplendent azure blues and saffron yellows and murrey reds emblazoned across the city scape; distant greetings and joyful calls mix with birdsong into a symphony resonating with an infectious positivity; even the very air is pure, fresh, invigorating. He drinks it in, filling his lungs with that crepuscular air so full of possibility and opportunity.
That radiant future that Nahida spoke of—he sees it. Everything he hopes for. Everything he has dreamed of for so long. Not some distant, uncertain possibility, but an ineffable truth that swells within him, burning bright, fuelling him onwards. The great big beautiful tomorrow right at his fingertips.
Kaveh downs his mug, bathing in the light of the rising sun as it crests the horizon. Then, taking up Mehrak, he steps out of the house and strides into the new day.