Work Text:
The desert never frightened Kaveh.
He had completed more than enough projects to memorize every shifting dune and jagged ravine the Great Red Sand could throw at him.
He knew the grit of the sand in his boots, the way the heat distorted the horizon, and exactly how to defend himself.
But this—to be honest, he had never seen anything like this.
It was a majestic greenhouse, a glass-and-stone anomaly buried deep within a forgotten basin.
It wasn’t on any map he’d studied, nor was it mentioned in any of the dusty Akademiya archives he’d poured over during his student days. It felt like a secret the desert had been keeping for eons, only now choosing to peel back its shroud of sand.
The architecture was baffling. It possessed a fluid, organic grace that didn't seem to belong to any known era.
The way the pillars curved like petrified vines and the glass caught the sun—it was a feat of engineering so genius it left him breathless. If something this magnificent existed, he should have known about it. Every architect in Sumeru should have been singing its praises.
Instead, there was only silence and the shimmering heat.
Kaveh didn’t even realize he was moving until his hand touched the cool, unresponsive surface of the entrance. His mind was already racing, subconsciously deconstructing the mechanics of the seal, his fingers tracing the invisible lines of the lock.
It was as if his body were moving on its own, driven by a primal curiosity that outweighed his professional caution.
With a soft, melodic thrum that vibrated through his very bones, the structure recognized his touch. The air around him shifted, and the heavy doors began to recede into the walls, exhaling a scent of damp earth and ancient moss that had no business existing in the heart of the desert.
He took a step forward, the light from the opening spilling into a chamber that looked less like a building and more like a living heart.
The deeper Kaveh stepped into the structure, the more the desert air faded, replaced by a heavy, humid stillness. The interior was a cathedral of greenery, though the plants were unlike any he had seen in the Rainforest.
In the very center of the greenhouse, the architectural lines converged toward a single point.
There, suspended in mid-air by a delicate lattice of crystalline roots, sat the core.
It was a sphere of pure, concentrated Dendro energy, swirling with the intensity of a miniature sun. It wasn't the vibrant, emerald green of the woods near Gandharva Ville; this was a deeper hue, an ancient malachite that seemed to hold the weight of centuries.
Kaveh stood frozen, his eyes wide. As an architect, he was captivated by the symmetry; as a man, he was simply mesmerized.
He felt a profound sense of wonder.
"Incredible," he whispered, the sound swallowed by the lush foliage.
His hand reached out, not to take, but to understand. It was the gesture of a creator acknowledging a masterpiece.
As his fingertips brushed the outer edge of the sphere, the energy didn't burn.
It was cool—impossibly cool, like spring water. For a heartbeat, the swirling Dendro light stilled under his touch, acknowledging him.
Then, everything happened at once.
A sudden, violent rush of wind exploded from the core, though the sphere itself remained in place. It wasn't a destructive gale, but a Great Exhale, a breath of life that had been held for an eternity.
It swept past Kaveh, ruffling his hair and tugging at his cloak, carrying with it the scent of a thousand blooming flowers. It rushed out of the greenhouse doors and vanished into the desert heat.
Kaveh blinked, shielding his eyes. When the wind died down, the greenhouse was silent again. The core continued to glow, looking exactly as it had before. He pulled his hand back, checking his palm for marks or burns, but found nothing.
He felt fine. In fact, he felt strangely light, as if the desert air had finally cleared from his lungs.
"Just... a mechanical reaction," he muttered to himself, trying to find a logical explanation for the surge of energy. "Air pressure stabilization, perhaps?"
He took one last look at the majestic core, a small, appreciative smile tugging at his lips, before turning to leave. He had a deadline to meet, and he had already spent too much time chasing shadows in the sand.
He didn't notice that the soft, malachite glow of the core seemed to linger in the reflection of his eyes long after he stepped back out into the sun.
Kaveh was always tired after a desert expedition.
He would usually return home covered in a fine layer of dust, complaining loudly about the heat and the structural incompetence of ancient ruins, before collapsing into a dramatic heap on the divan. Alhaitham would offer a dry remark about his poor planning, Kaveh would snap back with an indignant huff, and life would continue its usual orbit.
But a week had passed since Kaveh returned from that unnamed basin, and the orbit had shifted.
Alhaitham sat in the living room, a book propped open in his lap, though his eyes hadn't moved past the same paragraph for ten minutes.
Across from him, Kaveh was hunched over his drafting table. Usually, the sound of Kaveh working was a cacophony of scratching pens, muttered curses, and the occasional aggressive rustle of blueprints.
Tonight, it was silent.
Kaveh’s pen was held loosely in his hand, hovering over a half-finished elevation. His skin, usually glowing with the warmth of the Sumeru sun, looked unnervingly sallow—like parchment that had been left out in the rain and then dried too quickly.
"Kaveh," Alhaitham said,
Kaveh turned his head with a slow, heavy deliberation that made Alhaitham’s chest tighten.
"Hmm? Did you say something?"
"I asked if you were going to eat. The soup has been on the table for twenty minutes. It’s cold."
Kaveh looked toward the dining area, his expression vacant for a split second before a flicker of distaste crossed his features. He didn’t just look indifferent to the food; he looked repulsed by it.
"I'm not hungry," Kaveh murmured, turning back to his desk.
"Just... the desert sun really took it out of me this time. I think I just need more sleep."
"You’ve slept twelve hours a day for the past three days," Alhaitham countered, closing his book with a definitive thud. He stood up and walked over to the desk, ignoring Kaveh’s weak protest as he placed a hand firmly against his forehead.
Kaveh was cool. Too cool. There was no fever, yet he was shivering almost imperceptibly.
"You're pale," Alhaitham noted, his thumb brushing against the dark, bruised circles under his spouse's eyes.
"And you're losing weight. One expedition, no matter how taxing, does not result in a week of physical deterioration. What happened out there?"
Kaveh let out a breath that sounded like a sigh of pure exhaustion, leaning his head into Alhaitham’s palm for a brief moment.
"Nothing happened, Haitham. I found a ruin, I took some notes, and I came home. I’m just... I feel heavy."
"Kaveh, the sketch can wait," Alhaitham said, his voice dropping into that rare, low register of genuine concern.
"It can't," Kaveh insisted, though his voice lacked its usual fire. He pulled away from Alhaitham’s hand, the loss of contact making him feel momentarily dizzy.
"This client is... they're important. I've already delayed them twice. I’ll go to bed after this, I promise. Just let me finish this."
Alhaitham watched him for a long moment, the silence in the room heavy with the things he wanted to say—arguments about priorities, about health, about the stubbornness of the man he loved. But seeing the desperate set of Kaveh’s jaws, he only sighed.
"Fine. But if you aren't in bed in an hour, I'm carrying you there myself."
The next morning, Puspa Café was filled with the gentle clinking of cups and the low hum of conversation. The smell of spiced coffee usually made Kaveh feel right at home, but today, it felt like an assault.
Every scent was too sharp, every sound a dull thud against his skull.
"And here," Kaveh murmured, his voice sounding thin even to his own ears,
"I've integrated the water features to align with the natural slope of the courtyard..."
He pushed the parchment toward the client, but his hand began to tremble. He gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles turning white. The sunlight streaming through the café windows suddenly felt blinding, turning the world into a wash of jagged white light.
The client was saying something—thanking him, perhaps?—but the words were muffled, as if Kaveh were underwater.
I just need to stand up, Kaveh thought. I just need to breathe.
He pushed himself back from the table, intending to excuse himself for a moment of air. But the floor didn't feel solid. It felt like the shifting sands of the desert he had left behind.
The "heaviness" he had described to Alhaitham suddenly tripled, pulling at his limbs, dragging his vision into a narrowing tunnel of black.
"Mr. Kaveh? Are you quite alright? You look—"
The client's voice cut off as Kaveh’s eyes became blank. He didn't even have the strength to catch himself. His body went limp, sliding from the chair and hitting the tiled floor with a sickeningly soft thud.
The café erupted into chaos, chairs scraping, gasps,
but Kaveh heard none of it.
And it didn't take long until Alhaitham reached The Bimarstan.
The Bimarstan was a blur of white robes and the sharp, medicinal tang of herbs when Alhaitham crashed through the entrance.
His heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs, the messenger’s words—Mr. Kaveh collapsed at the café—looping like a curse in his mind.
In the emergency ward, the atmosphere was thick with clinical tension. A group of doctors had already gathered around a bed, their voices hushed but urgent.
Tighnari had been in the Bimarstan for a consultation on rare fungal toxins when the commotion started.
He had moved toward the emergency room out of professional habit, but the moment he saw the shock of blonde hair and the familiar, slumped silhouette of the patient, his heart plummeted. It was Kaveh.
"Step back, give him air," Tighnari commanded, his voice sharp enough to cut through the panic of the attending physicians. His tail twitching with a nervous energy he rarely showed.
Alhaitham pushed through the final curtain, his breath hitching. The cool composure he usually wore was shattered. Kaveh lay on the cot, his face the color of bleached bone, looking small and terrifyingly fragile.
"How is he?" Alhaitham demanded. His voice, usually so steady and analytical, cracked on the last word.
The head doctor looked up, his brow furrowed in deep frustration.
"Scribe Alhaitham... we’ve run the initial pulses. His vitals are erratic. There is a mass forming in the abdominal cavity. But the scans make no sense. It’s not a standard blockage, and it’s not reacting to any known neutralizing agents."
Tighnari didn't wait for the doctor to finish. He leaned over Kaveh, his hands glowing with a soft, pulsing Dendro light as he performed his own resonance scan.
He ran his fingers just above Kaveh’s skin, his expression shifting from professional focus to unsettled confusion. He felt the life force beneath his palms, but it felt... wrong.
"I don't know, Haitham," Tighnari whispered, the honesty in his voice more frightening. He ignored the other doctors, focusing entirely on his friend.
"I thought it was a tumor at first glance. Some kind of parasitic growth he might have picked up in the desert."
He finally looked up, his green eyes wide and darting.
"But it’s not. Whatever is growing inside him... it does not behave like life should. It’s feeding on his energy at a rate that would kill a normal man, yet it’s not destroying the surrounding tissue. It’s merging with it. "
Tighnari looked back down at Kaveh,
"I can't say anything to confirm the disease. All I know is that this isn't a disease I've ever read about. It's something that should not have happened, yet it is. This thing... it's growing alongside his life, not just taking it."
And a few hours later, Kaveh slowly woke up.
The first thing Kaveh felt was the cold. It was a sterile, biting chill that smelled of antiseptic and crushed herbs
When he finally managed to peel his eyelids open, the world was a blur of harsh white light. As his vision settled, he saw them.
His husband was standing at his bedside, his knuckles white where he gripped the edge of the bed. Next to him, Tighnari looked no better.
Kaveh had seen Alhaitham annoyed, frustrated, and even angry. But he had never seen him look haunted.
"Haitham?" Kaveh’s voice was a dry rasp. He tried to push himself up, but a wave of nausea so violent rolled through him that he slumped back down, gasping. His hand instinctively went to his stomach, where a dull, heavy ache seemed to have taken permanent residence.
"Don't move," Alhaitham said quickly. His hand shot out to steady Kaveh’s shoulder, his touch uncharacteristically frantic. "You're at the Bimarstan. You collapsed."
Kaveh looked from Alhaitham’s pale face to Tighnari’s somber expression. The silence in the room was suffocating.
As an architect, Kaveh was trained to read the structural integrity of things; looking at his husband and friend, he felt like the foundations of his world were crumbling.
"It’s bad, isn't it?" Kaveh whispered. His heart began to hammer against his ribs.
"The doctors... Tighnari... just tell me. Am I dying?"
Tighnari opened his mouth to speak, but hesitated. How could he explain that the "growth" was pulsing with a light he couldn't categorize?
To a scholar, something that has no evidence or reference at all was a death sentence.
"We don't have a definitive answer yet, Kaveh," Tighnari said carefully, choosing his words with a heavy heart.
"There is something... unusual occurring within your body. It’s consuming a vast amount of your energy. We need to run more tests."
Kaveh didn’t hear the "unusual" or the "more tests." He only saw the way Alhaitham looked away, his jaw tight as he stared at the floor.
In Kaveh's mind, the logic was simple: if the best biologists in Sumeru were this terrified, there was no hope.
A cold, hollow realization settled in his chest. He wasn't just sick. He was a structure with a terminal flaw, waiting for the inevitable collapse.
"I see," Kaveh said, his voice suddenly hollow, unnervingly calm. He let his hand fall away from his stomach, feeling like a stranger in his own skin.
He looked at Alhaitham—the man who had become his home, his anchor—and felt a sudden, crushing weight of guilt.
If only I had taken better care of myself, Kaveh thought, a bitter lump forming in his throat.
He thought of all the late nights, the skipped meals, the weeks spent pushing his body to its absolute limit in the scorching desert sun. He had always treated his health like a secondary concern, something to be dealt with after the blueprints were finalized and the gold was earned.
Now, he felt like a house built on sand, the foundations finally giving way beneath the weight of his own neglect.
"I'm sorry," Kaveh whispered, so soft it was almost lost to the sterile hum of the room.
Alhaitham paused. "For what? For being ill? Don't be ridiculous, Kaveh."
"For being... a burden," Kaveh replied, his eyes stinging.
Alhaitham didn't answer. He couldn't. He just gripped Kaveh’s hand silently.
A few days later, Kaveh was sent home. The doctors at the Bimarstan had exhausted their initial theories.
Every potion, every elemental infusion, and every traditional remedy had failed to stop the steady decline. There was nothing more they could do in a clinical setting except watch him wither, so they released him into Alhaitham’s care, hoping that the comfort of home might succeed where medicine had failed.
But the familiar walls of their house offered no sanctuary.
Kaveh’s health failed with a frightening, steady pace.
The "heaviness" he had felt before had evolved into a bone-deep exhaustion that made even breathing feel like a chore.
The most distressing part, however, was the food.
Kaveh, who usually took such pride in a well-cooked meal, couldn't keep anything down. The mere scent of spices made his stomach churn with a violent, unnatural rejection. He was becoming a shadow, his cheekbones sharp enough to cut, his vibrant spirit replaced by a quiet, hollow-eyed fear.
Alhaitham was a ghost of himself as well. He had taken leave from his physical duties at the Akademiya, though the work of the Scribe never truly ceased; instead, he brought the pile of paperwork home.
Sometimes, he spent his days sitting by Kaveh’s bed, reading aloud in a steady voice to drown out the silence, and his nights watching Kaveh’s chest rise and fall, terrified that one night, the rhythm would simply stop.
He watched Kaveh sleep and saw the way Kaveh’s hand would occasionally clench over his stomach.
"I'm right here," Alhaitham would whisper into the dark, pressing a kiss to Kaveh’s pale temple.
"I'm not going anywhere."
But in the dim light of the bedroom, Kaveh would lie awake long after Alhaitham thought he was asleep, staring at the ceiling and having an argument with his own heart.
The breaking point came one evening.
Alhaitham had entered the room with a small tray—just a bit of tea and a piece of dry bread.
"Kaveh, you have to try," Alhaitham said, his voice weary but firm. He sat on the edge of the bed and broke off a small piece of the bread.
"Just one bite. For me."
Kaveh looked at the bread, then at the man holding it. He felt the familiar surge of nausea, but this time, it was accompanied by a sharp, jagged spike of emotion that he himself didn't recognize, it hurt to see Alhaitham for being so stubbornly loyal.
"Take it away," Kaveh said, his voice surprisingly cold.
Alhaitham’s hand paused. "Kaveh—"
"I said take it away!" Kaveh snapped, pushing the tray with a sudden burst of frantic energy. The tea spilled, soaking the sheets, and the tray clattered to the floor.
"Stop doing this, Haitham! Stop acting like if you just feed me enough, I’ll magically get better! We both know what’s happening!"
Alhaitham stared at the spilled tea, his jaw tightening. "I am trying to keep my spouse alive. Is that such a crime?"
"It’s a waste of time!" Kaveh shouted, his voice cracking.
"I’m a sinking ship, and you’re just tying yourself to the mast! I want you to leave, Haitham. I want a divorce."
The silence that followed was absolute.
Alhaitham didn’t move. He didn’t blink. He sat on the edge of the bed, the spilled tea seeping into the fabric of his trousers, but he seemed completely detached from the physical world.
"Say that again," Alhaitham said. His voice was no longer weary; it was a low, dangerous vibration.
"You heard me," Kaveh choked out. He swallowed hard, his throat feeling like it was lined with glass.
"It’s not fair to you, Haitham. We are still young. You have decades of life ahead of you—brilliant, quiet, uncomplicated years. It’s a waste of time for you to be tethered to this room, watching me slowly dying."
Tears began to accumulate in Kaveh's brilliant ruby eyes, blurring the sight of the man he loved. He couldn’t bring himself to think of a world where Alhaitham existed without him, yet he was paralyzed by the thought of the alternative.
He was afraid of death, so deeply afraid, but he was more terrified of leaving Alhaitham alone, trapped in a house full of echoes.
He had already seen what grief could do to a person. He remembered the hollowed-out look in his mother’s eyes as she mourned his father, the way the light had simply gone out of her life for years.
He had seen how loss could turn a home into a tomb, and he refused to let that happen to Alhaitham.
"I won't let you do it," Kaveh choked out, his voice trembling with the effort to be firm.
"I won't let you waste your youth waiting for an end that we both know is coming. If you won't leave for your own sake, then leave for mine. I can't die in peace knowing I’ve ruined you too."
Alhaitham looked down at the light of his life, the sharp edge of his own anger softening into a dull, aching empathy. He reached out, his hand finally finding Kaveh's cheek, his thumb brushing away a stray tear.
He understood that this wasn't just a reaction to the illness, this was a manifestation of the decades of trauma that haunted Kaveh.
He leaned in until their foreheads touched, their breaths mingling in the small space between them. “Everything will be okay, I promise.”
It was a simple sentence. It didn’t fix their problem, it didn't solve the mystery of the thing inside kaveh, and it certainly didn't erase the terrifying weight of the unknown.
But Kaveh found a desperate, grounding comfort in it. For Alhaitham, the man who valued truth and logic above all else, to make a promise he couldn’t prove was the ultimate act of devotion.
Kaveh let out a broken sob, his hands coming up to clutch at Alhaitham’s wrists. He wanted to keep arguing, but his body was too weak and his heart was too full. He just wanted to be held. He let Alhaitham pull him close, burying his face in the familiar scent of his husband’s clothes.
The very next morning, Alhaitham rose before the sun.
Sleep had barely touched him. Every time he closed his eyes, the echo of Kaveh’s sobs ringing in his ears.
Kaveh was still asleep when Alhaitham finished dressing. Curled slightly on his side, breath shallow but steady, he looked painfully small against the wide bed.
Alhaitham paused at the bedside.
He leaned down and pressed a firm, lingering kiss to Kaveh’s temple, “I have matters to attend to at the Akademiya,” Alhaitham murmured,
“I will be back as soon as I can.”
The house was too quiet after Alhaitham left.
That was the first thing Kaveh noticed when consciousness slowly drifted back to him.
Usually, even when Alhaitham was silent, there was a presence to him.
Kaveh blinked his eyes open, expecting to see the familiar silhouette sitting in the chair by the bed, reading.
The chair was empty.
"Haitham?" Kaveh croaked. His voice was rough, barely more than a scrape of sound against the silence.
No answer.
He turned his head on the pillow, a simple movement that felt like lifting a stone block. The other side of the bed was made, the sheets cool and smooth to the touch.
"Haitham, could you... water?" he tried again, a little louder this time.
Still, nothing. Just the dust motes dancing in the shaft of morning light and the oppressive, heavy stillness of the room.
For a moment, his mind remained hazy, buffered by the lingering fog of sleep.
He’s probably in the kitchen, Kaveh reasoned sluggishly. Or he stepped out to grab medicine. He never goes far.
It felt like a normal morning, or at least as normal as mornings could be lately.
Then, the memory of the previous night crashed into him with the force of a physical blow.
“I want a divorce.”
The words echoed in his mind, sharp and cruel. He remembered the look on Alhaitham’s face—the stillness, the terrifying lack of reaction, and then the way his husband had simply held him while he sobbed.
A cold spike of adrenaline shot through Kaveh’s chest, piercing through the lethargy of his illness.
"Alhaitham!"
He tried to push himself up, his elbows trembling violently under his own weight. His heart began to hammer a frantic, uneven rhythm against his ribs.
Did he listen? The thought was a sudden, suffocating terror. Did I finally push him too far?
He had told Alhaitham to leave.
But now, faced with the actual possibility of that absence, the "relief" he thought he would feel was nowhere to be found. Instead, there was only a gaping, hollow panic.
He left, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. You told him to go, and he’s logical. He finally did the math and realized you were right. He’s gone.
"No... no, please," Kaveh whispered to the empty room, his fingers gripping the bedsheets so tightly his knuckles turned white.
"I didn't mean it... I didn't..."
The air in the room felt thin.
He squeezed his eyes shut, fighting the rising tide of nausea.
He grit his teeth, forcing his limbs to obey the frantic command of his mind. It took an effort to drag his legs over the edge of the mattress, his feet hitting the floor with a heaviness.
He reached out blindly, his hand scrambling for purchase, his hand touching the cold bedside table, the plaster of the wall, the frame of the dresser—using every surface he could find as a crutch to drag his failing body toward the bedroom door. His breath came in ragged gasps, loud in the stillness.
Please just be in the kitchen, he prayed, a single tear slipping hot and fast down his temple. Please just be making coffee. Don't leave me here.
He stumbled into the hallway, his shoulder checking hard against the doorframe to keep from falling.
"Haitham?"
The living area stretched out before him, bathed in the soft, indifferent light of the morning sun.
It was pristine. The cushions on the divan were perfectly fluffed. The books were stacked neatly on the table. There was no steam rising from a cup, no smell of fresh grounds or herbs in the air.
The kitchen was cold.
Kaveh stood there, clinging to the wall, his eyes darting desperately from the empty chair to the silent front door.
Alhaitham had listened.
Kaveh’s legs finally gave out. He slid down the wall, hitting the floor with a dull thud, the silence of the empty house pressing in on him from all sides.
He was alone.
The Akademiya was already alive when he arrived, Alhaitham navigated the familiar corridors on instinct alone, submitting reports and collecting new assignments.
From the outside, he appeared unchanged.
Inside, his thoughts refused to settle.
He caught himself staring at the same line of text for several minutes without comprehension, the words blurring together. His mind kept circling back to Kaveh’s plea for divorce, to the unspoken terror of watching someone you loved begin to detach themselves from life.
“Alhaitham.”
He looked up. Lesser Lord Kusanali stood a short distance away.
“Lesser Lord Kusanali,” Alhaitham said immediately, rising to his feet. He inclined his head in respect. “I wasn’t informed of your visit.”
“I came to discuss the preservation of certain pre-Akademiya records,” she replied calmly.
Then, after a pause that felt deliberate, she added, “But that isn’t the only reason I wished to see you.”
“You’re troubled today,” she said. “That’s rare for you.”
Alhaitham inhaled slowly. “If this concerns my performance—”
“It doesn’t,” Nahida interrupted gently. “This concerns your heart.”
The word landed heavier than expected.
After a moment’s hesitation, Alhaitham spoke. “My spouse is ill.”
Nahida’s expression softened at once. “Kaveh?”
“Yes.” Saying his name aloud felt like handling glass. “The doctor at Bimarstan has been unable to identify the cause. His condition continues to worsen.”
“I see,” Nahida said quietly. “And how is he now?”
“He’s resting,” Alhaitham replied. “He can barely eat. He believes he is dying.”
She tilted her head slightly. “And what do you believe?”
Alhaitham’s jaw tightened. “I believe that our current knowledge is insufficient. Whatever is happening to him does not conform to any known medical or elemental framework.”
“And that frightens you,” Nahida said softly.
He did not deny it.
“Lesser Lord Kusanali,” Alhaitham said at last, lowering his voice. “I am not accustomed to asking for help without evidence. But logic has reached its limits.”
“I am not ready to live without him,” Alhaitham admitted.
The honesty of it rang louder than any plea.
Nahida stepped closer, her expression gentle but resolute. “Love often brings us to places where certainty cannot follow,” she said. “That does not make your fear unreasonable.”
She paused, as though she were listening to something, it’s a question she had not yet found the words for.
“There are forces in this world that do not fit neatly into what we call destruction or salvation,” Nahida said slowly.
“Some phenomena simply… occur. They adapt and challenge the boundaries of what we think we understand.”
Alhaitham’s breath caught.
“You believe this may apply to Kaveh,” he said.
Nahida hesitated.
“I believe,” she corrected gently,
“that what is happening to him lies outside the frameworks currently available to us.” Her fingers curled slightly at her sides.
“The fact that even the doctors have found no clear answer suggests this is not something catalogued—or perhaps not something meant to be.”
Her gaze sharpened, not with certainty, but with interest.
“I don’t yet know whether this is a threat or merely an unfamiliar process,” she continued. “And I won’t pretend otherwise. But… I am curious.”
Hope stirred in Alhaitham’s chest despite his better judgment.
“…Would you be willing to see him?” he asked quietly.
Nahida’s expression softened, but there was a spark of intent beneath it, an earnest desire of the little archon to learn, to understand her beloved citizens' pain.
“Yes,” she said. “Not because I have answers, I wish to seek them. There are kinds of knowledge that do not reveal themselves in texts or examinations. Sometimes, they must be encountered.”
Alhaitham bowed, deeper than protocol required. “Thank you, Lesser Lord Kusanali.”
The walk back to their home felt like an eternity.
When Alhaitham unlocked the door, the heavy silence he expected was absent. Instead, a soft, jagged sound drifted from the hallway, the sound of ragged breathing and stifled sobs.
Alhaitham’s heart stopped. He surged forward, rounding the corner into the living area.
Kaveh was huddled on the floor against the wall, his face buried in his hands, his shoulders shaking violently. He looked like a ruin of himself, collapsed and broken in the center of the living room.
"Kaveh!"
At the sound of his name, Kaveh’s head snapped up. His face was wet with tears, his eyes red-rimmed and wide with terror.
"Haitham," he choked out, reaching out with a trembling hand, his fingers grasping at the air as if trying to pull Alhaitham closer.
"You... you came back. I thought you left. I thought..."
Alhaitham dropped to his knees instantly, his hands hovering over Kaveh, "I told you I would return. I wouldn't leave you."
Kaveh slumped forward, intending to fall into Alhaitham's arms, but his gaze drifted past his husband’s shoulder.
There, standing quietly in the entryway, was Lesser Lord Kusanali.
Kaveh froze. The fog of panic and grief momentarily cleared, replaced by a jolt of mortification.
Here he was, the brightest architect of the era, crumpled on the floor in his sleepwear, weeping like a child in front of his Archon.
"Lesser... Lord Kusanali?" Kaveh gasped.
Panic flared in his eyes. He scrambled, his hands slipping on the floorboards as he tried to force his failing body upright.
"I— I apologize— I need to stand—"
"Kaveh, stop," Alhaitham commanded, his voice sharp with worry.
"No, I can't be— not like this—" Kaveh panted, his legs trembling violently as he tried to push himself up, only to sway dangerously.
Before he could collapse again, Alhaitham moved. He swept one arm behind Kaveh’s knees and the other around his back, lifting him effortlessly from the floor.
Kaveh let out a startled breath, instinctively clutching at Alhaitham’s shirt, his head falling against Alhaitham’s shoulder. He was too weak to protest, his small burst of adrenaline fading as quickly as it had come.
Alhaitham held him tight against his chest. He looked at Nahida, a silent apology in his eyes, before turning toward the bedroom.
"I've got you," Alhaitham murmured into Kaveh's hair, carrying him away from the cold floor and back to their bed.
“Stay still, Kaveh,” Nahida said, her voice like a soothing balm. She moved to the side of the bed, her feet barely making a sound on the floor.
Alhaitham stood by the foot of the bed, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, his gaze never leaving Kaveh’s face.
Nahida closed her eyes. She placed both hands just above Kaveh’s abdomen, not touching the skin, but hovering in the space where the air felt thickest. A soft, emerald glow began to emanate from her palms, and the room seemed to vibrate with a low, melodic hum.
Kaveh gasped softly, his hands clutching the sheets. “It... it’s warm. It’s not hurting for once.”
Nahida’s brow furrowed, then smoothed into an expression of pure, radiant wonder. She let out a small, breathless laugh—a sound so unexpected in the grim room that Alhaitham flinched.
“Oh,” she whispered, her eyes snapping open. They were glowing with the intensity of the suns.
“Oh, Kaveh. You aren't dying at all.”
Kaveh blinked, “then... What is it? Why am I so weak?”
She leaned closer, her voice a gentle childish whisper. “This is not something taking your life. Kaveh... you are carrying a life. You are pregnant!”
Kaveh didn’t move. He didn’t even seem to breathe. His ruby eyes, usually so expressive, were fixed on Nahida with a look of utter, hollowed-out shock.
The word pregnant echoed in his mind, but it felt like a word from a foreign language, one he couldn’t quite translate into his own reality.
He was an architect, but he did learn biology,
He understood biology, limits, and the solid laws of the physical world. Men did not carry life. Men like him were not supposed to be able to fulfill the one wish he had buried so deep he hadn't even told his husband about it.
Then, a small, involuntary sound escaped his throat—a jagged, breathless hitch.
"I... I'm what?" Kaveh whispered. His hands, thin and trembling, moved slowly, tentatively, until they rested over his stomach. He looked down at his own palms as if seeing them for the first time.
"Lesser Lord Kusanali," Alhaitham’s voice was barely a thread of sound, he reached out for the bedpost to steady himself. "You... you're certain? You aren't... this isn't a metaphor?"
"Life is the most literal thing in this world, Alhaitham," Nahida replied softly.
Kaveh’s eyes suddenly flooded. It wasn't the slow accumulation of tears from before, it was a dam breaking.
A sob racked his frail chest, but it wasn't the sound of grief. It was a terrifying, beautiful explosion of relief and longing.
"A child," Kaveh gasped, his head falling back against the pillows as he began to laugh through the tears, a wet, hysterical sound. "Haitham... a child. Our... ours?"
He looked at Alhaitham, his face transformed.
The sallow, dying look was still there, but beneath it, a spark had been struck. The guilt that had been eating him alive—the fear of leaving Alhaitham alone—was being incinerated by a sudden, blinding hope.
His deepest desire, the one he had mourned as an impossibility long ago, was vibrating beneath his fingertips.
Alhaitham moved then. He didn't say anything; he couldn't.
He collapsed in the corner of the bed and surged forward, burying his face in the blankets near Kaveh’s hip, his hands coming up to cover Kaveh’s. He was trembling against the sheets, his shoulders heaving in a silent, overwhelming meltdown of his own.
He wasn't losing his beloved husband. He wasn't going to be alone.
Kaveh reached out, his fingers tangling in Alhaitham’s gray hair, pulling him closer as they both surrendered to the impossible.
For several minutes, the only sound in the room was Kaveh’s broken, joyful sobbing and the quiet.
Nahida allowed them their moment, her own expression soft with a quiet joy.
But as the initial shock began to settle into a fragile peace, the scholar in her could not ignore the anomaly.
"Kaveh," she said gently, drawing his attention back.
"This miracle... It has a signature. It carries the resonance of something very old and very deep within the Great Red Sand. Even now, I can feel a trace of ancient Dendro energy clinging to your soul."
She tilted her head, her green eyes shimmering with curiosity. "Can you tell me where you were? What did you find in the desert that touched you so deeply?"
Kaveh, still leaning his weight against Alhaitham’s steadying presence, took a shaky breath. The memory of the greenhouse suddenly flared in his mind.
"It was a greenhouse," Kaveh whispered, his hand still resting over his heart.
"There was a core in the center... a sphere of energy. I didn't want anything from it, I was just... in awe of its beauty. I touched it, and the wind blew out, and I thought that was all."
The Archon remained silent for a moment, her eyes fluttering shut as she focused her consciousness, sifting through the ancient whispers of the Irminsul. After a while she began to speak again,
"I think you met a remnant of Kesher, the God of Unspoken Bonds," Nahida said softly.
"He was one of the deities of the desert long before King Deshret’s reign. He was known for answering the deepest prayers of those who stumbled into his presence."
Kaveh blinked, his hand still trembling against the sheets. "But I didn’t pray for anything. Nor am I a follower of the old gods. I was just... looking at the architecture."
“Your mind did not pray, but your heart did,” Nahida replied, a knowing smile gracing her lips.
“And you were praising the greatness of his creation, were you not? You looked at his sanctuary with a heart that was pure and genuine, It was that lack of greed that moved the god’s heart.”
She looked between the two of them, her gaze lingering on the way Alhaitham’s hand was now protective and firm over Kaveh’s.
"Your body is struggling because it is realizing a divine wish," she concluded.
"You aren't sick, Kaveh. You are simply being prepared for the bond you've always craved."
After Nahida finished her explanation, she reached out one last time. Her small, glowing palm hovered over Kaveh, and a gentle wave of emerald light washed over the room.
"I cannot rewrite the laws of the physical world," she whispered with a warm smile,
"but I can help your body find its rhythm. May this bond be strong, and may the life within you flourish under the protection of both the desert and the forest."
As the blessing settled, the heavy, suffocating fatigue that had plagued Kaveh for weeks finally began to lift, replaced by a soft, manageable warmth. With a final, meaningful nod to Alhaitham, Nahida quietly slipped away, leaving the couple alone in a silence.
The pregnancy was no easy feat for Kaveh.
Even with Nahida’s blessing and Tighnari’s constant supervision, Kaveh’s body remained a battlefield where human biology and divine miracle constantly clashed.
The first trimester was a blur of morning sickness that lasted well into the night, leaving him pale and shivering.
As the months passed and his belly began to swell. Kaveh’s joints pained him, and his skin felt stretched to its limit as his body widened to accommodate the growing life. There were nights when Kaveh would cry from the sheer discomfort, his back arching in pain, and Alhaitham would spend hours massaging his feet or reading to him.
It seems that Alhaitham's voice to be the only thing capable of soothing the restless child within.
Yet, through the pain, there was a light in Kaveh that had never been there before. He spent his "good" days sketching a nursery and its furniture.
Everytime he touches his swollen belly, he feels like he was a creator awaiting his most precious masterpiece.
The birth itself was a tempest.
Twelve hours of pain, fear, and relentless endurance blurred together into something vast and overwhelming, until the moment the first cry finally pierced the room.
It rang out sharp and alive, and to Kaveh and Alhaitham, it was the most melodious sound they had ever heard.
“It’s a girl,” Tighnari whispered, his voice thick with relief as he carefully cleaned the child and wrapped her in soft linen.
He placed her into Kaveh’s trembling arms.
She was small and warm and real, with a soft tuft of pale hair and eyes the same rich hue as Kaveh’s. Kaveh’s breath hitched as he looked down at her, exhaustion and wonder collapsing into something almost unbearable.
“Rivkah,” he breathed, the name barely more than a whisper as he pressed his tired forehead gently against hers. “Her name is Rivkah.”
Alhaitham leaned over them then, arms encircling both his husband and his daughter. For the first time since fear had taken root in his chest, it loosened its hold.
She was the bond that had always been meant to happen.