[ the goad moves kaveh the way a puppet would be tugged by the strings of a puppetmaster. a jerk in the right direction, and the puppet goes, stumbling, across a poorly-worked stage. alhaitham watches him go. the solid oak of the door slams shut. the sounds abate. he returns to dressing himself. he pulls on his nightdress, and tosses his discarded night robe over the back of a chair for a servant to collect. he has his book. the room is lit in shadows from the torchlight sconces; it is enough to read by, though he does not need his eyes to read this specific book. alhaitham knows the welts and frayed corners with his touch alone, he can recall the words in their slanted handwriting well-worn with time and love with his eyes closed. he can see etched into the backs of his eyelids the quirked notation and footnotes added in over the years, first by an uncertain hand, and then next by steadier, uniform, slanted hand-writing. he remembers, he remembers, he remembers.
luck had nothing to do with her death, he knows. old age was a sort of fortune, when you live in his world. it means that you've lived long enough to outlive most of your enemies, but not all. it had been the same for his parents. it will be the same for him, though he knows that he sees far more clearly through the darkness than they ever had. he had the eyes for it. the vultur volans, they say, is brightest of the night constellations. the beak of the eagle sits altair. in its triangle sits alshain and tarazed, the heralds of balance. an eagles wings, when spread, carries with it the weight of the world above and the balance of the world below. only with the keenness of its sight can it see through the darkness, and alhaitham has the eyes for it. he always had. it means the world has never seemed darker for it - the world, instead, has always been bright enough to lay before his feet its tragedies.
only in the dark can you not discern the colour of blood.
there are preparations to be made. he will make them come morning, when the sun rises and the world begins to awake to a continuation of its reality: a world where lokapala no longer exists, annexed into the folds of a nation-state so vicious that its name has become synonymous with bloodshed. avidya will send their envoys. ashavan may do so too, if they have any they could spare; all of them would be competing poets by morning, each coming up with a verse more scathing or more tragic than the last. politics always came later, when it comes to the dreamworld's ashavan and their philosophers. fontaine and liyue would undoubtedly ask after the status of their embassies. the world order will change, shift like chess pieces on sand, and then, as always, it will settle. and what comes from it will be as solid as stone.
pir kavekavus had been a master stonemason. there were people like that, to whom stone is simply another material to be molded.
kaveh returns. forty minutes later, he is wrapped in his bathrobe and wrapped in his thoughts. they come with him like the uncertain trail of feathers, curled vines from a tender forest jungle or the nettles of a spring harvest. he does not, alhaitham notes, look at alhaitham. of course he would not. the night stretches out far like this, outside of that sole window. alhaitham allows it. kaveh has been fed, and watered, and bathed. he has his earrings. he has his fury and his hope and his despairing reality. he has everything that alhaitham knows how to place within his reach. tomorrow, alhaitham will reteach him again the things that he loses in the night, but that is for tomorrow. ]
Sleep. [ is what alhaitham says instead from the foot of his bed. he rises, and one by one, begins to douse the torchlight. ]
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i love ur fanfics, chinhands
Date: 2023-04-13 06:44 am (UTC)luck had nothing to do with her death, he knows. old age was a sort of fortune, when you live in his world. it means that you've lived long enough to outlive most of your enemies, but not all. it had been the same for his parents. it will be the same for him, though he knows that he sees far more clearly through the darkness than they ever had. he had the eyes for it. the vultur volans, they say, is brightest of the night constellations. the beak of the eagle sits altair. in its triangle sits alshain and tarazed, the heralds of balance. an eagles wings, when spread, carries with it the weight of the world above and the balance of the world below. only with the keenness of its sight can it see through the darkness, and alhaitham has the eyes for it. he always had. it means the world has never seemed darker for it - the world, instead, has always been bright enough to lay before his feet its tragedies.
only in the dark can you not discern the colour of blood.
there are preparations to be made. he will make them come morning, when the sun rises and the world begins to awake to a continuation of its reality: a world where lokapala no longer exists, annexed into the folds of a nation-state so vicious that its name has become synonymous with bloodshed. avidya will send their envoys. ashavan may do so too, if they have any they could spare; all of them would be competing poets by morning, each coming up with a verse more scathing or more tragic than the last. politics always came later, when it comes to the dreamworld's ashavan and their philosophers. fontaine and liyue would undoubtedly ask after the status of their embassies. the world order will change, shift like chess pieces on sand, and then, as always, it will settle. and what comes from it will be as solid as stone.
pir kavekavus had been a master stonemason. there were people like that, to whom stone is simply another material to be molded.
kaveh returns. forty minutes later, he is wrapped in his bathrobe and wrapped in his thoughts. they come with him like the uncertain trail of feathers, curled vines from a tender forest jungle or the nettles of a spring harvest. he does not, alhaitham notes, look at alhaitham. of course he would not. the night stretches out far like this, outside of that sole window. alhaitham allows it. kaveh has been fed, and watered, and bathed. he has his earrings. he has his fury and his hope and his despairing reality. he has everything that alhaitham knows how to place within his reach. tomorrow, alhaitham will reteach him again the things that he loses in the night, but that is for tomorrow. ]
Sleep. [ is what alhaitham says instead from the foot of his bed. he rises, and one by one, begins to douse the torchlight. ]