[ no, he thinks again. of course he doesn't need that false sense of freedom. he would praise them time and time again — he did, before, with elham, and will continue to do so. he will praise them for staying safe, for not losing hope. he will praise their skills, will praise them even for the perfect way they may blink their eyes. praise, after all, has always lived easily on the tip of kaveh's tongue, for those who deserve it.
he would, kaveh thinks, praise them even if he would end up being lashed for it. ]
Answer me. If I'm supposed to hold about as much authority as you do, then where does my freedom lie? May I see fit to punish those who hurt my people? May I order your guards around? Tell me.
And who here has diverted the point? Did this conversation begin with authority in mind, or praise?
[ kaveh's voice rises. alhaitham observes. the conversation spirals, from beginning to end and the end to beginning. but it is a conversation worth having. the act of getting to know someone is messy. it is circuitous. language is. but if language were not verbalised, it ceases to have its meaning - only by speaking thoughts aloud are you able to test its validity.
kaveh's thoughts have remained unsaid. they are now being said. alhaitham looks to him, the quirk of his brow a punctuation at the end of a wending sentence: ]
Which is the conversation you intend to have with me?
[ insufferable. absolutely insufferable, he thinks, and it works on kaveh. a conversation does not need to be streamlined, and the one he wants to have is one both are aware of the answer. he doubts he holds the same authority as the prince. it would be too much of a flawed system, and the little he knows of vissudha, he could still assume it is not something that would put into place.
he can feel the headache incoming, the way his eyes hurt from how much he has been frowning. they will continue to argue, never truly reach a conclusion, because alhaitham is too prideful, and kaveh is too stubborn. ]
You know what I'm trying to do. I don't have the same authority as you do. My praise does not hold the same weight, and your servants and guards will not listen to me the way they do you. Do you fancy feeding your people lies, so that they may believe what they think you can give them? That won't work with me.
Do I seem as if I would gain much by lying to you? [ is alhaitham's quiet rejoinder. steady, like an even-keeled boat amidst lashing waves. it occurs to alhaitham, suddenly, that kaveh lives in the future of things. the act of speaking praise is rooted in the present; the act of accepting it inhabits an uncertain future. an action can be infinitely put off if one fears not knowing the consequences. there is a phenomenon in the rainforests of sumeru wherein ants lose their way and begin to blindly follow the one in front of them. on, and on they pick up followers, until an entire colony of ants march steadily in a repeating circle, a maelstrom of bodies and footfalls. it is called the death spiral, because it only ends when the entire colony is dead.
alhaitham considers this. the page of his book turns. the sound rasps in the hush that follows.
finally, he speaks. ] Try it tomorrow, then. If you are so certain that I am deluding you, then it should be easy for you to find proof, no? Or are you so afraid of wasting your precious breath that you would not even deign to speak the words aloud to prove me wrong?
[ no, he does not. but kaveh, who learns not to trust people the hard way, does not believe those words. alhaitham would instigate him, would tell him try it tomorrow, and watch as kaveh is laughed at, mocked, touched. it could be logical to assume that yes, what reason would there be to lie about this, but finding logic amidst people he does not know is not easy. logic comes with honesty, and honesty comes with trust. kaveh does not trust alhaitham, therefore he cannot achieve that honesty.
kaveh watches, because it is all he can do. he watches, as though trying to unravel alhaitham's secrets, as though he could peel off his skin and see his heart as it is. he will continue watching, the flame of his stubbornness enough to keep him warm come winter, until he finds truth in his words. ]
Your guesses about me aren't as sharp. Don't project yourself on me. [ because kaveh would never be afraid of wasting his breath on anyone, no. he would not see it as a waste. he would, instead, willingly give it to anyone who would be happy to listen.
he sets his feet on his divan, as is routine. legs to chest, head to knees, eyes to the outside. at the very least, his body has gotten used to the position. ] If I speak to any of them, it is simply because I want to.
[ further proof, alhaitham surmises, that insults work as intended. kaveh retreats back to his divan. he curls into a form that creatures of the forest take on when they are burnt alive - head to knees, legs to chest, the slow immolation of skin and feather and bone taking their spiraling path down to the curl of protective hands. what poets will surmise is that the creature is protecting their heart. what amurta biologists know is that the creature is protecting their head. tonight, once again, kaveh has been derailed from his downward spiral of self-immolating grief. the quiet whisper of his earlier plea has morphed into the raised voice of an imperious demand. alhaitham thinks - that kaveh has not known the shape of his skin for some time. lokapala has been peeled from it. lokapala has been cloistered within him. but he is still lokapala, down to his very marrow, a prince from a society desperate to create equality from inequity, who has yet to know what to allow himself to be.
with anyone else, the answer is easy to say: alhaitham does not, in fact, care if one wishes or does not wishes to speak. but this is kaveh. it was kaveh, it has not yet been kaveh, and it will be kaveh. there were two children up in the tower, once. the tower is still there. both children are still here. two people died that day.
alhaitham breathes out from behind his book. the faint amusement in his tone says thus: ]
Of course. How could I forget. I was attempting to bar you from speaking this entire time, Prince of the Lokapala.
[ the pages flip closed. alhaitham rises. ]
I am dousing the torches. Sleep, or don't, it matters not to me. But remember - you will be meeting two more of your kin in two days' time. Consider what you will say to them; it should be easy for you, since you will want to.
[ it is at moments like this that kaveh is reminded of their differing cultures, moments like this that he is homesick, and in spite of the insults, grief and guilt are not so easy to be ridden of. they have opinions that crash and burn, they have views as different as day and night, they stand on different ends of the war. kaveh was ever so idealistic, once. young, bright like the sun, his eyes so big and so full of hope. he thought, back then, that he would certainly find a friend in other kingdom's crown princes and princesses. they are, he had once said, the same.
in a world he does not remember just yet, the chance was there, once. two children, so different yet so similar, with the unique innocence only children their age have. kaveh smiled there, extended a hand. kaveh might have made his first friend there, another princeling like him. he does not remember it, a page in the book of his life stuck between two others.
it will be seen. ]
I don't need your reminder. [ no, he does not. it will weight in his mind for the next few days, after all. it will be all day kaveh will think about, and there will not be room for forgotten memories.
night falls. it will be dark. and kaveh will have trouble sleeping, that night. ]
[ night falls. night passes. dawn comes. dawn, too, passes. the ali qapu blooms red beneath the pale-pink reach of new light. alhaitham wakes, and exists, and is, as always, indifferent to it. the next two days passes without incident. alhaitham performs the duties as his role entails, and waits for the natural progression towards the next stage of his plan. the details of the meeting are passed along - eleven pm in the back gardens where the aqueducts burble, beneath the light of three lit lamps in a half-hidden pergola. food is brought, food is taken away. the slaves, with their bowed heads; the servants, with their brisk professionalism. the household bustles with undue activity. just on the heels of a treaty signing, there is much to be done - diplomacy to be had, guests to be settled, hospitality to be extended, gifts to be procured.
it is the last that the girl with the swaying dress returns with in a small, black box. a pair of silver rings, from the raid on the palaces of the lokapala. the vow-rings of kaveh's mother and father. she delivers them with a cant of her head; her skirts sway as she retreats into the light and life of the palace proper, leaving behind the marbled quiet of alhaitham's room and the singular, solitary guest within.
the issue arises on day two's lunch. the spread of freshly picked greens and tomatoes tossed with a spiced dressing, along with great, big steaming bowls of lentil soup and the small, stuffed roasts of tiny quail-like birds. the dessert of lunchtime's repast is a fragrant jasmine-and-coconut cake decorated in green and white layers so translucent that one can see through to the other side of the room warped only by the tint of the dessert itself. the issue builds in the cooling breeze of the afternoon. the northern wind blows gentle respite for the usually unbearable mid-day heat. but even that does nothing for what builds. by evening, the heat is like a boiling furnace, enough that when alhaitham finally returns to the room proper, his hand pauses upon the door itself.
the scent is unmistakable. the conclusion, however, impossible. therefore, the impossible is discarded. the alacrity of alhaitham's mind bolts through several options before landing on the one that has mild annoyance crossing his face for the first time since the invasion proper.
artificially induced heat.
alhaitham opens the door. he closes it behind him. he closes his eyes, and opens them, slowly, with painful reluctance. ]
[ night falls. night passes. the first day, kaveh misses breakfast. he wakes up at noon, five hours after his usual waking time. he does not address it, and continues on with his day. there is lunch, and he says nothing. there's dinner, and he says nothing, either. there's a gift, and here, kaveh wants to say something, whys and hows and what fors, but none of it is voiced, again. his corner of the room, he finds, is slowly being painted the traditional colors of lokapala. the marble on the walls, lighter. the view outside, an endless waterfall. the scent of parisarahs that bloom come spring. none of it is real.
kaveh leaves the tiny, neat box next to his sketchpad.
night falls. night passes. the second day, kaveh misses breakfast. he wakes up two hours past noon, and does not address it, either. the day continues on as intended; with lunch, with anxiety, with a gift. his corner of the room is no longer lokapalan. it bears gloom whites, mossy greens, colors he has come to despise. it ties him back to reality. the gift is not well-welcomed.
it starts slowly. summer, he thinks, is on its way. sumeru is always hit with it first, a tropical nation as it is. the heat always makes him sleepy, but it is not the reason he sleeps in. he should not be so hot. the cooling afternoon breeze would promise him so. then comes the inadequacy, the sweating, the lack of breath. kaveh knows what this is. he knows, too, that it's a fortnight too early. therefore—
of course. it makes sense, when he forces himself to think about it. how long has it been since the fall of lokapala? a man can only be so patient. an alpha, even less so. i wonder why prince alhaitham is so nice to you — he is not.
the door opens, and that familiar voice reaches his ears. ]
Get out!
[ it takes strength and will to voice words his body wishes not to speak. kaveh does no mind the tone of his voice, cares not for who might hear it. it is a ploy. it is a scheme. it is something that has been bound to happen the moment he was delivered to alhaitham's chambers, clad in golden manacles. a gift from war. kaveh sits there, in a corner of the room, behind the divan. curled up, with thoughts that are not his, and desires he does not claim. he forces himself to think of kurash and akram. they would be waiting for him. they are. there's so much he wants to tell them. like... like what?
he doesn't remember anymore. ]
Get out, [ less of a demand, and more of a plea. it is weaker, it is softer. it is words his body wishes not to speak, still. ]
[ kaveh's tone is desperation-made-form. alhaitham stops at the heel of the wall of it. the sound tears from a throat, reverberates across the marble of his room, and ends somewhere lodged in the narrow confines of his chest. kaveh's scent is like spring flowers in bloom. the scent is thick enough that alhaitham tastes it upon the tip of his tongue. the breath he holds is perfunctory; this far into a heat, alhaitham would need to stop breathing altogether to find himself unaffected. but it buys enough time for him to think. really think. the door closes. alhaitham leans against it, and engages the lock. he locks himself in on the wrong side as he surveys the sorry mess that kaveh has been made into.
kaveh, curled behind his divan. even from here, he reeks of scent and sweat and fear. it's the latter that alhaitham knows is the downfall of rationality. the heat strips an omega of self-control, replaces want with autonomy-denying need. it's an antiquated biological function that should not have persisted for so long in the gene pool, if it weren't for the societal functions it fulfills and the stigma that comes with it. the lokapalas, alhaitham recalls, as he moves step by step into the room, were the ones who invented birth controls beyond what nature and nurture would have provided. equality comes in more than one form. malice comes in another. alhaitham does not need to think far to conclude that this is azar's doing. the issue is what comes next.
kaveh's scent curls. alhaitham looks down, and notes that his hand has curled unconsciously into a fist. potent, he thinks, and takes his own measure. ]
This is my room. [ is what he says. ] I have no reason to leave.
[ and, obfuscated: no reason to leave kaveh alone, because the complications of that has the potential to send a message to azar in ways that alhaitham is not interested in handling. alhaitham's brisk steps take him to his desk where a small stack of his plumes sit. he takes one and engages the pneumatic tube.
deed done, he looks across the room. it is the crucible of his self control that keeps him from feeling ill. ]
[ the first hour, kaveh finds, had been too easy. in the quietness of alhaitham's quarters, he has no terrific distractions. his corner of the room, at the very least, smells like him. the divan, his blanket. his sketchpad. his earrings. he found comfort in all of those, and they allowed kaveh to have control over his own body. the second hour, he finds, is far harder. there is alhaitham. there is alhaitham's voice. there's the hyper-awareness of each and all of his movements. he moves, and his body follows. he speaks, and kaveh shudders. it is, he knows, pride and stubbornness alone that has kaveh withstand his body's desires. this is, after all, his first ever heat. it was never meant to be experienced like that.
kaveh has always romanticized it. a partner for whom they bore the most genuine feelings of love. a planned time, so it is remembered, so it is made special. he would lay himself bare — emotionally, mentally, physically — to the one he wishes to spend a lifetime with and more. kaveh has wished for it for as long as he could remember. an idealistic world born from rose-tinted glass, encouraged by blood of his blood. such has been lokapala's wish for her omegas: to be in control of their body's wants, and allow only those they deem special to experience them at their most sensitive.
it is of no surprise that this dream has been since crushed. with no kingdom, no people, no dreams, and no control of his own body, what does kaveh have left? ]
Yes, [ he lies. barely, is the truth. kaveh dares not move. if he does, he will lose control of himself. he will enjoy the dark, instead. it would be calming. it could be comforting.
it is, too, volatile. darkness is a canvas, and without full control of his mind, it paints itself any picture it longs for. kaveh has been in this same room for too many days. he knows its layout. he can picture alhaitham's bed, which he knows the size, how soft it is, how it feels under him. he recalls a memory. he recalls the first day he spent in this same room, the hours spent on that same bed, the way he had laid on it.
he distorts, then, the memories that follow. ever so vulnerable. ever so needy. so easy to please, so eager for want. he would have readily allowed alhaitham to have his way with him, back then. (he would not.) he would have invited it, even. (he would not.) begged for it. (he would not.) he would crawl onto it now, even, lay himself bare, turn himself into temptation.
(he would not.) ]
... It's harder when you talk. [ kaveh does not lie, this time. he has no reason to trust alhaitham. not when he assumes all of this is his fault, his scheme, his plan. but when all of this has always just been a matter of time, what use is there to put up a fight? ]
[ kaveh responds. his voice is far away. distance is not only measured in metres, but in timbre and tone. kaveh speaks as if he were at the end of a long cavern, the echoes of his voice like something scattered into stardust. kaveh sounds unmade. the rasp of his voice carves through alhaitham, whose nails dig briefly into the palm of his hand before he makes them yield. the order of operations piece themselves together. kaveh's condition needs to be monitored. information must be gleaned. alhaitham's wing of the palace must be vacated. regulations must be set in place. and alhaitham cannot leave. azar would have counted for this; a surrogate must be selected. and kaveh's people must be warned. everything is not quite in that order. it is, in fact, a mere sketch of a beginning, but alhaitham's mind has already prioritised the man on the other side of the room.
the first time alhaitham had known the presentation of a heat had been his mother. he had been cloistered then, scheduling made to send him away to somewhere appropriate while she agonised behind closed doors. the second time, a young soldier crumpled in the heat of the noonday sun, and alhaitham had carried her from the training ground to the medical bay. she had been warm. she had been tree nuts and silk candy spun fresh. the vissudhans posit that alhaitham, named after the bird that takes wing, lofty, above its people, is a man untouched by the rigours of every day hassles. he is stone; he is marble. but what is often forgotten is that alhaitham is but a man. a man that bruises when hurt. a man that bleeds when cut. a man that burns when put to the torch.
it follows: blankets and warm materials to create a safer environment. food and water to be left where kaveh needs them. bedding for alhaitham, to relegate himself to the bathroom. but before that, kaveh is still lucid. there are answers that alhaitham needs. he begins to move sifting through the room in gentle, quiet motions. ]
Then I will make this brief. [ is what he says, ] When did your heat begin? Who else has been in this room? [ alhaitham brings himself to the other end of the room, where bedding has been stowed into wooden cabinets. colourful blankets, woven covers and expensive fur stoles of creatures from the far north. alhaitham gathers all of them with indiscriminate motions. ] And who is it that weathers your heats with you?
[ that is not the right answer, he manages the thought. the right answer would have been not to say anything. the right answer would have been to leave. kaveh knows not what would be of him in the quiet of alhaitham's room, but it is much better than to share it with the man himself. it is much better than having to listen to his voice. it is easier on his thoughts. it is nicer on his body.
questions, questions, questions. they enter one ear, and leave the other. the words become soup in his mind when he tries to picture them. kaveh, still, forces himself to rationalize it. when did your heat begin? does he even know how to answer it?
his ears ring. his body defies biology. it is hotter beyond belief, it is hurting, it is wanting. kaveh moves at last — uncurls from his position, leans back into the wall and lays there, exhausted. it is fine if he does not look at alhaitham. the ceiling will be, suddenly, the most fascinating art piece he has ever laid his eyes on. think. ]
... After lunch, I think. [ the answer is not unfamiliar on his tongue. somewhere in his mind, he thinks, that conclusion had long been reached. he breathes in, then out.
the second question is much harder to rationalize. had he even paid them any attention? the servants. the slaves. that familiar maid. kaveh attempts to picture them all. but the mind is a tricky little thing that has been studied for years, yet never understood. a person's dreams, and what instigates them. intrusive thoughts, and what births them. its own independency, and whyever so hard to be controlled.
kaveh does not picture the servants, the slaves, the maid. he pictures, instead, alhaitham. alhaitham, who brings him food, then mouthfeeds him. alhaitham, who comes to retrieve lunch, but spares time to lose himself in kaveh. alhaitham, who brings gifts for kaveh, and makes kaveh into his own.
kaveh shakes his head. none of those things happened. ]
I can't... I can't remember anyone. Probably the same people as always?
[ probably is never enough. it is, however, what he can offer. and as for the last question—
the earliest memory he has on it is his mother explaining what he is. omegas, she had said, are special. they are, she continued, the greater lord's favorite children. those who are meant to bring life into the world, regardless of their gender. it comes with great responsibility, and it is not something to be abused. lokapala has since allowed her omegas to choose the right person, the one meant to see them at their most vulnerable. his mother had, then, told him the symptoms, so he is not afraid once it happens. kaveh has waited ever since. for the right moment, the right person.
he turns, and looks at alhaitham. he should not. ]
... No one. [ honey. that is what his voices tastes like. honey harvested from avidya, delivered across sumeru. it is temptation taken form. it is the most primal form of nature. it is want, and kaveh weaponizes it unconsciously. ] This is... my first time.
the biological rationale is this: that fertility is vital to the survival of the human race. that protection and provision is needed for procreation. that need and infatuation is impetus for behaviours that promote survival. you will protect that which you, if not love, then at least desire. in theory, the amurta biologists posit, the strata of secondary sexual characteristics creates a society where each know their own roles. alhaitham knows the arguments well, because they form the foundation of the basic caste system. vissudha had her roots in a nation state that worshipped fecundity. vissudha stratified her society in order to create a population dedicated to formalise the most savage qualities of desire.
kaveh is devastation-made-form. my first time, he says, in a voice like spun honey. desire carves through alhaitham like a quake. he is blind with it. the world is white-hot and bright, the light refracted from marble and glass like lancelets. nothing is meant to withstand the siren of that tone. nothing dares.
alhaitham crosses the room. the air is thick with scent. his body burns through it like the careening of a comet. each footfall drags alhaitham through time and space to a kaveh who is simultaneously too near and too far. there is nothing inviting about the curl of kaveh's body. he hides, like a creature burned, a golden curl against the corner of a wall that could not possibly contain him. he is light, and sweetness, and a galaxy of yearning. he belongs in a case for display; he belongs in the folds of a bed. alhaitham looks down with the hard, hewn lines of the divan between them, and thinks -
alhaitham is not yet unmade.
with uncertain precision, alhaitham drops what he is holding. the smattering of blankets and comforters deposit themselves over kaveh's upturned face. ]
You should have said, Prince of the Lokapala, that you were on suppressants.
[ the gravel of his voice is unfamiliar to even alhaitham, who tastes iron on his tongue. he has, he realises, bitten through his lip.
it is not worth considering. ] How long on average? Think, Kaveh.
[ there are fantasy books that give birth to creatures of fontainian sea able to enchant travelers with their voices alone. they sing, they lure, they bite. it is, ultimately, fantasy, but kaveh finds room in his mind to think, this is it.
kaveh is unmade.
alhaitham approaches, and he finds his body expecting. wanting. he is eager, and thoughts leave his mind. in the shelves of his mind, his mother had spoken of this. in memories now forgotten, there is an instance of time when the sun shone high, at the height of summer. a younger kaveh sat on his mother's lap in their gardens, served tea, shared secrets between each other. she spoke of love, of desire. she spoke of a time where kaveh will be rid of rationality, and will want ever so egoistically. she had said then that selfishness is part of human nature, that there is no shame in it. kaveh, in spite of the love he held for his mother, grew selfless.
kaveh, rid of rationality, wants the way his mother had told him about.
the blankets and comforters, he finds, are not enough. they are clean, smell of soap and flora. it is not what he wants. it is not enough.
kaveh sets them aside. want ever so egoistically. he reaches across the divan that separates them, and holds onto the fabric of alhaitham's clothes. want.
the question has never reached his ears. ]
Your bed, [ there are fantasy books on fontainian mythology. they lure with honey-coated words. they bite. ] Take me to it?
[ kaveh wants. he wants, ultimately, to lose himself in the smell of alhaitham's covers. ]
[ kaveh reaches across the divan. no, alhaitham thinks, with some resonance of desperation, that what reaches across the divan is no longer kaveh. a creature is made in part through the predictable internal workings of their thoughts and the rational constant of their behaviours. that people did not always act rationally did not detract from the internal consistency of said logic. a man who chose irrationality would always choose irrationality given the same circumstances and impetus. outliers exist, but infrequently. and alhaitham has always known that there are things a person must always hold onto, lest they are led astray by the vicissitudes of life. you were not you if you allowed yourself to stray.
the thing reaching across the divan is not kaveh. kaveh, who detests the prince of the vissudha. kaveh, who still mourns the loss of his people. kaveh, who refuses to let go of a pride so fundamental to him that to strip him of it is to shame the world that allowed it. you could remove kaveh from lokapala, but you could not remove lokapala from kaveh. not kaveh, not like this. something in alhaitham whispers from the unknowable: is this the kaveh you love, or is this the kaveh you could love?
there had been two children, once. alhaitham had seen sunlight all his life, but it had never been so golden as the day it fell upon the flaxen strands of kaveh's beneath the mottled shade of the palm trees. kaveh is liquid sunshine across the divan, and a part of alhaitham, the part of him that had been born for this, this, thinks this: that alhaitham has failed to tell kaveh all this time, that he has been hungry, to tell him that he had been searching for him like meat, like water -
like blood. alhaitham tastes it where he had bitten through his lip. the taste of iron carries forward the steel-clad crucible of his self-control, it feeds it as it writhes. fishermen, alhaitham remembers, used to bind themselves to the masts of their ships so that the fontainian sea would not have them. not once - never. alhaitham pulls kaveh into his arms.
he tosses him into his bed.
the motion is not a kind or playful one. what follows is a pillow and the put-aside comforter, distance created through layers. alhaitham bares his teeth, and, because it is necessary, bites down onto the back of his arm. his teeth sink in. blood slinks. pain blooms. clarity of mind returns. alhaitham bites himself a second time, incisors sinking in until the protest of his arm gains flame - and then looks back to the bed with a haggard breath. ]
Kaveh. [ even kaveh's name is liquid sunshine given form - but alhaitham's eyes remain clear. they must. ] Do not leave that bed. I will tie you there if I must. [ and before the protests - ]
Kaveh.
[ like the syllables of a serrated knife. alhaitham's lips drip red. ] Understand.
[ the last of his mother's teachings had been thus: you have inherited my beauty, kaveh. there will be none who will resist you. none who will dare.
there had been admirers. letters sent anonymously. there had been flowers, there had been dates, there had been confessions. the crown prince of lokapala has always been popular. the golden of his hair is purer than the gold mined from the chasm. the red of his eyes leaves the trishiraite harvested from sumeran desert jealous. his smile becomes the sun itself. he is a child blessed by the gods, many have said. it is a rumor that has seen all that teyvat has to offer, a rumor even those across the seas have heard.
there were those who came to lokapala for the padisarahs that bloom come spring. there were those who came to lokapala for the crown prince, unmated, untouched, pristine and pure. given the opportunity, it is known, there would be none who would deny a chance to have a taste of him.
alhaitham does.
alhaitham, crown prince of vissudha, who kaveh has personally picked to blame for tainting him, bleeds to retain reason. red is a jewel oftentimes associated with the prince of lokapala. red is an anchor. red grounds alhaitham, and questions kaveh.
kaveh, who feels his body melt under the smell of sheets and cushion touched by alhaitham. kaveh, whose own reason has long left him, whose fingers clutch around the blankets, whose body burns for attention, whose body hurts if left untouched. kaveh, whose red meets alhaitham's red, and wonders, as he is wont to do, why?
red is an anchor. it grounds alhaitham, and wakes kaveh. ]
... Three pills, every six months. [ the question has long been forgotten. he recalls, however, the weight of alhaitham's tone on a specific word. ] They are due in a fortnight.
[ not now. not this early. the signs were there, but kaveh knows this has been induced by something. someone. not alhaitham, he thinks. elham might have been right. alhaitham knows how to speak. he is well-versed in the intonation of words and its hidden meanings as haravatats are wont to be. he says understand, and kaveh, who is, instead, well-versed in people, sees it as a quiet plea.
understand, he pleads, and kaveh wonders, understand what? kaveh wonders — ]
[ as always, alhaitham thinks, kaveh asks the wrong questions. from the very beginning, the questions had come as a deluge. no waterfall of the ali qapu could sustain it. has alhaitham enjoyed the slaughter of the lokapalan people? is kaveh to accept his fate? does the fate of the lokapalan slaves matter to alhaitham? why do you return my jewelery? why are you doing this? why? why? why?
why won't you touch me, kaveh asks. the wrong question again. alhaitham thinks, perhaps the right question can never be voiced: who is alhaitham, and what is kaveh to him? one's fate is tied to the way an individual chooses to interact with the world; one's fate is tied to the way an individual chooses to allow the world in. alhaitham has not allowed the world in, not once. not ever. there is no room within him for anything save for the sole purpose that he strives towards. he had once looked into the abyss of probabilities, and identified a door in a far-off, far-flung galaxy. he had looked at it, and put down the first flagstone of a path built towards this impossible destination. he had been ten, and he had been angry, and the world had seemed terribly small for it.
the question cannot be why. but it is in kaveh's nature to ask. three pills, every six months, and due in a fortnight - but not tonight. alhaitham only needed this in order to confirm the game afoot. his mouth is stained red as he looks at kaveh, really looks. kaveh's limbs tangle within the rope of sheets. he is agonised. he is unmade. and alhaitham - cannot be unmade. ]
Because [ alhaitham says, in a voice like tainted iron, with a rasp like rusted steel, ] it would please Azar too much, and please me too little.
[ the crucible of his self-control holds. alhaitham breathes in. the air is musk and honey-sweet. ] You do not want me, Kaveh. You merely need me. Is this how you wish to be?
[ kaveh asks, because it is within a scholar's nature to inquire. kaveh is prince, but he is human, but he is an architect, but he is a scholar. a scholar who enjoys the secrets of the world, a scholar who wants to learn, learn, learn. he asks, until there are no questions left to ask. he asks, and does not think that there are wrong questions to be asked. all of them will provide him an answer, if answered at all. all of them will provide him knowledge, and information, and food for thought. all of them matter.
he will, then, continue to ask all the wrong questions, until there are no wrong questions left to be asked. he will continue to ask the whats, the hows, the whys. alhaitham will answer him with time, or not at all. but for a man held captive, taken from home, questions are all he has, and answers are solaces. after all —
after all, alhaitham mentions the regent, and kaveh, who has hardly seen him, let alone thought of him, thinks now. it is a new puzzle piece in the haziness of his honey-coated mind. he is not apt to solve the puzzle just now, but he will ponder it, later. he will think. he will question. he will wonder. it is, after all, all that kaveh has.
azar, later. alhaitham, who struggles in ways kaveh does not understand, who struggles in way he should not — alhaitham, now.
kaveh sits up on the bed. it is an uncomfortable motion, all around. ]
Then, [ words have weight. they get stuck on his throat. the thought itself is madness taken-form. but it is, always, all that kaveh has. ] do you want me to want you? If I did, would you?
[ kaveh sits up. it's impossible for alhaitham's eyes to not follow that liquid motion. the setting of a golden sun casts ribbons of light across the obscene pale of kaveh's skin. the blankets shift around him like the beginnings of a wanton whirlpool. and alhaitham is only a man, just a man, and he is bleeding. the air tastes of honey and blood. perhaps that has always been what history distilled down to, the desires of mankind and the bloodshed to obtain it. alhaitham, who has chosen a different path, merely looks.
the question evokes no imagery and invokes no thought. there has never been any need. alhaitham has always known his own measure; he would not be alhaitham otherwise. ]
Ask me that question again when you want me.
[ it comes not as a plea, nor a demand. it comes not as a question or a statement. it comes as everything and nothing all at once - alhaitham, standing at the edge of a gulf of his own making, and choosing to place the key where kaveh can reach.
the knock on the door is visceral. alhaitham bares his teeth. he then systematically remembers himself. gone is the deep, emanating growl and the press of his nails to the bloody shreds of his palm; his body shifts as the crucible of his self-control clamps down with bloodless finality, and he goes to the door in three, long strides. the door is opened but a crack. his head is bowed. words are exchange, and then some.
when he retreats, it's first to allow the door to close before he turns. alhaitham has in his hands a package wrapped in cloth. ]
[ kaveh does not know alhaitham. he does not understand the intricacies of his mind palace, does not know his motivations and the driving force behind his every action. but kaveh is learning. kaveh, who knows how to observe, and knows how to analyze; kaveh is slowly coming to paint a bigger picture.
alhaitham does not answer no. alhaitham does not answer him in the way a person who wants nothing to do with someone else would. alhaitham, instead, says words that tell him this: that they will continue to be in each other's lives, that this might happen again, that kaveh's own feelings might come to change. there is no certainty. the boundary between want and need is, after all, impossibly thin. for kaveh, it is a line never to be crossed.
kaveh, after all, never allows himself to want, and the question is answered on its own.
he watches, because that, too, is one of the few things he has. there will be no one who can resist you. alhaitham, who he thought would be the exception, is not. alhaitham, he finds, is at his mercy, like all others who courted him were. alhaitham warns him again, and kaveh thinks, that's not right. what good is there away from a bed intoxicated with alhaitham's scent?
besides. his legs would not take him anywhere, would be victims of his own weakness. instead—
instead, kaveh looks. at alhaitham. at the splashes of red on his person. at the package he holds in hands. kaveh does not ever allow himself to want, but a kaveh poisoned by desire will want the way his mother told him to. ever so egoistically.
he burns, sunburst. kaveh removes his shirt, as though this is the natural order of things. his skin is red, glistering. pristine. untouched. kaveh leans back, and cants his head. ever so naturally. ]
Then come here. [ honey drips down the corners of his mouth. it is poisonous, and kaveh knows it well. ] ... Haitham, please?
it is nothing exceptional. the story of weal and woe prints up its pages like so: that those caught within the viper's nest of a kingdom built solely on power consolidated upon the few shoulders of the living must, by its very nature, succumb to death. his mother and father must have known such a thing, though alhaitham can only question the print left behind in leather bound journals. his grandmother had known that the last breath she would draw would be the one relinquishing alhaitham to that very same world that had taken so much from her. in the end, the only thing that lasts is the wisdom pressed between pages of books, a library of everlasting memory. alhaitham remembers, still.
the word is like shards of betrayal. alhaitham's breath catches in his throat. the siren of honey and silk intermingles with artificial imprinting of biological desire, and something that finally, after all this time, resembles emotions cross hif ace. the flashpoint is like a match lit. it starts like this: the biting of a lip, the narrowing of his eyes, and for a brief moment, there is anger, and then anger at the showing of his own humanity, and then the frustration of a predator kept from his prey, the resentment of a creature having caught doing so, and the glinting knife-edged flash of something like hurt. for a moment, his body stills, caught between self-control and biological impetus. alhaitham's bloodied nails dig into the ends of his cloth package.
haitham, please - kaveh says. alhaitham thinks - he has not been merely haitham in such a long time.
the first step towards kaveh is pulled from the strain of muscle; the second is like the breaking of a deluge over a fall. but alhaitham fights it regardless, with the sullen resentment of a creature made to heel, the lash of his nails and the taste of iron like condemnation. he is at the edge of the bed in what seems like an eternity, the cant of his neck and the cast of his shadow over the shift of kaveh's legs as if umbra and penumbra were to find their zenith.
alhaitham looks. of course he does. the bed dips with the weight of his knee. the air chokes with the subtle spring of water tension, thick enough that one would need a knife to cleave it into form. but alhaitham leans, like the long, lean line of liquid mercury. his shadow slides over the pale, bare line of kaveh's shoulder. the glinting, wanton red of his eyes. alhaitham's breath ghosts over it like murmured song. ]
Kaveh. [ is what he says, low, and sure, and furious. ] I am saying 'no'.
[ the package is torn. alhaitham digs out the paper packet from it. his nail carves through the seal, and with sheer, frustrated precision, he pins kaveh down and presses the packet against his lips. the powder spills. ]
there has been studies on it, by scholars of all six darshans. the amurta are objective in their dissertations on how a heart is meant to work. the rtawahist pen books on how the alignment of stars affect one's birth, and the way their heart is shaped. the vahumana aim to understand its response to different stimulations. none, kaveh had once thought, would arrive to an accurate understanding, for the heart is, too, so utterly fickle.
the heart is not a communal construct. it is not, after, the heart, but so ever many of them, all so minutely different. they sing in different tones, beat in different rhythms. his will never be the same as his mother's, blood of his blood. kaveh had learned that at ten years of age, under a particularly warm sun.
alhaitham approaches. kaveh's heart jumps. it is as his mother had told him so. alhaitham's scent is maddening, and it feels, for a moment, like home. like it is here where he belongs, over these sheets, next to this person. lokapala feels like a distant past, a wavering dream. it might not ever have existed. kaveh might not be prince. does it matter, still? does his heart beg for remembrance, or does it purr in excitement, in want, giving itself whole for something so utterly carnal?
kaveh's hand meets alhaitham's waist, and then—
then there's rejection. and kaveh, known as the prince desired by the masses, has never been rejected. kaveh is beautiful, like his mother. he has her hair. he has his father's jewels for eyes. he is eloquent, intelligent. lokapalan haravatats have penned poetry books of their prince's smile, compared it to the midday sun. he has not grown narcissistic for it. he has never, either, held himself above others. but kaveh, who wears his heart on his sleeves, sleeves so impossibly thin; kaveh hurts, like men do. he is, after all, just a person.
red greets his lips as it did alhaitham's. teeth to skin, skin that rips, blood that flows. it hurts. the heart. his body. it is, he thinks, betrayal, too. it is the exception that grounds him to reality.
kaveh's hand pushes, or makes an attempt at such. his body has never been built to be physically fit. he kicks his legs, rejects that rejection. above all else, stripped down to the most raw nature of their beings, to not be wanted the same way he wants, for once, for the very first time in his life—
kaveh turns his head to the side, and rejects, too. it is, after all, almost second nature. ]
[ kaveh's head turns. alhaitham's claws tighten, first on reflex, and then with the careful understanding that only one person's blood need be drawn. kaveh's scent is honey-sweet and of a profusely blooming spring. a moral man is not meant to resist it. but alhaitham, who has never considered himself a mere mortal man, is not yet unmade. kaveh's head turns, and alhaitham considers his options.
the first one, he discards for blood. the second for the potential for injury. the third is discarded because it would take to long, with too little effect, a prolonging of distress with variables that are not within alhaitham's control. kaveh's first heat. omegas who have never experienced heats before have attested to the lengthening of days, of a potency unlike anything they had experienced before and since, of a deep, cloying sear that burned away what little rationality that alpha scholars ascribed to them. alhaitham, who has only ever believed in their objective account, looks to kaveh and thinks - not kaveh, never kaveh.
the fourth option, then. alhaitham tears a second packet with his teeth. he downs the powder. and then, with careful hands, turns kaveh's face back to face him. alhaitham kisses him. the twist of his head is meant to pry kaveh's mouth open with tongue and teeth. guttural rumble is but an afterthought, a clamour of desire, an epitaph to victory.
the iron of blood and the bitter of mugwort - and the mawkish taste of honey. ]
[ the iron of blood, the bitter of mugwort, the mawkish taste of honey — and the besmirch of poison.
lokapala strives on self. they sing songs of humility, they pen poems on awakening, they celebrate what is. when the sun rises and paints the sky blue, they see it true, and find no fault. when it rests in the horizon, and splatter oranges and pinks, lokapala sings of fire, fire, fire. it has been said, during times of eld, that it had been in that spot, under a waterfall, on the cusp of winter and spring, that the world has seen its first embodiment of sincerity. a being so honest and pure, so delicate and true that none thought to defy its reason. they are what they are, and they accepted it as such.
kaveh, lokapalan-born, praised the tales, dreamed of them. vivid are his dreams of perfection and flawlessness; reality is painted a darker color. dreams are fragile. the heart, glass. the self, porcelain. kaveh cracks on touch.
he pushes, still, uselessly, at the mercy of his own inadequacy. his body, honest, gives in. it is, after all, the self; true to itself, to its carnal desires, and he takes poison as it is delivered. the taste is nauseating, and it anchors him. that is, he finds, the worst part.
the drowsiness hits first. ] If you don't want me, throw me away. I'm tired of being your trophy of war.
[ the words burn on his throat. his limbs, heavy. what good will sleep bring? it is a cycle that repeats itself. samsara is, after all, punishment. what goes unsaid, lost in the woes of a body that shuts itself down, is: you're making it harder to hate you. ]
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no subject
Date: 2023-05-26 02:35 am (UTC)[ no, he thinks again. of course he doesn't need that false sense of freedom. he would praise them time and time again — he did, before, with elham, and will continue to do so. he will praise them for staying safe, for not losing hope. he will praise their skills, will praise them even for the perfect way they may blink their eyes. praise, after all, has always lived easily on the tip of kaveh's tongue, for those who deserve it.
he would, kaveh thinks, praise them even if he would end up being lashed for it. ]
Answer me. If I'm supposed to hold about as much authority as you do, then where does my freedom lie? May I see fit to punish those who hurt my people? May I order your guards around? Tell me.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-26 03:32 pm (UTC)[ kaveh's voice rises. alhaitham observes. the conversation spirals, from beginning to end and the end to beginning. but it is a conversation worth having. the act of getting to know someone is messy. it is circuitous. language is. but if language were not verbalised, it ceases to have its meaning - only by speaking thoughts aloud are you able to test its validity.
kaveh's thoughts have remained unsaid. they are now being said. alhaitham looks to him, the quirk of his brow a punctuation at the end of a wending sentence: ]
Which is the conversation you intend to have with me?
no subject
Date: 2023-05-26 10:50 pm (UTC)he can feel the headache incoming, the way his eyes hurt from how much he has been frowning. they will continue to argue, never truly reach a conclusion, because alhaitham is too prideful, and kaveh is too stubborn. ]
You know what I'm trying to do. I don't have the same authority as you do. My praise does not hold the same weight, and your servants and guards will not listen to me the way they do you. Do you fancy feeding your people lies, so that they may believe what they think you can give them? That won't work with me.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-27 01:56 am (UTC)alhaitham considers this. the page of his book turns. the sound rasps in the hush that follows.
finally, he speaks. ] Try it tomorrow, then. If you are so certain that I am deluding you, then it should be easy for you to find proof, no? Or are you so afraid of wasting your precious breath that you would not even deign to speak the words aloud to prove me wrong?
no subject
Date: 2023-05-27 09:23 pm (UTC)kaveh watches, because it is all he can do. he watches, as though trying to unravel alhaitham's secrets, as though he could peel off his skin and see his heart as it is. he will continue watching, the flame of his stubbornness enough to keep him warm come winter, until he finds truth in his words. ]
Your guesses about me aren't as sharp. Don't project yourself on me. [ because kaveh would never be afraid of wasting his breath on anyone, no. he would not see it as a waste. he would, instead, willingly give it to anyone who would be happy to listen.
he sets his feet on his divan, as is routine. legs to chest, head to knees, eyes to the outside. at the very least, his body has gotten used to the position. ] If I speak to any of them, it is simply because I want to.
no subject
Date: 2023-05-28 03:44 am (UTC)with anyone else, the answer is easy to say: alhaitham does not, in fact, care if one wishes or does not wishes to speak. but this is kaveh. it was kaveh, it has not yet been kaveh, and it will be kaveh. there were two children up in the tower, once. the tower is still there. both children are still here. two people died that day.
alhaitham breathes out from behind his book. the faint amusement in his tone says thus: ]
Of course. How could I forget. I was attempting to bar you from speaking this entire time, Prince of the Lokapala.
[ the pages flip closed. alhaitham rises. ]
I am dousing the torches. Sleep, or don't, it matters not to me. But remember - you will be meeting two more of your kin in two days' time. Consider what you will say to them; it should be easy for you, since you will want to.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-01 11:02 am (UTC)in a world he does not remember just yet, the chance was there, once. two children, so different yet so similar, with the unique innocence only children their age have. kaveh smiled there, extended a hand. kaveh might have made his first friend there, another princeling like him. he does not remember it, a page in the book of his life stuck between two others.
it will be seen. ]
I don't need your reminder. [ no, he does not. it will weight in his mind for the next few days, after all. it will be all day kaveh will think about, and there will not be room for forgotten memories.
night falls. it will be dark. and kaveh will have trouble sleeping, that night. ]
no subject
Date: 2023-06-02 01:16 am (UTC)it is the last that the girl with the swaying dress returns with in a small, black box. a pair of silver rings, from the raid on the palaces of the lokapala. the vow-rings of kaveh's mother and father. she delivers them with a cant of her head; her skirts sway as she retreats into the light and life of the palace proper, leaving behind the marbled quiet of alhaitham's room and the singular, solitary guest within.
the issue arises on day two's lunch. the spread of freshly picked greens and tomatoes tossed with a spiced dressing, along with great, big steaming bowls of lentil soup and the small, stuffed roasts of tiny quail-like birds. the dessert of lunchtime's repast is a fragrant jasmine-and-coconut cake decorated in green and white layers so translucent that one can see through to the other side of the room warped only by the tint of the dessert itself. the issue builds in the cooling breeze of the afternoon. the northern wind blows gentle respite for the usually unbearable mid-day heat. but even that does nothing for what builds. by evening, the heat is like a boiling furnace, enough that when alhaitham finally returns to the room proper, his hand pauses upon the door itself.
the scent is unmistakable. the conclusion, however, impossible. therefore, the impossible is discarded. the alacrity of alhaitham's mind bolts through several options before landing on the one that has mild annoyance crossing his face for the first time since the invasion proper.
artificially induced heat.
alhaitham opens the door. he closes it behind him. he closes his eyes, and opens them, slowly, with painful reluctance. ]
Kaveh.
"welcome back to rp", you say, forcing me to write this. sick in the HEAD!!!!!!!!!
Date: 2023-06-02 03:40 am (UTC)kaveh leaves the tiny, neat box next to his sketchpad.
night falls. night passes. the second day, kaveh misses breakfast. he wakes up two hours past noon, and does not address it, either. the day continues on as intended; with lunch, with anxiety, with a gift. his corner of the room is no longer lokapalan. it bears gloom whites, mossy greens, colors he has come to despise. it ties him back to reality. the gift is not well-welcomed.
it starts slowly. summer, he thinks, is on its way. sumeru is always hit with it first, a tropical nation as it is. the heat always makes him sleepy, but it is not the reason he sleeps in. he should not be so hot. the cooling afternoon breeze would promise him so. then comes the inadequacy, the sweating, the lack of breath. kaveh knows what this is. he knows, too, that it's a fortnight too early. therefore—
of course. it makes sense, when he forces himself to think about it. how long has it been since the fall of lokapala? a man can only be so patient. an alpha, even less so. i wonder why prince alhaitham is so nice to you — he is not.
the door opens, and that familiar voice reaches his ears. ]
Get out!
[ it takes strength and will to voice words his body wishes not to speak. kaveh does no mind the tone of his voice, cares not for who might hear it. it is a ploy. it is a scheme. it is something that has been bound to happen the moment he was delivered to alhaitham's chambers, clad in golden manacles. a gift from war. kaveh sits there, in a corner of the room, behind the divan. curled up, with thoughts that are not his, and desires he does not claim. he forces himself to think of kurash and akram. they would be waiting for him. they are. there's so much he wants to tell them. like... like what?
he doesn't remember anymore. ]
Get out, [ less of a demand, and more of a plea. it is weaker, it is softer. it is words his body wishes not to speak, still. ]
HAHAH you know u love it ✨✨✨
Date: 2023-06-02 05:32 pm (UTC)kaveh, curled behind his divan. even from here, he reeks of scent and sweat and fear. it's the latter that alhaitham knows is the downfall of rationality. the heat strips an omega of self-control, replaces want with autonomy-denying need. it's an antiquated biological function that should not have persisted for so long in the gene pool, if it weren't for the societal functions it fulfills and the stigma that comes with it. the lokapalas, alhaitham recalls, as he moves step by step into the room, were the ones who invented birth controls beyond what nature and nurture would have provided. equality comes in more than one form. malice comes in another. alhaitham does not need to think far to conclude that this is azar's doing. the issue is what comes next.
kaveh's scent curls. alhaitham looks down, and notes that his hand has curled unconsciously into a fist. potent, he thinks, and takes his own measure. ]
This is my room. [ is what he says. ] I have no reason to leave.
[ and, obfuscated: no reason to leave kaveh alone, because the complications of that has the potential to send a message to azar in ways that alhaitham is not interested in handling. alhaitham's brisk steps take him to his desk where a small stack of his plumes sit. he takes one and engages the pneumatic tube.
deed done, he looks across the room. it is the crucible of his self control that keeps him from feeling ill. ]
Are you lucid?
.......... i shall neither confirm nor deny it thank you,
Date: 2023-06-02 10:59 pm (UTC)kaveh has always romanticized it. a partner for whom they bore the most genuine feelings of love. a planned time, so it is remembered, so it is made special. he would lay himself bare — emotionally, mentally, physically — to the one he wishes to spend a lifetime with and more. kaveh has wished for it for as long as he could remember. an idealistic world born from rose-tinted glass, encouraged by blood of his blood. such has been lokapala's wish for her omegas: to be in control of their body's wants, and allow only those they deem special to experience them at their most sensitive.
it is of no surprise that this dream has been since crushed. with no kingdom, no people, no dreams, and no control of his own body, what does kaveh have left? ]
Yes, [ he lies. barely, is the truth. kaveh dares not move. if he does, he will lose control of himself. he will enjoy the dark, instead. it would be calming. it could be comforting.
it is, too, volatile. darkness is a canvas, and without full control of his mind, it paints itself any picture it longs for. kaveh has been in this same room for too many days. he knows its layout. he can picture alhaitham's bed, which he knows the size, how soft it is, how it feels under him. he recalls a memory. he recalls the first day he spent in this same room, the hours spent on that same bed, the way he had laid on it.
he distorts, then, the memories that follow. ever so vulnerable. ever so needy. so easy to please, so eager for want. he would have readily allowed alhaitham to have his way with him, back then. (he would not.) he would have invited it, even. (he would not.) begged for it. (he would not.) he would crawl onto it now, even, lay himself bare, turn himself into temptation.
(he would not.) ]
... It's harder when you talk. [ kaveh does not lie, this time. he has no reason to trust alhaitham. not when he assumes all of this is his fault, his scheme, his plan. but when all of this has always just been a matter of time, what use is there to put up a fight? ]
no subject
Date: 2023-06-05 02:05 am (UTC)the first time alhaitham had known the presentation of a heat had been his mother. he had been cloistered then, scheduling made to send him away to somewhere appropriate while she agonised behind closed doors. the second time, a young soldier crumpled in the heat of the noonday sun, and alhaitham had carried her from the training ground to the medical bay. she had been warm. she had been tree nuts and silk candy spun fresh. the vissudhans posit that alhaitham, named after the bird that takes wing, lofty, above its people, is a man untouched by the rigours of every day hassles. he is stone; he is marble. but what is often forgotten is that alhaitham is but a man. a man that bruises when hurt. a man that bleeds when cut. a man that burns when put to the torch.
it follows: blankets and warm materials to create a safer environment. food and water to be left where kaveh needs them. bedding for alhaitham, to relegate himself to the bathroom. but before that, kaveh is still lucid. there are answers that alhaitham needs. he begins to move sifting through the room in gentle, quiet motions. ]
Then I will make this brief. [ is what he says, ] When did your heat begin? Who else has been in this room? [ alhaitham brings himself to the other end of the room, where bedding has been stowed into wooden cabinets. colourful blankets, woven covers and expensive fur stoles of creatures from the far north. alhaitham gathers all of them with indiscriminate motions. ] And who is it that weathers your heats with you?
no subject
Date: 2023-06-05 05:54 am (UTC)questions, questions, questions. they enter one ear, and leave the other. the words become soup in his mind when he tries to picture them. kaveh, still, forces himself to rationalize it. when did your heat begin? does he even know how to answer it?
his ears ring. his body defies biology. it is hotter beyond belief, it is hurting, it is wanting. kaveh moves at last — uncurls from his position, leans back into the wall and lays there, exhausted. it is fine if he does not look at alhaitham. the ceiling will be, suddenly, the most fascinating art piece he has ever laid his eyes on. think. ]
... After lunch, I think. [ the answer is not unfamiliar on his tongue. somewhere in his mind, he thinks, that conclusion had long been reached. he breathes in, then out.
the second question is much harder to rationalize. had he even paid them any attention? the servants. the slaves. that familiar maid. kaveh attempts to picture them all. but the mind is a tricky little thing that has been studied for years, yet never understood. a person's dreams, and what instigates them. intrusive thoughts, and what births them. its own independency, and whyever so hard to be controlled.
kaveh does not picture the servants, the slaves, the maid. he pictures, instead, alhaitham. alhaitham, who brings him food, then mouthfeeds him. alhaitham, who comes to retrieve lunch, but spares time to lose himself in kaveh. alhaitham, who brings gifts for kaveh, and makes kaveh into his own.
kaveh shakes his head. none of those things happened. ]
I can't... I can't remember anyone. Probably the same people as always?
[ probably is never enough. it is, however, what he can offer. and as for the last question—
the earliest memory he has on it is his mother explaining what he is. omegas, she had said, are special. they are, she continued, the greater lord's favorite children. those who are meant to bring life into the world, regardless of their gender. it comes with great responsibility, and it is not something to be abused. lokapala has since allowed her omegas to choose the right person, the one meant to see them at their most vulnerable. his mother had, then, told him the symptoms, so he is not afraid once it happens. kaveh has waited ever since. for the right moment, the right person.
he turns, and looks at alhaitham. he should not. ]
... No one. [ honey. that is what his voices tastes like. honey harvested from avidya, delivered across sumeru. it is temptation taken form. it is the most primal form of nature. it is want, and kaveh weaponizes it unconsciously. ] This is... my first time.
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Date: 2023-06-06 03:47 am (UTC)the biological rationale is this: that fertility is vital to the survival of the human race. that protection and provision is needed for procreation. that need and infatuation is impetus for behaviours that promote survival. you will protect that which you, if not love, then at least desire. in theory, the amurta biologists posit, the strata of secondary sexual characteristics creates a society where each know their own roles. alhaitham knows the arguments well, because they form the foundation of the basic caste system. vissudha had her roots in a nation state that worshipped fecundity. vissudha stratified her society in order to create a population dedicated to formalise the most savage qualities of desire.
kaveh is devastation-made-form. my first time, he says, in a voice like spun honey. desire carves through alhaitham like a quake. he is blind with it. the world is white-hot and bright, the light refracted from marble and glass like lancelets. nothing is meant to withstand the siren of that tone. nothing dares.
alhaitham crosses the room. the air is thick with scent. his body burns through it like the careening of a comet. each footfall drags alhaitham through time and space to a kaveh who is simultaneously too near and too far. there is nothing inviting about the curl of kaveh's body. he hides, like a creature burned, a golden curl against the corner of a wall that could not possibly contain him. he is light, and sweetness, and a galaxy of yearning. he belongs in a case for display; he belongs in the folds of a bed. alhaitham looks down with the hard, hewn lines of the divan between them, and thinks -
alhaitham is not yet unmade.
with uncertain precision, alhaitham drops what he is holding. the smattering of blankets and comforters deposit themselves over kaveh's upturned face. ]
You should have said, Prince of the Lokapala, that you were on suppressants.
[ the gravel of his voice is unfamiliar to even alhaitham, who tastes iron on his tongue. he has, he realises, bitten through his lip.
it is not worth considering. ] How long on average? Think, Kaveh.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-07 12:08 am (UTC)kaveh is unmade.
alhaitham approaches, and he finds his body expecting. wanting. he is eager, and thoughts leave his mind. in the shelves of his mind, his mother had spoken of this. in memories now forgotten, there is an instance of time when the sun shone high, at the height of summer. a younger kaveh sat on his mother's lap in their gardens, served tea, shared secrets between each other. she spoke of love, of desire. she spoke of a time where kaveh will be rid of rationality, and will want ever so egoistically. she had said then that selfishness is part of human nature, that there is no shame in it. kaveh, in spite of the love he held for his mother, grew selfless.
kaveh, rid of rationality, wants the way his mother had told him about.
the blankets and comforters, he finds, are not enough. they are clean, smell of soap and flora. it is not what he wants. it is not enough.
kaveh sets them aside. want ever so egoistically. he reaches across the divan that separates them, and holds onto the fabric of alhaitham's clothes. want.
the question has never reached his ears. ]
Your bed, [ there are fantasy books on fontainian mythology. they lure with honey-coated words. they bite. ] Take me to it?
[ kaveh wants. he wants, ultimately, to lose himself in the smell of alhaitham's covers. ]
no subject
Date: 2023-06-09 05:34 am (UTC)the thing reaching across the divan is not kaveh. kaveh, who detests the prince of the vissudha. kaveh, who still mourns the loss of his people. kaveh, who refuses to let go of a pride so fundamental to him that to strip him of it is to shame the world that allowed it. you could remove kaveh from lokapala, but you could not remove lokapala from kaveh. not kaveh, not like this. something in alhaitham whispers from the unknowable: is this the kaveh you love, or is this the kaveh you could love?
there had been two children, once. alhaitham had seen sunlight all his life, but it had never been so golden as the day it fell upon the flaxen strands of kaveh's beneath the mottled shade of the palm trees. kaveh is liquid sunshine across the divan, and a part of alhaitham, the part of him that had been born for this, this, thinks this: that alhaitham has failed to tell kaveh all this time, that he has been hungry, to tell him that he had been searching for him like meat, like water -
like blood. alhaitham tastes it where he had bitten through his lip. the taste of iron carries forward the steel-clad crucible of his self-control, it feeds it as it writhes. fishermen, alhaitham remembers, used to bind themselves to the masts of their ships so that the fontainian sea would not have them. not once - never. alhaitham pulls kaveh into his arms.
he tosses him into his bed.
the motion is not a kind or playful one. what follows is a pillow and the put-aside comforter, distance created through layers. alhaitham bares his teeth, and, because it is necessary, bites down onto the back of his arm. his teeth sink in. blood slinks. pain blooms. clarity of mind returns. alhaitham bites himself a second time, incisors sinking in until the protest of his arm gains flame - and then looks back to the bed with a haggard breath. ]
Kaveh. [ even kaveh's name is liquid sunshine given form - but alhaitham's eyes remain clear. they must. ] Do not leave that bed. I will tie you there if I must. [ and before the protests - ]
Kaveh.
[ like the syllables of a serrated knife. alhaitham's lips drip red. ] Understand.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-09 09:21 pm (UTC)there had been admirers. letters sent anonymously. there had been flowers, there had been dates, there had been confessions. the crown prince of lokapala has always been popular. the golden of his hair is purer than the gold mined from the chasm. the red of his eyes leaves the trishiraite harvested from sumeran desert jealous. his smile becomes the sun itself. he is a child blessed by the gods, many have said. it is a rumor that has seen all that teyvat has to offer, a rumor even those across the seas have heard.
there were those who came to lokapala for the padisarahs that bloom come spring. there were those who came to lokapala for the crown prince, unmated, untouched, pristine and pure. given the opportunity, it is known, there would be none who would deny a chance to have a taste of him.
alhaitham does.
alhaitham, crown prince of vissudha, who kaveh has personally picked to blame for tainting him, bleeds to retain reason. red is a jewel oftentimes associated with the prince of lokapala. red is an anchor. red grounds alhaitham, and questions kaveh.
kaveh, who feels his body melt under the smell of sheets and cushion touched by alhaitham. kaveh, whose own reason has long left him, whose fingers clutch around the blankets, whose body burns for attention, whose body hurts if left untouched. kaveh, whose red meets alhaitham's red, and wonders, as he is wont to do, why?
red is an anchor. it grounds alhaitham, and wakes kaveh. ]
... Three pills, every six months. [ the question has long been forgotten. he recalls, however, the weight of alhaitham's tone on a specific word. ] They are due in a fortnight.
[ not now. not this early. the signs were there, but kaveh knows this has been induced by something. someone. not alhaitham, he thinks. elham might have been right. alhaitham knows how to speak. he is well-versed in the intonation of words and its hidden meanings as haravatats are wont to be. he says understand, and kaveh, who is, instead, well-versed in people, sees it as a quiet plea.
understand, he pleads, and kaveh wonders, understand what? kaveh wonders — ]
Why won't you touch me?
no subject
Date: 2023-06-10 06:00 pm (UTC)why won't you touch me, kaveh asks. the wrong question again. alhaitham thinks, perhaps the right question can never be voiced: who is alhaitham, and what is kaveh to him? one's fate is tied to the way an individual chooses to interact with the world; one's fate is tied to the way an individual chooses to allow the world in. alhaitham has not allowed the world in, not once. not ever. there is no room within him for anything save for the sole purpose that he strives towards. he had once looked into the abyss of probabilities, and identified a door in a far-off, far-flung galaxy. he had looked at it, and put down the first flagstone of a path built towards this impossible destination. he had been ten, and he had been angry, and the world had seemed terribly small for it.
the question cannot be why. but it is in kaveh's nature to ask. three pills, every six months, and due in a fortnight - but not tonight. alhaitham only needed this in order to confirm the game afoot. his mouth is stained red as he looks at kaveh, really looks. kaveh's limbs tangle within the rope of sheets. he is agonised. he is unmade. and alhaitham - cannot be unmade. ]
Because [ alhaitham says, in a voice like tainted iron, with a rasp like rusted steel, ] it would please Azar too much, and please me too little.
[ the crucible of his self-control holds. alhaitham breathes in. the air is musk and honey-sweet. ] You do not want me, Kaveh. You merely need me. Is this how you wish to be?
no subject
Date: 2023-06-11 12:44 am (UTC)he will, then, continue to ask all the wrong questions, until there are no wrong questions left to be asked. he will continue to ask the whats, the hows, the whys. alhaitham will answer him with time, or not at all. but for a man held captive, taken from home, questions are all he has, and answers are solaces. after all —
after all, alhaitham mentions the regent, and kaveh, who has hardly seen him, let alone thought of him, thinks now. it is a new puzzle piece in the haziness of his honey-coated mind. he is not apt to solve the puzzle just now, but he will ponder it, later. he will think. he will question. he will wonder. it is, after all, all that kaveh has.
azar, later. alhaitham, who struggles in ways kaveh does not understand, who struggles in way he should not — alhaitham, now.
kaveh sits up on the bed. it is an uncomfortable motion, all around. ]
Then, [ words have weight. they get stuck on his throat. the thought itself is madness taken-form. but it is, always, all that kaveh has. ] do you want me to want you? If I did, would you?
no subject
Date: 2023-06-11 09:44 pm (UTC)the question evokes no imagery and invokes no thought. there has never been any need. alhaitham has always known his own measure; he would not be alhaitham otherwise. ]
Ask me that question again when you want me.
[ it comes not as a plea, nor a demand. it comes not as a question or a statement. it comes as everything and nothing all at once - alhaitham, standing at the edge of a gulf of his own making, and choosing to place the key where kaveh can reach.
the knock on the door is visceral. alhaitham bares his teeth. he then systematically remembers himself. gone is the deep, emanating growl and the press of his nails to the bloody shreds of his palm; his body shifts as the crucible of his self-control clamps down with bloodless finality, and he goes to the door in three, long strides. the door is opened but a crack. his head is bowed. words are exchange, and then some.
when he retreats, it's first to allow the door to close before he turns. alhaitham has in his hands a package wrapped in cloth. ]
Kaveh. Do not leave the bed.
no subject
Date: 2023-06-12 01:01 am (UTC)alhaitham does not answer no. alhaitham does not answer him in the way a person who wants nothing to do with someone else would. alhaitham, instead, says words that tell him this: that they will continue to be in each other's lives, that this might happen again, that kaveh's own feelings might come to change. there is no certainty. the boundary between want and need is, after all, impossibly thin. for kaveh, it is a line never to be crossed.
kaveh, after all, never allows himself to want, and the question is answered on its own.
he watches, because that, too, is one of the few things he has. there will be no one who can resist you. alhaitham, who he thought would be the exception, is not. alhaitham, he finds, is at his mercy, like all others who courted him were. alhaitham warns him again, and kaveh thinks, that's not right. what good is there away from a bed intoxicated with alhaitham's scent?
besides. his legs would not take him anywhere, would be victims of his own weakness. instead—
instead, kaveh looks. at alhaitham. at the splashes of red on his person. at the package he holds in hands. kaveh does not ever allow himself to want, but a kaveh poisoned by desire will want the way his mother told him to. ever so egoistically.
he burns, sunburst. kaveh removes his shirt, as though this is the natural order of things. his skin is red, glistering. pristine. untouched. kaveh leans back, and cants his head. ever so naturally. ]
Then come here. [ honey drips down the corners of his mouth. it is poisonous, and kaveh knows it well. ] ... Haitham, please?
no subject
Date: 2023-06-13 05:32 am (UTC)it is nothing exceptional. the story of weal and woe prints up its pages like so: that those caught within the viper's nest of a kingdom built solely on power consolidated upon the few shoulders of the living must, by its very nature, succumb to death. his mother and father must have known such a thing, though alhaitham can only question the print left behind in leather bound journals. his grandmother had known that the last breath she would draw would be the one relinquishing alhaitham to that very same world that had taken so much from her. in the end, the only thing that lasts is the wisdom pressed between pages of books, a library of everlasting memory. alhaitham remembers, still.
the word is like shards of betrayal. alhaitham's breath catches in his throat. the siren of honey and silk intermingles with artificial imprinting of biological desire, and something that finally, after all this time, resembles emotions cross hif ace. the flashpoint is like a match lit. it starts like this: the biting of a lip, the narrowing of his eyes, and for a brief moment, there is anger, and then anger at the showing of his own humanity, and then the frustration of a predator kept from his prey, the resentment of a creature having caught doing so, and the glinting knife-edged flash of something like hurt. for a moment, his body stills, caught between self-control and biological impetus. alhaitham's bloodied nails dig into the ends of his cloth package.
haitham, please - kaveh says. alhaitham thinks - he has not been merely haitham in such a long time.
the first step towards kaveh is pulled from the strain of muscle; the second is like the breaking of a deluge over a fall. but alhaitham fights it regardless, with the sullen resentment of a creature made to heel, the lash of his nails and the taste of iron like condemnation. he is at the edge of the bed in what seems like an eternity, the cant of his neck and the cast of his shadow over the shift of kaveh's legs as if umbra and penumbra were to find their zenith.
alhaitham looks. of course he does. the bed dips with the weight of his knee. the air chokes with the subtle spring of water tension, thick enough that one would need a knife to cleave it into form. but alhaitham leans, like the long, lean line of liquid mercury. his shadow slides over the pale, bare line of kaveh's shoulder. the glinting, wanton red of his eyes. alhaitham's breath ghosts over it like murmured song. ]
Kaveh. [ is what he says, low, and sure, and furious. ] I am saying 'no'.
[ the package is torn. alhaitham digs out the paper packet from it. his nail carves through the seal, and with sheer, frustrated precision, he pins kaveh down and presses the packet against his lips. the powder spills. ]
Swallow. [ alhaitham commands. it is unkind.
a sleeping powder. ]
no subject
Date: 2023-06-16 01:25 am (UTC)there has been studies on it, by scholars of all six darshans. the amurta are objective in their dissertations on how a heart is meant to work. the rtawahist pen books on how the alignment of stars affect one's birth, and the way their heart is shaped. the vahumana aim to understand its response to different stimulations. none, kaveh had once thought, would arrive to an accurate understanding, for the heart is, too, so utterly fickle.
the heart is not a communal construct. it is not, after, the heart, but so ever many of them, all so minutely different. they sing in different tones, beat in different rhythms. his will never be the same as his mother's, blood of his blood. kaveh had learned that at ten years of age, under a particularly warm sun.
alhaitham approaches. kaveh's heart jumps. it is as his mother had told him so. alhaitham's scent is maddening, and it feels, for a moment, like home. like it is here where he belongs, over these sheets, next to this person. lokapala feels like a distant past, a wavering dream. it might not ever have existed. kaveh might not be prince. does it matter, still? does his heart beg for remembrance, or does it purr in excitement, in want, giving itself whole for something so utterly carnal?
kaveh's hand meets alhaitham's waist, and then—
then there's rejection. and kaveh, known as the prince desired by the masses, has never been rejected. kaveh is beautiful, like his mother. he has her hair. he has his father's jewels for eyes. he is eloquent, intelligent. lokapalan haravatats have penned poetry books of their prince's smile, compared it to the midday sun. he has not grown narcissistic for it. he has never, either, held himself above others. but kaveh, who wears his heart on his sleeves, sleeves so impossibly thin; kaveh hurts, like men do. he is, after all, just a person.
red greets his lips as it did alhaitham's. teeth to skin, skin that rips, blood that flows. it hurts. the heart. his body. it is, he thinks, betrayal, too. it is the exception that grounds him to reality.
kaveh's hand pushes, or makes an attempt at such. his body has never been built to be physically fit. he kicks his legs, rejects that rejection. above all else, stripped down to the most raw nature of their beings, to not be wanted the same way he wants, for once, for the very first time in his life—
kaveh turns his head to the side, and rejects, too. it is, after all, almost second nature. ]
no subject
Date: 2023-06-17 12:20 am (UTC)the first one, he discards for blood. the second for the potential for injury. the third is discarded because it would take to long, with too little effect, a prolonging of distress with variables that are not within alhaitham's control. kaveh's first heat. omegas who have never experienced heats before have attested to the lengthening of days, of a potency unlike anything they had experienced before and since, of a deep, cloying sear that burned away what little rationality that alpha scholars ascribed to them. alhaitham, who has only ever believed in their objective account, looks to kaveh and thinks - not kaveh, never kaveh.
the fourth option, then. alhaitham tears a second packet with his teeth. he downs the powder. and then, with careful hands, turns kaveh's face back to face him. alhaitham kisses him. the twist of his head is meant to pry kaveh's mouth open with tongue and teeth. guttural rumble is but an afterthought, a clamour of desire, an epitaph to victory.
the iron of blood and the bitter of mugwort - and the mawkish taste of honey. ]
no subject
Date: 2023-06-17 10:41 pm (UTC)lokapala strives on self. they sing songs of humility, they pen poems on awakening, they celebrate what is. when the sun rises and paints the sky blue, they see it true, and find no fault. when it rests in the horizon, and splatter oranges and pinks, lokapala sings of fire, fire, fire. it has been said, during times of eld, that it had been in that spot, under a waterfall, on the cusp of winter and spring, that the world has seen its first embodiment of sincerity. a being so honest and pure, so delicate and true that none thought to defy its reason. they are what they are, and they accepted it as such.
kaveh, lokapalan-born, praised the tales, dreamed of them. vivid are his dreams of perfection and flawlessness; reality is painted a darker color. dreams are fragile. the heart, glass. the self, porcelain. kaveh cracks on touch.
he pushes, still, uselessly, at the mercy of his own inadequacy. his body, honest, gives in. it is, after all, the self; true to itself, to its carnal desires, and he takes poison as it is delivered. the taste is nauseating, and it anchors him. that is, he finds, the worst part.
the drowsiness hits first. ] If you don't want me, throw me away. I'm tired of being your trophy of war.
[ the words burn on his throat. his limbs, heavy. what good will sleep bring? it is a cycle that repeats itself. samsara is, after all, punishment. what goes unsaid, lost in the woes of a body that shuts itself down, is: you're making it harder to hate you. ]
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