The people of Sumeru did not dream.

For countless years, the Akasha had been feeding from the unconscious minds of all that wore its terminals. Of course, this had not been known by the people of Sumeru — all it had been to them, for all of their lives, was an earpiece that provided them instantaneous access to all they wanted to know. It had been nothing but free information for them.

Nothing was ever truly free. A price had to be paid, a debt to be owed. Unfortunately, the dues had come in the form of dreams. Their minds' passive imaginations were snatched from under their noses, and they had been none the brighter.

Now, the Akasha was destroyed. The Akasha Terminals were no longer thieves, but now were useless earpieces that lay on the bedside of scholars and denizens alike.

The people of Sumeru had never dreamt. But on this night, the Scribe of the Akademiya and the light of Kshahrewar, along with the rest of the population, would dream.

Alhaitham, in all rights, should've experienced his first dream before everyone else. He'd known of the more shady aspects of the terminals before he'd truly begun his investigation on the Akademiya. He had been aware of the give and take of the Akasha, and that if he were to gain information via the terminals, he would have to give something up in return, consensually or otherwise.

He just hadn't cared all that much.

He'd tampered with his Akasha Terminal during the investigation, but he'd never gotten rid of all the aspects of it. Mostly what he had done was make it harder for the Akasha to give information to him, and in turn make it harder for it to extract personal data. Alhaitham hadn't been able to get rid of the dream aspect of it, though he hadn't particularly cared to. Dreams had never been of interest to him.

Until now, of course. It had been the only subject Kaveh had talked about in their house. From the moment the architect had gotten home to the sound of his bedroom door clicking shut, Kaveh's nonstop prattling had somewhat successfully piqued Alhaitham's curiosity in dreams.

Sleep usually came with ease to Alhaitham. His body operated on a regular schedule with a spectacular internal clock; it only worked against him when he had to labor in the night. Kaveh liked to tease him about his so-called bedtime. Alhaitham knew he was better for it.

This night was no different. Despite anticipation creating a strange hum in his body, the familiar tug of drowsiness and exhaustion seemed to sink his body into the mattress all the same.

Nothing felt different. Perhaps he would not dream after all.

His mind silenced and his body went limp. Alhaitham woke up in a library.

It was quiet. He could not hear his footsteps that should've echoed in the House of Daena, nor did he hear his clothes rustle as he walked. The book he placed on the second lowest shelf made no sound as it slid into place against the other books. Alhaitham frowned and checked his felt for his hearing aids, but they were resting soundly on his head and ears like any other day.

He stepped back from the wall of books, admiring the spines that were old and young, brown and gray, and filled with words that were flawed in a way that the Akasha could never be. That's what made them worthwhile to Alhaitham. Flaws induced critical thinking.

Without warning or preamble, the House of Daena began to quiver underneath Alhaitham's feet. He looked around wildly, but all of the faces and people around him were blurry and indistinguishable, and his evidently broken hearing aids prevented him from hearing anything they were possibly saying.

The scholars were milling around and reading, blissfully unaware of the House of Daena falling apart around them. Books tumbled from the shelves, landing ungracefully on the ground and tables. The pristine stone walls and bridges splintered and cracked. Dust and debris were already collected on the ground, and for the love of Kusanali, why was he the only one bothered by this?

He ducked as a piece of the ceiling nearly crushed him. Alhaitham cursed out loud, even though he couldn't hear it. Sumeru didn't get earthquakes — was the Akademiya being attacked? As the Scribe and Acting Grand Sage, he should've known about such a thing before it happened. And yet, there he was in the grand library, his precious books and records becoming nothing more than a heap of damaged pages on the ground.

Seeing no other way to save the House of Daena, the Scribe turned to make a run for it. But when he attempted to do so, he quickly noticed that all of the blurry people he had seen before were gone. In their place, and in the midst of all the chaos of the collapsing library, was a short girl with hair the color of shimmering snow.

Lesser Lord Kusanali glowed a beautiful hue of Dendro green, the purest form of the color. Her hair was tied up as usual, and her little cape billowed behind her. A piece of a crumbling pillar narrowly missed hitting her by only a few centimeters, yet she seemed completely unbothered. On the other end of the spectrum, it was taking everything in Alhaitham not to freak out.

Kusanali was in the warzone. He needed to get her out of there, and fast. But he was rooted to his spot in the House, unable to so much as lift a finger to save his Archon.

She did not speak to him. Rather, she raised her small hands and smiled pitifully at him. "Do not be afraid," she signed, mouthing the words alongside her hand movements. "What you see before you is not real."

His beating heart and sweating hands felt real enough. His sense of urgency and confusion were ever-present.

But the House of Daena was falling apart. One moment ago, there were scholars in the library. In the next, it was just him and Kusanali. He looked down at his clothes, noticing that they weren't his usual choice of outfit, but rather his old student uniform.

Something was terribly wrong.

Her eyes softened at the edges. She was a rather expressive Archon, Alhaitham observed. "I would not normally do this. Waking you up now is like cutting the bud off of a flower before it can bloom. I am sorry to cut your journey short."

A book flew between the two of them, slamming full-force into the mess of stone that was once the bridge in the House of Daena. It did not make a sound.

"But Kaveh is in danger, my Scribe," she continued. "He is dreaming, just like you, but his mind and body have taken him elsewhere. I cannot help him effectively, but you can."

Oh.

He must have been experiencing that new phenomenon called dreaming. The moment he realized that, the world became blurry. The House of Daena still fell apart as the unheard earthquake, or attack, or whatever his mind had convinced him it was, carried on with its raging assault. The only thing that was clear to him was his Archon. A tight frown and eyes full of concern were etched into her face like a sculpture.

Though she, too, quickly began to fade.

The young god signed carefully: "Wake up, Alhaitham."

Alhaitham sat straight up in his bed. Darkness greeted him, along with a sudden head rush. Pressing his palms to his head to fight down dizziness, the Scribe first only recalled the fact that Lesser Lord Kusanali had just finger-spelled his name to him.

He had a dream, then. Alhaitham lifted his face from his hands as he remembered the rest of his conversation with the Archon, and then everything that came before. There was no time to process the strangeness of dreaming or the fact that he was already forgetting the majority of the details of his short dream. He reached for his hearing aids on the nightstand and left his room as fast as he could while still sleep-bogged.

His concern went as far as Kusanali's did. His jittery nerves were from the fact that his Archon was worried enough to contact him in his very first dream. It went no further than that.

"Kaveh," he called, his voice hoarse. He flipped up the light switch in the hallway outside his door, bright light flooring this portion of the house. Expectedly, he received no answer. Kaveh had always been a heavy sleeper. Yet his bedroom door was wide open.

Alhaitham shouted a little louder for his roommate, stepping inside his bedroom and turning on the lights. Kaveh's bed was undone, but his ugly lion slippers were still by his bed. All of the personal items in the messy room were untouched, and one look in the bathroom confirmed that Kaveh wasn't there, either.

The worry ebbing away at his beating heart was only Kusanali's influence still lingering in his body.

When he stepped back out into the hallway, he noticed that it was cold. That was unusual, given the house normally ran warm if the front door hadn't been left open for a long time, which they tended to do in the sweltering heat of summer.

Lesser Lord Kusanali's sign came to his mind's eye. Kaveh is in danger.

Alhaitham discerned that nothing was stolen or out of place as he grabbed his house key and jacket before leaving. None of the windows were broken, and the lock was secure and undamaged. The only thing that had been missing was his roommate; even his key, marked by the lion keychain, was hanging safely on the wall.

Kaveh must've left on his own violation. Kusanali said he was dreaming, but that she could not help him. That left only one feasible option, then: Kaveh was sleep-walking.

A student in the Rtawahist Darshan had a horrible case of it, though it tended to work in her favor rather than against it. Other than that, Alhaitham didn't know much else about sleep-walking. Kaveh had never done such a thing before, so he hadn't bothered to do any research on it. His previous studies as a Haravatat student had never remotely aligned with the topic, either.

The frigid night air hit his underdressed body like a horse. He shivered and put his hand to the ground, focusing on his Vision to pick apart the elemental traces in the surrounding area. If Kaveh hadn't been gone for long, then his Dendro Vision should have left a trail.

Unless, of course, he'd been parted with his Vision somehow. Alhaitham shoved that thought aside and promised to revisit it later. It left him with a queasy feeling in his stomach.

After a minute of concentration, the Scribe was finally able to pull out the element he was looking for. The Dendro trail took a left down the bridge, the opposite direction of the Akademiya. If he had gone to the Akademiya, it would've been much easier to find him. But of course, in typical Kaveh fashion, he had to make things much harder for Alhaitham.

Sumeru City wasn't a dangerous place at night, all nations considered. Generally speaking, the denizens were so sleep-deprived from working or being a student that they didn't have time to get into many illegal activities. Tonight had to be the safest of all; everyone was eager to experience their first dream.

Kaveh had likely managed to get himself into danger without the help of criminals. Perhaps he sleep-walked into the middle of the river surrounding the city, or he was hanging from a branch at the top of the Divine Tree. The mental images would've nearly made Alhaitham laugh if it weren't for the fact that he was the one that had to save his reckless roommate.

The trail brought Alhaitham half a mile into the city. Despite having his hearing aids in, Alhaitham couldn't hear much outside of the cold wind that snapped at his jacket and hair. The streets were nearly devoid of the Matra and Corps of Thirty, and those that he did catch sight of ignored the Scribe as he passed by.

When Alhaitham finally, finally saw Kaveh's blond hair in the distance, he quickened his pace and released his focus on the Dendro trail. His roommate was walking towards one of the many entrances to the Grand Bazaar within the Divine Tree. The Corps member that was usually stationed there was nowhere to be found.

Kaveh was completely barefoot and he was wearing a thin tank top, but at least he had fluffy pajama pants on. As Alhaitham drew closer, he called out the architect's name. Kaveh ignored him. The Grand Bazaar's door opened automatically to let the wandering man in.

"Can you hear me, Kaveh?" Alhaitham asked, reaching Kaveh's side and falling in step with him. His eyes were open, but the gas lantern burning on the other side of the Grand Bazaar entrance showed that they were glazed over. Unseeing and not comprehending a single thing.

He reached out, carefully putting his hands on each of the architect's bare shoulders. His skin was cold against Alhaitham's fingers. This successfully stopped him from walking, but he did not wake.

Kusanali had said Kaveh was in danger. The Scribe sweeped the Grand Bazaar, but it was just as quiet and peaceful as the rest of the city. Though the night was bitter enough to cause their breaths to crystallize in the air, it wasn't cold enough to the point of fearing frostbite. It was improbable for an Archon like her to lie to her own Acting Grand Sage. Where was the danger?

Alhaitham narrowed his eyes as Kaveh twitched in his sleep, mumbling incoherently. The architect's face scrunched up as though he'd been pricked. Even though his ruby eyes were sightless, they almost appeared pained in a way that Alhaitham couldn't cause with biting words.

"Come on, Kaveh. Wake up." he whispered. Alhaitham shook his roommate, uncomfortable with the way he felt under his hands. When the architect didn't respond, he jostled him harder. "Wake up. Please."

The twitching stopped. Kaveh looked at Alhaitham and blinked.

Alhaitham's sword materialized in his hands as he blocked the sudden oncoming claymore, his teeth gritting together and the surprising force of the attack. The large, shining blade had almost hit his left side of ribs. Kaveh drew his weapon back to swing it in an upwards arc that was swiftly redirected by the Scribe's sword.

The architect's red eyes were wild like an animal's, panting as he prepared to strike again. "Kaveh, you were—" Alhaitham deferred the claymore again, " —dreaming. Stop attacking me and get your bearings!"

His words caused the momentary confusion Alhaitham needed for an opening. He held the tip of his sword to Kaveh's chest, the green light from the blade illuminating his heaving body. Alhaitham couldn't stand the way Kaveh was looking at him, like he'd just strangled a baby and threw its body in a gushing stream.

The claymore disappeared into balls of shimmering light. Kaveh gazed at him, the sword, and then their surroundings. "Where are we?" He asked with a shaky voice. He carefully pushed Alhaitham's weapon to the side with the tip of his finger. "What are— what are we doing here?"

"The Grand Bazaar," Alhaitham said, letting his sword dissipate in a burst of golden glory. It wasn't lost on Alhaitham that Kaveh had started shivering the second he'd gained awareness. His bare feet shifted on the ground. "You slept-walked out here."

The same expression of fear still lingered on his facial expressions and body language, his arms now pulled tight against his chest. His mouth opened, but just as quickly snapped closed. Whatever he was going to say was lost to the freezing wind.

"I didn't bring your shoes or a heavier shirt. We're a half-mile from my house, so we need to start walking." Alhaitham turned around, the doors creaking open for him as he reached their stained glass designs. "Unless you want to spar again. In that case, you'd really just be wasting your time."

Kaveh groaned and ran to catch up to Alhaitham. "I didn't mean to do that."

"Trying to take out my ribcage seemed pretty deliberate."

For once, Kaveh didn't rise to the bait.

It was worse to experience Kaveh's silence than to sit through his non-stop complaining and nagging. He'd wanted to get Kaveh angry because that was easier to deal with than his concealed anguish. Kaveh's unprovoked frenzy, filled with panic and terror, replayed in Alhaitham's mind like a broken tape.

Alhaitham didn't know how to comfort people. They had a half mile walk back to their house, and already he felt like he was suffocating from the tension. From his tight lips to his shivering torso and down to his stumbling bare feet, the architect was the picture-perfect representation of trepidation.

The Scribe halted. It took a moment for Kaveh to realize that he'd done so. When he turned around, Alhaitham's jacket was extended towards him without a word.

The wind bit at his exposed arms, his thin nightshirt doing little to protect him from the cold. Kaveh gripped the jacket, hesitating before slipping his own arms and back inside it. Alhaitham ignored the way his heart rate increased at the sight of his roommate wearing his clothing and continued on with their walk.

It was a little easier to breathe the cold air after that. His neck and face were considerably warmer than the rest of his body.

"Did you dream?" Kaveh asked, his voice cutting through the night. His impartial tone was forced, unbearably dissimilar to the way he normally spoke.

"Of course," Alhaitham replied. "Although, it was interrupted."

Again, the bait was ignored. "What was it about?"

Kaveh pulled the jacket tighter around his body. His facial expression was contorted into careful neutrality, illuminated by the streetlights they walked under. He couldn't tell if the question was supposed to lead into Kaveh talking about his own dream, or if he was just asking out of genuine curiosity.

If he had wanted to talk about his dream, then Kaveh already would have. Embarrassment at the sleep-walking situation wouldn't have stopped him. So, Alhaitham answered truthfully, though he strategically decided to leave out his Archon.

"Something about books. I can't remember the details," he said, and then added on: "I was deaf." Just like Kaveh predicted. Despite his roommate's belief, Alhaitham did usually listen to his rants. It was just that they were normally so inconsequential and uninteresting that he had a tendency to forget what they were about.

He expected Kaveh to say, I told you so, or see, I was right. Instead, he was greeted with a noncommittal hum.

Alhaitham was accustomed to the quiet. He'd heard nothing in his young life until he'd begun regularly wearing hearing aids. So, really, silence shouldn't have been so unsettling for him. Yet, everything was different when it came to Kaveh.

"What about you? It must've been quite the adventure to bring you to unlock the front door and run all the way to the Grand Bazaar." It wasn't an attempt to start an argument, but his tone certainly sounded like it.

Kaveh looked at the ground. "I can't quite remember, either."

Alhaitham suppressed a sigh. Lies weren't easy to get past the Scribe — he observed people too closely for even the most secure fabrication to slip his notice. Out of all the people Alhaitham had met in his life, Kaveh had been amongst the best at lying. However, it seemed like Kaveh had barely tried to convince Alhaitham of his obvious deception.

He didn't push the matter, opting to leave it for the next day. His roommate's inability to bite back at Alhaitham's small jabs made the prospect of interrogating Kaveh feel akin to setting a kitten on fire. From the way his blond hair stuck up wild from their fight to the whiteness of his knuckles clenched around the Scribe's coat signified that their conversation was over.

When they safely entered the home, Kaveh informed Alhaitham that he'd forgotten to lock the door that night, which would've been how he managed to escape. They didn't argue about it; instead, Alhaitham wordlessly locked the door and retreated to his room.

The Scribe and Acting Grand Sage of the Akademiya didn't dream again that night. He woke up periodically, his mind in flurries as Lesser Lord Kusanali's words haunted his conscience.

Kaveh is in danger.