Chapter Text
Tighnari is far away from the Akademiya’s halls by the time Cyno, lethargic from lack of sleep and clutching a newly manifested Electro vision, is officially named General Mahamatra. Cyno’s new position comes as no surprise, of course, although Tighnari still sends a note to congratulate him. He has manners, after all.
Cyno,
Congratulations. You’ve worked very hard for this. I am pleased to see you succeed.
Stay true to your sense of justice, but do remember to take care of yourself. I won’t be there to snap you out of your tunnel vision, and you know how you get. Keep hydrated and eat at least two full meals a day. I know expecting you to eat the recommended three is asking too much. No, honeyed dates do not count as a full meal.
I hope you are proud of your work. The Matra will benefit greatly from your leadership, I am sure; no other person pursues justice as whole-heartedly and single-mindedly as you. Still, mind that the sages don’t fasten too tight a collar around your neck. You know as well as I do that they hate relinquishing control above all else.
Be well.
Tighnari
P.S. Keep an eye on Kaveh when you’re in the area and can spare it. When he last visited Gandharva Ville, he was raving almost feverishly about some kind of elaborate, impossible palace; Cyno, he brought multiple folders of figures and calculations and schematics for things I could truly make no heads or tails of. Of course, that in and of itself is not unusual, but I’m afraid this time he may actually try to shape it in reality – I don’t know if his pride, wallet, or sense of self can survive the messy birth of that monstrous dream. To put it mildly, I have concerns.
The note he receives in return is short and unsigned, although Tighnari immediately recognizes the precise script and, ah, questionable sense of humor.
Tighnari,
Don’t worry yourself over my vision, for it is better than ever. I find the work I have been charged with most electrifying.
In smaller print, Cyno takes pains to carefully and, in Tighnari’s opinion, unnecessarily explain the joke.
You see, the words “vision”, “charged”, and “electrifying” have all been underlined because I now carry an Electro vision, which is the crux of this joke. Thus, my vision is charged with an electrifying power because it is an Electro vision. Clever, no?
I have not seen Kaveh as of late. I will keep an eye out when I am in the city, although I’m afraid that won’t be possible for a while; I am off to the desert and do not know when I will return to Avidya Forest. Don’t worry, I will look after myself. Try not to get eaten by a spinocrocodile while gathering your flowers.
Tighnari scoffs and rolls his eyes. “Try not to get eaten by a spinocrocodile,” he mutters, lowering his voice in a gentle mockery of Cyno’s. “Ridiculous man,” he sighs, begrudging yet helplessly fond, and carefully tucks the note in his notebook in between pages of pressed flowers.
He does not, in fact, get eaten by a spinocrocodile. Something arguably much worse happens: Tighnari finds that the Forest Rangers are hopelessly disorganized, highly inefficient, and lacking in any scientific instruction, and thus dives headfirst into a leadership position. Although the Rangers are visibly relieved and enthusiastic about this benevolent takeover, Tighnari curses his own inability to leave well enough alone.
I left the Akademiya precisely because I did not like its controlling nature, and I did not have any intention to instruct as they wished me to, he writes in an admittedly huffy letter to Kaveh, and yet I find myself controlling and instructing nonetheless. I will do what I must, but I confess I was not expecting to shoulder this much responsibility so soon.
Kaveh’s answer is predictably unhelpful, and the amusement plainly present in his beautifully extravagant handwriting vexes Tighnari greatly. Since I’d wager you’ve been lecturing and leading since you could walk and talk, this undertaking of yours does not surprise me in the least. Let me put this in terms an Amurta scholar like yourself can understand: a Rishboland tiger cannot change its stripes.
Despite his misgivings, Tighnari is pleasantly surprised at the Rangers’ willingness to learn and be led. It takes him a few weeks of careful questioning and observation to identify his cohort’s strengths and weaknesses, but the end result is well worth the effort. Rangers with noteworthy skills are assigned tasks to suit their talents; Amir, with his almost uncanny knack for communicating with them, takes charge of caring for and training the dogs. Ashpazi is dubbed the “master chef” of Gandharva Ville. Quiet, careful Nasrin takes charge of hunting expeditions.
Within a year, the Forest Watchers and Rangers turn into a reasonably well-functioning unit, and Tighnari can finally breathe a sigh of relief. Well, relief and exasperation once the other Rangers start calling him by a ridiculous nickname.
“General Watchleader!” Kaveh cackles, nearly knocking his cup of wine over in his enthusiasm. He’d heard one of the Ranger trainees call out to Tighnari using that name and nearly fell off the narrow bridge in his subsequent delight. “Where did they even come up with that?”
Tighnari sighs as he reaches out to steady Kaveh’s cup; he is as loud and animated as ever, gesticulating wildly in his enthusiasm. He is glad to see Kaveh, although he'd never admit it aloud. Their friendship baffled many during their days in the Akademiya. His brusque bluntness directly contrasts Kaveh’s more romantic and carefree nature; not to mention that the Amurta and Kshahrewar Darshans are often regarded as very detached from one another.
They met in a lower-level physiology course, required for Amurta students even if they were not in training to be a physician. Not only had Kaveh been the only non-Amurta student, which was already attention-grabbing enough, he also seemed not to be taking the course seriously. Tighnari caught his classmates’ whispers about “that Kshahrewar slacker” whose notes were not notes at all, but drawings.
Interest piqued, he had picked the seat next to Kaveh during their next class and watched him map out the body’s nervous and circulatory systems in thin and precise charcoal lines. Kaveh carefully outlined the chambers of the heart, lingering over the curve of the pulmonary artery as it threads itself through the aorta. Then, he took that precise curve and morphed it into a twisting succession of contiguous arches. Tighnari imagined the thundering pulse of blood moving through those arcades and found the design equally beautiful and gruesome.
“I’ve long thought of buildings like a human body,” Kaveh explained later, after Tighnari had boldly snatched his notebook away to comb through the rest of the pages, fascinated by the meticulous dissection of the human body used as reference to construct all manner of architectural structures. “It has bones and tissue and sinew. Rooms are like organs; they have separate functions that make up the whole. A building cannot exist without its critical, foundational parts, and neither can the body.” He sighed dreamily and idly tapped at a drawing of the lungs with one well-manicured finger, tracing branching lines forming the pulmonary veins. “I build things to house all manner of things just as the body houses blood, bone, and organs. Someday I’ll build something with a beating heart.”
Tighnari hadn’t asked if he meant that literally or figuratively. He didn’t want to know the answer. He did, however, decide that Kaveh was someone interesting enough to keep around. He sometimes regrets that decision just a little bit. Like now, as Kaveh snorts inelegantly at the name the Forest Rangers have bestowed upon him.
“I don’t know,” he says, draining the dregs of wine in his own cup. “It’s not even an established title within the Forest Rangers. They just made it up!”
Kaveh hums, bright red eyes sparkling in his delight. “You are scarier than any other Forest Ranger,” he muses. “Perhaps they felt a new title suited this new kind of Watcher.”
“Perhaps,” Tighnari concedes. The wine has made him loose-limbed and good-natured. The company, he supposes, is not bad either. Kaveh has the ability to seem at home anywhere. He sprawls in his chair at the dining table, gently swirling his wine one-handed and grinning rakishly. Kaveh looks, he thinks with great reluctance, resplendent in Gandharva Ville’s fading light; he also sort of resembles a dusk bird, what with his rich coloring and loud squawking.
“You look at me like you want to either eat me alive or kick my ass,” Kaveh remarks with a smirk, watching Tighnari watching him. Something in his gaze makes Kaveh’s smile sharpen behind his wine glass, eyes gleaming. There had been a moment in the early days of their friendship where Tighnari thought that maybe they—
Then the Matra’s investigation came, and with it brought Cyno. Quiet, serious Cyno; a man whose devotion to the pursuit of justice intrigued Tighnari enough to let him get close during the investigation. The inquiry concluded with Tighnari’s innocence established, yet Cyno lingered after telling him of the verdict and, with a nigh imperceptible nervous twitch at the corner of his mouth, asked if Tighnari would like to play a game of Genius Invokation TCG over a cup of coffee. That, embarrassingly enough, had made it easy to put the fleeting notion of Kaveh-and-Tighnari firmly aside.
Not to mention The Al-Haitham Problem. The problem with Al-Haitham, he’d said scathingly when Tighnari asked Kaveh’s opinion about their newest acquaintance, is that he is Al-Haitham; an irrationally rational vexation with no respect for the arts and no appreciation for the finer things in life. His face had been flushed with wine and anger, hands gesticulating wildly, but Tighnari had seen how his eyes gleamed. He looked like a starving Rishboland tiger who had found prey at last and was beginning the hunt; not that Al-Haitham would cooperate. When Kaveh bit, Al-Haitham bit back, equally as tenacious and vicious and out for blood. They were, and remain, perfectly evenly matched. For better and for worse.
So, the short-lived consideration of Kaveh as a partner of some kind was set aside and never considered again, just as he surely dismissed Tighnari long ago.
“What news of Cyno?” Kaveh asks with a sly smile.
Tighnari shrugs, staring into his wine glass. “His duties as the new General Mahamatra keep him busy. Last I heard he was in the desert, but that was months ago.”
When a pale, cold hand hesitantly touches his own, Tighnari starts and looks up to see Kaveh looking distinctly uncomfortable, face pinched. Oh, no. Tighnari knows that look. Neither of them are particularly inclined to or good at the delicate art of discussing emotions, so he quickly tries to forestall any attempt to talk about feelings. “I’m not worried–”
“If you were–”
“I’m not.”
“Hypothetically speaking, then–” Kaveh says with a glare as Tighnari buries his face in his hands and groans, “–look, I don’t like doing this any more than you do–if one were worried about someone they obviously care for and hadn’t heard from in a while, that would be a completely normal thing to feel. So I’m told.”
Tighnari sighs. “Thanks, I suppose.” Kaveh awkwardly pats his hand a couple of times before withdrawing. Tighnari raises his head from his hands and watches him squirm uncomfortably in his chair, exasperated and fond in equal measures. “That was awful. Let’s not do that again.”
“Agreed,” Kaveh says with a sigh of relief, then takes a comically long drink of wine. Tighnari moves to refill his glass when he sets it back down.
“How does that palace of yours fare?” He asks, settling back in his chair to watch Kaveh’s eyes light up as he starts explaining his concept design for sconces, of all things.
He’s lucky that Kaveh is more than happy to talk without needing input from his audience, because Tighnari quickly gets lost in his own thoughts. Kaveh is not wrong to insinuate that he is worried for Cyno, but that doesn’t mean he wants to acknowledge or, Archons forbid, talk about it. It’s simply that– well, since they became friends, Cyno hasn’t gone more than two weeks without at least sending word of his whereabouts.
Of course, Cyno doesn’t owe Tighnari a detailed itinerary of his every move. He doesn’t owe Tighnari anything. It would just be… nice to know he’s still alive in the desert. That’s all.
Lulled by the even cadence of Kaveh’s voice and the wine he’s drunk, Tighnari drifts, thinking of warm sand, candied dates, and sunlight reflecting off of the stained glass windows Kaveh describes. He barely realizes that he’s pillowed his head on his arms which rest on the dining table until he feels a gentle hand rub his ear and drift lower to run fingers through his hair.
“You look so tired, my friend,” Kaveh whispers. He can only muster up a vague grunt in response. He is tired; more tired than he’d realized. He hears a sigh, the scrape of a chair getting pushed back, soft footsteps. He cracks open an eye in time to see Kaveh kneel beside his chair and closes it again when Kaveh rests a hand on his knee.
“When you wrote to me about the Withering Zones appearing more frequently, I thought you might be overworking yourself,” he says, squeezing Tighnari’s knee gently. “And here you are, just as I suspected. I suppose it is nice to see that I still know you well enough to recognize when you’re about to burn yourself out.” He hears Kaveh's weight shift, feels an arm reaching under his knees and another behind his back. He grumbles in bleary protest as he’s lifted from the chair.
“Would've been nice to be proven wrong, though,” Kaveh mutters, hefting Tighnari into his arms with ease. He slaps weakly at his unfortunately quite sturdy chest but does not struggle further, grumbling about moronic, glorified construction workers and their stupid muscles. Kaveh’s flighty and ostentatious nature hides the reality of working with stone, wood, metal, and glass. Strong arms and calloused fingers serve as a reminder that he is, first and foremost, a builder who drags his creations kicking and screaming into reality with his bare hands.
Kaveh settles Tighnari on his bed and sits beside him. One hand brushes hair out of his eyes and rests on his cheek, turning his face towards Kaveh. He blindly reaches up to hold that rough palm to his face and slowly blinks his eyes open. Kaveh’s expression has softened with affection and concern, and he smiles a little as he gently rubs his thumb below Tighnari’s eye.
In another world, he might reach up to bring that pretty face closer, press their wine-flushed cheeks together, turn his head to brush his chapped lips to the ones that had enchanted him by talking about bodies and buildings and the connective tissue that binds them together. He might look at Kaveh's eyes and not automatically think that’s the wrong shade of red.
But they are the wrong shade of red, and Tighnari’s heart is not his to give. It has not been his own for some time. He thinks it’s probably hidden in a box lined with silk and bound so tightly that no moisture can get in to ruin the precious deck of cards held within, strapped to a body that wanders the country and, for some reason, can’t be bothered to send a note confirming whether it yet lives.
Besides, he's relatively sure that Kaveh’s heart has been caught like a fish on the line: wriggling and struggling and fighting against the one that holds the rod and takes pleasure in pulling the line taut then slackening it at odd, frustrating intervals with the intent to provoke.
Tighnari is tired, he is worried, and his heart is aching. Kaveh isn’t walking home to Sumeru City tonight anyway, so he gives into the hungry, animal instinct to seek out warmth and tugs Kaveh down next to him on the bed.
“Just—stay here. Sleep,” he mumbles, tucking his face into the warm curve of Kaveh’s shoulder. Arms wrap around him after a moment, gentle but steady. Kaveh sighs deeply and contentedly, relaxing into the embrace. Tighnari will feel embarrassed about this come morning. He will huff and mutter about wine and work and late nights. He will make Kaveh breakfast and walk him halfway to Sumeru City, and they won’t mention this night again.
But for now, he is warm and held securely, and he drops into a deep, dreamless sleep.