Work Text:
"Alhaithaaaaaam."
Silence.
"Haitham."
More silence.
"Haiyi."
A snort, but nothing more.
"Alhaitham!"
The scribe counted to ten and turned to look at her roommate. Kaveh's caramel skin was red and her freckled cheeks were puffed out in an indignant pout looking like an anemo slime.
Cute! She thought but didn't say, she just looked at Kaveh, raising an eyebrow.
What they did in the desert on a Monday afternoon was simple: explore some caves whose walls were full of runes that came out of nowhere. Some scholars refused as soon as they heard where these caves appeared, since it was obvious that almost all of them were born in the city of Sumeru, far from the agonizing heat of the desert, but Alhaitham, being the most curious and nosy woman that she is, agreed to go despite her clear dislike for sand.
She planned to go alone, she had made calculations and it would only take her a full day to come and go, but the Archons would not allow it when Kaveh, her roommate -and girlfriend- found out, nothing and no one could stop the blonde from going with Alhaitham, and there she was, complaining like a little girl tired of walking with her parents.
The blonde puffed out her cheeks more and looked away, red and frowning, then motioned with her chin to the ground. Alhaitham followed the movement and looked at the architect's feet, her expression blank as she saw that they were just her pretty white shoes untied.
"And well? Be a good girlfriend and help me, I'm tired and if I bend over I'll just end up sitting down.” Her cute pout continued, now with both hands on her wide hips.
Alhaitham looked from the ground to Kaveh's face like this for three more times before sighing and placing one knee on the ground, retying the golden straps of Kaveh's shoes.
"I have you a little spoiled, mayor," she mocked, finishing, looking up only for a hand to hit her eyes.
"Don't look underneath, you idiot!" the blonde shouted, even redder, using her free hand to pull the hem of her skirt down.
Alhaitham rolled her eyes and stood up, brushing the sand off his knees. She looked at the path they were missing and returned to her partner, who was only grumbling something related to the lack of respect.
Just as she opened her mouth to reply that *Kaveh liked it when she was kneeling before her*, the ground they were standing on began to open. They didn't even have time to run when they were already falling, both letting out muffled screams.
In slow motion, the scribe watched as Kaveh let go of Mehrak and tried to grab her, only for the sand around her to instantly sink and she fall first, her girlfriend's desperate name in her throat.
"HAITHAM!"
Alhaitham could not even respond to her desperate call because now he found herself falling alongside the architect and with her arm maliciously stretched out, in an arduous attempt to hold the hand of Kaveh, who fell first and, in her anguished point of view, faster.
No no no. She thought, stretching as far as she could, her fingers almost touching Kaveh's.
The ground was already visible, and they were so close. She couldn't afford to lose Kaveh again.
Almost...
Almost...
Almost...
I have you!
She let out a sigh of relief when she had the blonde in her arms. She turned them in the air, with her back to the ground to protect Kaveh, her eyes closed and her body tensed ready to receive the impact.
.
. .
. . .
Impact that never came.
Instead, she fell on something softer but with corners strong enough to hurt her, Kaveh at some point that her brain didn't capture slipped from her arms even though she held her tightly. She couldn't help but moan in pain, blinking the haze of sand and dust from her eyes, helping herself with her trembling arms to support herself when the vertigo of the fall hit her. She looked at the place with confused eyes, it was an ordinary underground cave but... it looked suspiciously different, with words written on the rocky walls in ancient Sumerian but they looked strange—
A moan from down made her jump, she looked quickly and saw blonde hair, with the singular blue feather of—
Kaveh!
"Ka—!"
Her voice was lost as she sat up and saw Kaveh, but not her Kaveh.
Same blonde hair, same freckled cheeks, same skin tone, and same confused red eyes. But her Kaveh was a woman, and this Kaveh was a man.
Inevitably her ears, under the protection of his headphones, turned red when she saw that Kaveh, being a man, was pretty—no, he was handsome.
The Kaveh beneath her groaned in pain and brought a hand (Alhaitham's neck turns red at the sight of the veins in this Kaveh's hand) to the back of his neck, rubbing the pain away. Her entire body, from head to toe, stiffened as a pair of crimson eyes lit up behind long blonde eyelashes.
"Alhaitham...? what—?"
Although she loved this Kaveh's husky voice, she found it more worrying that the blonde almost bit his tongue when their eyes met. She watched as the other's eyes looked at her, analyzing her as if it were some miscalculation of some plane. Turquoise and red had a battle until this Kaveh's mouth opened, ready to scream in panic or surprise, but Haitham would never know because a shriller voice interrupted his scream.
They both turned, finding their own versions looking at each other.
Haitham sighed when she saw her girlfriend safe and sound, perched on that man who looked too much like her, scared and babbling. Her eyes filled with tears when she saw that she managed to save Kaveh, a quick glance confirmed that she was fine (her hair was in a bird's nest but everything looked perfect) so she smiled, as she very rarely did, and spoke, in a clear and flat tone despite having suffered a fall of who knows how many meters and a blow to the forehead.
"If you keep looking at him, I'll get jealous."
Her Kaveh immediately turned to her, her red eyes widening with tears. She almost makes fun of her, but it's not like she's any better off. The blonde almost lunged at her, tripping over her own feet and the man's long legs; once standing, she almost ripped her from the other Kaveh's legs, throwing herself at her and kissing her.
"Are you fine?! y-you're not hurt, right?" asked her Kaveh, her only one, removing his bangs from her eyes, her red eyes burning with concern as she saw a trickle of blood come from the crown of her head until it stopped on her eyelid.
"I should ask that, silly." She couldn't help but laugh and kiss Kaveh, looking for superficial wounds, breathing a sigh of relief when she only found light scratches.
Haitham separated from her holding her by the forearms and looked behind Kaveh's back, finding their male versions looking at them, one looked like he was about to have a brain hemorrhage and the other just watched with bored but interested eyes.
Veh turned around as well, her brain apparently remembering where they were and then she squealed in realization, hiding her sorrowful face in the scribe's shoulder.
"Um... hey, ahm, what if we sit down first...?" the male Kaveh suggested, friendly and smiling uncomfortably.
.
. .
. . .
According to what this Alhaitham said, while Veh was in charge of cleaning her wounds (apparently, her assumption about suffering a blow to the head was real), is that there was an alteration in some ley lines and that they were at the time and place indicated, or wrong, so that one of said laws will be altered.
"Luckily for you, there is a way to leave!" Kaveh smiled at them, something small and almost unrecognizable to be called a smile, "the ley lines only have an effect for two or three days, and if you are lucky, only 24 hours."
“Then we just have to wait…” Haitham murmured, placing her hand on his chin, her leg moving up and down, stopping when Veh placed her hand on her knee.
On the other hand, Kaveh was having a fit! figuratively speaking.
It was unfair that, apparently, in every universe Alhaitham was still attractive.
If Alhaitham was already a cold beauty, despite his clear lack of social relationships, this girl did not leave him behind. She had long gray hair with white and green highlights down to her waist, sharp turquoise eyes with orange pupils, a skinny and tall body... even as a woman, Alhaitham was more muscular and much curvier than own girl version.
And to think that all this happened to escape a monster and a susceptible ley line.
He looked at Alhaitham and then at the girls, at least one version of him getting what he wanted.
Alhaitham, for his part, was not far from feeling indifferent. Imagine it, if one Kaveh was attractive enough, two Kaveh were a dream. But having seen how the girls behaved in front of him, it was very easy to guess that they were in a romantic type relationship, and from the way they looked and talked, apparently in their timeline there was never such a fight nor was there a separation of years.
"Well," he spoke suddenly, getting up from the stone he was sitting on, "staying here won't get us anywhere. We have to get out, the further we are from the ley line, the faster its effects will wear off." He concluded by helping Kaveh get up, who had an injured leg from having trapped the girl (although she apologized a thousand times, Kaveh rejected her apologies a thousand times more. Ugh, what a gentleman.)
Fortunately, no one (Kaveh) said anything.
.
. .
. . .
Haitham looked at the backs of the boys in front of him, who were leading the way, arguing but leading anyway.
They were further back, taking their time and talking in silence. Veh was quiet, unusually, considering she was a parrot.
"Is everything okay, azizam?" She thought she heard someone almost fall but she didn't pay attention.
"I would like to say yes but... ugh, I lost Mehrak!" She whimper, stomping on the floor "my poor boy must be alone, cold and hungry and — oh, no!" She let out a squeal like one of those toys that dogs used to bite before grabbing the scribe's arms "what if someone hurt him?! I would die if someone harmed my baby Mehrak!"
"Wow, no one would want that."
Haitham just let herself be shaken by her girlfriend, listening to her emotional crisis. A snort made her look, the other Kaveh watched them smiling while Alhaitham searched for the path using the runes.
"Sorry, I didn't want to listen, but do you also have a Mehrak?" he asked with burning, curious eyes.
"Yeah, but my Mehrak is a “he”. I created it using the core of a primary build."
"Oh, me too. And she helps me many times with my Claymore and some heavy things."
"Only with heavy objects, I am able to lift my own weapon by myself."
The two blondes began to talk as if they were lifelong friends, sharing information or even differentiating things. It was interesting to hear them fight about whether pine wood was necessary for the manufacture of tables and chairs, but she preferred to try to help the other Alhaitham.
She approached her namesake, observing the symbols on the wall with curious eyes. The runes were so strange and different that they were difficult to read, like a newly discovered language.
"I guess your Sumeru doesn't have this language," Alhaitham hummed in recognition.
"No, not really. I have never seen all of these symbols nor do they seem like anything else to me,” the girl responded, tracing one of the figures.
"Mm," the boy murmured, solving another puzzle.
Two beats passed before the boy spoke, "I have a question to ask you if you don't mind."
"Not at all."
"What relationship do you have with, well, the Kaveh woman?"
Well, that was quick.
Honestly, Haitham was expecting the question when they were leaving but the boy apparently couldn't handle the wait.
Before answering, she turned to her Kaveh. She watched her laugh and happily tell something she wasn't sure about; her smile, with teeth and gums, her bright crimson eyes, her blushing caramel skin, and her glowing blonde hair. She smiled with her, cried with her, ate with her, loved with her, and will live with her.
She turned to look at her counterpart, who was patiently waiting.
"We are soulmates."
That response seemed to calm something in Alhaitham.