sic semper tyrannis

ante bellum

They didn't talk about it—or at least nothing was directly said. Even though Kaveh tried to act as if nothing had occurred at all, he didn't quite meet Alhaitham's gaze. He pulled his hand away whenever he made an effort to grab it.

That was fine, he supposed. Love—the very concept of it—wasn't something he could readily admit to. It was just something he'd never considered. The Akademiya was a loveless place and, even if Kaveh was a self-professed hopeless romantic, he'd long since accepted the fact that he was going to be practically glued to his side for the rest of his life. There'd be no time for such a thing.

And even if he said it, even if it was true, so what? It didn't even feel fair to Kaveh. With the amount of blind trust he seemed to place in him, Alhaitham didn't quite trust the idea of having his heart in his hands. He was sure he'd accidentally crush it.

It was better not to dwell on such things. Better not to even question for a moment if he meant what he'd said.

(It was better not to, but he'd be a liar if he said he stayed true to that. He thought about it more than he probably should have, just spinning it around in his mind. Did he love Kaveh? Did he not? He certainly cared about him; that was undeniable. By dictionary definition, perhaps he did. He could fill entire notebooks with the thoughts he had when he looked at Kaveh, but he was sure his affections lay somewhere outside the realm of romance. He was sure.)

It didn't matter anyway. With a crown on his head and newfound freedom, Kaveh spent most of his time outside of the palace. He explored Sumeru City in full, running off to do as he pleased without even so much as glancing behind himself to make sure Alhaitham was still following.

For the most part, it was all simple things. Shops, bakeries, a few visits to parks in the rich side of the city, and then, of course, those on the poor. It was a starting point—just walking around, taking it all in. Kaveh had brought a notebook around with him at first and scribbled down anything he considered important about the city—conditions of the richer sides and that of the poor, things the impoverished went without, buildings that were falling apart, and so forth. By the time they finished examining almost every inch of the city, it was filled from front to back.

With that much to think about, he settled down beneath one of the trees in some park near the palace, then began to flip through the pages of his notebook. He lingered on some, ruby eyes going wide at certain things which he then underlined in a red pen. Once going through it at least thrice, he glanced up, finally acknowledging the presence that had been trailing after him for the last week or so.

"Haitham," Kaveh started. It was plain, a bit devoid of any emotion in particular, and it felt like a blade to the throat given the circumstance. Alhaitham knew he was still angry with him or perhaps just sad, but either way, his voice still didn't give way to any hidden affection. "I keep hearing rumors that people think the desert killed my parents."

Alhaitham sighed. He shifted from his position leaning against the tree, sitting down beside his king and glancing over the page he'd stopped on. The last page was detailed in fancy cursive script listing mostly architecture problems with the poorer sections of the city and a few things about hunger. At the bottom read The people are angry over the deaths of their monarchs.

"So what?" Alhaitham looked back to Kaveh, who was staring down at that line himself. "It's just rumors."

"Just rumors," Kaveh repeated. He sighed in return, closing the book, and then sat it down on the grass in front of him. "Haitham, if I don't do something about it, won't it be suspicious? The Sages are doing their own investigation. They won't find anything, of course, and even if they do, what are they going to do about it? They can't exactly replace me. But I..."