sic semper tyrannis

aut vincere aut mori

As one might expect, the desert lost each battle (if they could even be called that) that came afterward. Caravan Ribat was left empty, abandoned entirely in preference of not being murdered by Sumeru soldiers, and repurposed as a camp for the army.

Alhaitham hadn't been back to it since that fateful day, though he had no intention of seeing it for himself either. With the way the army crushed the desert underfoot, he was sure it wasn't a pretty sight.

He blinked away the thought, trying to refocus on something else—something more productive—as he walked back through the hallways to Kaveh's room. The king had refused to come out once they'd returned home, even when the Sages came with news of the ongrowing war and the process of reconstructing the impoverished areas of Sumeru City alike. Refusing to give up, the Sages had simply passed Alhaitham the papers and trusted he'd deliver them.

And so, he'd exited the throne room quietly and now walked down long halls once decorated with lavish paintings, intricate golden trinkets, and other unnecessary displays of wealth, but were now mostly empty. Some things had been sold off to Fontaine, a few others to some Inazuman diplomats, and finally, some went to Snezhnaya. The accumulated wealth was to be used in upcoming projects—more Mora in the treasury to save the less fortunate. Or at least that was the intent.

For now, while nothing was being used, it just left the hallways lacking.

When Alhaitham pushed the door to Kaveh's room open, his king didn't so much as look up. He was sitting at his desk, head down as he stared at a few papers he had laid on the top. He had a pen wedged between his fingers and was idly tapping it against the top of the desk, only stopping to check boxes or sign his name.

Alhaitham made his way across the room, setting the few papers the Sages had given him down onto the edge of the desk. Kaveh still didn't raise his head, though his eyes shifted toward them and he paused his movements with the pen. He slowly reached for them, pulling the pages closer, and he scanned them over slowly, his eyes following the printed lines.

"What is this?" he asked, finally sitting back in his seat and glancing up at Alhaitham, his brows furrowed.

"The estimated desert death count," Alhaitham answered. He placed his hands on the edge of the desk, leaning onto it for support as Kaveh glanced back down at the papers and the numbers written out on them. "And ours, of course, but that's much smaller."

Kaveh let out a small sigh, slipping his fingers beneath the page and sliding it behind the next one. He gave it a once over, then glanced back at Alhaitham again. "And this one?"

"Doesn't it say what it is on the top?"

Kaveh didn't quite look impressed by that answer. He placed both papers back down onto the desk, sliding them away from himself until their edges touched the wall. "They stopped the reconstruction. I didn't ask them to do that."

"They did?" Alhaitham furrowed his brow, placing a hand on the paper himself to drag it closer and inspect the text. Sure enough, the Sages had ceased support for impoverished areas of Sumeru City for the foreseeable future and cited the war as a means to do so.

He frowned down on it as if that would change the contents. "I can ask them to continue the next time I see them. Unless you'd like to do it yourself."

Kaveh sighed. "Don't bother. The war is taking enough attention as it is. This can wait."

The frown didn't leave Alhaitham's lips. "It can wait?" he asked, lifting his hand from the page just to cross his arms over his chest. "The people will be upset. Most of them already despise the idea of fighting the desert."