In Your Eyes: Empyrean Admonition

You Start Training

Sanctuary of Surasthana, Sumeru City, Sumeru

Alhaitham and Kaveh sit across from each other at the Sanctuary's dining table, unable to look at each other. There are steaming mugs of hot coffee on the table, but the silence is too much that Nahida can't bear it anymore.

"For the third time," the Dendro Archon clears her throat as she tries to say louder, "good morning Kaveh and Alhaitham!"

The two look at her before muttering their greetings. They have stayed all night in her home and they were in good spirits last night but now it seems as if she is threading on ice. Nahida sighs, she doesn't understand why they are this quiet. Looking over to Wanderer and Cyno to ask for help, the two just shrug their shoulders in response.

"Why the long faces so early in the day?" She asks, "Did you have bad dreams?"

At the mention of dreams, Kaveh and Alhaitham react strongly with the former suddenly trying to drink the very hot beverage and the latter running both of his hands on his gray hair. Nahida realizes that she must get to the root cause of their problems, they just solved one so why are they acting this way?

Nahida puts her hands on her waist and confidently says, "I can pull out and analyze both of your dreams last night if you want."

Kaveh and Alhaitham shouts at the same time, "No!"

The sudden violent reaction takes Nahida by surprise and she looks over at Cyno and Wanderer for help again. This time Wanderer takes a sip of coffee, clearly enjoying the situation.

"Look now," Cyno says while leaning forward to the two men, "If you are now going to say anything, at least make sure you don't scare our Archon like that. Both of you don't act like this which makes it really weird."

Kaveh speaks first, "I'm so sorry, Lesser Lord. I think I'm just kind of stressed out."

"I rarely agree with Kaveh," Alhaitham says while taking his mug, "but I'm also a bit stressed right now. I apologize for my behavior and thank you for the offer but you don't really need to look into my dreams."

Red meets green as they look at each other, having a silent agreement that what happened in their dreams will stay in their dreams. They couldn't bring up that both of them were in the same dream as Rabbit, and whatever transpired in that dream.

"As you wish," Nahida breathes a sigh of relief. She turns to Cyno before asking, "How is Al Abyad?"

Cyno quickly replies, "When I checked him earlier, his shackles were still intact. I doubt if he can even escape given that you also imprisoned him in a dream."

Wanderer looks at Nahida, he knows that feeling of being locked in a dream because that is what she did to him. An endless dream filled with everything you ever wanted, and waking up to reality is the nightmare.

"He doesn't want to comply," Nahida replies tactly, "and he tried to take Rabbit away again so I had no other choice but to take him in."

Alhaitham asks, "Will Irminsul be safe if he is here?"

"I doubt he has plans for Irminsul because if he did, he should have done it thousands of years ago. He already said that the formula and prototype he made is what the previous Sages used to create the Knowledge Capsules and he knows how to code the Akasha. It leaves a bitter feeling in my mouth, like I tasted something really bad, when he disclosed that he knows how to alter the primal code of the Akasha system which came directly from my power."

Nobody replies to the Archon's words. Yesterday, Al Abyad showed himself again and he nearly took the rabbit adeptus away. If not for Nahida and Wanderer being around the vicinity, they wouldn't have taken him in custody and saved the adeptus.