Archive of Our Own ^beta

As they made their way trough the green dense foliage of the forest, a light rain was falling upon them. Alhaitham, of course, had prepared their umbrellas before hand as their visit to Tighnari’s place was not unplanned and therefore there was no excuses for not having some protection against the weather. Little could be done about the slippery rocks and mud they were walking on though, and because the path to the village was obstructed by a landslide, they had no choice but to take a detour.

Kaveh didn’t seemed as bothered by their situation as Alhaitham would have expected him to be, walking on mud was far from comfortable after all, maybe the idea of seeing a good friend at the end of the trek was motivation enough to endure the inconvenience. The architect was rambling about everything and nothing, his recent clients and the old ladies in the bazar that tend to offer him discounts and introduce him to their granddaughters (which the scribe teased him for);as they walked beside a little river, he suddenly went quiet, putting Alhaitham on alert.

“What’s wrong?” he asked almost in a whisper.

“Shh, listen” answered Kaveh just as low.

Some fluttering and breaking branches could be heard by the trees near them, and immediately he had his sword on his hand, giving up the little protection of the umbrella in exchange for being able to defend himself. In his peripheral vision he could see Kaveh activating Mehrak and materializing his claymore. Whoever dared to think that Kaveh was unable to fight was in for a huge surprise, Alhaitham had been worried about the fact years ago but realized he had nothing to worry about, his roommate was strong and even before having Mehrak to help him fight with more precision he was already able to hold himself in a battle, and while he had not fought by his side ever before, he knew that he cloud trust him. With all of this in mind he was about to check what that noise was, when a cry and several hilichurls came from that direction.

“What?!, why are there so many?”

“I don’t know but stay close, otherwise they’ll get the best of us” he said, already formulating a plan.

“Nuh-uh, can’t do” said Kaveh already stepping back a little “If I stay too close to you I can’t fight well, I’ll hit you!”

That much was true, his fighting style was very wide, and analyzing better their surroundings they were standing in water, making using their visions a bit bothersome if bloom cores were created, even more than with just the rain since its strength was reduced by the trees of the forest.

“Fine, but make sure to not be too far”

“Worried about your senior?” Teased the older with a smirk.

Gods, he looks good when he is confident like that.

His response was interrupted by an axed mitachurl coming his way and effectively getting his attention, dodging the monster attacks with his vision skills to get height enough to do a plunge attack, in the second that he was on the air he could observe that there were a lot of monsters but his roommate didn’t seem overwhelmed, that was good. He took advantage of the infusion of dendro in his blade to apply the element to as many monsters as he could, creating bloom cores that would explode in a few seconds causing even more damage.

Stepping away to avoid getting hit by the explosion he noticed that the ruckus got the attention of nearby fungi and probably their battle would be a bit longer than expected, much to his demise.

“Tch, how bothersome”

Falling into a steady rhythm of attacking and dodging they were reducing the number of enemies but separating a bit too much for Alhaitham’s comfort. Even if they’re in the last stages of the battle it would be better to regroup.

“AGH!” Kaveh’s cry snapped his attention in time to see him getting thrown by a wooden shieldwall mitachurl.

“KAV-, ugh!” The monsters weren’t giving them time to breathe, his attempt to get to his roommate was interrupted by a hilichurl throwing something at him from the side, while he was distracted.

Seriously? What’s with this number of monsters anyway?! An abyss order ambush? We need to end this quickly.

Suddenly a lot of dendro energy was flowing in the area and he used his burst to get rid of as many hilichurls as posible at the same time. His fighting a bit messier for he was worried about Kaveh getting too hurt. He could hear the other fighting not so far from him so that was a good signal, even if he sounded a bit erratic and angry, but his potential wounds could hinder his chances of coming out victorious from the battle. Or not so beaten at least.

Thankfully the number of monsters was decreasing and he started attacking more of the ones that were focused on Kaveh, who was using his infused blade and Mehrak to do damage in area, an in a few more minutes they were down to the last of enemies and Alhaitham was focused in making quick work of them to get things over with already. Only when the last of the hilichurls was disappearing in a cloud of smoke and after he took time to check that they were truly safe he started to relax a little.

Only for his heart to jump into a panic again.

Kaveh was surrounded by an alarming amount of bloom cores about to explode…

“Kaveh! Move!”

“Huh?” The architect had the nerve to look at him like he had grown another head.

This dumbass… I won't reach him on time!

The blooms exploded around Kaveh, who was already beaten up badly. And a cloud of dendro obscured his vision.

 Gods please… don’t die on me you fool.

But when he reached him, he was standing? And well? Actually, his wounds seemed to be healed somehow and he was dusting his clothes, except that they were stained with mud, so it did not work.

“Ugh, seriously… what was with that attack?! My clothes got all ruined”

Now it was Alhaitham’s turn to be confused.

“You are... okay?” he was panting because of the short run and adrenaline.

“Uhh, yeah?” Kaveh was looking at him a small smile and furrowed eyebrows “Are you? You look a bit pale”

“The blooms didn’t hurt you, you were standing in the middle, and it didn’t hurt you” He was now breathing deeply to calm his nerves, there was surely a rational explanation.

“Oh?” Kaveh’s eyes widened as he seemed to understand what was going on.

And then he started laughing, a hearty laugh that sounded so beautiful and so sincere. He even was struggling to stop it.

“Oh, yeah” he said, cleaning tears from his eyes “I forgot that you hadn’t seen me fight before”

Alhaitham didn’t answered, he was speechless actually, but did his best to keep a deadpan expression on his face. He was not about to give Kaveh the knowledge that he was scared for him and now just outright confused.

“When I got my vision I just found the fact that bloom cores hurt to be counterproductive and absurd” the architect said shrugging “So I worked on a way to make them heal instead, dendro and hydro have really good healing potential after all, its not easy and I know that not everyone can do it but I managed to do it”

He finished his explanation with his hand in his hips and a proud look on his face.

Alhaitham was dead quiet, mentally dumbfounded.

“Haitham? You good? You’re so quiet”

“I’m just thinking”

“About what?”

“You’re amazing, you turned a problem, when it comes to combat using a dendro vision, into something helpful” He sputtered without thinking too much about it, that’s something that happened a lot around Kaveh, but usually only in the confines of his mind, but he was tired enough to say it out loud.

“Wh-What are you saying?!” Kaveh’s confidence gave way to flustering and his face was now red “Did you hit your head or something?”

“I didn’t”

“What’s with you-?”

“HEY! ARE YOU GUYS OKAY?” A new but familiar voice reached them, and they turned to see their fox friend running in their direction.

“Tighnari!! You’re here!”

“I was worried because of the weather at first but then I heard sounds of fighting, so I came to help, I’m a forest ranger after all, it’s my job” he explained with noticeable pride in his position “so, are any of you hurt?”

“Right! I only have a couple scratches, already healed myself” but then he was pointing his finger at Alhaitham “But I think he got hit in the head!”

Immediately the ranger approached Alhaitham to check on him, his demeanor perfectly professional.

“I already told you that I didn’t, you’re the one that got thrown like a doll”

“But I healed already, it’s a minor injury”

His rebuttal was interrupted again, this time by Tighnari’s hand in his shoulder.

“You’re bleeding Alhaitham, I’m going to touch a little to assess the full extent of the damage”

What? When? Was I that distracted?!

“See I told you!” His roommate tone was victorious but with some worry in it “How bad is it? He told me I was amazing a second ago, it really scared me! A direct honest compliment from The Alhaitham?!”

Alhaitham saw Tiighnari subtly roll his eyes with a fond smile.

“It’s just a light hit, it just opened skin, nothing to cause that kind of damage” then he looked directly at his eyes and with a knowing devilish smile he continued “our dear scribe just must be tired from the fight, he is just a feeble scholar after all”

“Huh, well okay” he didn’t seem to relax at all, even when he trusted his friend to the core “just lean on me the rest of the way, just in case!”

This time Tighnari couldn’t hide his smile and shaking his head he gave Alhaitham a bit of gauze to hold on his wound, then he took the lead to start the walk to the rest of the way to the village.

“It’s a good thing you can heal yourself Kaveh, I’ll still check you when we arrive, I have to make sure”

“All right, all right”

And as his arm was being put over his roommate’s shoulders, Alhaitham allowed himself to express a bit more of honesty about his admiration for Kaveh.

“You have a good strategy when fighting”

And with his blinding smile Kaveh answered.

“Of course, I’m not a fool”