⏩⏩âąÂ thundertideâ
âAnd what if I told you I donât care about the mora or the means? That I could support you as long as you promise me something in return?â Her tea was growing cold, she noted, once warm cup now far cooler under her pressing fingertips. If he was happy with her, why sabotage it? Why balk when given the chance to move out of Alhaithamâs and into a place where he knew he was wanted, to the point heâd had to physically run away from the offer?
Why dodge the question? She knew he hadnât missed it this time - Heâd had to stop and think about it before he could reply, which meant his attempt to go around it had been naught more than a refusal to say aloud he wasnât happy. He knew that as well as she did, yet sheâd still wanted to hear him speak the words aloud and come to the same realization she had: Avoiding acceptance of that fact was only making things worse. The more they refused to say out loud they werenât happy, the more it festered and simmered within and spread, much like a flu virus attempting to drag them down even further into misery.
âYouâve said it yourself: You donât have the funds to support a household. Kaveh, I donât want you to. Youâre looking for ways to avoid claiming happiness for yourself, as if you donât feel like you deserve it. If youâre happy being with me, why would you give up every chance to make that happen, and look for ways to prevent it from happening? Why, when itâs our house you stumble to after a night in the tavern, and first thing in the morning, even on days you donât have to work, to spend as much time as you can there?â
If he truly believed he was unhappy and didnât deserve what was laid out in front of him, would he have done that? Ace doubted it, finally lifting her gaze to meet his. Archons, sheâd always loved his eyes, but the look in them⊠Distant? Hurting? As close as they were, she couldnât place the emotions she found in them; maybe an entire mess of them? Regardless of what they were, it was enough to shift a hand, reaching across the table to lay against his own.
âIf you were to be a strain on either of us, I would never have given you a studio of your own. I wouldnât be here asking you to move in with me. And if you truly believed yourself a burden, you wouldnât have spent the other night with me, laying on the couch with our fox and I. The only thing preventing you from calling it our house is you, my Light. Everything else can be taken care of. Itâs you preventing yourself from being happy. Iâve⊠Had to learn this about myself, too⊠Itâs not the mora. Itâs not the means, or how to repay someone. Youâre just⊠Not letting yourself be happy, and that is all I want for you.â
With her. Without her. In Sumeru City, or somewhere out in Teyvat. As an architect, or whatever else he put his mind to - Whatever made him truly happy, Aceline wanted for him. Sheâd been by his side long enough to know much of what had gone wrong in her husbandâs life, and very little of it had been caused by his own hand; would she have to research a means of showing him as much? Maybe if she found a way to bring memories to life - No. No, sheâd never make him relive that.
âI donât care if you can cook or clean, or how much you could pay towards bills. I donât care if you can give me back everything I give you. If youâre happy, thatâs enough for me. Weâre partners, Kaveh, and sometimes thatâs not an equal 50/50. You do what you can do in that moment, and right now, I know all I want for you is to see you happy. I know I want you to come home again, like you did the other night. I know I need you. And I know Iâm not going to budge on this, either - I want you to be happy, and Iâm not going to leave your side when youâve just said being with me is a source of that.â
She was always so supportive and comforting â so much so, that Kaveh in his drunken state didnât even know how to counter all of her kind words this time. She was willing to pick him off the street, bring him into her house, and not expect a single mora or extra chore be done from him in compensation for taking up a room in her home. On top of that, Ace had already given him an entire area to do with as heâd pleased â and heâd picked to transform the space into a drafting studio for his designs.Â
â âŠÂ â She really was too good for him, Kaveh eventually found himself blinking his attention away from Ace at the thought. For all the dead weight he was; for all the things he couldnât do right, all the mora he couldnât keep, or all the bad decisions he seemed to make â she really was too supportive of an idealist who couldnât seem to get his life on track.Â
No matter what Kaveh seemed to do, he couldnât find the same level of âhappinessâ that everyone else walked around with. His life had just beenâŠone downfall right after another for years now; like he was destined for an existence full of nothing but heartache and ridicule and nothing more.
So what made Ace see something else in him that even Kaveh himself couldnât manifest of himself?
â I know you just want me to be happy. But itâs still not right for me toâŠugh, give me a second. My brain isnât working right for this. â
Augh! Why hadnât he had enough self control to not already down two drinks before sheâd found him here!? His thoughts were already so fuzzy and jumbled that he actually had to think about what to say next. âCâmon, KavehâŠdonât mess this up for once!â
â Look, Ace, Iâll be honest with you- â heâd eventually start. â By nature, the life of a designer is already soâŠtroublesome and stressful as it is. Thereâs clients thatâll never agree with me, people who have no sense for architecture trying to tell me how to work my own designs, commissioners who are so cheap and stingy that the restrictions they put on me are miserable, budgets, and who knows what else thatâll always be against me. â
â Not to mention Iâm a guy who looses my self confidence pretty easily and questions everything heâs already done a thousand times over from time to time. I have a habit of ending up here like this when things donât go my way, too. Itâs not graceful, I knowâŠÂ âÂ
Kaveh would be the first to admit his drinking was a problem. It was the reason why he was spilling all of his emotions out on the table right now, too, but heâd keep that much to himself; a hiccup masking the sigh he wanted to breathe out.Â
â Anyway, AceâŠI want to help you make your house a home, really I do⊠â heâd answer. â But are you sure youâd want someone like me taking up a room when Iâm apparently someone so difficult to get along with? I donât want this season of my life to infect you somehow, too. âÂ
âDo you think my lifeâs been that easy?â Itâd taken a moment to get her voice back, heart lodged into her throat from his confession. He wore his heart on his sleeve, and Kaveh never failed to speak his mind, especially when grumping and irritated - But this... This was something else entirely, even to her. Theyâd been together since early into their time at the Akademiya and considered each other a confidant, so why was it sheâd never noticed how deep these feelings ran for him before? That he was truly, deeply concerned he could ruin her just for her connections to him?
Slowly, the leopardâs ears drooped, almost tucking themselves into her hair. How long had he been suffering and struggling with this? Had she always seemed so... Put together he feared ruining it for her - No. No, probably not, Aceline decided, looking down to the little bit of tea still left in her cup. The reflections of the ceiling above did little to ease the aches spreading across her chest, squeezing her heart and twisting, shoving it further into her throat; was she truly.... That good at masking...?
âMy life has never been as easy as you want to think,â Ace continued, gently tapping the side of her cup. The vibration shook the liquid within, breaking the reflection with a few ripples that looked more like those in the rivers when the fish were active than anything else... A distraction it mightâve been, but at least it was enough to swallow her heart back down to where it belonged. âI canât get backing for my research most of the time, let alone make progress on it. Most of what I swear I remember reading I can never find again... And asking for help is out of the question.â
Aside from Kaveh, few dared give her the time of day when her research was involved. Whether it be just a chance to ask a question or to look at their vision, she was deemed the âweird oneâ at best, and âcrazyâ at worst, and often left in the dust before she could even finish a greeting. Theories she swore she could back up were increasingly more difficult to find proof for, and papers sat unfinished in her office, lost among attempts to gather proof for them - Proof easier said than done when all she had was her own anemo vision and Kavehâs dendro.
Adding in that word had spread years ago about her own father, and getting anywhere with her work was like finding a needle in a haystack. Nobody trusted the daughter of a treasure hoarder whoâd abandoned his family, let alone a leopard whoâd somehow graduated with theories and work that called their very gods into question.
âMy theories call into question the archons, and just how this work works. Iâm not even sure how I graduated before they could kick me out. I struggle with bills because I have to fund my own work, and I havenât written a paper in years because of it. People donât like how I talk, how I work, my research topics... They argue with me instead of listening to what I have to say, like they know my work better than I do. Nobody understands visions - thatâs why I research them.
âBut it doesnât matter. I question Irminsul and the archons, and I must have lost my mind. For whatever reason could there be to suggest the archons grant us our visions based on how our ambitions line up with their own? Or that it may not even be the archons who grant us our visions? How dare I consider theyâve existed since before the archon war?â
Another tap struck her cup, hard enough to shake its contents this time. There was still so much they didnât know about the archons and their visions, and yet people blindly trusted them! Of course her faith in Lesser Lord Kusanali was still as strong as ever, but a least she could question the things that went on in Sumeru under her watchful gaze, and just how dendro visions came to be! What caused them, where did they come from, how did they just appear and immediately work with someone - How did they know how to just use them? All questions she wanted answers to!
Also questions easier asked than answered, Aceline knew, shoulders slumping as a heavy sigh worked free from her lips. âYet all throughout it, from the early days of my time in the Akademiya, thereâs been one constant in my life I could never do without: You. Youâve never been âdifficult to get along withâ. Just like you know anyone who argues you are has never spent any significant time with you, or tried to get to know you. You and I both have self-confidence issues. The difference is... I know to go to you when mine bother me. You havenât found a healthier coping mechanism yet, is all.â
Not that she could call all of hers healthy aside from that, but that was a talk for another day.
âMy life is already difficult enough. If you were, as well... Do you think Iâd want to share my home with you? Donât you think that makes you the light of my life, instead?â
