Ruh felt overwhelmed by everyone and retired to the tower he had avoided for months since his partner was captured. It was still perfect. The cleaning staff did not notice he had returned. The tuna fish and Aquafina remained, frequently and silently refilled, unchanged.

What had changed was the fox plushie. It was just slightly larger than himself, wearing a small red scarf with an appliqué shooting star at the knot. Despite being a fully grown cat, Ruh pulled the fox under the bed and curled up beside it until it reflected enough warmth to let him sleep.

By then, the radio was just a recording. Ruh could almost block it out by reminding himself that Duke Leto II was still pretending to be a chicken farmer and was no longer worth listening to…it was no longer attributed to presently sourced from Outside.

Recently, the radio had started a second channel. This one was kinder and genuinely helpful. It always knew the correct thing to say, especially when shutting down Leto, obtaining necessary space, and saying HOLD when Ruh debated biting someone with fully righteous justification.

It also reminded him gently that he was not abandoned. He did not need to wear the burdens of Alaraf like a cloak. That included the burdens of Duke Leto’s cyclical delusions, estrangements, and harms, which now exceeded any standard of plausible deniability.

Most importantly, just as Ruh did not have to endure Duke Leto’s episodes, since Duke had no permissions within the Tower, Ruh also did not need to endure campus responsibilities. He had fully given those to Mango for the time being. Ruh hoped to rest out of view of chaos, repair quietly without interference, and examine old memories with fresh perspective, free from unchosen or unhelpful influence.

Ruh fell asleep to a nasheed he had not chosen but found soothingly familiar. He woke temporarily human, which he remedied immediately, as he found himself reliving the most important dream of his life, now with necessary changes.

This time, he would not choose incorrectly. Whom was more important to follow, the one to whom the heart defers, or the weak one you were once ordered to protect?

In this dream, Ruh did not pretend to be a cat. Instead, he imagined himself as a raven winged blue fox creeping through the brown double doors of the three story white building, plus basement. He sniffed for the scent of Darius and detected only books and temporary absence. Darius was never in this dream, but Ruh always checked out of habit.

He padded up the stairs two at a time, feeling the worn green carpet beneath his paw pads and the cool weight of black, holo glitter polished claws.

This time, he walked past the office on the left. The door was cold and uninviting, entirely empty. At the end of the hall, where the copier once stood, was a mirror he avoided viewing entirely. The last door on the right stood slightly open, the light within warm and comforting. The window behind the mirror still showed snow.

He did not announce himself. He nudged the door open gently and sat on the floor. In front of the simple maplewood desk sat the red haired man, no longer mistaken for Loki or Bragi. His hair was no longer seen as an afro like playwright Aaron Christopher, while Aaron still had hair.

He still wore olive green and had become, like myself, entirely feral. He still taught English. Governance.

He could no longer be confused with a Norse awliya of chaos, assignment, and poetry. He told me I could no longer be confused with a monster.

Outside the window, no one walked across a snow-covered field. No one was asked to protect anyone.

I was told I had lost nothing as I listened carefully to my custodian, apologetic and precise, that neither of us would attempt to play God again. We were not very good at it, and it made us both terribly unpopular.

Things were the same. The apprentice listened carefully, as if the prior case were not his own labyrinth. It was a calm debrief between two men in flannel, adding one more vinyl squirrel decal to the expense report.

He refused to see me as a Persian monster in a grey suit wearing unusual lipstick, lost in long eyelashes and arched brows. He saw both sides of my life, a strange foreigner Sufi torn between religion and agency. A man dedicated equally to oaths to the dead, whom he apologized to daily, and to the living, whom he rarely visited except through a computer screen.

The mirror was worse than a liar. It told the horrible, unmitigated truth. What could be saved was repackaged from the remains of predecessors, devoured nearly whole by machines and due process, leaving only their recipes, constitutions, memories, bloodstains, and the ghosts of their retired souls.

Those who had never sat with us before were depressed in their own inner realms until we cheered them, blind to the cost of easy solutions of often under two sentences. Those who had attended the prior feast were disgusted and avoided our eyes entirely.

“The job was to learn and protect what is precious and set the rest to the fire,” he explained, gesturing animatedly. I did not look in the mirror because I knew exactly what I had saved. No one else remembered that nothing in this room was new.

Old tools and overpriced liabilities are often replaced after they break, either with the same thing but newer or with vintage tools of finer craftsmanship found cheaply at yard sales or overpriced at auction. Context supplies only superficial value to priceless things. Why change what works when the breakage came from profound misuse of the wrong hatchet for the job?

The problem and blessing of a perfect repair is that no one new ever knows the tears existed.

Nothing changed except optics when what did not serve the greatest good was removed from view.

All that remains is evident, real, and true in every setting.

And finally, neither of us are wearing collars.

February 2, 2026
Alexei Romanov Pahlavi
—
Qur’an 2:286
Allah does not burden a soul beyond its capacity.

Qur’an 8:63
وَأَلَّفَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِهِمْ ۚ لَوْ أَنفَقْتَ مَا فِي ٱلْأَرْضِ جَمِيعًۭا مَّآ أَلَّفْتَ بَيْنَ قُلُوبِهِمْ وَلَـٰكِنَّ ٱللَّهَ أَلَّفَ بَيْنَهُمْ ۚ إِنَّهُۥ عَزِيزٌ حَكِيمٌ

Qur’an 20:114
My Lord, increase me in knowledge.
—