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Alhaitham notices two things within his first week with the Akasha Terminal.
First, it seems to be far more lenient with him than others. Nearly any question he presents to it, whether he is genuinely interested in the answer or not, is answered. Of course, some limitations still apply. It won't provide him forbidden knowledge, nor any dirt on the sages. It will, however, let him pry into nearly anyone else's lives. He learns this the hard way when he muses about the General Mahamatra's daily routine, only to receive it with astonishing clarity.
Second, someone is watching him. This isn't news in and of itself. After all, the sages do enjoy using the terminal to spy on their people. He had figured that out long before ever putting his hands on a terminal. No, this is someone else entirely, someone who feels oddly familiar. When he tries to pull at the memory, however, he draws nothing aside from an overwhelming grief .
This does not deter him. As horrible as the feeling is, he is equally fascinated that something unknown to him could make him feel such a way.
Luckily, in a little over a week, he ends up dreaming of a young girl, and he knows she's the one who's been watching him. They watch each other in his dreams.
"Who are you?" he asks, and she tilts her head.
She answers, eyes wide and curious, no sound coming from her mouth.
Dreams are awfully inconvenient sometimes.
Nahida.
When Alhaitham wakes up, he knows her name.
Rukkhadevata. Kusanali.
Nahida.
His head pounds.
Often he feels her gaze on him as he goes about his days. From what he knows, the Lesser Lord is locked away in a building, so perhaps this is the best entertainment she has available to her. Why she would choose to follow him and not someone else, well, he can only assume it's because he's more interesting than most.
He glances up and down the dusty road, confirming that there's no other humans nearby, before he walks up to a disgruntled Aranara on the wayside. He leans down, his vision glowing a gentle green as he reaches out to the creature, and shortly after it hops back to life.
"Nara…!" it yells, shaking. Alhaitham stands up and dusts his pants off.
"Indeed. Now go, it's not safe here."
It takes no time before poofing out of existence, hopefully to somewhere safer. Where "safer" is for creatures that wither when faced with the smallest of problems, he isn't sure, but he is growing rather tired of helping the little sprites out.
Do you dislike them? comes a familiar voice in his mind.
He shakes his head. "I don't. I just… don't understand how they are this bad at taking care of themselves. It can get inconvenient when there's others around as well."
When she doesn't respond immediately, he continues on his way.
It doesn't take long for the Aranara to warm up to him, despite being the only adult they've seen in centuries able to still see them. The creatures don't appear to be smart, but even so, whenever he is reading a book or researching out in the woods, they seem to enjoy joining him. Thankfully, they are masters of disappearing the exact moment a potential threat appears, allowing him to focus on the problem instead of protecting them.
Reading with Aranara is… awkward, however. One sits on his lap and another sits on his shoulder, swaying happily and reading with him. At least, he presumes they are?
"Can you read?" he asks them one day, to which they happily shake their heads. He isn't sure what to do with that information. He mulls over the situation for a moment before checking the area around them. Content with the knowledge that no one is nearby, he continues reading, this time out loud.
"A resistive circuit is a circuit containing only resistors and ideal current and voltage sources…"
He can say, with 100% certainty, that the Aranara have not absorbed a single mote of information from his readings.
This doesn't seem to matter to them. Indeed, they seem to not share the nation's values when it comes to knowledge.
The company is familiar and warm, though, just like the feelings of contentment coming from the back of his mind from his companion. As odd as it may be to think about, having the Dendro Archon accompany him often feels natural. It's a plus that she enjoys books as much as he does.