Chapter Text
Every moment spent with Aglaea was a moment of Anaxa’s life wasted. Thrown to the wayside, utterly lost for no good reason. There was not a cause in the world that could truly make right the injustice of having to spend a single moment with her, but Anaxa was a martyr for his duty. He’d long since served as liaison between the Grove and Okhema, and would continue to. His reason for not simply delegating the task? --Who could do it better than himself? Truly, an altruistic sacrifice he had to make.
Heading to Marmoreal Market for the real reason he’d come here- alchemical supplies- he decided firmly to make his visit have some sort of positive. No use in whimpering over spilled milk. Sadly, though, he found himself before an Okhema at its worst.
Loud. Noisy. Busy. It appeared that the Dawn Device had thrown everyone into some sort of wild frenzy. The conflicting aromas of many, many foods cooked at once, the shouting and screaming of recreation, singing and dancing and chattering and by Kephale’s might Anaxa was going home. He would send someone else back this way to navigate that nonsense. He was going home.
The Okheman holiday commemorating the establishment of their city. Yes, yes, he knew. That was nonsensical.
Heading back to the Dromas yard, Anaxa quickly paid his fare and massaged his temples as they prepared his carriage. Hurry, before that white tide reached as far as the Grove…
“Professor!”
Phainon, running up. Ah, just who he didn’t want to see. Anaxa wouldn’t be surprised if he were the source of the merrymaking. Hah. “May I ask, who are you?”
“I’m…Phainon, Sir?” he frowned, tilting his head. “The student who stayed in your class the longest?”
“I’m messing with you.” Anaxa did not have the energy to keep up his own entertainment. “What do you want.”
“I was just headed to the Grove myself,” he smiled. “I’m going to visit Hyacine and Ms. Tribbie, and I figured I could pay you a visit as well. How fortunate, to run into you here!” he laughed a little sheepishly. “Haha…It’s been a while since I’ve visited to the Grove.”
Anaxa looked him up, and down. Examined his firm armor, even on this day of recreation. “Do as you see fit,” he waved a hand in dismissal. “I cannot very well deny you access to the Grove.”
“Would you, if you could?”
Anaxa quirked an eyebrow. “Yes,” he said. “The path of knowledge is not one that suits you, unless your personality changes overnight.”
Phainon laughed a little strangely at that. Anaxa made a note of it. “Yeah, I guess so.”
He decided not to clarify that he was joking. Phainon should know that he’d never deny anyone the ability to visit a place of learning, and he especially wouldn’t deny the empty-headed Phainon, who stayed in his class the longest. Rather, if it were up to Anaxa, he’d still be in the Grove today.
The Dromas carriage took them along the usual roads. Phainon was abnormally silent the whole way. Anaxa didn’t bother prompting him into any sort of conversation when he had a perfectly good book on his person, but it nestled in his mind nonetheless. On this day of celebration and recreation and vacation, the ever-radiant Phainon was travelling with such a look of…not concern. Fear. Poorly-hidden fear.
Anaxagoras was not one to deny the opportunity to bring a truth to light. He just had the impression that he’d become entangled with this sooner or later, so it was best to wait until that time came. No need to rush.
Once they arrived, they went their separate ways. Anaxa, back to his lab, and Phainon off to find the girls. He’d likely go back without seeking Anaxa out, so it could very well be another long while before they saw each other again. The possibility was there. It wasn’t one he particularly liked thinking of. He didn’t struggle to admit that he was fond of Phainon. Enjoyed his company more than most’s- perhaps, more than anyone’s.
It was a common sentiment.
And it was one he didn’t linger on. Swiftly moving on, he returned to his research and experiments, until all he knew was the scent of paper and ink. Yes, until the entire world lay between the lines on a page, worlds of truths laid out in his mind’s eye. The future was something so close to his grasp; the pinnacle of the world just before his hand, as he completed study after study, experiment after experiment, on how exactly he was going to fragment his soul and the heights that step in his plan would open up to him.
It couldn’t stay like that forever, though. “The present” may be an illusion by some estimates but it was ever the constant interruption, as much as it was propulsion. There was a knock at his door. His secret lab’s door. It seemed that Phainon’s trouble came to him quicker than he thought.
It could only be Hyacine, or one of the Tribios, or a fellow Sage. Hyacine calling on him was bound to be something that embodied the most irritating part of being a professor-- something absolutely necessary to his job and worthless to him. The second two would only be absolute emergencies, since both the Holy Maiden and the Sages gave him and his blasphemy a wide berth.
“Who is it?”
“It’s Tribbie!” Ah. An emergency, then. “Snowy is-!”
Anaxa planned on pushing off whatever it was until he heard that. His research was more important than anything, but—
He found himself rushing to keep up with the fluttering Demigod, ignoring all who asked for his attention on the way. “What is going on?” he demanded, swiftly calculating in his mind anything that could be wrong. He hadn’t noticed any physical abnormalities with Phainon, meaning that unless he hid an injury of some kind- seeking Hyacine?- it would be something on his mind. A situation he was trapped in. What could Anaxa do in that case? What would his skillset contribute? Was there something that required his gun? Had Phainon fallen to the Black Tide? Had he finally crumbled under the weight of all that Prophecy nonsense the way Anaxa had been dreading the whole time-?
Tribbie didn’t answer him. She just led him to her lecture hall in determined silence. There, standing by the desk at front among their myriad childish “teaching supplies” in stuffed plushes and pillows and toys and admittedly legitimately dangerous rockets, there was Phainon, with Hyacine.
The door was not-so-discreetly sealed behind them by the Demigod, abnormally quick to block off the curious eyes of the students and staff outside. Tribbie’s lighter-than-air demeanor was a touch heavier than Anaxa found comfortable. Despite her childishness, anything that discomfited her was bound to be of major importance.
“It’s…Phainon,” Hyacine began. She hadn’t taken her eyes off of him yet. Anaxa took note of the tension lining his body, how his habitual armor had been discarded to the side to leave him, somehow, seeming far too exposed in lighter clothing— the pain in his face as he rubbed his temple. Hyacine wasn’t making any move to use her powers of healing on him, revealing that she was helpless. What, then, was Anaxa here for? A matter of the soul?
“I s-said, please don’t call for him,” Phainon spoke a little harshly in his pain. “I d-didn’t want him here…” Severely out of his usual character. No pain that Anaxa had seen him in had ever made him look like this, and he’d seen him wounded a bit too seriously by Mydei a few times. If he were an average person he would seem only mildly irritated, but by Phainon’s range of expression between “happy” and “happier” and the face he put on when he ought to be serious, an expression of genuine anger at someone was downright uncanny. He’d stopped showing that long ago.
Tribbie rushed to Phainon’s side. “It’s okay, Phainon,” she said, in a purposefully little and cute and quiet voice; the use of his actual name by her nearly made Anaxa startle. Since when…? “Naxy’s a little weird, but both of us trust him, right? We got him for little Snowy…”
“I don’t- he doesn’t-” Phainon started, but stopped short. He groaned low in his throat, eyebrows creasing up. He breathed, “…I’m sorry…”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Phainon!”
Anaxa watched the exchange with eagle-eyed precision. Coming to a few hypotheses, from the knowledge he had, from what he’d seen so far. Hyacine, Tribbie, Phainon, a “little Snowy”. An idea of what was going on came to him.
He stepped forward, easing himself closer. Looked up, into his face. Those eyes, usually so bright, were clouded and lost when they opened- not even properly seeing him. Definitely barely recognizing him. Visibly a little confused, he backed up from someone who should not be a stranger to him. Arguably, the person it should be the easiest for him to recognize.
“Give me a name,” Anaxa told him. “Tell me what you would like me to call you, in this moment.”
“…” His chest heaved. His back hit the desk, hands curling around the edge like he needed its support. “…I…”
“It’s okay,” Hyacine soothed, ever so gentle. “It’s all gonna be okay.”
“…” His wide eyes slowly focused on Anaxa proper. Blinking furiously and breathing steadily, he brought himself down from wherever he’d gone. And then, slowly, he relaxed.
In the next instant the scholar wheezed as he was crushed by a sudden hug.
“…I like ‘Snowy’,” was whispered into his ear.
“Snowy,” Anaxa echoed. Rather appropriate. He rubbed the boy’s back in a manner he hoped, with a surprising level of desperation, was soothing at all. He didn’t pull away so Anaxa counted it a success.
“Snowy!” Tribbie was an explosion of energy. She did something to his face at Anaxa’s back, “Hi again!! Like We said, We brought Naxy for you!!!”
“Are you feeling okay?” Hyacine asked. “Is Phainon still angry?”
“Snowy” nodded. “Quiet, though,” he mumbled. A distinctly different tone. Snowy’s manner of speaking landed far closer to…Trinnon’s, suddenly. But far quieter. And guilty. “Said ‘m sorry…”
“It’s not anything to be sorry about,” she replied easily. “We grown-ups will talk to your big brother later. Right now, you wanted to show Anaxa something, right?”
“Mhm.”
Finally he pulled away. Anaxa came face to face with Snowy for— well, maybe not the first time. He couldn’t be sure.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Snowy.” Anaxa had never been more aware of the fact that he had no clue how to deal with children. Snowy stared down at him with shining sky-blue eyes and it felt a little like his own soul was bared to the world prematurely with Snowy as his witness. “As you may know, I taught Phainon when he was a student.” This was almost physically painful. He could swear that one or both of the girls were laughing at him. “--You wanted to show me something?”
“Mmhm.” Snowy nodded. He turned around to the desk, and it was only then that he considered that Phainon had been hiding something, blocking Anaxa’s view of it. Snowy showed him a sheet of paper. He accepted it.
“Drew us,” he smiled, and it was a tiny, shy thing. “Hya told me stories…of you. Missed you.”
Missed me. Anaxa breathed. “So, we have met before…”
“Mm. Went to…to class, one time.”
In the back of his mind, he went through every single memory of “Phainon” he had, combing through them meticulously for any sign- any at all- of this, of this part of him. The front of his mind focused on the drawing in his hands.
It was a child’s scribbling. Barely legible, masses of color and incoherent shape that hardly came together to form any sort of representation of anything. There was green, and yellow, and blue, and green, and grey. If Anaxa looked at it very closely, he could intuit that this was meant to be a depiction of the two of them holding hands in a sunlit field. Notably, the Snowy on paper was shorter than Anaxa.
Since when were they so close? A child was bound to believe everyone nice to him was his best friend, but they never properly met before. Anaxa would doubt that Phainon ever considered them this close. Anaxa was fond of him, yes, but Phainon surely thought of him as any other Sage, if uniquely irritating, like all his other students?
But that was not true. If it were, Snowy would not have drawn this. Phainon wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to hide it. Phainon wouldn’t want to visit him as if they were as close as he and Hyacine, fellow students who grew up together. Anaxa’s demeanor and reputation tended to burn away even socially-obligated teacher-student respect, but Snowy drew this, and wanted to show him.
He looked up to meet those real blue eyes. “It’s beautiful,” he told him.
The depth of his genuine gratitude must have been believed, at least a little. Snowy hid his giggles with his hands. “You’re welcome!” he smiled. “I can draw another one?”
“Yes, please.” He figured that was the right thing to say. Snowy’s excitement as he got right to work proved him right.
“Snowy!!!” Tribbie went over to a mat on the floor, where there were already coloring supplies and scrawled-upon scrolls splayed out. This seemed to be where he made his masterpieces, as he went right back and rejoined her.
Anaxa let out an imperceptible sigh.
“Hyacine.”
She made a sound that sounded something like accepting a conversation she didn’t want to have. Good enough.
She followed him to the other side of the lecture hall, far from the two. Kept his voice low so it wouldn’t carry. Even back here, there were the typical toys and fluff, signs of Tribbie. Anaxa inferred that they’d been serving a dual purpose for quite some time.
“My only question is this,” Anaxa crossed his arms. “How long have they been this way?”
Hyacine shifted a little uncomfortably. “…I’m under an oath of confidentiality,” she mumbled.
“I see.” Anaxa examined the ceiling. “Is there anything you can share with me?”
She shook her head. “As a therapist, my patient’s trust is the most important thing I could have,” she said.
“But I was sent for?”
“…Tribbie thinks differently,” Hyacine sighed. “And, well, you’re the last to know…”
“H-huh?”
“The other Chrysos Heirs- Mydei, Aglaea, Castorice, Cipher,” she listed them on her fingers. “They all figured it out or found out on their own a long time ago. You’re the last one…”
And that- that, that was mortifying. “You cannot be serious.”
She nodded a little sheepishly. “It’s that- well, they’ve been keeping it secret-”
“I assume they’ve been like this for almost two decades, as it takes considerable time for split souls to stabilize so firmly,” he spoke swiftly, puzzling it out in his mind. “If anyone should’ve known first, it should have been me…!”
Hyacine gasped a little. “You’ve already examined them!” she said, with some accusation. “That is a tremendous breach of personal boundaries and you know it! This was why I didn’t want them to tell you, whenever it comes to your interests I can’t trust you to know when to stop-!”
“SHHH!!!”
Tribbie, suddenly, piped up to hush them- Anaxa glanced over, across the hall to find Snowy asleep on the mat. The tiny girl fluttered a blanket over him. Ah, they should quiet down.
“I am Anaxagoras of the Nousporists,” he retorted, voice lowered again. “A matter of the soul holds greater importance than all else, but I am not so lost that I’d treat Phainon as a research subject.”
“I didn’t say that. I was afraid of you doing exactly this, looking into him without permission.” Hyacine whispered, evidently incensed. “Phainon’s never been able to tell someone on his own terms…! It was wonderful that you didn’t know. He was working up to telling you everything, but it seems that it wasn’t in the cards.” She breathed in, and out. “You’re extremely clever. I’m sure you know more than enough already. Please, make sure to have a proper conversation with him? He wanted to sit down with you and tell you everything himself so badly.”
“Well, he still can,” Anaxa snapped in return. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. It was a habitual thing, to examine peoples’ souls when presented the chance through contact. He founded his own school of research for the soul- he was Anaxagoras. “I have far more questions than a cursory glance could answer. Do not look at me like that, they are not a research subject to me!”
“Could you stop yourself from using what you learn?” she asked, intensely.
That made him stop short. He pressed his lips together in a firm line, looking for the answer in anything but her gaze. A noise in the bottom of his throat crawled out like something wretched. “The way one would use any other life experience,” he said.
“No.” Hyacine shook her head. Firmly, she stared at him. “You have to protect them, Mr. Anaxa. Protect at least this part of them.”
Anaxa had nothing purely personal to protect. The Grove overall, as Amphoreus’ pinnacle of learning— generally, those who could not defend themselves, as a matter of principle. His experiments and that which was related, of course. But Phainon specifically, as an individual in his life?
Not “Phainon”. All he contained. To protect him over continuing his experiments. Despite such a specimen potentially holding the key to the truth he was seeking…
Why did he want to agree? Why was he about to agree? How, by Kephale’s goddamn might, could the whims of a couple individuals weigh more with Anaxa than his mission?
He sighed, roughly. Stared at the floor. Thought, deeply.
He was fond of them. That was all.
“Fine. Yes. I will act as his teacher before a researcher. They’re safe with me.”
This made the girl smile, full of relief. “Thank you, Professor,” she sighed. “Thank you.”
“And it’s Anaxagoras.”
“Hehe, right…”
Tribbie huffed at them when they returned. “Snowy worried!” she whisper-shouted. “You were too loud!”
Hyacine apologized profusely, and Anaxa inclined his head with his own murmured apology. “He’s asleep,” well knocked out, as a light blanket sewn with a purple-lily pattern covered him. A green color was limp in his hands, and in its unfinished state the picture he’d been working on was more unintelligible than the last. “He should sleep in a proper bed.”
“Phainon is not okay with Snowy walking around at all,” Hyacine spoke softly. “He stays in one place and cannot be seen by anyone else. That’s his rule.”
“Phainon, enforcing a rule?” Anaxa tried not to scoff. “That’s the most surprising thing I’ve learned today.”
“Phainon doesn’t enforce it,” Tribbie told him, “Khaos doe-”
“Iiit’s a secret!” Hyacine interrupted fast. “Secret. He’ll tell you when he’s ready. ‘Kay?”
Tribbie pouted, crossing her arms with a huff. Anaxa rolled his eyes.
“Yes, Hyacine. I’ll be ready when he is.”
Snowy napped peacefully, breath even, face unmarred by worry or artificial cheer. Anaxa…would stay, until he woke up.
Despite how busy Hyacine and Tribbie must be, they did not leave, either. Their own duties were numerous even on an Okheman holiday like today, yet they did not take the opportunity his nap provided. They seemed well used to it, playing games and telling stories with each other to pass the time. Anaxa, on the other hand, was more restless than ever.
The thought that Phainon felt some level of distrust toward him and his intentions should he reveal the state of his soul was…justified. Painful to a degree that was shocking. He was Anaxagoras, yes, if he did as he pleased with what he learned he earned whatever ire he drew, every great step forward demanded blood be left in its wake— and, and yet…
…Hopefully their state of being was not terribly helpful at all.
They slept for about thirty minutes. And then they floundered a little with the blanket and sat up like one of Tribbie’s rockets went off. Anaxa nearly jumped out of his skin.
Tribbie and Hyacine just glanced up from their extremely riveting game of Old Maid. They looked over, and seemed to immediately know who it was. “Hi, Phainon!” Tribbie waved with both hands full of cards. Hyacine waved with her free hand.
Phainon waved back a little, returning their smiles weakly. Then he sighed, and looked at Anaxa.
“You already looked, didn’t you?” He asked. Smiling still, but with a definite melancholy. How guilt stung.
“You noticed?”
“I guessed.” Phainon stood up, folding the blanket neatly in his arms. “I wasn’t…there. It’s just what you would do.” He chuckled a little, “You’re the same as ever, Teacher.”
Anaxa looked up at him from his chair as he approached. Phainon looked down at him, but not with any hostility. Just a little sadness.
“What did you see?” he asked.
Anaxa found it difficult to continue meeting that gaze. Still, he did. “…Three souls,” he said. “I hypothesize they were long ago fractured by internal stress on the weave that keeps one whole. I can only hypothesize, as the current state consists of three whole, unique souls, no different from any other individual. I would have to search for proof that there had been just one before.”
“I wonder what you’d find,” Phainon replied. He pulled up a chair to sit before him, “I don’t remember that, myself.”
“You don’t?”
Phainon shook his head. “I wasn’t there for it.”
“Was…Snowy?”
Again, no. “The third is Khaos,” Phainon said, and there- he averted his eyes. “Most of my answers, I got from him. None of us were ‘there’ before, but he got the bulk of the…memories. I got some, as well, just far less. Snowy got even less. We can’t communicate with each other at all, so I can only tell you what I know. What he told me.” Just a tiny bit, he winced.
So, it was originally a fragmentation, a split of one into three. There was not a “core” as some documentation said, but Khaos seemed to be the closest to one.
“May I speak to Khaos?”
Phainon’s face fell blank. Then he laughed a little, “It’s usually kind of rude to ask for someone in particular, you know?” he said. “You wouldn’t tell Tribbie that you’d rather be talking to Trianne.”
“But that’s not what I meant?” Anaxa raised an eyebrow. “Don’t misconstrue my intent. I asked because you admitted that you don’t know as much as he does, so I figured I could be brought up to speed faster by him before we resume our conversation.”
Phainon laughed again, and Anaxa was starting to get very annoyed by it. He was playing off complicated emotions for humor instead of coming out and saying how he felt, like always, but it was especially grating now.
“Yeah, I guess. That’s the kind of person you are.” There was a certain glimmer in his clear blue eyes. “No.”
“Alright, then.” Khaos was a sensitive topic. Something to remember. “I’ll ask you my questions.”
“I’ll try my best to give good answers!” Phainon grinned.
“Earlier, Snowy said he apologized to you, and you say you were not present,” Anaxa began. “You also said he told you about your past. Souls that share a body can communicate very well with each other as individuals, externally or internally-- that’s been established by other research. Yet you say you can’t communicate with each other. How, exactly, do you work internally?”
“…You’re really good at hard questions.” Phainon’s smile thinned, almost imperceptibly. “I guess I can’t refuse to answer. I-”
“You can,” Anaxa blurted.
“?” Phainon tilted his head.
“Refuse to answer.” It was nonsensical. But he wanted Phainon to know that Anaxa didn’t want him to push himself to answer such sensitive, intense questions— “You can refuse. It’s fine. I can figure things out well enough on my own; asking you is a luxury afforded only by your comfort.”
“…Oh,” Phainon still looked a little shocked. “…Alright. Are you sure…? It’s not like you…”
“It’s fine. I’m trying to be kind, Phainon.”
“I don’t need you to be? I’d rather you treat me normally…”
Hyacine hissed over at him, “Phainon,” drawing his attention briefly. Whatever her stilted expression conveyed made him sigh. “Thank you, Teacher,” he said simply. Convinced him, Phainon, a stubborn mule on the best of days, to accept it that easily? Her therapy must be quite intensive.
He shuffled with visible discomfort, and began. “It’s not straightforward,” he answered Anaxa’s question. “I say we can’t because it’s not reliable at all. Most of the time, we really can’t. There may be moments where a thought or a feeling comes through. Sometimes we might get a conversation; but I wouldn’t count that as real, stable communication.” He laughed a little. “For people in my head, we talk a lot less often than you’d think.”
Why would that be? All knowledge Anaxa had proved that such communication would be seamless, as easy as talking to anyone. Past experiments with soul fragmentation and artifacts that allowed people to see souls granted this easily. Its ease had never been called into question before…this posed potential issues for Anaxa’s possible experimentation methods. Would he be able to communicate with a Titan at all, upon fusing?
He also noticed that Phainon dodged that last question.
“Teacher, you’re thinking very hard.”
Nothing to say to that. He was who he was. “I assume the Prophecy doesn’t mention anything about this.”
Phainon shook his head.
“How do the others view it?”
Phainon minutely hesitated. “Khaos doesn’t want anything to do with it,” he said, quietly. “I’m not sure Snowy fully understands. But he doesn’t like it, either.”
“I’m sure that won’t affect a Trial,” Anaxa muttered.
Phainon cringed. Whoops. Hyacine was glaring daggers at him. He had to try harder. Or, stop. Perhaps he should stop? No, he wasn’t going to stop. Anaxagoras was not one who stopped. But he didn’t want to hurt Phainon…
“…” He gripped the fabric of his pants. “…What are the relationships between you like?” He asked. The easiest question he could think of. “You know of each other. How do you feel about each other?”
“…”
That was not an easier question. Phainon didn’t answer right away, nearly hunched in on himself. It was saddening.
“…”
“…It’s okay to not-”
“I like Snowy,” he said. Then, still not looking at him, “--Sorry, I interrupted. I’ll answer, it’s okay.”
“…” Anaxa hated this, a little. No wonder Phainon felt like he needed time to prepare. Anaxa himself wished he had. Thirty minutes was leagues too far from enough.
“Snowy is…sweet,” Phainon continued, staring at the floor. He looked awfully bare, without any of his usual straight-backed persona. “He’s nice. He’s not like a sibling to me or anything, he’s like…” He trailed off, something empty drawing over his eyes like a shadow. “Like the worst days of our life never happened. I dunno, he knows we don’t…live in Aedes Elysiae anymore, he knows why, but he’s still so…” he sighed. “I hate him, a little bit. But I love him, too.” He picked at his hand, knee bouncing. “I really envy him.”
A moment passed, and before Anaxa could open his mouth Phainon said, “I’m not talking about Khaos. You can ask Snowy some other time how he feels about me.” and that was that. He looked exhausted.
“…” Careful. “Why isn’t Snowy allowed to walk around?”
Phainon’s eyes flicked up to him, and they held something like a dark disbelief. His knee stopped.
Then, blue eyes returned to the floor, lashes low. “Sorry for my bad mood, I just…” he straightened up, shook himself out, and breathed in, and out. “Sorry. I’m fine.” Smiled. Anaxa hadn’t realized how low how voice had dropped from its usual playful lift until he said, as bright as normal, “Snowy? Mm, it’s just not safe. People expect things of me that they wouldn’t of a child, you know? And Snowy’s a little less capable than normal kids at his, sort of, age? So it’s better for him to stay hidden.”
It was almost uncanny. And they called Anaxa “The Performer”. “I see.” He’d ask later how Snowy felt about it. Phainon didn’t seem to like answering on the others’ behalf.
He wanted to let up on him. “I don’t have any more questions.”
“Really?” Phainon tilted his head. He should know that he wasn’t fooling anyone, so what was this act for? “That’s not like you! I thought you’d ask a hundred more!”
“I have no interest in torture.”
That broke his smile a little. “I look that bad?”
“On the contrary, I prefer it when your honest emotions show on your face. I just do not enjoy being the cause of such painful grimaces.” Anaxa sighed. “Still, it’s better than the smile of a marionette.”
Phainon chuckled like it hurt to. Anaxa only stared at him, ignoring how much more he wanted. Soothing gestures would mean nothing…
Stars above, he was bad at this. Whatever they were doing. They felt terribly off-track, suddenly, the ground stolen from under him as he had to shove away thoughts of holding Phainon and reassuring him with soft platitudes-- what were they doing? What was this about, now? Hello? Can anyone help-
“Still,” Phainon snapped him out of his increasingly desperate mental calls for answers. “Thank you for, um, coming? I’ve been meaning to tell you about us for a long time. It was just, ah…hard. To take that step.”
“I can imagine.”
“…”
“…”
Anaxa stood. “Right,” he said. The girls were stifling laughter again and everything was awful. “Um. Phainon-”
“Yes?”
He stopped. In this moment, to those wide eyes, he should say something, after all this. There was something he ought to say.
He had no clue what it was. “Visit the Grove more often.”
“Oh, I have. Somewhat frequently. I just…avoided…you?”
Oh, Titans. Anaxa was embarrassed and his cheeks were burning and he was definitely blushing. “Don’t do that anymore!” He blurted.
“Okay!” Phainon raised his hands in surrender.
Anaxa was rapidly losing all face in front of this boy. “When will you return to Okhema?” Away from awkwardness and back to stability, please.
“…Tomorrow?” Phainon said, sheepish. “The, ah, festivities in the city are kinda… intense? We’re hiding out until it’s over.”
“Fair enough” is what Anaxa would say if it wasn’t out of character. Phainon was a social butterfly and especially loved festivals. “Why?” Anaxa asked before he realized he was walking face-first into yet another horribly awkward conversation. He wouldn’t hesitate to ask even with that knowledge, but the twitch in Phainon’s eye already told him that he wasn’t going to get the truth.
“It’s a lot,” he said, simply, “I know it’s out of character, but I’ve just been overwhelmed.”
Now that was a good answer. Still not the whole picture, but close enough. A tantalizingly close suggestion of vulnerability that wasn’t there.
His magic show didn’t need to be acknowledged. “You’re welcome to bide your time here,” Anaxa replied easily.
“Thank you?”
“You’re welcome.” This was his opportunity to leave, and he did not really want to take it, but he had to. Too many thoughts to gather, too many complicated feelings to examine, too much of everything. He needed. A break. “Contact me if you require anything.”
“Okay…”
“Bye, Naxy!”
“See you, Professor!”
Anaxa was not one for any sort of inebriating substance, but that entire exchange left him desiring something that would calm the too-fast rabbiting of his heart and the overwhelming desire to sink a thousand feet below the ground. A potion would have to do the trick.