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“You’re not Phainon, never mind he’s in Aidonia, nor are you an imposter. What happened to you?”
A true imposter could never have fooled Mydeimos. Never. Khaslana is not sure if it is more comfort or hurt that Mydei can still recognize him as who he had been, but that is the point of being here, dressed as Phainon rather than the Flame Reaver.
“No questions.” He steps forward, walking further into another’s personal space than is normal, is socially acceptable, but Mydei only watches him, does not draw a weapon. “Just wreck me. Make me forget what it means to be the Titan who bears the weight of the world on my shoulders.”
Mydei watches him, sharp-eyed. He gives no sign of being shocked or scandalized; the warrior of a thousand battlefields is no stranger to the madness of not feeling human anymore. He does not ask questions, only accessed. He has never been stupid, but his instincts are second-to-none and Khaslana feels Mydei learn from him all he needs to know.
You see why I did it? Why I must do it again and again? But that is a foolish thought. Mydei sees who he is, not the details of what he knows. Even in the recurrences he tried to explain himself to the other Chrysos Heirs, even when he did everything right and they believed him that the prophecy was nothing but a meat grinder to create and destroy Titans to create the ultimate monster, it still changed nothing. Even with Mydei at his side, he still had no choice but to restart the timeline over or let the beast be born. He was not strong enough yet, even as he burns from the inside out. Killing is easier than killing hopes.
But this Mydei does not know to hate him yet, does not know him as the executioner, the Flame Reaver, only as some aspect of Phainon who was pushed past the brink, and Khaslana could not imagine a version of Mydei who knew Phainon and had not fallen in love with him.
“That is no challenge you ask of me, Deliverer.” Mydei’s hands are in his hair, pulling Khaslana to him for a bruising kiss. Even gauging his reaction, he holds nothing back. The Phainon of this time would have blushed and sputtered and given up any attempt to seem cool; Khaslana kisses back like a drowning man.
Mydei pins him to a pillar in the ruins of Castrum Kremnos and fucks him as hard as he wants it, but what wrecks him is when he’s too tired to resist and Mydei pins him to the floor and goes slow. It is not kindness or mercy or any such thing; he knows that Mydei knows he is hurting him, hurting him worse than the drawing of golden blood. Giving him what he needs.
Mydei presses kisses up and down every inch of his skin, tracing the veins of his forearms, the curve of his shoulders, the tendons of his calves. Sweat lets their flesh move together smoothly; neither of them show their scars in texture on their skin. Mydei’s hair, loose from its braid, tickles the shell of his ear. He’s so beautiful. When Khaslana squirms, Mydei holds him down. When he whimpers, Mydei shushes him. When he shudders, Mydei holds him. Every touch is deep and tender, purposeful and passionate. Mydei has always shown his love through actions rather than words.
He hates that Mydei loves him still. Someone else loving you is an external thing that continues to exist even if you don’t want it to, even if you’re too tired or unworthy or empty to bear it. He hates this pleasure that reminds him he is capable of such a thing, echoing all the louder in the emptiness of the rest of his being. He is here because he cannot stay away, a moth to the flame, a rabid dog returning to its old home.
He can’t say Mydeimos deserves better because he’s long since given up the naivety around the concept of anyone deserving anything. In his own way, he’s fighting so that Mydei will not need to be the embodiment of Strife, undying in the sea of his own beloved dead. Phainon usually tried to take Nikador’s trial and he never succeeded. Besides, if they were to swap their places then Mydei would be stuck with his burden. They cannot escape the roles they were born to play, every version of Polemos600 and NeiKos496 since they were initialized as motes of dust.
Would Mydei even want a world without strife? Irrelevant. He is too far gone to relate to Mydei as a person, with an internal life and insecurities and needs; he can only carry with him the idea of him.
Surely Cyrene has long stopped watching the hate-fuelled monster he has become and is only turning back time with the same mechanical stubbornness with which he kills. There is no Era Nova, no utopia in the past that can be restored, no possibility of a happy ending. The best ending possible is a final one: let all of Amphoreus burn to ash. No more cycles, no more futile struggles making everything worse. There can be no Destruction born from nothingness, and no need for a Deliverer either. He has not given up.
How great it would be to be a thing that could break.
Khaslana may have muttered some of that outloud, because Mydei tells him, “If I cannot ask questions, you cannot give answers,” and kisses him again. “You never need to explain yourself to me. I will always give you anything you ask for.”
Khaslana has never asked Mydeimos for his coreflame, for him to throw himself onto his blade, because that was not his wish. He must fulfill Mydei’s wish for an honorable death, a glorious Kremnos festival. There is no world where he could fulfill his own wish that Mydei live. Every time Mydei has seen the face of his killer, he looks at Khaslana without resentment, smiles at him and wishes him eternal victory, like he has total faith that he had a good reason for it, like he is glad to give his death to fuel the fire that burns Khaslana apart. That’s why he wears the mask.
He kills Mydeimos. Mydeimos kisses him and holds him like all his burdens are light as air, like he is something that can love back and not one step away from the beast of destruction itself. He kills Mydeimos. Again and again and again.