Work Text:
It was true night for the very first time in a reborn Amphoreus, and everyone in Okhema seemed to be packed tight into the plaza, celebrating the sight of the stars around a bonfire. Mydei had spotted his parents chattering with Phainon’s parents—they would be busy for a while yet, he knew, Gorgo and Audata had struck up a friendship and were apparently working out some kind of innovative irrigation method. It was safe enough for him to slip away, knowing his presence wouldn’t really be missed for a while.
He wasn’t used to this. Cycle upon cycle of being the sole living person in Castrum Kremnos fighting against the black tide meant he was out of practice being around crowds like this. The other Heirs seemed to be doing fine, and in fact he was certain a few were even thriving—Anaxa was making some grand speech to a growing audience of scandalized scholars, for example. Or—
Well, most of the other Heirs were doing fine. There hadn’t been a trace of a familiar head of snow-white hair around for some time.
Mydei didn’t really blame Phainon for wanting to leave. At least Mydei’s memories of most of the cycles were a blur. Phainon’s were sharp as ever. If Mydei wasn’t used to crowds, Phainon seemed actively avoidant now, like he had long lost the knack of handling them. He could if he had to, but he seemed to prefer leaving public-facing duties to Aglaea or Cerydra.
Still. Mydei wished, somewhat, that Phainon had at least stuck around.
Ah, well. He’d find him later.
Mydei made his way through the city streets, then clambered up to the rooftops as quickly and quietly as possible. His old spot was still there, and he could’ve sworn he’d left some snacks up here a few cycles ago. Maybe—
He stopped in his tracks when he spotted the black-clad figure huddled into a ball on his preferred rooftop.
Phainon had taken his hood down, so his hair and the crack in his head were visible. He’d tucked the cape around himself, then his wings had formed a little cocoon around him. In the darkness it wasn’t easy to make him out, but Mydei was accustomed to the dark. Castrum Kremnos tended toward it, when overwhelmed by the black tide.
Mydei whistled. The wings unfurled, folding back against Phainon’s back.
“Has anyone told you it’s rude to take a seat that’s already been claimed?” Mydei dryly asked, stepping closer.
“Add that,” said Phainon, his voice gravelly, “to the list.”
Mydei sighed, then stepped closer and sat down next to him. “Not feeling very well, hm?”
Phainon shrugged, picked at his sleeve. “Did you come out here to find me?” he asked.
Mydei shook his head. “I was planning to find you later,” he said, “but the crowd is—it's been a long time since I was in the company of that many people.”
“Hasn't been that long for me,” said Phainon. “I was around other people a lot, in the Eternal Page. As Phainon, as Khaslana, as the Reaver. I'm not sure why…” He faltered, then rested his chin on his knees, a single eye fixed on the gap where the statue of Kephale once was.
Mydei said nothing, just bumped Phainon's shoulder. He pulled one knee up, while the other leg dangled off the rooftop's edge, heel occasionally bumping against the wall.
Phainon, who wasn't very good at letting silence hang, said, “It's ridiculous, right? The world is saved. I should be feeling better. I should be able to handle crowds, it's not as if I haven't before.”
“Not a crowd of this size,” said Mydei. “You have been around your friends and family. The biggest crowd you talked to in the Page consisted of your hometown friends, and you could barely fill half the public baths with everyone from Aedes Elysiae, fairies included.”
“I mean, if we included every fairy and the cows and my dog we might hit capacity,” said Phainon.
“Hah,” Mydei said, flatly. “You and I both know that an Aedes Elysiae crowd is significantly smaller than an Okheman crowd, Deliverer.”
Phainon clicked his tongue, the sound harsh. “Not my title anymore,” he said.
“It still is,” said Mydei. “You heard Caelus, he’s the one who said you could share it.” Frankly he thought it was a bit presumptuous on the Trailblazer’s part, the title had belonged to Phainon first. But Caelus had said it was not a title with a burden any one person could hold, and on that Mydei would heartily agree with their raccoon-like savior.
“Yeah, well.” Phainon gestured to himself, the crack in his head, the cloak he wore in this form. “That’s a title that belongs to a hero. I’m not.”
“You’re lucky we’re away from the baths or I’d be holding your head underwater so it would put out the fire that's clearly cooked your brains,” said Mydei. “You could have quit any time during the thirty-three million cycles. You could have laid down your sword when Irontomb swallowed you. You could have balked at any time when you came up against me. Do not tell me that sacrificing your sanity isn’t a heroic act or else.”
“It wouldn’t put out the fire,” said Phainon.
“Phainon.”
“I should be better by now,” said Phainon. “Certainly saner. There’s no danger anymore, no black tide, no Scepter, no Irontomb—I shouldn't still be like this in crowds!” His voice rose in volume as he spoke, until he slammed a fist into the rooftop on the last word and winced as the stone audibly creaked under his knuckles. “Um.” Mydei had to admit: It was a little funny to see the feared Flame Reaver’s face like this, wide-eyed and startled off his guard.
He briefly entertained the thought of holding Phainon’s head underwater after all, so the fire that had incinerated his organs in this form would be quenched for once. Then he shook his head. “How many years would a cycle typically last for?” he asked.
“Uh, a thousand, on average,” said Phainon. “With some variations here and there.”
“How many cycles was it again,” said Mydei.
“33550338,” said Phainon. “Counting the last one.”
“So 33550338 cycles, each one lasting around a thousand years,” said Mydei. “You’re better at Math, you tell me how many years that is.”
“33550338000 years,” came the prompt answer.
“And you expected yourself to be fine within the span of one or two years?” Mydei asked, incredulous. “What, did you think there was a deadline?”
“No,” said Phainon, in the slightly hunted manner of someone who had imposed a deadline on himself. “No, I just…if there’s nothing to worry about, I shouldn’t worry anymore. Easy as that.”
Mydei reached out and pinched a bit of porcelain-like skin at the edges of the crack. Phainon yelped in surprise, then swatted at his hand with an irritated huff. “Would you say to Aglaea that the scars and the burdens she bore from the first cycle to the last don’t matter?” he asked. “She is still blind, after all, even now that her soul is whole.”
“No!” Phainon said. “My gods, Mydei, I’d never! That’s a horrible thing to say to her!”
“Anaxagoras,” said Mydei. “He still lacks one eye even now that his sister has been restored.”
“Professor Anaxa would kill me and I would deserve it if I said that,” said Phainon, shaking his head and narrowing his single eye at Mydei. Even like this, Mydei could easily see the upset on his face, written as clear as day to him. “He told me once, he didn’t regret the sacrifices he made. How could I denigrate them by telling him that they don’t matter anymore?”
“Then why do you try to lessen your sacrifices?” Mydei asked, and Phainon huffed out an angry breath that came out of him as steam. “There is no deadline for something like this. Perdikkas once told me that, when I was frustrated by nightmares when I was young.” What cycle was it again? Ah, right, the one where the detachment had fished him out of the sea at five years old.
Phainon said, “Hyacine said something like that.”
“Listen to her,” said Mydei, and didn’t say you idiot, which he thought was really very nice of him.
“You think I’m being an idiot about it,” said Phainon.
Well. “Yes,” said Mydei, not bothering to deny it. He and Phainon knew each other too well, by now, to try and sugarcoat things.
“I really don’t know why,” said Phainon. “If I was going to be fucked up like this, why didn’t it happen before? Why now, when all the dust has settled?”
“Because the dust has settled,” said Mydei. “I knew battle inside and out, when I was young. It was the living outside it that threw me off, the safety—well, the relative safety, when compared to the Sea of Souls,” he added, off Phainon’s incredulous look. “I wasn’t familiar with it, and when I finally allowed myself to relax into it…” He shrugged.
“You were expecting to fight every day,” said Phainon. “You were so used to it that suddenly being able to relax—felt like a fight?”
“Something along those lines,” said Mydei. “I knew, intellectually, I was safe. I trusted the others when they said as much. But safety meant everything I wasn’t facing in order to survive came back up, and—I was five years old, I didn’t know how to handle it without throwing a fit.” Looking back, he couldn’t help but cringe away at the unworthiness he had shown, but—he’d been young, that cycle. Fighting had been all he knew since as far back as he could clearly recall. “So you’re already doing better than I was.”
“You were five years old, I’m surprised you didn’t bite people about it,” said Phainon.
“I did,” said Mydei. “Ask Peucesta sometime. I left a bite mark on his favorite lute.”
That got Phainon to break into a small laugh, the sound of it like stones grinding together in this form. “I could believe it,” he said. Then, hesitant: “...do we have to go back?”
Mydei shook his head. “By this time of night, most people are likely dropping off to sleep in the plaza already,” he said. “There’s not much point to going back, and anyway we won’t be needed until tomorrow.”
Phainon leaned back against his palms, stared up at the night sky dotted with stars that Mydei had never seen before in his life. Lives. In the moonlight, the man who had once been the fearsome Flame Reaver looked more like a lonely ghost than anything else. Then he blinked, and turned to Mydei, and the small smile was a familiar one.
“Let’s go home,” said Phainon. “We’ll come back tomorrow morning.” His hand rested on top of Mydei’s, a little warmer than the normal human range.
Mydei shifted their hands so their fingers were laced together, and nodded. “Tomorrow,” he said, and believed it.