Summary: In the visage of an ongoing summer festival, you saw the face of your childhood friend, and joy filled you anew. The only thing you didn’t expect is for his almost unseeming devotion to turn into such a feverish nightmare. Oh, well. Everyone makes mistakes when it comes to things of sick nature. Even you.
Warnings: fem!reader, yandere!Phainon, contains a highly suggestive scene and generally perverse behaviors, not suitable for minors, dependency, toxic relationships, hurt/comfort but also hurt/no comfort, unhealthy jealousy, self-inflicted humiliation acts, emotional manipulation, possibly disturbing descriptions, physical violence || wc: 14k
“Don’t go.”
The scent of approaching summer was characteristic, and it filled up your nostrils with its undeniable freshness.
“Please… I’ll be good, I promise—”
And when that time approaches, a wave of sudden nostalgia always hits you. It makes you reminisce about many things. Memories of the younger you, and how lemonade used to taste when your family was still around to make it the way you were so fond of.
“I’ll be good.”
You don’t think of much else, when the spring wanes.
Why are dogs so loyal to us?, you remember asking your mother one day, curiosity filling up your wide eyes. She’d only bend down to ruffle your hair affectionately, smiling. Her explanation was weird, somewhat, and you didn’t understand much from it at that time. Something about evolution and base instincts. Things your still immature brain couldn’t grasp, as they appeared rather fickle, in your humble opinion.
With that, you never once repeated the question. At some point, it began mattering little to you, and the childish wonder dimmed as years continued to pass.
But one day, your mind seemed to evoke the old query, and so, you threw it into the air without much expectation of a reliable answer.
“Why are dogs loyal to us?” You muttered under your breath, giggling as the rather big mutt with walnut fur stuffed its muzzle into your small palm, wet nose prodding at you playfully.
The boy of ivory hair beside you — your best friend, Phainon — hummed wistfully, shifting a little. He outstretched his hand, scratching behind the dog’s ear.
“I’m not so sure,” he said, a grin growing on his face before he turned to you. “I think it’s because they love us.”
“Love?”
It didn’t seem believable, at least to you. People mistreated their most trusted companions all the time — leaving them behind, harshly scolding, and the like. If you were in a dog’s place, you’d certainly bite at everyone’s hands instead of coyly begging for more pets.
“Yeah.” He nodded, attention returning to your current object of interest, which was now panting slightly due to the high temperature outside. “They’re good things. Better than us, that’s for sure.”
Your eyebrows pinched together. “But why’s that?”
Phainon chuckled meekly, rolling his eyes at your insistent questions. Sometimes you think you must be pestering him too much, though he rarely seems to mind.
“See, for example. This dog is a stray,” the boy curled his fingers beneath the matted fur, hooking them around an old, worn collar. “But once it had a home, I suppose. Its previous owners must’ve abandoned it.”
“It’s been betrayed and wronged.” He continued, tone calm. “Would you still be so docile if someone did that to you?”
A groan left your mouth as you shook your head, not exactly following. “Obviously not!”
“So, dogs must believe in the good nature of humans in spite of everything they experienced. Doesn’t that equal loving us unconditionally?”
You blinked, looking at Phainon as if he just said the most ludicrous thing. But, perhaps, he was right. The boy was three years older than you, and even though the age gap wasn’t so prominent, your mentality was completely different. Phainon was mature, unlike you. He must be telling the truth, then — even if it makes little sense.
“I love dogs, too.” You mumbled quietly, moved against the brave face you always put up in front of him.
He laughed at your reaction, bigger hand rubbing your back. “We can go feed it, if you want.”
At that, you sprung up from your crouching position, excitement stirring in your chest at the prospect of playing with the mutt a little longer.
“Yes, please!”
Phainon patted his thigh, clicking his tongue at the dog to follow. The three of you ran off quickly, jogging through the busy streets of Okhema in search of some meat you could afford with the mere savings in your pocket.
And you thought: dogs must be wonderful animals. To love unconditionally is definitely the highest virtue one could possess amongst the things your Gods created.
You wished to be loved this way, too.
Time passes, that much is obvious to everyone. Phainon and you were glued by the hip for the majority of your childhood days. Upon retrospection, though, these years don’t seem long.
He came to Okhema when he was only twelve. Scarred, angry. The boy didn’t interact with many children, mostly sticking by his revered teachers, nurtured under their careful eyes and tenderness. You didn’t know what happened to him. Rumors dissipated as quickly as they arrived, new theories and twisted words swimming between curious mouths.
Still, you were intrigued. And so, one day, you just talked to him — he was a little detached, but friendly nonetheless. Definitely not your type of crowd, as you preferred to run around with more energetic companions. But he kept with you. And you kept with him.
Before you even knew it, you two became inseparable. Phainon’s lively nature roused when he had someone close to his age to accompany him. He bloomed, horrors of his fairly recent experiences fading a little with you by his side.
You quickly took the reputation of troublemakers, much to your parents’ and Phainon’s caretakers dismay. Climbing trees in places you weren’t allowed to. Jumping into lakes when you were supposed to be at school, and later on running into classes drenched. Even going as far as to pulling at the fruit vendor’s chagrin. He always made funny faces when he was angry, so you and Phainon purposefully messed around his stall. Usually it ended with a long lecture from the adults, but oh well. At that time, regretting anything came hard.
But the summer-sweet dream of innocence and freedom can’t last forever, even for those who are still young.
Phainon was a Chrysos Heir. You knew of it, and the responsibilities dragging along with that title. Perhaps both of you got too caught-up in the whirlwind of carefreeness, because the moment Phainon had to take on more serious training shook you. At least you think so.
You didn’t like it when he got snatched away from you. Days got progressively more boring and lonely — you, left with no one to spend your time with, and Phainon, burdened with his duties.
Bitterness was hard to swallow at first. You felt it every time he suddenly had to get up and jog off with an apologetic look in his bright eyes. You felt it when once again he said he can’t stay with you, and you felt it when your parents scolded you for occupying someone so important.
And slowly but surely, the stitches holding your hips together began to rip.
Then, your best friend was no more.
You saw him in passing, sure. Phainon always waved in your direction, smiles weaker and more tentative. At some point, you stopped waving back. What sense is there in pretending you still care for each other, when the boy you once favored was now but a mere imitation of his past self.
Well, maybe you were dramatic. Certainly, you were. But just like those dogs, you couldn’t help feeling abandoned — the only difference is that you frowned upon the one who wronged you.
So, you had a fall out. A silent one. One sided, probably. You never really tried communicating your feelings with Phainon, because, honestly, he must have had better worries than your whining.
He stopped waving too, and it irritated you, but it’s not like you didn’t stop it first. That’s fair, you tried convincing yourself. And your dismay toward him dissolved with years, for adults shouldn’t hold grudges over feeble stuff of their childhood days.
You didn’t see him much after that. Phainon was an extremely popular Chrysos Heir, serving as the bastion of hope for the people of Okhema in these dark times. It was weird, taking that into consideration. After all, the man must have been strolling around the streets all the time.
Still, something in your heart told you otherwise. Perhaps it’s only natural. That’s how life works — once fate decides your story with a certain person is over, you wouldn’t see them anymore. Only a handful of times did you manage to spot the flurry of white hair, standing taller than the rest of the citizens. In your periphery, the elegant garments appeared distant. Phainon’s voice rang across the road from time to time, and a naive part of you thought he was calling your name.
Despite your initial stubbornness, you got over it pretty quickly. You made peace with the fact a long-lost part of your life was now gone, and you had no need to regain it.
It should’ve stayed that way. It really should have.
Months when the world submerges itself in warmth and joy are celebrated in Okhema with fervor. Merry-making is certainly a good way to finally let yourself rest — even for just a few days. Anyway, it’s not like the harvest serves as an excuse to get black-out drunk. Probably.
Yes, probably, because everyone pranced around you like unhinged beasts, wines and other liquors spilling dangerously close to your light-colored attire. No one seems to care about anything. The sun disappeared from the horizon a few hours ago, and the lack of it seemingly wakes some sort of alcoholic haze in citizens.
Personally, you never found any appeal in these festivals. Before both your parents passed, they’d drag you there, feed you food you didn’t want to eat, and force you to clap happily when dancers finished their performance.
But as you think of it now, you’re starting to realize you miss those days. When nothing really mattered, and the colors of the world surrounding you were bright, still. You yearn for the things that won’t return. Isn’t it childish of you?
Maybe the wine you’re currently cradling in your palms did something to your head. You made sure to request it diluted with water, but the concoction was unusually strong in taste nonetheless. It’s possible you got tipsy.
Not that it bothered you, though. You came here just for the drinks, to ease off some strain your mind seemed to possess as of late. Dancing or listening to the cheery tunes wasn’t in your interest. Not really.
Well, maybe at some point it was. Several years ago, when you still had many friends and could allow yourself to drown in the passing celebration of starting summer. Your big group would sprint between the crowds, taking ribbons and waving them around, just like those performers do. Or, you thought with a soft laugh, how you’d steal flowers from the columns. You don’t know why you did that. Perhaps it was just funny to watch all the adults bristle with anger.
You loved life, then. You still love it; not now, but in that memory.
Alas, everything passes. It’d be sweet if things stayed the same, however, all you can do is ache for the idea of it.
The alcohol must’ve really gotten into your bloodstream, because you didn’t even bother lifting your eyes up from the cup of wine. Your morose pondering suddenly got interrupted by something hard falling on the bench, and bumping roughly into your side.
You watched, startled, as your drink jostled and spilled across the table. Then, you looked up to scold whoever was bold enough to quite literally fly into your left, but—
“[Name]?”
Oh, Gods above. You think if your heart could, it’d crawl out through your mouth.
Not him. Anyone but him. He was the last person you wanted to see today, and now you don’t even have the chance to get up and bolt, since you are somewhat squeezed between two people. That grandpa on your right seems equally bewildered, at least.
You cleared your throat, trying not to frown. “Hi… Phainon.”
The man’s eyebrows narrowed together, and truth be told, you expected him to throw something bitter at you. After all, you were the one to start ignoring him. You wouldn’t blame him if he wanted to announce to everyone by the table that you, yes, indeed you — are the one who ditched your already-feeble friendship, and decided you don’t need him.
It’s not like it would be a new revelation, anyway. Elders, so those who you annoyed together, often asked you: where did you lose Phainon?, as if he was actually a part of you. Even that damned fruit vendor sometimes caught you in the middle of your shopping, inquiring why you no longer stuck with the Chrysos Heir.
(So what, old man, you miss how we used to take bites of your wares and flee before you could chase us away with your broom?, Is what you often wanted to ask in return. You never did.)
But, no. Phainon didn’t snap at you, nor did he seem especially annoyed. Quite the opposite. His previously heavy-lidded eyes sprung wide open, and he assessed the wine he made you spill with nearly panicked expression.
“Ah, I am really sorry.” He started, a bit out of breath. “I wasted your drink with my carelessness.”
Now that you looked at him, he did seem a bit drunk. Hair messier than normally. Face flushed, posture slightly hunched.
And — curse your godforsaken thoughts — but he was more handsome than you could recall. Which shouldn’t be very surprising, considering you haven’t seen him from this up close for a rather formidable amount of time, but still. The contours of his face remained boyish, only taking a sharper look. More defined. If not for your inner state of shame, you’d continue to ogle him until sun returns. Maybe then you’d be able to see how it reflected off his bright pupils again.
Before you could even answer, Phainon pushed on. “I’ll go and buy you another one. Again, my apologies.”
He got up with a wobble, and only then you had half the mind to point out how unseeming it was of a Chrysos Heir to get inebriated in public. Fortunately or unfortunately, you kept your mouth shut.
Once Phainon was gone (probably not for long, because even if lines for the drinks are lenghty, everyone will rush him first anyway), the whole table breathed out. No wonder, really. He was one of the most important people in Okhema. Surely, a drunken Heir sitting with commoners to simply gasp out a few words and stammer isn’t a frequent occurrence.
Stiff, you glanced around yourself. The grandpa sitting next to you turned his head slowly, expression flabbergasted. You only let out a heavy sigh in response.
“I’m— I’m sorry, I have to go now. If you’ll excuse me…” You mumbled under your nose, standing up.
Some woman across from you inhaled sharply, slamming her hands down on the table. You jerked up, frightened.
“Why? Lord Phainon goes out of his way to buy you a free drink! Are you out of your mind, girl?!”
“Not only that!” The grandpa quipped, reaching for your wrist. “He could get us all free wine! I presume he isn’t a Lord only in the name!”
All gathered people cheered at the suggestion, even those who didn’t sit at your table. So, you had a whole crowd listening in (and counting on you). How wonderful.
Not to mention, Phainon wasn’t technically rich. Sure, Chrysos Heirs possessed ample amounts of money, but you knew that man. His obsession with antiques took root a long time ago. He was pretty much hellbent on his little hobby, and you were aware of just how cash-consuming it was. That fool probably has a few dimes in his wallet, and they expect him to buy everyone drinks?
Deciding to save Phainon’s honor, you walked off anyway, immediately followed by words of disapproval. Enough with all the alarms and surprises for one day. You’ll go home and rest your weary bones. There’s no point in lingering here any longer — not with all these drunkards and him at your tail.
And as you walked, confident you’ll be left alone for now, someone grabbed your shoulder.
The options on who it might be were somewhat limited, so you didn’t even bother turning your head.
“What do you want?” You forced out, jaw clenching around nothing.
“I— uh.”
Phainon let go, instead stepping in front of you. It always irked you, just how tall he grew up to be. Seriously, what were they feeding him? Three plates of eggs for breakfast, and five servings of fish per dinner? If you didn’t crane up your neck, you’d be forced to stare straight into his breast.
Oh, and it also infuriated you how he had to look down, casting a long shadow over you. Like a damned birch. Maybe you could grab him by the knees and topple over.
His mouth was moving. The man was saying something, hands gesticulating around. You didn’t catch on to his words, all noises suddenly blurring into one nonsensical cacophony.
Wait. Were Phainon’s eyes always this sad?
He must be very lonely, you thought out of the blue, though you don’t know why. He has friends and admirers, flocking to his sides like herded sheep — not once did you see him stand alone. And yet, this undeniable conclusion stirred within you.
Ultimately, nothing touches Phainon. He’s like an otherworldly being, too-bright and too-full to cradle by your heart and call him your best.
Despite everything, it was still a solemn realization.
“…And that’s why I couldn’t buy your drink. Again, I’m truly sorry, [Name].”
Silence.
“[Name]?”
Curses, you didn’t even listen to his blabbing. What was that he said? Something about your drink?
“It’s fine. I’m not in the mood anymore.” You shrugged, kicking at a stray pebble by your feet.
Both of you stood silent for a longer moment. You were acutely aware of the prying looks sent your way, as if trying to deduce whether you were really conversing with him. But that’s the life of big fishes, you supposed. All eyes always set on him.
“You don’t look too happy to see me.”
The way Phainon said it was more depressing than you’d like to admit. Well. In theory, the man was right. You can’t imagine anyone jumping up in joy when meeting their former best friend, who they also had a supposed fall out with.
But then again, deep inside, your old affections burned bright. It’s like your past self woke from a very, very long dream, rousing quickly when spotting their beloved face. Shaking you and commanding to smile at him instead of frowning. You dangled on a weird limbo, truthfully.
Perhaps it was involuntary on your side, but the distant memories of frolicking around with Phainon flooded your brain. Arms hoisting you up in the water when it turned out too deep. Sneaking into dromas’ pens to play with them. How loudly you laughed when he accidentally tripped into mud face-first, fair locks halfway soiled.
And you chuckled. It slipped past your lips so suddenly, you didn’t even register it at first.
Oh, but Gods, the way Phainon’s face brightened up almost knocked the air out from your lungs. Happiness suited him way better than the sulking, and only then you realized just how silly you must’ve looked when laughing under your breath.
He raked his fingers through the tousled fringe, smiling sheepishly. “Why are you giggling?”
His words slurred a little. To your horror, you found it quite endearing.
“I’m sorry. I remembered something funny.” You answered, perhaps with an equal amount of shyness, swatting your hand dismissively.
Phainon hummed at that, nodding his head with slight awkwardness. Another beat of silence passed. You two must have looked like two imbeciles, with the way you stood, motionless, and stared into each other’s eyes. Surprisingly, no one stepped close to you. Huh. Maybe everyone thought their darling Chrysos Heir had a romantic encounter, and dared not interrupt it. Laughable, really.
(Imagining yourself as a potential object of rumors was indeed dreadful, though at the same time, you found yourself uncaring. Actually, maybe you’d like that?)
(No. Honestly, what is wrong with you? You don’t need a scandal on your shoulders.)
“You haven’t changed much.” Phainon spoke, interrupting your unwelcomed trail of thoughts. There was fondness laced in his tone. You don’t know what you should make of it.
“Guess I didn’t have a reason to change.” You finally willed the corners of your lips upwards. “I mean… it hasn’t been that long since we stopped talking.”
The man reciprocated your smile, thank Gods. “I know it’ll sound frivolous, but it’s hard to believe we really lost contact.”
His words almost caused you to choke. Obviously, he had every right to call you out. You just didn’t expect it to happen so soon.
And what do you even say to that?
I’m sorry Phainon, but I got mad at you, because you were too busy to indulge my younger self all the time. I suppose it makes sense, no? Normal people don’t have to become warriors, and, don’t get me wrong, I knew you were never exactly normal, but you seemed awfully normal to me! And so, I suppose I let myself get too attached. You broke my poor heart, see, you cruel man?
Yeah, no.
You cleared your throat, suddenly feeling small. “Truthfully, I… didn’t mean for that to happen. But it did. Life moved on.”
There was a hint of something bitter in Phainon’s irises, though it flickered by in quick passing. Instead, he tilted his head to the side, still smiling.
“Life moved on, huh. But you didn’t forget me, did you? Please tell me you at least remember my horrible jokes.”
He was teasing, obviously. Nevertheless, it made you cringe internally at your previous words. You made it sound like moving on was really all that easy. Well, it’s not like you spent years crying, but the fact remains. You were a little hurt.
A chuckle left your lips. “Oh, of course I remember. How could I forget those?”
To your surprise, Phainon’s slightly unsure smile split into a beaming grin. “That’s a relief. I was starting to think I was just some random guy you used to know.”
If it was appropriate, you’d burst out into hysterical bouts of laughter. A random guy? Was he really thinking of himself so lowly? He’s the literal opposite of it — widely respected and adored, Phainon is precious to everyone in Okhema.
At one point in your life, he was precious to you, too. Even though you were no longer on speaking terms, you’d find it hard to repress the memory of somebody so important to you.
“You’re not just some random guy.” You said, itching to smack that seemingly empty head of his.
Phainon looked genuinely taken aback at your words, which confused you further. Hope washed across his face.
“You mean it?” He asked, voice so quiet you barely heard him from above the clamor.
“Sure. You always were…”
Special.
When you trailed off, the man huffed out a short exhale. “Sorry, could you repeat that?”
Honestly, you can’t imagine yourself saying it to him in such a direct manner. You’d much rather slice your tongue off than admit your lingering fondness for him. Maybe it’s weird? He’d certainly deem you a little unwell in the head after mustering up these words. Still, it’s not like you ever fully stomped out Phainon from your life. His name continues to hum in your chest, from time to time. And it’s annoying, sure, but you can’t bring yourself to put out the last candlewick, flickering weakly with the remnants of what once was.
“Nothing, nothing.” You chuckled a bit nervously, taking a single step backwards. “Uh, anyway… I suppose I should go now. It’s getting late. And you, too, could use some rest.”
“W-wait—”
Phainon stumbled in your direction once, as if trying to regress the distance you created. His mouth opened and closed for a good while. He looked like a fish out of the water, gasping desperately.
Finally, after a minute of fidgeting with the stray flap of his cape and eyes flicking around, he choked it out.
“[Name]. I don’t wish to sound insistent, nor do I want you to feel pressured by me. But, uh—” The man paused, mustering up a smile. “Maybe you’d like to hang out… some day.”
You found yourself wanting to smile back, but your lips were already curled upwards, and the ever-present weight on your shoulders lifted by some miracle.
“Sure. Why not.”
In that odd dream you don’t tell anyone about, you and Phainon still sit on marble steps, and something is painfully connecting your sides together — and you thought fate was done with you two, but apparently your beings will remain in a tight tether.
It would be good to laugh with him some more. Of this much you are certain.
There are things in life that you can expect. For example, the shining sun. People on the streets. Children still begging you for spare change so they can purchase some silly toys, not giving up after that one time when you granted their wish.
What really surprised you, though, is just how intense your renewed friendship with Phainon was. That, you did not expect.
It’s not something you thought would take place. Sure, you hung out once — and it was nice, truly, you enjoyed yourself more than you probably should have. But Phainon was a busy man. There’s no way he would dedicate so much of his time to your pitiful self who pretended he didn’t exist.
Well, no. Three days after your first meetup since forever, he called you (because you exchanged numbers) asking to go out with him again. And again. And again…
Days blurred into weeks, and now it’s been eight months. Phainon has been really sweet to you, and you couldn’t help but fall into some sort of a rhythm. It was different from what you remembered of your childhood days, but hey. Both of you are adults now, it’s only logical. Still, it doesn’t change the fact that Phainon's presence brought you joy.
Sometimes he was a little overbearing, though.
You ran out of pomegranates? Half an hour after you complained about it to him, Phainon was already at your door with a basket full of your desired fruit. And they were very high quality, no less. He stood in the threshold like an over-grown, over-excited puppy, swearing it was really no problem for him.
Your sink broke? Oh, [Name], why waste your money on the plumber when I can help you?, is what he said in response. The same day, he was on it. You remember hovering in the kitchen awkwardly as Phainon shifted underneath that damned sink, his long legs kicking up in frustration. He obviously had no clue what he was doing. Turns out a mere tutorial he watched on his teleslate prior wouldn’t be sufficient enough, but somehow, he ended up fixing it. Only two hours of struggle. Easy-peasy.
You needed some more ornaments for your humble abode? Phainon gave you half of the antiques he had. No questions asked. When you refused, he refused your refusal. And then pushed even more intricate decorations into your arms.
There was even that one time when he offered to commission a double portrait. Which, sure, was incredibly kind — but those were beyond expensive. There was no way you could afford it. What Phainon said to that? I’d fancy your face mounted upon my wall. The price doesn’t matter!
Seriously, some of the things he did made your heart flutter. The other half stunned you.
Not to mention, Phainon was so, so good to you. His unfaltering benevolence never failed to touch your heart — but it made you wonder, too. You’d never be this warm toward someone who turned their back on you for several years, acting like you were completely unimportant. No. Actually, you wouldn’t even want to talk with them.
Sometimes you genuinely think he has no self respect. Which is certainly weird, for Phainon is a revered Chrysos Heir with a reputation exceeding yours at least a million times. No matter how much you wish against judging the man, it’s simply impossible.
Not when — even though you reconnected only eight months ago — he already looks ready to fall on one knee. It scares you a little. Perhaps you’re bold for thinking that, but at the same time, you’re not blind, nor oblivious. Phainon doesn’t even try to hide just how hung-up he is on you.
(Maybe it’s somewhat pathetic. The reverential look in his eyes never repulsed you, but it was unreasonable.)
Anyway, a selfish part of you enjoyed all the attention Phainon was smothering you with, and so, you never tried putting an end to this charade. It made you feel better about yourself. Some time ago, you desperately clung to memories of the past — and now, you had its part sitting obediently in the palm of your hand.
Phainon was your friend. And you were happy with how things stood, even if you weren’t as… enthusiastic as him.
Today was cold, for a change. It’s a little unusual for Okhema to drown in such a low temperature, even if the season is far from summer. The Holy City was warm — hence why you were so surprised to wake with cold feet, and a tremble in your legs.
No matter. You continued on as you always did. Get ready, make breakfast, complete your chores.
Still, for whatever reason, you felt as if you were forgetting about something. That feeling dragged on behind for the better part of the day, and you probably wouldn’t know what it was, if not for a certain someone who came to visit you.
“Happy birthday, [Name]!”
You blinked twice, not understanding what was going on. Then, it hit you. It was your birthday today — how could you have forgotten?
Upon seeing your stupor, Phainon stepped in, swiftly closing the door. He sent you an amused smile, one eyebrow raising when you still didn’t respond.
At that, you finally snapped out of it. “Oh… Gods, I completely forgot… And I can’t believe you actually remembered.” You muttered, a little abashed.
The man merely shrugged, holding out a neatly packaged box. “Of course I wouldn’t forget. How could I?” Phainon chuckled, pushing the gift closer so you’d finally take it.
Truth be told, the last time Phainon gave you any sort of birthday wishes was about five years ago. They were kept short and spoken without much commitment, but still.
And now, you were met with his grinning face, hands expectantly flexing around the gift he brought you — because, apparently, he still somehow remembered. You felt a little bad. When is his birthday? That, you aren’t so sure of. Alright, you can remember the month, but the exact day? It’s a whole different story.
With a short exhale, you took the package. “You didn’t have to bring me anything, really.”
“Don’t say that before you open it.” Phainon remarked playfully, intent gaze boring into you.
The man practically vibrated with excitement. His bright eyes flickered between your fingers and facial expression, taking in every slightest detail, and you thought the gift must be something really funny if he’s acting like that.
When you turned thirteen, Phainon gifted you a toy snake. You hated those things, and when you first saw it, you were convinced it’s real. So, you threw the whole carton box at the boy’s face, accidentally injuring his nose. He laughed anyway. You bristled. Ultimately, you ended up placing the snake in inconspicuous places, watching as people jolted away, startled.
And it was hilarious, so perhaps he gave you something similar for the old times sake. Prepared for another stunt, you slowly opened it.
What you saw inside made your smile instantly falter.
It was a necklace — but not a normal one, no. The thing was obviously costly, with an intricate design and some stones, indicating just how expensive it must have been.
Shocked, you gently touched it, feeling at the glided material. Why would Phainon buy you something so expensive? It’s not like you asked for it. Hell, you would never request such a lavish gift from your friend, because, honestly, wasn’t he broke?
“I’m— Wow. Phainon, I really…” You choked out, eyes still focused on the necklace.
“You don’t like it?” Phainon immediately responded, and when you looked at him, he seemed a bit distraught. “No worries, just say so. I’ll go and return it. Actually, you can go with me, and we’ll pick out one to your liking.”
“No, I—”
“I understand, [Name], you don’t have to pretend. Lady Aglaea always says my taste in fashion is lacking. Well, I spent about six hours debating on the best necklace for you, after all, I didn’t want you to be disappointed — which I guess you are, but that’s alright. I’ll go buy you a better one, just—”
“Phainon!” You shouted, cutting his logorrhea off.
He stopped, mouth agape. The undeniable twitch of his lower lip made you cringe internally, and you wondered whether he was really so desperate to please you. Anyway, it’s not like you said you didn’t like the gift.
With a sigh, you took Phainon’s hand, causing him to immediately curl his fingers around yours. “I love it. But you shouldn’t have.”
“Shouldn’t have?” He parroted, somewhat breathless. “Come on. If anyone deserves nice things, it’s you.”
The compliment made you break into a small smile, which probably caused Phainon relief, for he returned it without missing a beat.
“Still,” you continued, schooling your tone into a gentle one, “it must’ve cost a fortune. I don’t know what to say…”
“Say you’ll wear it. That’s all I want.”
You bit on your lower lip, feeling overwhelmed by how intensely Phainon assessed your face. You tugged your hand away, willing yourself to keep on smiling under the fierce twins of blue.
“Alright. I’ll wear it sometime. Thank you, it really is lovely.”
Your friend nodded, stepping back. And you talked for quite some time before he announced that he finally needed to go, which made you exhale a breath you didn’t know you were holding.
(The necklace Phainon gave you was certainly beautiful, but you hid it in a drawer — deep inside, covered by cloth and old trinkets meant to be forgotten. You never looked at it again.)
It’s been quite some time since you last saw Phainon.
Of course, the man has his duties as a Chrysos Heir. It wasn’t surprising when he couldn’t meet up with you, and you understood the reasons why better than anyone.
Perhaps a few years back, you’d be trembling with irritation and sadness. Now, however, it mattered little. The fact didn’t bother you much, and you were fine with being by yourself, even if the days dragged.
It’s not like you didn’t see him at all, anyway. Phainon often caught you on the street, smiling and peeking over your shoulder to see what things you wanted to buy. When the fruit vendor saw you together, assessing his wares, he almost choked. You belatedly realized it was the same man you and Phainon used to torment on a daily basis, and before you knew it, you were crushed under the onslaught of questions.
Oh, I see my favorite pair is back together! Truly, how curious. And I thought you two fought? Well, of course, my apologies— his eyes flickered nervously over to Phainon —I meant not to pry. I didn’t, not actually, but, you see, when you’re practically bullied by goddamn children everyday, it sticks with you. So I was quite surprised when one day, you just stopped. What happened? Did you reconcile? Or maybe you never argued in the first place, and simply decided to keep it… more private? If you know what I mean! And then, he exploded into loud cackling.
Ah, well. If you could, you’d immediately crumble into dust on the spot. But it’s not like you possessed such a skill, so you kept on nodding, smiling stiffly when both of the men continued to talk. Also, you managed to notice that Phainon’s arm snaked around your shoulders. With how hot and awkward you felt, you had half the mind to push him away. You didn’t, though. He’d probably start whining and trailing behind like a mistreated dog. That was the last thing you needed.
Anyway, it would seem your absence in Phainon’s life bothered him much more than you thought initially. It didn’t take long before he invited you over, insisting he needed to see you. And who are you to refuse?
“Thank you for the cakes. They were really good.” You smiled, crumbling the napkin in your hands before aiming it into the trash can. Miraculously, it actually scored.
Phainon merely nodded, muttering no problem, and trying to copy what you did earlier. His own napkin missed by a few centimeters.
A giggle escaped your lips when the man groaned, slumping back into the couch with a resigned smile.
“You’re hopeless.” You said humorously, shifting in your place. “Well, anyway. I think I should be going now. It’s getting late.”
That much was true. When you got to Phainon’s house, you expected to stay for two hours maximum. After all, he certainly had a multitude of duties on his shoulders. Instead, he occupied you with pastries — even at some point running to the bakery to buy more — and only shrugged when you told him to lay back.
Then, he continued to grace you with amusing stories. And you have to admit, they were entertaining, but after another in-depth description of his ‘competitions’ with Mydeimos, you started to feel somewhat sleepy. There’s only so much you can bear, and it quickly got boring.
When he noticed you nodding off, Phainon immediately shook your arm, saying he ordered new tea blends. So, you spent another hour tasting and rating them. Which was… fine.
But now that he heard your words, Phainon almost spilled out his drink. He put the cup down quickly, turning to face you.
“So soon?” The man practically gasped, wide-eyed. “[Name], you cannot be serious. I still didn’t tell you about—“
Whatever he began babbling about dissipated within the chamber of your mind, because you couldn’t bring yourself to listen. Not when the slight darkness of the room encompassed Phainon’s face in the worst way.
He looked awfully exhausted.
Honestly, you don’t know how it slipped past your radar earlier, but the shadows underneath blue eyes were overly-prominent. Hair a little tangled. Lips chapped, as if he had nothing to drink for the past few days. His hands shook — not to the point where it was noticeable, but they still did.
Seeing Phainon like that was concerning, and it made your heart clench with the need to ask about his well-being. The man always cared deeply about others. So why did everyone, including yourself, decide to turn a blind eye on his internal troubles?
“You look tired.”
Once the words fell from your mouth, interrupting Phainon’s ramble, he blinked in confusion.
“Do I?”
“Yeah.” You nodded, hands folding on your lap. “What’s wrong?”
Phainon sighed, as if not knowing what to say. He ran his fingers through his locks, wincing when they caught on a particularly troublesome knot.
And the corners of his lips lifted, like he was ready to dismiss you, but your firm gaze must’ve rendered him weak. Soon his shoulders hunched down, all the bravado slowly dissipating.
“I guess it’s just my duties. As an Heir, I mean.” Phainon muttered, eyes avoiding yours. “It… wears me out, [Name].”
You nodded patiently, allowing the man to continue. It was obvious he needed to get something off his chest, and since you were here, he might as well do it now.
“I know the burden I carry is meant to be great. It always has been. But lately, it’s just too much for me. Everyone expects me to be perfect, which I can’t blame them for, obviously.”
“Then again, aren’t I just a fickle human? Like the rest of those who set their eyes on me, and pray that the Deliverer of Okhema will miraculously solve all their woes.”
“I mean… I do understand just how much stronger I am than the rest. Therefore, I also understand where all of this is stemming from.”
Phainon’s breath shuddered, and you were halfway convinced he might start weeping on the spot. He then grabbed you by the shoulders, touch surprisingly desperate, and leaned closer in.
The crack in his expression was undeniable; like a mixture of genuine misery and resignation. For some reason, it made your stomach churn.
“But everything is slipping through my fingers.” He rasped, eyebrows tightly knitting together. “And you know what scares me the most?”
You tried not to wince from how roughly he was squeezing you. Still, you put on a brave face, even though a multitude of questions and confusion swirled in your mind. It was unsettling, seeing him in such a state.
This confession caused you to almost gasp. Almost. You just stared at him, dumbfounded, trying to process what you just heard. So, at the end of the day, it all circles back to you? All of Phainon’s worries and fears — they connect to his duties, but ultimately, it’s just you.
And it was hard to understand. Sure, you’ve been childhood friends, and sure, you renewed your contact some time ago. You can confidently say that in the end, you’d do it all again, because Phainon is your best friend. At least you think so. But how can it explain the vivid devotion dancing in his eyes?
The fact you can’t look at him with the same amount of emotion made you feel bad.
“I promise I won’t.” You said, voice meek.
“But you can’t guarantee that.” Phainon quickly retaliated, joints digging harder into your flesh.
Not knowing what to do, you carefully placed one of your palms on the man’s shoulder, the other one reaching to cradle the back of his head. He stilled a little at the physical contact, expression turning docile.
“Of course I can’t guarantee you that…”
You willed a smile to grow on your lips, gently nudging Phainon to ease himself on your lap. Surprisingly, he had no objections. He simply lied down, big, watery eyes looking up at you as if you were a holy painting.
“Just, please.” He began, tone weak. “Please, stay. I don’t care about anything else, just— don’t leave me.”
There was an uncomfortable ache in your chest as you leaned in, and you realized, solemnly, that Phainon smelled of wild strawberries. A fragrance innocent enough to smother all the suffering dragging along.
And you were aware of what he tried to communicate through these words, for you knew him like the back of your hand. But you didn’t feel the same.
Love is an odd thing. It can’t be described by primitive words, or straight logic. It’s a feeling lodged inside your very heart, deeply, hurting like a splinter you can’t even touch.
Looking at Phainon, you knew of what he harbored within himself. It’d be hard not to, when he’s coddled on your lap, a fully grown man appearing like a mistreated dog that just got its last scrap of meat torn away.
There’s not much you can do in the eyes of such a predicament.
“I’ll stay with you. I’m not leaving anywhere, okay?” You forced yourself to keep smiling, swallowing down the guilt.
Phainon finally smiled back — a weak thing, but a sign of happiness, still. He nodded, turning on his side and pushing himself closer, face pressing against your stomach. Like the action could hide him from all the conflicted feelings and expectations.
The man wrapped one arm around your hips loosely, and he said: you’re hunting me slow, though you don’t understand what he meant by those words, nor do you feel the need to ask.
(You have one memory you’re particularly fond of. Well, when it happened, you were somewhat exasperated — startled? Maybe a mixture of them. But it still rings as something to be cherished, in your mind.)
(When you were barely ten, Phainon thought it would be funny to chase you. He was thirteen at that time, and so, the boy also had longer legs. Catching you was pretty much effortless for him.)
(And once he got dangerously close, your mind screamed at you to lose him, else you’d fall victim to the onslaught of tickling. In a bout of panic, you turned a corner. It was a dead end.)
(The decision you made that day was borne out of desperation. If you didn’t feel like there was a threat at your heels — real or not — you’d make better choices. Because you knew the road you turned into ended within a few meters, and yet, you still thought to bolt there.)
(Similarly, hunted animals must lose their reasoning once it becomes apparent there’s no way out. Or, in some cases, the only solution would be to doom both predator and prey.)
(What path they’ll take on is usually determined during their last moments. The most important question always is: how far cruelty stretches in those innocent eyes?)
Due to your oh-so developed cognitive functions, you were able to pinpoint how stressed Phainon has been as of late. Well. It’s been going on for quite some time now. Not like it’s any surprise anyhow, you know that his duties as the Deliverer are beyond anyone’s comprehension. Any normal person would crumble under the pressure within a span of a few days.
So, you, being a good friend, decided to hang out with Phainon. It was your idea this time — because he’s usually the one to initiate your meetings — and you were eager to bring him at least a bit of entertainment.
What graced your mind at the beginning was going out to a restaurant. But then you remembered how it ended last time, with Phainon chatting you up and barely touching his food. Next, you thought of the Garden of Life. Of course, this option wasn’t the most ideal either. The space was filled with people, and you knew how they enjoyed flocking to Phainon’s side.
Ultimately, you decided on the dromas’ pen. It was simple, but the lovable creatures were kind of therapeutic, so maybe it’d provide him some peace of heart.
And Phainon seemed terribly excited to go there. You don’t remember him ever being such a big fan of dromas, but upon hearing your proposal, he immediately grabbed your hand, fingers tightly clenching around yours.
Slightly abashed, you tugged your joint out of his grasp — because, what if people think there’s something more between you? You can’t have that. Obviously, Phainon got sulky, and you had to offer him your arm instead. He took it, pressing himself into your side as if you were conjoined by hips, leaning down with a smile as he continued to babble on and on.
The fact Phainon was clingy was nothing new to you, though you wondered just how far his affections could stretch. You didn’t see him attaching himself to any other of his friends. But alright. You could bear it.
(Maybe dromases weren’t the attraction he was seeking out, after all.)
“Aww, look at this big guy.” You cooed, reaching to nuzzle the creature’s nose.
It made a deep sound of satisfaction in response, stuffing its large head against your tiny-looking (at least in comparison) palm, as if asking for more pets. Phainon stood beside, patting the dromas’ leg.
“They’re quite sweet, aren’t they?” He hummed, handing out another piece of food.
The animal quickly snatched it from his hand, giving an unexpected lick to Phainon’s face. Well, at least you think it tried to, but its big tongue swiped across the entirety of his head. A loud laugh left you as you observed the man’s expression twist in dismay — the drool made the side of his hair stick up, and at some point you had to wipe off tears from cackling so hard.
Phainon chuckled a little under his breath too, but mostly just blushed in embarrassment, quickly trying to get rid of the dromas’ slobber with a napkin. You decided to help the poor thing, wiping him with your own handkerchief and adjusting the tousled locks.
And as you attempted to make Phainon’s hairstyle look somewhat presentable, one of the caretakers strolled over to your pair.
“Oh, Lord Phainon! It’s been so long since we’ve had you here.”
Your eyes flicked over to a man of rather old age, nursing a basket close to his chest, and a rake in his free hand. Truthfully, you hoped no one would bother you today.
“Yes, I know. I’d visit, were I not so busy all the time.” Phainon smiled politely in response, stepping back when the dromas continued to nudge at him, nipping at the two strands of hair stemming from the top of his head.
“And who that might be?”
Two pairs of eyes locked on you, making you immediately school a kind expression. You meant not to frown earlier, but controlling the whims of your eyebrows and mouth always came quite hard.
“I’m—“
“Ah, [Name]?” Phainon cut into your sentence, draping an arm around your shoulders. “She’s my significant other. Isn’t she precious?”
The forced smile on your lips faltered, and for a good second, you were sure you heard that wrong.
But no. When you looked at Phainon, completely disoriented, he merely tightened his hold on you. Your mind screamed at you, signifying something was so obviously wrong, and yet all you could do was stand there like a statue. Why did he call you that? Was he really so detached? Or sick?
Phainon was a little confused, you tried to reason with yourself desperately. You know that, and you remember how distressed he was when you spoke with him not so long ago. The human mind can undergo significant psychological strain when subjected to pressure, especially in environments where the stakes are high. And the man was crushed underneath the burdens at all times.
Maybe one of them — be it aiding everyone, or countless hours spent risking his life — finally caused his psyche to crash. He formulated a delusion to help him keep afloat; so, in his thoughts, you are in a relationship. At least that’s what you can deduce.
Still, that doesn’t really explain anything. Sure, Phainon was troubled, but it’s not an excuse to say untruthful things about you. And while you wished to serve as his anchor, the image of him abusing that privilege caused your bones to stiffen with a frigid, uncanny feeling.
“…Excuse me?”
The caretaker glanced between you two, perhaps a little consternated by your cold tone of voice.
“Oh, in that case, congratulations.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “It’s good to see young people in love, especially in such terrible times.”
“I am not his girlfriend!” You cut in, real nerves starting to gnaw at your stomach.
When you attempted to wriggle away from Phainon’s hold, he hardened it, the sensation smothering. Your eyes flickered over to him, almost panicked, but he wasn’t even looking at you.
“My apologies.” Phainon said, tone still eerily polite. “She’s just a little shy, you see.”
You bristled internally, trying not to snap at him in public. It was awful. Absolutely, unimaginably awful. Against your need to simply stomp on Phainon’s boot and shake him off, you stood there, still somewhat unable to process what was going on.
The other man, seeing how tense the atmosphere got, exchanged a few words with Phainon before finally departing. You could see the confusion on his face as he turned, holding on the rakes a bit too tight. Even the dromases stopped bothering you. Everything seemed to hold its breath in, pausing, like the world itself couldn’t grasp what just unfolded.
And when the moment of silence passed, you immediately pushed him away.
“The hell was that?” You seethed, taking a few steps back to create a respectable distance.
Phainon’s eyebrows narrowed. He bit on his lower lip, and some vivid distress passed through his irises, though you ignored it rather pointedly.
“[Name], I don't understand.” He spoke, hand reaching out in your direction. You swatted at it harshly. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong?” You echoed, barking out a ridiculed laugh. “You’re telling people something that’s not true! Do you realize how humiliating this is?”
When your friend’s expression fell, you were close to feeling guilty. Maybe you should be the bigger person here and calmly explain that lying about things of such nature is not in your range of tolerance. But you were just a human, and the irritation successfully clouded your better judgement.
“Wait— don’t be mad. I just… I thought it’d make you happy to see that people know how close we are.”
You took another step backwards, almost bumping into the trough. Strong wind started to rush by, causing hair to fly into your mouth, and carrying an unpleasant smell coming from somewhere. The need to puke was overwhelming.
“No. This isn’t closeness.” You retaliated, joints trembling. “And we’ve never established anything, so I suppose you simply made it up.”
Phainon’s fringe obscured his eyes, and he made quick work of pushing it back, as if losing sight of you for even a second was already too much. His eyes flickered nervously, one hand stopping in his locks to tug at them.
It was obvious he was starting to lose his ground. The man’s chest heaved, all remnants of composure fading when you turned on your heel to walk off, already fed up.
“I didn’t mean to upset you!” Phainon called. “I just— I just wanted everyone to see what I see!”
You didn’t look back. “Then you don’t really see me at all!”
He made no move to run after you. His feet remained planted into the ground as you left the dromas’ pen, and you were thankful for the small mercy.
Still, even though you were angered beyond belief, your conscience berated you for treating Phainon so coldly. He was your friend. Yes, he did say something upsetting, but it’s not like it was unforgivable. While you felt betrayed, he must’ve felt this way, too. At least you think so.
No matter how hard you tried convincing yourself that he was in the wrong, and not you, it wasn’t working. Phainon’s face — the younger version of himself — crept into your mind. You remember how genuinely cheerful he used to be. Not innocent, not anymore, but pure in the way he kept by your side.
The visage of you two, crouching on the pavement together and talking in hushed voices, obscured the need to stay angry. Because Phainon was your friend. Your best one. Harboring odium toward such a miserable soul wouldn’t bring you any satisfaction, nor relief.
You’ll give him some space. And when enough time passes, you’ll return to him, and resolve everything. For now, though, you’ll keep your distance. It’ll be better this way.
Is a week, so seven days, a long time? Perhaps not. Not for you, at least, but for others it may be different.
This is exactly the reason why your teleslate was blowing up, constantly, without any break. When another message from Phainon popped on the screen, you thought to simply throw the thing into trash.
At first, it started out inconspicuously. One text in the morning, one in the evening. You could tolerate that. Then, the calling. Every single time, you pressed the red button, fuming at how shameless Phainon must’ve been to keep on tormenting you this way.
Then, it changed into genuine flood. As things stood, you could see over ninety nine messages sitting impatiently in your inbox, their count going up and up. Estimating their amount wasn’t hard, for you got about two per hour. Well, more or less. Sometimes your teleslate wouldn’t stop pinging with the insistent onslaught, and you had to put it in another room, else you’d go crazy with the repetitive sound of notifications.
You didn’t understand. Curses, you didn’t even want to. Truly, what made you so significant for Phainon to bother you restlessly? Didn’t he have a life? Imagining his coworkers having to put up with him, nose-deep into the screen of his teleslate was somewhat ludicrous. Mydei must’ve been livid. What if instead of sparring with him, Phainon was sitting aimlessly on the training grounds, constantly chiming: just one second, before typing you another message? You don’t want to feel guilty, but you can’t help it.
And honestly, you thought to talk to Phainon sooner. Three or four days of no contact would’ve been sufficient, just enough to gather your scattered feelings and mold them into a sensible conclusion. However, your pettiness didn’t allow you.
Not when he kept on being such a nuisance. Seriously, at some point your poor teleslate began to lag with the sheer amount of incoming messages and calls. So, there was only one logical thing left to do: leave Phainon hanging.
There were times when you simply couldn’t meet, but usually, you resolved it by seeing each other on the street. A routine of normalcy. Him running up to you, and you pausing whatever you were doing to indulge the man. Short small talk here and there, but both of you were sated.
Now you avoided Phainon like wildfire. Whenever you left your house, pointedly ignoring the stacked bouquets with I’m sorry, please take me in! written down on the attached cards, you took lengthy precautions to miss the familiar face.
Truth be told, it was miraculous that he somehow didn’t catch you. With how hellbent Phainon seemed on regaining your favor, it was weird he wasn’t constantly seeking you out as well. Still, he had his duties, and for that you were grateful, because apparently they blocked his path of bothering you even in real life.
Anyway, on the seventh day, the texting stopped. You were prepared to wake up to an already buzzing teleslate, though all you were met with was radio silence.
While you were happy Phainon finally gave it a rest, something about it unsettled you. The obsessive flood of messages suddenly disappearing was odd — not like you cared, not in particular. But the fact remained.
(Before you moved closer to the center of Okhema, you and your parents lived in a more desolate area. Fields stretched endlessly, covered with the lush greenery and winding paths.)
(You remember standing at the edge of the meadow, hands still damp from drawing water from the river. The air was restless all day, tossing leaves and dust into a whirlpool of spirals, rattling windows and loose bells attached to your fences. But then, the wind dropped. Even the sparrows, so insolent with their chatter, seemingly vanished into the overcast sky.)
(Nothing. It was as if some greater being held their very breath, silencing everything. Not a rustle of the trees, or the faintest buzz of insects. Even your own heartbeat felt too loud.)
(Somewhere between the hills, there must’ve been a movement. The kind that leaves you frozen, like a child, lost amidst the woods. You could almost feel it pressing against the horizon, waiting for the right moment to spill and engulf all with its claws of deliberate fear.)
(The storm came soon after.)
It was late. You don’t know the exact hour, but the weariness in your bones indicated it. Around midnight, perhaps. It mattered little, for your disturbed rest caused a bigger problem than assessing the time.
Since Phainon decided to stop filling your teleslate’s inbox with messages, you thought to sleep with it next to your head. It was a bad habit, you knew of it. Still, the sense of having some sort of a communication device close was soothing. If anything happened, you could make quick work of calling for help.
But, as it turns out, you might have overestimated your friend’s resolve. There was one ping. Then another. Before you even roused fully, your teleslate began ringing, filling your ears with the annoyingly cheerful tune.
At first, your instinct was to throw it out of the window. A foolish act, but to your halfway asleep mind, it was utterly reasonable. You could just grab it from the grass patch in the morning, and you’d get a good night's sleep.
Alas, some reason dawned upon your dazed state. Why would Phainon call you this late? Sure, he seemed to love doing this whenever given the chance, but never did he ring you during the night. What if he needed your help? You fought recently, but it didn’t mean you’d leave him in the times of need.
Against your frustration, you swatted your hand around, finally grabbing the teleslate. Once you opened your eyes, you got temporarily blinded by the bright screen, having to squint. Without any further ado, you picked up, wanting to get over with it.
“Hello?”
“[Name].” Phainon said, somewhat breathless. The sound of his voice came out slightly muffled. “Oh, I’m so glad you picked up… Did I wake you?”
You have to admit, deep inside, you might have missed hearing him talk. Still, there was an undeniable tension threaded through his tone, which caused you to wonder. Was he feeling unwell?
“It’s late. Is something wrong?”
The man let out a strained laugh. “No… I just— I just wanted to hear you.”
Truthfully, you expected him to drown you in an onslaught of queries and maybe even insults. That’s what you’d do, at least. Putting yourself in his shoes was kind of hard, but you can imagine how distressed Phainon must’ve been for the past week. The fact he didn’t even try to question your constant ignoring was odd.
And why did he even want to hear you?
“At this hour?” You asked quietly, reaching to rub your eyes.
There was a rustle coming from your teleslate. Soft, irregular. It made you wince.
“Yeah. Just… talk to me. Please?”
Phainon’s pleading caused you to sigh, giving in. “What do you want me to say?”
A long pause stretched between you before Phainon managed to answer, and honestly, you thought he forgot about your existence.
“Anything.” He rasped, breaths uneven. “I don’t care. Your day, your… Whatever. I just need to hear you.”
Your sleep-fogged mind slowly began to sober up as you tried recalling anything interesting. But your days have been a blur of monotony, and it came hard.
“Well, today was busy. Nothing special. It was hot out, though I’m sure you know that.”
He probably aimed to answer, but all that left his throat was a shaky sound. Like an exhale, cut off suddenly without much reason, and followed by a sharp intake of air.
Unease started to overtake your senses.
“Are you okay?” You muttered, tone unsure.
Phainon hummed meekly. “Yeah… Yeah. Keep going.”
“Uh…” You paused, feeling your feet catch on the tangled sheets. His voice sounded so thin, like he was far away from himself, and it stirred something unpleasant in your gut. “The festival’s coming up again soon. It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a year.”
Another laugh. “Mhm… Last year…”
He stopped mid-sentence, causing a rustling, muffled noise to grace your ears once more. Then, he pushed on.
“You looked so beautiful that night,” Phainon whined out. “I think about it a lot, [Name]. About you. Always, always—“
Then, it no longer sounded like he was just innocently talking with you. The way his voice cracked, turning into a prolonged sound might have indicated only a couple of things — and the steadily growing realization was beyond flustering.
An unbearably hot feeling crept onto your whole face, and it was far from pleasant. You gripped your sheets, finger itching over the red button.
“…What are you doing?” You cut into the nonsensical rambling Phainon went on, babbling about whatever bullshit he came up with.
His breath obviously hitched. “Nothing. Only listening. I like hearing you talk— your voice.” He stammered, a little too quickly. “Just… stay with me, alright?”
The words felt like a grip on your chest.
“I’m going to sleep.” You said, attempting to rein in your nerves.
“No,” Phainon forced out shakily. “No, not yet. Please, [Name]. Just a little longer, keep talking, ple—”
Beep, beep, beep.
Wide-eyed, you stared at the screen of your teleslate, lower lip trembling. You simply couldn’t bear it anymore.
It was too much. What Phainon was doing — probably for the entire time while on call with you — was obvious, and in that moment, you wished to close your eyes and pass out.
The fact was abstract. Nothing made sense, and you felt similarly to your younger self, confused when the teacher told you to interpret some painting. You remember looking at the paint strokes, squinting. In your opinion, it looked like nether. Red and black and deep navy melting into one, creating something straight up hellish.
And you let it drag for far too long — all actions have their consequences. Could you really blame Phainon, when at the end of the day, it was you leading him by the nose?
A small voice in the back of your mind told you yes. You can put the blame on him. Perhaps you even should. After all, he was the one acting deluded, so completely different from who he used to be. He was no longer the sweet boy who’d bring sugar for the ants, or carry you on his back whenever you got too tired.
But, who are you trying to fool? Sure, Phainon overstepped what logic there was left between you. The concrete line blurred with each passing day, his own fingers smudging it like chalk.
And you weren’t better, for you were keeping him on that leash of longing, happy with how he’d obediently indulge your every whim. Every want. All the attention and love aimed at you was like fuel. Why you needed it so much was unknown to you — be it your parents passing, or lack of stable interpersonal connections. But you craved it, and the sight of that revered man ready to rip his own veins for you was fulfilling. For you, he hid his strength. For you, he used those God-slaughtering hands in the gentlest way.
You were selfish, and there was something terrible hiding in the darkness of your room. Perhaps a reflection of your tar-like heart. When you squinted hard enough, you could see it grinning back.
Some things aren’t meant to be. It’s as simple as that.
The start of your day was honestly awful. You woke with a headache, pounding at the back of your eyes terribly. When you thought to catch some fresh air, you stepped out, only to see those countless bouquets Phainon left at your doorstep soaked with rain water. Disgruntled, you picked them up, ready to throw into the trash can. Their petals clung to your light-colored stone at the front door, and something released its artificial color, staining everything around. So, not only were you suffering physically, but now you also had to clean up.
And there were also the events of last night. They sat firmly at the bottom of your brain, reminding you of what occurred whenever you tried to focus. At some point you thought to let it go, but then you remembered how distraught you were with everything.
Phainon was a dedicated man, his devotion obscuring any sense. He’d do it again, given the chance. Or commit something even worse. Were you not to confront him about that, you’d leave the gates open wide for his unseeming behaviors. You couldn’t allow it.
In the afternoon, you rushed to his house, knocking feverishly at the door. When no one opened, you rattled them. Frustrated, you deduced he must’ve been away, so you stormed off. People were giving you weird looks. Sure, no one would be bold enough to quite literally bang at the doors of a Chrysos Heir, but it’s not like you’ve suddenly grown two heads!
So, you went there later. Still nothing. You thought to break the window and seat yourself on his couch, but that would probably be too much. Though, you have to admit, Phainon’s expression would’ve been priceless. Oh, if only you could snap a picture of him getting all startled and post it. Petty, yes. But so worth it.
Anyway, you weren’t the one to give up easily. When the sky got darker, you decided to try for the last time. With an already exhausted mind, you left your place once more, legs quickly carrying you over to Phainon’s house.
For what it’s worth, you were clever enough to prepare yourself for the most likely unpleasant encounter — you formulated all conversation starters and possible outcomes, coupling it with what exactly you wanted to communicate. You broke your head over it for the entire day, but perhaps it wasn’t for nothing.
Still, it did little to ease your nervousness. Once you stood at the door, a lump formed in your throat, and you found yourself struggling to gather courage. You willed your knuckles to knock, the sound coming out dull. Upon no response, you tried again and again.
Finally, your stressed mind told you to simply grab the handle and try entering. It’s not like you’re breaking in, right? Knowing Phainon, he’d be overjoyed to see you come in unannounced.
Surprisingly, the door actually opened. Slowly, you invited yourself in, glancing around the space of the vestibule. By the narrow, low bench stood his combat boots, messily thrown to the side. So, he was home, after all.
With another few steps, you went into the corridor, scanning both the living room and kitchen branching off into two separate ways. No sight of the man. Lights were off, and for a second, you almost convinced yourself that Phainon wasn’t even there — but, really, he wouldn’t leave the house barefoot.
Well, there was only one option left. Not caring enough to keep your steps quiet, you mustered up any confidence, trudging over to the bedroom. There was a minimal sound of another person’s footfall, and so, you pushed the door open.
And there he was, in all of his glory. Phainon stood before you, one hand outstretched, as if he was ready to open the door, too. Unsurprisingly, he seemed taken aback by your presence.
The next thing that caught your eye was that portrait you and him commissioned some time ago. You don’t remember Phainon ever mentioning it any further, but it hung proudly above his bed, being the only ornament in the whole room. It appeared uncanny, contrasting with the heavily decorated space outside.
(For a brief second, you wondered if he actually kneels in front of it, like some kind of devotee, and stares at your perfectly recreated face.)
“Oh, [Name].” Phainon breathed, his frozen silhouette snapping into life and stepping aside to let you in. “Goodness, I haven’t seen you in such a long time.”
Seeing him move to encircle his arms around you, you immediately eluded the touch, backing yourself further into the bedroom.
“Don’t.” You murmured, eyebrows narrowing. “We need to talk.”
The man blinked, as if confused. “About what?”
Oh, and now he wanted to play clueless? Phainon could put up an innocent act, you knew of it better than anyone else. Alas, the sharp glint in his eyes always betrayed the feigned facade.
“About everything. All the things that you’ve been doing, all the boundaries you shamelessly breached—”
“For example?” He cut in, tone still guiltless.
The amounts of Phainon’s audacity were genuinely shocking. You gritted your teeth, trying to stick to the scenario you curated earlier.
“I… I know what you’ve been doing on that call with me.”
His expression faltered, just a bit. “I’m not following.”
Irritation came close to your throat, threatening to tug at your vocal cords and let out the most vicious insults known to man, for his defiance angered you, perhaps, more than the act of indulging upon his carnal desires itself. But in the eyes of such a deluded person, words probably mattered little. You could tell him to go to hell, and he’d say he wishes you’d go there with him.
“You’re disgusting.”
Phainon’s lips parted, a genuine flash of hurt passing through his face. He looked around the abnormally empty room, slightly panicked irises ultimately locking back on yours.
“But I wanted—”
“Well, what?” You interrupted harshly. “What did you want to accomplish by—”
“[Name], you do not understand—”
“Did you seriously think I wouldn’t notice? You deem me foolish?”
“No, I— I just needed you, what is so hard to understand about it? I need you, always, because—”
“Stop it! You’re acting like a goddamn child! Only taking, taking—”
“But you felt it too!”
“Me? Feeling whatever nonsense you came up with? Don’t make me—”
“You said you loved me, didn’t you?”
This caused you to pause. The whole conversation didn’t go as planned, and at some point you threw your resolutions out of the window, forgetting about keeping things demure.
And now, Phainon was suggesting you loved him. It wasn’t completely untrue, because you cherished him as a friend, knowing that he would let you look at him however you wanted, and he’d still stay. You just didn’t know it would escalate into such a disagreement.
What consequences are there when you break an already tormented heart? People who went through hell may not be swayed by what surrounds them, for they’ve seen and felt worse. Analogically, they could finally snap. There’s only so much one can bear.
“I never said such a thing.” You retaliated, voice rising again. “How can you treat me with so little respect, when all I did was show you kindness? I’ve never done anything to you! You don’t care about my feelings, you act like I’m some possession to play with!”
“But I do love you!” Phainon said, tone cracking in half. “Do you not see?”
Yes, you could see it clearly enough. The way undeniable devotion filled his sad eyes to the brim, threatening to spill out. But there is a thin line between so-called devotion and obsession, and Phainon seemed to be dancing on its edge for the majority of your rekindled friendship.
And it made you angry. Looking at Phainon with such dismay never crossed your mind up until now. You simply can’t understand him. You can’t. It’s not possible — where did you go wrong? In what place did your foot slip, causing you to tumble into him? What sparked this unwelcome feeling?
Standing in front of this picture, you’ve come to realize that ultimately, you never harbored much compassion for him. There were times when you felt bad, but those moments were shallow. Something you liked to dip your ankles in, relishing in how good of a friend you must’ve been, always caring for his feelings. It was fueled by nostalgia and old affections. This Phainon, however, appeared like a distant concept you’ve dreamt of. Nothing to bother yourself too deeply with. He’ll stay by your side like a loyal mutt anyway, won’t he?
Perhaps, this exact lack of empathy, might have been your greatest mistake and greatest punishment.
“Well, I don’t love you! I never loved you, you hear me?” You snapped, palms landing on his shoulders to give him a rough shove.
And you didn’t expect Phainon to actually sway with your movement, because he was like a boulder in comparison to your frail wrists, but he dropped to one knee. Stunned, or in a bout of sudden weakness. You didn’t know. All you could do was watch him huff in surprise, blue irises fixed on the floor.
Something in him seemed to deflate, as if your words took the oxygen out of his lungs, forcing his breath to hitch in short bursts. Phainon lifted his head slowly, confusion etched deep into his face, like he couldn’t reconcile you standing over him with the version of yourself he had in his mind.
For a second, you thought the man might lunge. But no. He stayed on the ground, one hand splayed against wooden panels, the other hanging loose. Phainon’s eyes frantically traced your face as if he was searching for a line to hold on to — anything to prove you didn’t mean what you said.
Despite everything, you started to feel overexposed. Like you were the one on the floor, and not him. Did you hurt him? You didn’t mean to, no, it was just a shove. Why was he acting like that?
Instinctively, you took a step backwards, followed by another. Before you even knew it, the back of your knees hit the bed frame, causing you to accidentally stumble and drop on the mattress.
As you tried lifting yourself up, Phainon immediately closed the distance between you. On his hands and knees, he crawled impossibly closer, expression despaired — his fingers gripped your exposed calves, nails catching on the flesh uncomfortably. The man held you firmly in place, causing you to panic.
“H-hey, what’re—”
“I’m sorry.” He interrupted, voice breaking. “I’ll never— I didn’t mean—“
You pushed at Phainon, trying to pull back when the sensation of him squeezing your legs became too much. “Let go!”
He shook his head, insistently pressing his forehead to your knees. A dreadful feeling pounded in your heart as you tried to reason what was going on. How did this once respectable person fall so low?
“No— please, please, don’t leave me. I can change. I’ll be what you want. Anything you want.”
“Stop talking like this…!”
“I’m so sorry, I was stupid, I was lonely— I won’t do it again.”
The way Phainon’s nails dug into your body was probably leaving crescent marks behind, and all the words rolling off his tongue like an avalanche caused the air in your lungs to go heavy.
Upon receiving a pained breath from you, the man merely looked up with wide, misty eyes, emotions rimmed at the edges and threatening to overflow. He pressed himself even further, nudging his chin between your knees.
“I love you,” he continued once you didn’t respond, wet lips tracing your skin. “Tell me, [Name]. I’m begging you, just say what to fix.”
You tried kicking, yet it was futile. Phainon ignored how your fingers tangled in his fair locks, yanking aggressively. It was as if he was an unfaltering obstacle, whatever breakage in his mind causing the vision to narrow on one goal. You.
“Are you deaf?” You questioned, though your voice was no longer loud. It faltered, fading off.
Phainon grabbed your hand when you tried swinging it at him, and you couldn’t move it, even if his grip wasn’t overly hard.
In that moment, you understood he didn’t wish to bring you harm — the man could easily hurl you on the floor, knocking you out with an effortless hit. And yet, the more you thrashed, the more distraught his expression got. Like he was already pitying you, though you don’t know the reason why.
“Teach me how to love you better. Please.” Phainon whined pathetically, unconsciously squashing your hand. “Please, let me.”
The action made you groan, and you lifted one of your feet to shove it into his underbelly, but all you got met with was a wall of muscle. There was absolutely no change on his face.
“No— no, what is wrong with you?” You choked out, slowly beginning to grasp just how hopeless your current situation is.
What caused Phainon to slip into such a mental state? What? Was he always like this, secretly demented and masking his crazed self with a docile image? Or maybe it were your words, pushing him over the edge?
Sure, you always thought of him as pathetic. Now you can say that with confidence, ridden of the guilt admitting it would bring you earlier on. Lacking in self respect, treating you like you hung the stars for him. But never did you deem him this far gone.
Your eyes snapped back into focus when the man tugged your hand closer to his lips, hot breath fanning against your joints.
“I’ll do anything for you, [Name].”
To your horror, he actually licked you. Not a kiss, nor anything relatively normal in this already abstract situation. You could clearly feel and see it, the way Phainon lapped at you. A strained sound left your lips as your fingers clenched, like you were ready to claw his very eyes out, but that only granted more access for his tongue.
“You always said how you loved dogs.” He panted, a twitching smile stretching his lips. “Didn’t you?”
Another lick, leaving a stripe of slobber between your fingers.
“I could bark for you,” the man continued, “or I’ll stay quiet. But please, [Name]— please don’t abandon—”
Something snapped in you. You slapped Phainon across the face, hard enough for his head to jerk to the side. The waterfall of his words immediately got cut off by a hitching gasp, and you pushed him off with all your might, backing out towards the door.
He simply crouched there. A red mark bloomed on his face. Your hand itched from the impact.
Phainon never wanted to hurt you. And you weren’t the same. Perhaps that is the most prominent difference between you. Despite all, you weren’t as good. You bite the one that hurts you, and you expose your fangs in a snarl when all he can do is to wish you reciprocated his unconditional love.
You observed his form, the way he just stared at you, wide-eyed and unblinking, as if trying to process what happened. Then, Phainon’s mouth parted, a small breath escaping him. His brows pinched upwards, not in anger, but in something childlike; like the bewilderment that you could ever actually hit him was too much to bear.
Tears started rolling down his cheeks without a warning. Disbelieving, you watched them fall quickly, one after another — and his shoulders hunched down, a feeble whimper slipping away.
A quiet sob filled your ears, but there was no space for pity in your heart. Not when Phainon started getting on his feet, alarm bells ringing in your head, loud with urgency. He moved in a certain way, his posture shifting. And so, you took two steps back before spinning on your heel, and bolting down the corridor.
The hallway felt way too narrow when you ran, and something in your heart told you it was no use. Your feet struck the ground in quick thuds, an awful sting burning at your lungs.
You could sense Phainon behind. He was always exceptional in the way he could control his body, yet now, all that you heard was uneven pounding of someone gaining speed through sheer desperation. Perhaps you were the delusional one, thinking you could lose him.
Genuine fear burst with ugly colors in your chest as you turned the corner, shoulder clumsily catching against some antique vase. The exit doors were so close. Your body practically smashed against them as you tugged at the handle, swinging them open.
Then, Phainon grabbed your wrist, harshly yanking you backwards. A yelp escaped your mouth as you struggled in his hold, trepidation obscuring any logic left within your erratic mind.
No. It simply couldn’t have been happening.
Your head snapped to face him, and you panted, teeth grinding so hard you thought your incisors would crack.
He was breathing heavily as well, face red from all the crying and sprinting after you. In the twins of blue, you swear you saw the reflection of your terrified self, but the gentle gust of wind caused Phainon’s fringe to partially cover them.
“No! Don’t do this!” The man pleaded, tone rising with undeniable panic.
You thrashed ferociously. “Go away, Phainon!”
“You’re all I want!” He cut in, tugging. “You’re all I have!”
“Go away!”
“Please— please! You can’t—”
A scream ripped from your throat, for you hoped that maybe someone would hear the despaired wails, and intervene. Phainon instantly reacted, pressing his palm against your mouth so hard you stumbled into the wall, knees almost giving out.
A shaky exhale left through your nose, and all you could do was heave, trying not to break down.
“Don’t go.”
The air smells like approaching summer.
“Please… I’ll be good, I promise—”
Phainon’s bone-crushing grip, bruising around one of your wrists is beyond painful. Eyes of a beaten animal stare into you, as if begging not to pull the rifle’s trigger.
“I’ll be good.”
And when you’re two meters underground, with worms eating at your brain, they will certainly get visions of him. They will feel how softly his fingers used to cradle you, and hear the sweet sound of his voice. They will experience revelations and horrors beyond their comprehension.
• He's never been subtle about it. If you've been reading too long or looking at something that isn't him, he'll cross the room with those heavy deliberate footsteps, spurs clicking against the floor, and plant himself right in your line of sight. Doesn't say anything at first. Just stands there with his arms crossed over that silver chest plate, hat tipped low, waiting. And when you finally look up he's already grinning, sharp teeth on full display. "Took ya long enough, darlin'."
• Sometimes it's the hat. He'll pull it off, rake his mechanical fingers through that long white hair, and drop it onto your head before you can protest. It's too big. You can't see anything with the brim swallowing your vision and he knows that. That's the point. "There we go," he says. You don't have to see his face to know he's grinning. "Now I got your full attention."
• The man will just pick you up. No warning. One second you're focused on whatever it was you were doing and the next his arms are hooked under your knees and behind your back, lifting you clean off the ground. His grip is solid, mechanical joints whirring soft against you, and he's looking down with that crooked smile like he's already won something. "C'mon now, you've been ignorin' me a whole five minutes. That's about five minutes too long."
• He'll start talking. Loudly. About nothing. Just rambling in that drawl of his about Bart 17 Years or some bounty he's chasing or how the IPC are a bunch of muddle-fudgin' shirtbags, and he keeps going until you finally give in and look at him. The second you do he stops. Grins. "There she is." Like that was the goal all along. It was.
• When he's feeling theatrical about it he'll drop into a crouch right in front of you. Elbows on his knees, chin propped in one hand. That black eye with the targeting reticle fixed on your face, waiting you out even though patience has never been his strong suit. "Y'know," he says, voice low, "I ain't exactly used to bein' ignored. Might hafta start takin' it personal." He won't move until you give him what he wants.
• Or he just shifts his weight from one boot to the other so his spurs clink against the floor. Once. Twice. Keeps doing it until you look over just to make him stop. He tips his hat when you do. Grins but says nothing. Doesn't need to.
• If you're standing somewhere he'll come up behind you and hook his chin over your shoulder, arms loose around your waist. His chest plate presses solid against your back. He doesn't say anything for a while. Just hums, low and content, until you turn your head. And then he's right there. Close. Black bangs falling messy over his right eye. "Well hey there, darlin'," he says. Casual. Like he didn't just spend the last five minutes figuring out how to make you look at him.
Series summary: the meaning of freedom becomes none when you’re of descending wealth. And the value of freedom becomes all when you get forced into an unwanted marriage, shackled to a man against your will.
Or, in other words: upon witnessing a prophetic dream, you decide to rip your honor back by force — killing some beast, after all, cannot be that difficult. Your own betrothed agrees to help.
Series warnings: fem!reader, yandere!Phainon, NSFW elements, MDNI, oral sex + fingering (fem receiving), dubious consent (both of them are drunk during the scene), slight asphyxiation, non-canonical setting, Phainon is reader’s fiancé, arranged marriage, power imbalance, jealousy, manipulation, possessive behaviors, toxicity, misogyny (not described in detail), brief mentions of animal hunting, mentions of death; descriptions of injury, blood and puking; alcohol consumption, physical violence, please do check tags for more || wc: 16.5k
I. A WANT IS NOT A NEED RESERVED FOR HUMAN BEINGS
The beast’s eyes fix on you from its den — even when you stand on the soil’s edge, you can still feel the hotness of its breath lapping at your bare ankles. The beast’s hide would make a comely sight, adorning your father’s hearth with its shade, beautiful and silken, for despite being a wretched creature, it is still just as prepossessing.
If you were to take hold of the beast’s head, cut it clean off, slicing through the strings of meat and tendons, forcing the bones to crack and give, then you’d surely be deemed worthy. As worthy as a man can be, worthier than those surrounding you.
You’d toss the two cornflowers out, no matter if flowers are meant to be cherished. Flesh is for the dogs to eat, your loyal companions, the pets that you’re so fond of, to devour. Gnaw at the ivory, lick the marrow out. Perhaps it is not wise. The beast is evil, not even dogs deserve to be fed that. You’d burn it, then, letting its blood char, its fat to sizzle out into nothing.
And once everyone sees the valor that you carry within your breast, you’ll be set free.
The beast looks at you from its den, still, shrouded by darkness, yet so clear. Your fingers itch to curl around the blade sitting at your hip, though you carry no blades, and your legs yearn to push you forward, into the hollow, yawning maw, into peril and its bared snarl. How easy it would be to slay this beast. How simple it would be to sink the knife in and push it through the padding of its underbelly, to watch it perish in spastic movements.
How utterly, awfully effortless it would be to regain lost dignity and the insouciant life that once was yours.
You take one step, then two. The beast doesn’t seem to be frightened. It cannot be, you think distantly, privately, a quiet realization settling at the back of your mind. With such claws that seem to curve sharper than any weapon, with such fangs that must’ve ripped apart more than just god-forsaken does and bucklings, the beast knows no fear. Yet you walk and walk, feeling as if you’ve no choice.
This must be true, girl, the beast whispers to you, can you see my snout and the coat of mine, light as day? Can you see the release waiting for you, if only you’re willing to show courage? To weather the sting of my teeth and the pain that comes with taking a life?
Beasts — animals — are unable to speak. How is it possible for it to articulate its wicked, barbed words so confidently? Your eyes widen and the hands that grip onto the knife tremble, for it must be a god talking to you, an omen, a warning. A divine being communicating with your pitiable self, trying to aid you. You must be incredibly self-assured to believe that. Somehow, you still do.
Even if you do not understand the beast’s words entirely, it continues, head south, seek me there. Away from all, away from those who may see, by the lakes and caves surrounding fields of tall beargrass — you’ll know when, you’ll know, girl, for you are far smarter and wiser than any eye sees.
And when you defeat me, then you’ll taste the lightness and sweetness of freedom again. Not sooner, not later.
By now, you shuffled your sandaled feet close enough to peer into the beast’s den. And it is large, so, so very large. You wonder how it fits there, into this hole, a cavity etched from an inconspicuous hill of dirt and roots. Trepidation clenches around your hammering heart viciously, you’re terrified by the tongue laving over canines. When looking at your own weak limbs, you cannot help but feel hopeless.
There is no other choice for you. Go on and heed my words forever, lest you be doomed, it says, then lunges forward. Not even a yowl of pain manages to escape your lungs when the beast’s jaws snap closed around your wrists, kicking up your pulse into a wild gallop. You do not see anything else.
Predictably, you did not die, nor were you devoured; but when your eyes shot wide open, a breath of horror catching in your throat, you truly felt dead. Just for that brief second.
Soon enough, you calmed your body down enough to hear the chirping of morning birds outside. The sun did not rise from the window of your modest bedroom, yet its brightness was already there — not irritating as it usually was, no, a gentle warmth spreading over your cheeks, the slope of your nose, soothing your troubled mind. When you looked to your side, you could see clear skies with just a few altocumuli clouds. A row of tall poplars, the distant peaks of mountains.
You sat up, kicking the sheets off. Your head hurt. It was pounding like some sort of a stampede, though the fresh air filling up your room helped, if only just a little. That dream… it was unsettling. Perhaps you were foolish to hope this wasn’t another prophecy to weigh down on your shoulders, but you knew better by now. Humans with enough intelligence always learn from their past experiences. They are capable of understanding that things of certain nature, no matter how problematic those may be, are inevitable.
Such was your current case, it would seem. Frustrated, you raked your fingers through your hair, huffing. You knew it’s no use trying to deny what you saw. Gods seem to regard you with either fondness or contempt, for they always send you visions that leave you more confused than before.
Eight years ago, you had foreseen the impending death of your now late mother — no one believed you, so you didn’t believe yourself either. Just a foolish dream made up by the mind of a foolish girl. She passed, of course, but not a single person who dared laugh in your face thought to reconsider their skepticism.
Then seven years ago, you dreamt of your father’s downfall. The man was not very bright or sharp, lacking in wits that your mother had aided him with when she was still alive. Your mother was clever, your father was not, and the fortune of your family began to steadily lessen and lessen till you were regarded as stripped of your old honors. A single man with no lover, having one daughter and no sons. How pitiful. Again, no one listened. No matter how badly you begged and cried to your father, pleading for him to understand that you were not deceiving him, he continued to ignore you.
And three years ago, you had another prophetic revelation. A message shrouded in a thick veil of your dreams, as they all were, yet somehow clearer and more specific than any of them. You were to be engaged with Hieronymus’ son at the age of twenty. And it just so happened that your financial situation worsened exactly five months ago, having Hieronymus and your father making a simple agreement — that you’ll marry into their family. That time, you didn’t even attempt letting anyone in on your visions. It was of no consequence either way.
Why Hieronymus agreed to this, you had no idea, for you were not affluent and had nothing to offer. Still, it wasn’t like this marriage would condemn his son to failure; perhaps it was even beneficial for him, in some sort of sense or form. Not like it concerned you, though.
Just as you were getting up from the bed, swinging your stiff legs over the edge, you heard that characteristic voice resounding through the house. Slightly too loud, with a jaunty lilt, melodic enough to humble even the most skilled nightingales. At such an early morning, it was near vexatious. A quiet groan left your lips as you dragged your feet towards the wardrobe, utterly resigned, tugging out a simple chiton to change into.
Your head was still pounding. The shake of your hands did not help as you dressed yourself. That ominous beast from your dream was still sitting at the back of your mind, somewhere, thoughts marred by the sight of its terrifying mouth and eyes, and you wanted it so badly to go away, but it just wouldn’t. Nothing ever went according to your wishes anyway and trying to chase it off was for none.
Once you gathered your bearings and exited the bedroom, you were quick to search for your father. Upon reaching the courtyard, you had to pause, though. It was to be expected, you heard them having a dialogue, after all, but interrupting the scene before you felt almost like trespassing. Is it possible to trespass in your own house? Probably not, even if you felt like you were doing it constantly — stranger to the four walls that you were brought up within.
“Have I told you, sir?” Phainon’s broad back was facing you, though you could clearly hear the smile in his voice. “My friend’s goat — Cyrene’s, you must remember her — recently kidded, they have a doeling,”
Fido, Argos and Kydos, your beloved hounds of beautiful furs and graceful, strong backs, kept circling Phainon as if he were a piece of shank meat hanging on a stick. The man simply laughed as they nudged him with their snouts, demanding more pets, and Phainon obliged, briefly leaning down to give their long heads a few affectionate strokes, laughing some more when they licked at his fingers. Argos even went as far as sitting between his legs, tail thumping happily.
Your father’s eyebrow rose, a curious-like expression on his face, “and why’re you telling me this, Phainon?”
Kydos whined rather loudly, nosing at Phainon’s palm. He ignored it, instead folding his arms. “My dear mother came up with the idea, actually. [Name] has been so out of sorts recently, hasn’t she? Perhaps a pleasant companion would lift her spirits, the doeling is very lovely, I have seen for myself. Cyrene said that she would not mind giving it away, if it’s meant to be a gift for my own betrothed.”
Fido was starting to feel impatient, slobber dripping down the dog’s muzzle. The offer almost made you snort, because how could a simple goat allay your internal troubles? Not to mention, those regarded the impending marriage, despite what Phainon might’ve thought.
“Is that so?” Your father chortled, mildly incredulous but definitely amused, “I’m afraid [Name]’s hounds would deal with it before she could even lay her eyes on the poor thing.”
Somehow, Phainon didn’t seem offended. “You must be right, then. But cabrito does taste good, sir, and it’s healthy too. [Name] should only eat healthy things…”
Because that’s exactly how your current reality looks like. Phainon, the son of a high-ranking officer, a member of Okhema’s army himself, was the one who you were engaged with; or rather, literally given out to. Like a present. Like a particularly uninteresting, average hare that someone hunted down and deemed a worthy trophy.
This man has been present in your life since you both were summer-sweet children, though you cannot say for sure that you were ever genuinely close.
There’s a distant, half-faded memory that you think about sometimes. Back when you were only seven and Phainon was nine, before everything went to hell, your families decided to go for a hunting trip in Okhema’s vast forests. Another boy’s family went too — Mydeimos is his name, a quiet child who grew up into a great warrior. You weren’t fond of horseback riding, you still aren’t, but you got dragged along.
And you remember Hieronymus attempting to strike down a fox. When he did not succeed, your father tried too, then finally Eurypon put an end to the animal’s misery. You were children, so such activities mattered little. While the adults gathered together to celebrate their fire-red catch, you snuck off, too occupied with your own small lives.
Phainon found the fox’s den, then he hopped down, goading you and Mydei to come with him. You thought he was being inept. Mydei agreed with you, because he always did, but the boy’s soft heart caved when Phainon sent him those jilted eyes of a mistreated dog. He tumbled down by a faulty step, ankle catching in some root, both him and Phainon falling on their backsides upon the inevitable collision. It looked silly — they barely fit there.
That much was enough to make you laugh. The brighter one, Mydei, only grumbled and complained, calling Phainon names that would get him scolded harshly if your parents were to hear. But Phainon seemed uncaring, extending his scraped hands towards you. [Name], why won’t you come down with me?, he asked. The fox is not here, even if it was I’d protect you, Phainon pleaded, fingers finally catching on your skirts.
One pull was enough to throw you off-balance and have you rolling down clumsily, though you did not want to. You really, really did not want to. Then you cried for the rest of the trip, having everyone coddle and comfort you. You also don’t know why you didn’t step back when you still had the chance to — if you did, then Phainon wouldn’t have grabbed you, he wouldn’t have caused you to fall and bruise your knees. There was a very good chance to avoid the accident.
But that doesn’t matter now, does it?
Finally, your betrothed’s eyes landed on your form — previously occupied with talking your father’s ear off, he didn’t notice your presence. “[Name]!” Phainon cheered, genuinely surprised. “I didn’t notice you standing there. Why didn’t you come up to us and say hello? We’ve been—”
“I know what you’ve been conversing about, Phainon.” A weak smile stretched your lips as you sighed, stepping closer. “And while I appreciate your thoughtfulness, I also have no need for the doeling. Spare Cyrene her poor animal, father’s right.”
The man visibly deflated at your straightforward rejection, yet he was quick to spring back, putting his hands together. “Then perhaps a little rabbit? She has those too, they—”
Your father clapped Phainon on the shoulder, successfully cutting his logorrhea off, and naturally, you were grateful — whenever Phainon started to wag his tongue, it felt like willingly giving yourself up to an avalanche. Still, you couldn’t help but frown. The truth was simple, you weren’t overly keen on your father, the mere sight of his face enough to make breathing harder.
Who gave you away to marriage that you didn’t want for? Who belittled and undermined every single word of warning coming from your mouth? Who caused the downfall of your family? Who was it if not precisely him? Your affections towards your own parent faltered as quickly as the wan, morning sky gave way to azure above your heads. If anything, you’d prefer Phainon to be the only one speaking. Even if he can be a bother, that chatterbox.
“Since [Name] is up, why don’t we discuss things of actual importance by the dining table?” He finally said, causing Phainon to nod his head rather enthusiastically. You continued to frown, the corner of your lips curled. There went your easy morning. Most assuredly, you were naive to believe that you could ever have a second of reprieve in this cursed house.
It didn’t take long for the three of you to sit by the table inside, its surface already adorned with a humble breakfast that would be a true luxury, in case that you were emaciated mares, for the servant that your father vehemently refused to let go of was already senile. Privately, you thought it to be funny. Overzealous persons with too much pride and boast will not resign from one single sign of wealth left, even if it means eating sludge for dinner and silt for supper.
Unsurprisingly, Phainon was already loading his cheeks with said abomination. The engagement band around his ring finger was not necessary, yet he continued to wear it, just like you did, most likely out of sheer politeness, to simply avoid misunderstandings and conflicts, you were certain. Your vision zeroed on the piece of silver, watching it catch the pale light and glint as Phainon gesticulated, moving his hands around, talking about something.
With great effort, you eventually forced your eyes to lift, your brain to focus. Phainon was still speaking, saying, “my mother’s almost done with the dress. I would love to describe how it looks, though I am forbidden from seeing it before the wedding,”
The twins of blue were glued on you — your betrothed was talking to you, of course he was, yet you somehow failed to understand that. When you didn’t answer, creating an air of awkwardness, Phainon’s attention returned to your father. He chuckled stiffly, smile tight. You were too deep in the darkness of your own thoughts to even consider feeling bad.
“And Cyrene’s very busy coming up with flower arrangements for the bouquets.” Another laugh, still a bit dry. “I tell her that she’s doing too much, she says I need to go search for some exotic flower that I have not ever heard of. Well, I did. It’s nowhere to be found, though…”
Fine, at this point maybe you were starting to feel a little bad. Your father appeared to be entranced by the sloppy semolina porridge inside his bowl, only answering with uncommitted grunts; you, on the other hand, didn’t endeavor to answer at all. Phainon was having a conversation with himself.
It wasn’t anything to be surprised by, though. During your betrothal, your fathers agreed that this marriage would be for financial benefits. Obviously, that didn’t sit right with you, still. What benefits were there? For your family, yes, but for Phainon’s? Nevertheless, your father always made sure to indulge the younger man at least a little — humoring his fickle whimsies, ideas of gifting you with goats, rabbits or even ponies so that your hypothetical children would have a mount to play with. Tolerating Phainon’s babbling, his constant visits, constant musings and constant requests to spend time with you.
But your father’s patience was always thin, just like the floss of your chiton’s embroidery. “And what about the gifts?” He queried, visibly straining to keep his tone amiable.
Dishonorable man, you thought almost angrily, he’d like to sell the wedding gifts. No, he really is going to do it. There’s no stopping a desperate fool, not when covetousness already overtook his heart and senses, blinding, muddling, making the gormless parasite even more avaricious.
Phainon replied with something, honest and open as always, apparently enough to keep your father at bay, for he merely nodded in satisfaction, an agreeable smile stretching his lips. You didn’t even try to interject. It was your father’s most favored topic to talk about, something he was physically unable to refuse himself indulging in, imagining the money that he’ll get, the wealth that’ll return to the hold of his crooked fingers.
He was literally going to rob newlyweds and you, his own daughter, were the pass. Perhaps you should be more offended by the prospect of your father disrespecting you and your soon-to-be-husband to the point where he’d take the gifts and sell them — but there was a problem of bigger scale tugging at your psyche.
Selfishly, you wished for your freedom to return. Greedily, you wanted to snatch it back. Childishly, you needed Phainon’s radiant, stupidly handsome face to disappear from your life altogether and leave you alone. No other man’s family would be dense enough to agree to marrying you.
But… maybe not all is lost. You tuned out Phainon’s chatter, your father’s grating words. There was hope — and you haven’t got the chance to think of it properly yet, but the beast still lurking at the back of your head seemed to sneer. When you remembered its claws and fangs, the beast turned amused, its dark lips lifting. It did not look like a smile, though. More like a mean smirk, a snarl, a condescending: so you’ve finally decided to stop being cowardly and take what was given?
Killing the beast wouldn't come easy, even if its promises of glory and honor tempted you to take on the task by yourself. This wretched fiend, where could it be hiding? South, you remembered, a field of beargrass with cave openings littered all around, mountains hugging the area. There was someone who could help. Someone capable of wrestling with the beast’s muscular, large body, of besting its strong paws and snapping jaws.
“Excuse me,” you said suddenly, causing both your father and Phainon to pause. “But I am feeling rather ill. A walk in the fresh air will be enough to fix my state, I’m sure,”
“[Name], you’re unwell?” Phainon fired back just as quickly, standing up when you did, eyes already wide with concern. “Then you mustn’t go on the walk alone, what if something happens? The heat is too much today. You’ll only faint or worse.” He walked up to you without sparing a glance at your father, slightly leaning down to examine your face. The amount of genuine worry there nearly made you pause.
You averted your eyes. “I’ll be fine, Phainon. Stay with father or go home.” It was all you managed to say before pushing past the taller man, accidentally knocking your shoulder against his arm. Phainon barely budged. Then he was being ushered back by your father, who obviously didn’t mind the lack of your presence, insisting that they discuss some money-related details more.
Was it wise to take everything for granted? No, but you and your father were of the same blood, and his desperation seemed to rub off on you. This beast, this animal that has no right to exist, you’ll make sure it sees its end soon enough. If, by the gods’ opinion, that much is going to grant you freedom, then you’ll do it, doesn’t matter what it takes — it could gnaw your limbs away and swallow you whole, at least you’ll die knowing you never gave in to fate’s cruel whims.
Reaching Okhema’s training grounds did take long, for it was a completely different area of the city, with a higher density of citizens, and despite what many people thought, ignorant by their prejudice, this piece of Okhema, occupied mainly by warriors and army, was very welcoming. Colorful, full of camaraderie and connection that others seemed to lack. You rarely visited yet you still loved it, feeling soothed by the lively, fierce nature that dominated over this place.
Then you were looking at him. At the mane of blond-red locks that curled at the ends strikingly — at the handsome musculature he always carried with such feline-like grace. Mydeimos.
You watched him settle the javelin down, both hands reaching to wipe the sweat away from his brow and eyes. The corners of your lips lifted. Against what many thought, Mydei didn’t change much from when he was a little boy. Still the same mannerisms, still the same golden heart. It was uplifting to see someone who stuck with their convictions so deeply, so confidently, without any waver. Mydei’s unorthodox approach remained just as unchanged as the way he shook his hair out, reminding you of a little lion cub that tripped into a puddle.
When the man noticed you smirking from across the training grounds, he frowned. “[Name].”
“Yes?” You couldn’t help the amused expression blooming on your face, eyebrows arching.
As you sashayed closer, Mydei finally sighed, a faint smile softening his sharp features — the slight crinkle of his amber-gold eyes made you just a bit more placid. “I see you’ve decided to visit me. Any particular reason?” He mused, once again attempting to wipe his damp face.
“Who do you take me for, Mydei?” You chuckled, fingers gently flicking the small braid resting over his shoulder. The man didn’t even attempt to bat your hand away. “Perhaps I simply wished to see my old friend. You know, despite being busy, I still do miss you.”
Mydei’s arms crossed over his bare chest. “True, you are busy.” A scoff. “Busy planning the wedding with that imbecile, assuredly. Is he causing you trouble?”
You kissed your teeth, smile waning. Somehow, Mydei had this uncanny ability to pinpoint exactly what kept you awake at night, what caused your stomach to drop and your heart to clench. He was perceptive, especially when it came to you.
“Actually…” you trailed off, tentative of how to approach the topic. This situation as a whole was already ridiculous, and Mydei was known for his no-nonsense attitude; always clear-headed, always the rational one.
Seeing your hesitation, Mydei’s expression hardened. “What? Was I right to suspect that Phainon did something to upset you?”
Phainon upsetting you on purpose was definitely a stretch, for that man seemed to dance around your orbit like some kind of a jester, if only to appease you. Still, there was some truth to it. The fact that you’d have to marry Phainon was your main concern, a thorn stuck in the sole of your foot. A constant ache.
And, if you are correct, there is only one way to deal with that. The dice have been already thrown — maybe it was Janus’ benevolence that allowed you to hold a conversation with that beast in the first place. It could have been Oronyx too, their kind nature letting you see. Cerces, perhaps, was a logical possibility as well, extending their divine wisdom towards you like an olive branch. Who knows? Not like it’s of any significance now. The beast must be slain, that message sent to you through your prophetic dream was clear.
“It’s… not like that,” you lowered your eyes, voice faltering, “I apologize for lying earlier. There is a reason why I came to you, Mydei, and we need to talk. Please.”
You heard the man sigh, his feet slowly starting to shuffle back. “Very well,” was all Mydei said, voice leveled. Then he led you away from the scorching sun, stopping once you reached the marble columns that circled the training grounds. You leaned against one, thankful for the shade provided by the roof supported atop them. “Now, [Name]. Whatever it is that you wish to speak of?”
A shallow, nervous laugh escaped your lips. “Mydei, I’ll be straightforward,” you began, looking into his winsome eyes. “Do you think it is possible for someone like me to escape my current situation?”
For whatever reason, Mydei didn’t appear surprised by your question in the slightest, barely a twitch to his stoic expression. “You don’t want to marry Phainon.” It sounded like a statement.
“I don’t.”
“If you came to me, then you must, at the very least, have a vague idea of what you wish to do in this situation.” A pause. “What is it?”
Mydei didn’t ask why, he didn’t try mocking or jeering at you. It felt almost foreign, at least to you, being treated with such seriousness and respect. Normally your word would be immediately undermined and your intellect belittled, reduced to a jest, to a foolish girl that knows no better. The man before you did no such thing.
“To regain one’s dignity, to gain independence and status… there is a way. A few have done it before, Mydei, and you have to tell me.” You took a shaky breath, feeling that desperation kicking up again, reducing your form to a sweaty, restless wreck. “If I were to kill a beast and bring its head home, would I become someone worthy of freedom?”
Everyone knew of people like you, people who were never lucky nor considered particularly valuable — the same people who wrestled against all odds and won. Those who obtained glory through various acts of bravery and courage.
The man hummed, nodding in consideration. “If the beast was truly formidable, yes. You could be recognized as a warrior and resign from your betrothal.” Mydei’s face softened again, a near unnoticeable shift in the set of his brows. “There are people who’d vouch for you.”
A small breath of relief escaped you, chest warming all over. You smiled, then, thinking that this was a half of success; now came the more tricky part, and though you began to feel confident, there was still a risk that Mydei wouldn’t agree.
Because your plan was very simple. That beast you saw in your dream was intimidating, its large body filling up the den completely. You were smart enough to know that defeating it by yourself would be impossible. Trickery could work, but praying to Zagreus and asking for aid was just as risky as jumping straight into the beast’s liar and attempting to strike its heart.
The truth was that: you are not skilled in anything. Therefore, you’d plead Mydei for help. No one would need to know that he was the one to actually make the kill and it seemed like a very logical option, at least in your opinion.
“And if I asked you to lend me your strength in defeating the beast, would you agree?”
“I would.” His answer came so quickly, so easily, that even you got startled. “But you speak of this hypothetical beast as if it already exists, [Name].”
“Because it’s not hypothetical.”
That caused Mydei to pause and blink, long eyelashes fluttering in mild surprise. His mouth opened and closed before he finally asked, “how are you so certain of this? You must have seen it, then.”
Your clammy hands clenched into fists. “I did. I have seen it in my prophetic dream, it truly was there. A large beast, hiding in its den, spoke to me and… and I know where to search for it. I know, because it wasn’t just a dream, you must understand that it wasn’t—”
“So you’ve had a nightmare and deemed it as truth?” Mydei’s eyebrows drew together, sudden skepticism leaking into his previously calm voice.
By then, all hope evaporated from your heart. Of course you knew he wouldn’t believe you — and you couldn’t even blame Mydei for refusing to, because this was genuinely abstract.
Still, you tried again: “it was no nightmare, and it wasn’t me who judged it as real. There’s… gods, Mydei, you are just as religious as me.”
“Though I do not rely on said gods as much as you do, [Name]. I’d wager that I don’t need them at all.”
Right. After Nikador turned their back on their followers, Mydei had stopped praising any deities altogether. That little detail slipped your mind constantly. It was so easy to cling onto that old memory of you and Mydei, praying by the altar together and burning sacrifice. You weren’t children anymore.
“I…” you stammered, fiddling with your fingers nervously. “So you don’t believe me.”
There was a short, yet loaded beat of silence. Mydei shifted on his feet, you watched his expression turn conflicted. “I wish I could believe you.”
A brittle chuckle ripped from your throat as you shook your head. No one ever put any trust in you, what were you even expecting? Mydei was a busy man. He was an important member of the army, had plenty of political influence — even if he went to hunt with you, he’d kill the first wolf or bear in your path and deem the task done. But the prophecy, that god-sent dream you had, spoke of no bears or wolves. It was a specific beast. One that lived far from here, and it hid itself, away from people, away from any civilization. Leaving Okhema for more than a week wouldn’t be beneficial for Mydei. The trip you’d have to embark on would take longer than just seven days.
“It’s all right.” You finally breathed out your reply, struggling to keep eye contact. Mydei looked visibly remorseful. “I know… I know that my request was selfish. And you’re my friend, Mydei.” With a weak smile, you reached to squeeze the man’s shoulder, feeling the tension sitting there. “How cruel of me it would be to force you into following my foolish lead?”
“You know I’d follow you,” Mydei’s voice went quiet, “but our convictions do not align this time. There is a difference between us now, and you already made up your mind.”
“That’s true.” Your rueful smile weakened even more. You let go of his shoulder slowly, stepping back, eager to finally leave and stop humiliating yourself in front of your friend. “Either way, I’m sorry for taking up your time. Please, if you’ll excuse me now…”
Turning around with a downcast gaze, you only stopped for a brief moment when Mydei spoke again. “I hope that you are going to get to the future where everything will have been worth your struggle, [Name].”
You had no answer for that. And you also knew that you had no choice.
Rain caught you before afternoon. Stupidly, you decided to clear your head and take a walk around Okhema, to think of all the preparations and things you’d need to do. A plan, maybe? You pondered on all these aspects of your journey — because you were quite hellbent on going — then the heavy rain chased you down into some tavern.
Sitting there for the rest of the day, huddled with a dozen other people, certainly wasn’t what you wished to do. Still, your options were limited. You were of poor health, and even a gentle drizzle could cause you illness. No surprise Phainon was so distressed earlier. Anyway, you decided to stay in the tavern and wait the rain out, for you were at least clever enough to avoid risking any sicknesses before your… little trip.
By the time you returned home, it was already night. The walk took you long, and half of the roads you had to take were made out of soil instead of cobblestone. This reduced your sandals to a muddy massacre, dirt clinging everywhere. Your feet were wet from the puddle you accidentally stepped in, water sloshing over your bare ankles and calves, the edges of your long chiton equally ruined.
It felt uncomfortable and you were incredibly tired. Before stepping inside the house, you took off your sandals, padding quietly through the corridors. No one was out to greet you. It was for the better anyway — at least you had free reign, without any obstacles getting in your way.
You have decided to do it yourself. It was both a heavy and easy resolution.
Death may await you there; you were not fit or capable, lacking experience needed for such a job. Perhaps you were unwise to storm away from Mydei like that, uselessly sensitive heart urging you to flee before you’d start weeping. At least you could’ve asked him for some weapon or advice.
Yet at the same time, your shoulders felt lighter, mind relieved and sharper. It could have been the fresh air after rain, it could have been the conviction that no matter what comes, doom or release, you’ll be set free on your own terms.
There was no point in trying to put this whole ordeal away. The closer it gets to your wedding, the more futile it would be to try and do anything on your own. Surely, both Phainon’s family and your father would keep you occupied. So instead of waiting for some ‘miraculous moment’, you were going to elope on your hunting trip today.
Keeping your footsteps light, you first searched for a weapon. A crossbow would be useless, same as any sort of sword or lance — after all, you had absolutely no clue how to use them. Your main tactic of survival relied heavily on running and hiding. With that in mind, you picked up a needle-point knife from one of the drawers. Doesn’t offer much, but it would do.
Then you continued to look around the house, gathering any other necessities like a critter preparing for winter. The traveling bag in your hand was starting to get heavier by the second, and you knew that you’d need to eventually stop packing it full of things. Carrying such weight would only make things unnecessarily harder.
You even thought of taking your hounds with you at some point. That idea was quickly rejected, though, for you wouldn’t risk the lives of your innocent pets just for a tentative chance of safety. So instead of waking the dogs, you finally entered your bedroom.
There wasn’t much else to be done. With a sense of finality in your mind, you took a quick glance at the clock — one hour before midnight. The whole house was so, so very silent. You opened the wardrobe, starting to sort through clothes that you’d need. One garment of thick material to keep you warm and one light to help you cool down during the rapidly approaching summer season. That was enough.
“[Name], what are you doing?”
Heart jumping straight into your throat, you jerked, accidentally letting go of the wardrobe’s doors and letting them slam shut. What the hell was he doing here?
You turned on your heel rapidly, gaze falling on the familiar silhouette of a man standing in the threshold. The full moon was enough to illuminate his face, blue eyes blinking in confusion like a puppy that just got denied his favorite treat. You clutched the clothes in your hands, leveling Phainon with a defensive stare.
“Why are you still in my house?” The question came out harsher than you intended it to, but controlling the tremble in your voice seemed near impossible.
Phainon didn’t appear to be particularly moved by your hostile tone. “It was raining,” he said, “that is, if you haven’t noticed. Which I doubt, looking at the state of your chiton.” The man’s vision focused on your muddy, damp attire, a slightly unamused gleam to his eyes.
When you remained silent, chewing on the inside of your cheek, still benighted, Phainon stepped closer. “Your father was kind enough to let me stay. But you…” your betrothed reached for a single strand of your somewhat tangled hair, “where were you for the entire day? I was so worried — first you say you feel ill, then you disappear.”
The genuinely careworn expression on Phainon’s face and that characteristic, benign voice, caused you to waver. “I needed to speak with someone,” you admitted. “Rain caught me later, so I waited till it stopped in a tavern.”
You let Phainon smooth his palms down your locks, getting the mess on your head under control. The touch was careful, not invasive or pushy, just a gentle motion that nearly lulled you into vulnerability. “Who did you talk to, then?” He asked, tone still affable.
“Mydeimos,” came your answer, and you bit the tip of your tongue belatedly.
But Phainon — sweet-tempered and docile — didn’t get angry at you for speaking with another man alone. At least you don’t think he did. His hands stopped, though there was no major change to his expression. “You mean our Mydei? What for?”
“That’s not of any importance.” You finally gathered your bearings, pushing past Phainon, the clothes still clutched against your breast. “I’d be grateful if you left now.”
Despite your request, the man didn’t move. He continued to examine your form, then turned his body fully to face towards bed. Phainon’s twins of blue locked on the travel bag you put there earlier and you felt your pulse jump in trepidation, throat clenching. Gods, why was everything always going against you?
“What is this?” The man asked, reaching for your stuff.
Without thinking too much, you slapped his hands away, a grimace marring your face. “I’ve told you to leave, haven’t I?” You hissed, attempting to shove Phainon out of your bedroom. Predictably, he hardly budged.
Then he was already grabbing the travel bag, causing you to take a hold of it too, both of you starting to wrestle for it quietly. Neither of you caused a ruckus, waking your father would only bring more trouble. Scandalized, you watched Phainon finally rip it away from your grasp, turning the bag over and spilling its contents out atop the bed.
Before even a gasp could escape your lungs, Phainon was already rummaging through the things there. They were very telling, unfortunately. A knife, a long rope, a map, a compass and a lot of dry food, matches, a blanket, whatever herbs you could find along with dressings. Then the clothes still folded against your chest, and the terrified expression on your face.
The man’s eyes lifted, visibly widened. You blanched. “[Name], you were planning to leave.” Somehow, he didn’t appear mad at all. “What happened that made you so angry with me? That you’d be willing to elope so surreptitiously, without even…”
When your betrothed trailed off, sounding quite betrayed, you suddenly felt the need to deflect, turn the situation around, attempt lying straight through your teeth. But the thing is, you were against deceiving people that have never actually done anything to wrong you, it just didn’t align with your nature. Perhaps such an attitude towards life was utterly naive, for others never backed down when it came to saving their own hide. Alas, you were unlike them.
Phainon was never mean or cruel towards you — quite the opposite. He was tender-hearted and treated you with respect. Maybe he wasn’t as perceptive or as tuned-in with your needs as Mydei was, but it was still obvious that Phainon genuinely tried his best. You did not dislike him.
In another world, a kinder place, you’d be glad to marry such a man. But this was no fairytale. Your reality was much more grim and everything that happened so far was caused by your inability to take control over your own life. Understandably, the prospect of marriage that didn’t come out of your good will was dreadful.
Lying to Phainon was out of the picture. Telling him the truth seemed just as stupid. The man was already confused, your explanation would only knock him sideways and have him condemn you as mentally unwell.
Or… maybe that’s exactly what you need? When Phainon hears your story and understands that you are, very obviously, sick in the head, he’ll get scared and break the engagement himself. Who’d be willing to subject themselves to a life with someone like you by their side?
“Phainon, I’m sorry, but I have never wanted to marry you.” A heavy, long sigh. “And you must know that this is not caused by my disdain toward you, nor anything else, for you are an honorable man. I do enjoy your presence, I do not mind us spending time together.
“Yet… you must also know that all of this goes against my wishes. This betrothal, this whole agreement that our fathers made… ah, I’m not sure if you understand what I’m trying to communicate here. Either way, I am not marrying you willingly. Again, I am sorry for that.”
Perhaps you shouldn’t have dropped so much information all at once, because Phainon did look befuddled. Still, you swallowed nervously, pushing on: “and I’m also aware that you would not break our engagement, if you had it your way. Which, well, you do have… but I know how to end this, I know how to break free by myself, Phainon. I have had a prophetic dream.”
Against your expectations, Phainon didn’t start laughing or calling you insane. “What did you see, then, [Name]?” He asked, tone remotely calm, and that was one of the many things to surprise you.
“A beast.”
“A beast?”
“Yes,” you affirmed, tone steadying just a little, “a beast. It said to defeat it — only then I would regain my honor and independence. Be reckoned with. Obtain a warrior’s title, Mydei told me it’s true. And… I am going to do it. No matter if the beast is large, no matter if you all try to stop me—”
“I’ll help you.” Phainon interjected, causing you to drop the clothes from your arms in shock.
What? You blinked a few times, jaw slacking down, hands hanging limply at your sides.
You were sure that you must’ve misheard, but upon seeing your startled state, Phainon repeated: “I’ll help you, [Name].”
That… was the most unexpected thing you have heard so far today. Perhaps in your entire life. Phainon agreed so easily, he was even smiling now, whole posture suddenly relaxed and open, it was as if the thought of rejecting you didn’t cross his mind in the first place.
“So you believe me? And you’re willing to accept it, just like that?” You questioned, eyebrows shooting into your hairline.
Phainon laughed, actually laughed. “Oh, why wouldn’t I believe you? You’re the most honest person I know, trust me when I say this.” His hands reached out for you again, smile widening in a way that had you questioning if your betrothed was even sane to begin with. Phainon’s fingers folded around yours, and he continued, “I’d have believed you, [Name], even if you suggested the existence of other worlds. Hah… I am almost offended that you put so little faith in me.”
You laughed as well, then, a weak and brittle thing. How can it be? No one ever believed you, not even Mydei, who you were sure would at least give you the benefit of doubt instead of outright rejection. Yet here Phainon was, your own fiancé that you just informed about your unwillingness to marry and some prophetic dream sent by gods. Previous visions offered to you were much lighter, more plausible. Death, downfall, engagement. This one was unlike any other — find the beast that has no right to exist, slaughter it and set yourself free. And yet, Phainon still believed.
“But why help me?” You pressed, voice trembling. “There is a difference between believing and helping me. Why? Phainon, you have said, not that long ago, that you do not wish for our betrothal to end. So why?”
Phainon merely tilted his head, humming, the pads of his thumbs running over your knuckles twice. “Because I respect you.”
“Is… that it?” Chuckling faintly, you squeezed his hands. “No. No, you must’ve misunderstood something, for this is…”
Before you could spiral, Phainon let go of your hands, instead starting to pack your bag anew. “This is me taking your own will into consideration, [Name].” The man replied, stuffing everything inside carefully. “You’d have gone by yourself anyway, you stubborn creature. Since that beast of yours is so large, I think it’s wiser for me to accompany you than letting you venture out into peril alone.” The man finally finished re-packing the travel bag, straightening out with a genial smile. “Aren’t I right?”
A half-resigned, half-amused sigh escaped your lungs. “Yes, Phainon. You’re right.”
And you left the same night. Departing from your house surprisingly didn’t come as hard as you thought it would, you didn’t even spare a single glance back. Instead, your eyes locked south. The beast was waiting there — and you were waiting for it, too.
The woods shielding your bodies from one side didn’t do much to block out the bright sunlight that seemed to practically envelop you. Panting, you took a brief glance around yourself. Trees. More trees. Mountains in the distance. Some flowers, moss, rocks. A couple of butterflies dancing between the grass blades, twirling around your aching feet.
It was the first day of your journey and you haven’t stopped for a rest since leaving the house. The trek wasn’t that hard, but you still struggled. Upon mapping out your route, Phainon guided you atop a slope; not a very high one, no, still remotely safe to tread on. A forest stretched from beside you, a long line of trees. Down the slope, you could see a valley, probably once filled up by water, now adorned in big patches of wildflowers, colorful points dotted across its expanse.
On your left, Phainon continued to walk steadily. He never tripped or faltered, even though his body appeared to be generally weighed down. The man offered to take your travel bag, which coupled with his own (because obviously he asked to stop at his house and get his personal stuff) probably weighed a considerable amount. There was also steel at his hip. Phainon took the smaller one with him, leaving the favored great-sword behind. While the great-sword wasn’t heavy, it was still, well, great in size, which would simply take up too much space, and that’d be inconvenient.
“You’re doing okay there?” He asked, sending you a sidelong look. There was a slight breathlessness to his voice, most likely caused by the constant move. “The sun’s very high.”
To be completely honest, you weren’t okay. The heat was unbearable, your legs hurt, your heart continued to hammer from exhaustion, and you felt yourself dripping with sweat. With such straw-like zeal, you even thought of turning back, multiple times at that. How plaintive you must be to consider giving up simply because of a frail body. The whole trip won’t take longer than three weeks — marriage would last you your whole life. Which one is worse? Apparently, enduring the heat and throbbing legs was much more challenging than bidding goodbye to your dignity altogether.
“I’m— I’m fine,” you forced out through clenched teeth, struggling to keep up. Phainon was very tall by nature and it never bothered you... up until now, that is, because you’ve continued to curse out his long legs for the past several hours.
Noticing your plight, Phainon finally slowed down. “Are you sure, [Name]?” His palm stretched back in your direction, fingers splayed wide, beckoning you to grab onto him for support. “You do seem short of breath.”
A frown grew on your face as you pointedly ignored the man’s hand. Phainon genuinely wanted to help, even if he kept jesting about your poor condition ever since you set out; still, you wouldn’t accept his pity that easily, so instead of catching the outstretched palm, you batted it away.
It did look a bit empty without the engagement band, though. You were used to seeing the thin, silver ring, its modest appearance matching with the same one you used to wear. Before leaving your house, you told Phainon that it’d be wise to take off your rings — he initially didn’t agree, saying no one would go after you trying to steal them. Perhaps it was true, but you were close to breaking up the betrothal anyway, and you saw no point in strutting around with that thing on your finger. Phainon ended up agreeing, albeit with slight reluctance.
You asked him why he was so apprehensive and the man looked at you, then, as if the question came from a place of utter incongruity instead of normal curiousness. If you squinted, he might’ve even appeared frustrated. Lips pursing, eyes blinking just a bit too fast, like you were speaking to him in a foreign language. Ultimately, Phainon explained that the rings were valuable. Wishing to solve his inner conflict, you offered to leave them at his place for safety — which you ended up doing, putting the two rings atop a scrap of paper.
On this paper, Phainon wrote a simple explanation for your collective absence. Truthfully, you weren’t sure what the note contained exactly, though he assured everyone of your eventual return. You never bothered reading it.
“[Name], I have been pondering this for quite a while now,” Phainon began, adjusting the straps of the travel bags slung over his broad shoulders, now hunched under the combined pressure on them, “we have set out with an agreement that it is I who’ll defeat the beast from your dream.”
“Correct,” you said, still struggling to catch air.
“Then, once we return to Okhema with… well, whatever trophy it is that you wish for us to take, what explanation will you possibly offer?”
You nearly groaned in complaint, thinking how nice it would be to finally stop and rest, drink water from one of the clear streams winding around here. “What are you getting at?”
“I imagine it’s hardly believable we changed our little therapeutic trip into a hunt, where you just happened to catch this overgrown animal and stab it till death.” The lilt of his voice was blithesome.
Even though you were staring ahead, eyes fixed on the slope’s route slowly shifting into a more steep path, still full of green shrubbery, you could clearly see Phainon’s light tufts of hair in your periphery, the small smile he donned. Then you nearly paused in your step, corner of your lips curling, incredulous. “What did you say? A… a little therapeutic trip? Is that what this is?”
“You told me to make up an excuse as to why we left so suddenly.” Phainon shrugged, “not that it’s very believable. Who in their right mind leaves in the middle of the night?”
Again, you felt the overwhelming need to groan and perhaps grab Phainon by the nape, throw him off the slope down into the valley. “They might just have doctors on the standby when we return,” you said. “I do not know what possessed you to tell both our families that this is a therapeutic trip... Cerces must have left you bereft of their reason.”
Phainon huffed, tilting his head to look at your face, “but what else was I supposed to say? You were acting disconsolate, though I doubt anyone aside from me had noticed.”
Mydei surely had noticed, you wanted to say, Mydei had noticed way before you did. But you did not say anything of the sort, instead pursing your lips in thinly veiled ire, trying to stomach Phainon’s insistent nettling. “So you made me out to be the unwell one, from what I’m understanding so far.”
The man’s expression did something funny, unpredictable, a small twist that you would have missed if you weren’t currently holding eye contact; mouth closing tightly, eyebrows knitting together for just a brief moment as Phainon smirked. Then it was gone, gone before you could begin to overthink it, smoothed over by his usual felicity.
Phainon’s hand reached to rub your shoulder, voice just as light as the trilling of songbirds around you. “At the end of the day, you and I left the house at an ungodly hour without telling anyone, [Name].” The corners of his eyes crinkled. “That must make both of us look quite mental.”
You let yourself sigh, back relaxing. He was right, in a way, yet the excuse that he came up with was still rather unflattering. “Right… and as for the explanation that I am going to offer — I’ll simply say my poor betrothed acted careless and provoked the beast’s wrath.”
“So you’ll make me out to be the fool of this story?” Phainon half-laughed, half-scoffed, feigning offense.
“Not only that,” you continued, a wicked smile growing on your face, “I’ll also say you fell, unable to pick up your blade in the moment of weakness.”
“But that would strip me of any dignity, [Name].”
“I’ll be the one to slay the angered beast and save you, Phainon, while you are lying there, all frightened on the ground.”
“What a vast imagination you’ve got there.” Phainon crossed his arms, one eyebrow cocking amusedly. “And such an artful way of narration. Makes one nearly believe that such a thing really happened.”
“You’ll agree to go with it?” You asked, also on the verge of chuckling, knowing Phainon will simply refuse and move on, for you were merely teasing.
The man hummed thoughtfully, tapping his chin. “All right. I don’t see why not,” he said after a beat, not an ounce of hesitation in his voice.
That caused you to bark out a surprised laugh, brow lifting. “Phainon, have you lost your mind? We’ll come up with a better story, I wouldn’t throw you to the wolves the second we get back.”
Instead of agreeing with you and dropping the topic altogether, Phainon shrugged in dismissal. “As I said, I don’t mind this version.”
At this point you were unsure whether the man was only pulling your leg or being genuine, the tone of his voice sounding far too calm for it to be a jest. It wouldn’t make sense for Phainon to put himself in this position, to willingly subject himself to humiliation. Then again, since he was fine with this version, you won’t try to come up with another one; his approach seemed to be quite casual anyway, not once have you seen him fretting over anything regarding this journey of yours.
Before you could start mulling it over further, Phainon stopped walking, pointing in-between the trees. “There is a stream nearby, [Name], I hear water. We should rest.”
Then he was already guiding you away from the slope, pushing through the shrubbery and making an easier route for you, parting the bramble and thistle with the sharpness of his sword. You followed obediently, grateful for the path, watching small twigs crack and fall under the arcs of Phainon’s blade.
The hum of the water was enough to calm your worn body. There, beneath the thick canopies of hackberries and oaks, you could breathe with more ease again — sun would not force its way through completely, pleasant coolness making your sore muscles relax. Your knees finally hit the soft soil at the stream’s bank, right next to briar. Phainon followed, crouching beside you.
Wordlessly, you leaned down to cup the water in your palms and drink. It was cold, of a different taste than the water you had back home in Okhema. You repeated the action twice, then thrice. Despite continuing to drink, your body still demanded more, urging you to lap up the water greedily, with haste, nose accidentally snorting it up and causing you to cough.
Phainon chortled at your state, evidently amused. “You might want to slow down. The stream’s not going anywhere, you know.” The man mused before bowing in half and dipping his face, making you breathe in surprise.
When Phainon leaned back, his fair hair stuck to his forehead and temples, eyes fluttering open, lashes sticking together with wetness that only seemed to accentuate their length better. Quiet, you watched his cheeks turn rosy with the stinging cool of water, your lips subconsciously stretching into a smile. He looked more youthful like that, more carefree, unburdened.
Upon noticing your curious gaze, Phainon grinned. “Perhaps you should cool down as well. It’s only noon, the sun will remain high in the sky for the next few hours.” His joints plunged through the stream’s surface, flicking a few stray droplets at your face — you scrunched up your nose, making the man snicker. “I do worry about you, [Name].”
“Fine, since you seem to know better…” you obliged with a sigh, folding over the water and dipping your face down. True enough, it did feel pleasant. The insistent thirst appeared to lessen, slight headache caused by the lack of rest and fatigue finally subsiding.
After a few seconds, you straightened out, taking a deep breath. Phainon was already staring at you and he was quiet, the silence stretching between you interrupted only by the cooing of a mourning dove, a soft, distant sound mingling with the happier chirp of a robin.
“Better?”
Smiling awkwardly, you wiped your brow. “Yes.”
“That’s good,” Phainon said, expression no longer a cheery grin but something more taken, more private. Then he was leaning towards the water again, head diving below its coolness, and you followed without much thought.
You opened your eyes for a second, watching the air bubbles exploding all around you — the sensation was ticklish, in a way, soothing too, and you thought that all of this was going to work out in your favor. That, perhaps, the god of fortune will smile in your direction despite everything, and you’ll be finally set free from your sorrows.
When you pushed back, wet, heavy hair clinging to your face, Phainon did the same, both of you taking big breaths of air, laughing meanwhile, letting the coolness of the water drip down your cheeks and lips. Even if the start of your long travel was bumpy, now it seemed to smooth over. Click into place. Without anyone to impose on him, without anyone to impress, Phainon acted naturally. Just like the innocent children that you once were, unbothered by fickle affairs of the adult world, he appeared suddenly normal.
A friend, a companion, someone who you could rely on instead of fretting being close to, fretting the impending wedding day and marriage you never wanted for. Why Phainon decided to help you was abstract. All the reasons why, in your opinion, were quite preposterous in a sense that he never wished to break the betrothal. Phainon once told you about Hieronymus’ insistence and being worn by the never-ending candidates practically shoved into his face; his engagement to you saved him the trouble. You were a familiar face, an old acquaintance, something to grab on.
Still, he was here now and you felt no need to dig deeper into Phainon’s questionable decisions.
“I think we’re ready to go now,” the man said. “We’ll stop in a few hours again to eat and rest.”
Phainon got up from his knees with a satisfied exhale, reaching out a helping hand in your direction. You grabbed it this time, smiling up at him. He smiled back, adjusting the travel bags along with his sword before giving you an encouraging pat on the back — then you were off again, pushing through the thickets to return to the slope’s edge.
The path ahead wound along the mountainside in a long, stretching curve, its edges softened by lush grass that seemed untouched by none, if only by passing travelers that sometimes used this specific route in order to gather herbs; the fields themselves were littered with wildflowers, so many of them, their petals already beginning to close upon slowly approaching night. Below, the land fell away in uneven terraces of green, for you and Phainon did climb higher over this mountainous area within the four days of your trek, meadows interrupted by darker clusters of trees, fir and black cherry.
The sun was lowering behind the line of horizon, even though you couldn’t have seen it fully, the strong peaks of the mountains obscuring it. Its light was not bright anymore, no, more of a dimming thing, spreading wide, turning everything it touched into muted gold — stone, bark, moss clinging to where dampness was highest, even the pale dust of the path. Above, where the light thinned and seemed no longer as intense, it shifted into softer tones. Periwinkle and violet, gentle pink enveloping the deepest parts of the sky.
Despite the waning day, the temperature was still quite easygoing on the body. Not low nor high, a perfect balance between warmth and the soft breeze occasionally cooling you down. It would get colder, but not for now, now the weather was pleasant, maybe a gift from one of the more benevolent gods. Your legs ached from treading the winding mountain paths, shoulders hunched even if you had no weight on them, for it was Phainon who still carried everything, vehemently insisting that he will remain the one to wrestle with the luggage while you can prance about like an untroubled filly.
Though the man insisted that you pass another hundred or so meters before the sun dips below completely, you could clearly see his exhaustion, so instead of letting Phainon drag his feet forward, you grabbed onto his wrist, causing him to stumble just a bit in surprise. “Phainon,” you said, eyes of blue immediately locking on your form with the attentiveness of a loyal hound, “I don’t think it’s wise to continue walking any farther. Let us rest somewhere around here, I am sure there’s a suitable spot nearby.”
Just as you said this, both of you began to look around, gauging the surroundings for a place shrouded enough, safe from thorns or the worst of winds that can, at times, howl through the mountain’s hollows during night. “I think this one is adequate,” Phainon hummed, pointing in the general direction of a few broadleaf trees, their trunks circling together tightly.
Without any sort of preamble, you walked up to the trees, Phainon following in tow. As you began to sit down, he suddenly grabbed you by the elbow, making you look over your shoulder with a questioning tilt of your head. “[Name], don’t sit on the grass like that. There could be a snake there, or worse, and the ground’s too cold. You know you’re of poor health.” He scolded, making you groan as you relented. Such a mother-hen.
Phainon’s been like that since the second you set out; while he teased you relentlessly about your lack of stamina and strength, he also looked out for you fiercely. Whenever you stopped for a longer period, he always made sure that everything was safe and well. You watched Phainon poke his sword around the grass for a bit, then open up one of the traveling bags, tugging out a thick blanket and spreading it out meticulously, kicking away a few rocks and rearranging everything till he deemed it worthy.
He smiled at you proudly, presenting with the nest. “My, such a gentleman.” You huffed out a chipper laugh, shaking your head as you plopped down, patting the empty space beside you.
Phainon still appeared to be a little distracted, though, eyes flitting around the stretching expanses of fields and mountains surrounding you, and so you grabbed him by the hand, pulling down without a warning. This caused Phainon to make a surprised sound, something between a yelp and a whine, knees hitting the blanket clumsily as he nearly toppled over into your side, hands barely managing to bracket him upwards before the sudden collision. He gave you a look of feigned offense, even if he was smirking, mirth dancing in those big eyes.
“Stop daydreaming already, you oaf. Rest.” You said in answer to Phainon’s mock-ire, grabbing the two bags. “I’ll prepare us some food to eat, so that you won’t faint suddenly and have me dragging you by the legs.”
Phainon leaned back against the trunk, legs crossing. “Whatever you say…” he muttered with a blest expression, folding his hands across his stomach and tilting his head to gauge your form, a rather fond look gracing his eyes.
Reciprocating the easygoing smile, you soon turned your attention back towards the traveling bags. Initially, you were convinced that food would be one of your biggest concerns, a major trouble dragging behind and slowing you down, yet you turned out to be wrong. You’ve had enough to survive, even to be comfortable. So you grabbed the loaf of bread, part of it already missing, unwrapping the cloth that shielded it and starting to cut the thing with your needle-point knife. It was quite difficult to do but you ultimately managed, next reaching for the small jar of mulberry jam.
Of course, you never thought to take any jam with yourself. Neither you or Phainon were naive enough to drag such fickle things with you, especially since this journey was, at least in theory, supposed to be treacherous and rough. But these mountains weren’t completely devoid of any civilization. There were small villages scattered all across the mountain, tight communities of highlanders, living away from Okhema’s clamor.
Yesterday, you were serendipitous enough to pass through such a village. The people of the mountain were cordial, open and welcoming, inviting you without much suspicion or fear for the unknown faces. You stayed with some couple and they let you sleep through the night in their attic, then take a bit of their food; kindness seldom came for free, though, so Phainon was asked that he plucks three pheasants and guts them. Naturally, you offered to help him with the task, yet he shooed you away, saying you shouldn’t stain your hands with the birds’ blood. Perhaps he deemed you too delicate, fingers too smooth and graceful, which aggravated you.
Either way, just as Phainon was done dealing with the three pheasants, the couple’s only child, their son, started to get curious with your friend’s sword. You were quite amused when the boy’s parents told Phainon to play with him. By some miracle you didn’t get involved in their silly game, simply watching the frolicsome scene from your safe place on the kitchen bench, Phainon showcasing his steel in careful arcs before letting the boy take hold of it as well, supporting his frail hands when they faltered. It was insouciant, it was lively, and for a second, you seemed to have forgotten where you were headed. To the beast’s liar, its den. A nauseating chill ran down your spine, then, as you took in Phainon’s grinning face, his strong arms that playfully folded around his head once he feigned defeat, sprawling on the floorboards and making the child giggle in contentedness.
You’re practically sending him out to battle the beast, to give you your freedom. While Phainon wouldn’t have ended your betrothal out of his own will, he was very eager to aid you in obtaining a warrior’s title and breaking from the shackles of engagement by yourself, on your terms. But, even in all of his valor and prowess, who said the beast won’t ultimately win?
Sighing heavily, you pushed the unpleasant thoughts away, instead focusing back on the food — once you spread the mulberry jam on the two pieces of bread, you reached into your bag, taking out the fruit you gathered at a slightly lower altitude, apricots and currants wrapped in a wax-coated cloth. Those should go well with the sweet jam.
When you handed Phainon his portion, he was quick to beam in that buoyant way, taking everything gratefully. “How domestic, [Name]. Preparing me tasty food with such care — if I were a lesser man, I’d ask you to marry me again after you finally break our engagement,” the man said, mouth and teeth already closing over the bread.
Even if the jest was good-natured, you still frowned, biting into your own piece. “You better not, unless you enjoy women rejecting you.”
“I most certainly do not mind women rejecting me. In most cases, at least.” Phainon remarked with a somewhat wistful tone, twins of blue drifting away from your face to focus on the surroundings better, examining the ridgeline and the sun slowly hiding behind it.
Silence fell after that, only interrupted by the distant chirping of night birds and rustling leaves. Your eyes fell on Phainon’s profile, tracing the handsome lines of his facial features, the strong yet boyish contours, a lingering softness that never went away even with the passage of years. His locks always reminded you of white lilac, at least in shade, the fair tufts framing his cheekbones in a comely fashion, and the intense blue of his eyes…
Which flower would his eyes be? You pondered it for a while before giving up, thinking that finding a proper comparison would take you far too long. So instead you simply continued to observe Phainon, smiling faintly when he turned for a brief moment and offered you the last apricot before those prepossessing irises fixed back on the faraway mountains. You’ve gotten close over those four days. The constant struggle of pushing through wilderness caused your bond to strengthen, become more intimate in a sense that you trusted Phainon enough to bathe in one river with him, to sleep beneath the same cover, huddled together in order to preserve heat.
The sun was mostly down now, sky paling from its warm hues. Without asking, Phainon dragged out the second blanket that he took with him, a thing made out of thick material, adorned with floral embroidery. You shuffled close enough for your side to press into his, immediately feeling warmed over. There was a longer beat where neither of you spoke, your eyes lifted high, observing the vast expanse of the darkening firmament above you, the stars dotted all across.
Then Phainon began to chuckle out of the blue, making you whip your head to the side. “What’s got you so merry?” The question was lighthearted, as easy as the approaching night. “Maybe Zagreus’ playing tricks on you, making you see things right before sleep.”
“No, I just remembered something,” the man said, still smiling at nothing like a complete lunatic. “A very humorous story.”
“Pray tell which story, exactly, is so very amusing?”
Phainon hummed, “mm, sure. Do you remember the cows, [Name]?”
It took you a good second to understand what Phainon was getting at, but when you did, a gasp of both exasperation and abashment ripped from your throat, hand reaching out to shove at his arm in admonishment. “I do not!”
“Oh, but I think you do,” his chuckling shifted into quiet laughter, “it seems quite impossible for me to forget such an eventful memory.”
You rolled your eyes, arms crossing over your breast. “I don’t remember anything of the sort.”
“Then let me remind you,” Phainon began, clearing his throat, and you already knew that you were doomed, for this man rarely knew when to stop his verbose tongue. “Whenever your family along with sir Eurypon and lady Gorgo came to our countryside villa, me, Mydei and you would go play in the fields. The fields outside Okhema, back at Aedes Elysiae, are quite vast, [Name], remember?
“We always played for so long there… I can recall heading out at sunrise and coming home only when the sky darkened. Our parents always scolded us so! Well, either way, I suppose we were too occupied with each other to even gather that, perhaps, those fields aren’t meant as children’s playgrounds but rather as pastures.
“And,” Phainon had to pause there, struggling to contain his obvious beguilement, “and one day, we set out as usual, except there were cows. Cows occupying our playground, oh, you were so distraught by the revelation that you threw a tantrum.”
A scoff. “I— well, I’d wager that this tantrum wasn’t baseless,” you said, eyebrows knitting and lips curving in reluctant enjoyment of the story.
“I agree, it wasn’t!” Phainon chirped. “Both me and Mydei were also quite displeased by that too, but for whatever reason I seem to remember your reaction best. It is quite uncommon to be so moved by… cows.” That gained him another smack to the arm, received only with a mirthful chortle. “We went to play in the field anyway and one of us thought to approach the grazing cows — they had little calves, though, and apparently your dismayed face was enough to render them furious. Maybe they deemed you a threat, [Name]?”
“I’d be hardly surprised if it was your stupid face that angered the cows, not mine.”
Phainon cleared his throat quite loudly. “The fact remains, it’s you who got chased through the entire pasture, not me or Mydei. The way you ran… and the way you cried later on, gods, you’ve always been such a crybaby, one would think it was Phagousa themselves granting you with such spectacular waterworks,”
Then he dissolved into laughter so full-bodied that it surely chased off any lingering animals, critters unfortunate enough to stumble in Phainon’s vicinity. A groan of indignation left you, though you also laughed a bit, shaking your head as you turned to lie on your side, facing away from Phainon and his hilarity.
“You’re being ludicrous, you know,” you mumbled into the blanket, “how can you even recall it all with such amount of detail?”
But instead of relenting, Phainon pressed further, “or, do you remember meeting behind the winery with Cyrene? She had those dice of hers, she did enjoy playing with them — I always used to think her silly prophecies were true, as if she was a real oracle. Dice divination… it does sound rather believable, at least from a child’s perspective.”
Privately, you still think Cyrene never attempted to fool either of you; yet you didn’t say anything, letting Phainon continue, “there was one divination that I remember particularly vividly. Cyrene told me that I’d become a revered man in my community, with plenty of valor and great swordsmanship. I guess that much is true,” he chuckled, voice turning quieter, “but what did she say for you…? Something about…”
About how little luck you’ll have and how unfortunate your life will be — that’s what Cyrene said, back then, those eleven years ago. You were so shocked by the grim revelation that you suddenly forgot about it being a simple game, a way of passing the time without much meaning or weight. To your younger self, it appeared entirely true. Then Cyrene said that you’ll be met with a certain choice at some point in your life, a choice that you’ll have to make, a choice that’ll decide over your future and whether misfortune will continue to follow in your step.
“I think it was about some sort of a decision? Well, no matter! We can ask Cyrene to foretell our futures again once we return, just for the old time’s sake.” Phainon hummed happily, adjusting the heavy blanket over your shoulders, tugging it higher, tucking you in with enough care to put you in a state of lull, to make you swallow down the unexpected bitterness. “Now she must be rather busy making those flower bouquets for the wedding, I imagine.”
“Then her efforts will be for naught,” you said, tone surprisingly harsh, as if you didn’t care about Cyrene’s good will at all.
Phainon’s hand froze above your frame, nearly making you wince in remorse. “True, that.”
Thinking to lessen the somewhat cumbersome atmosphere, you looked over your shoulder, sending Phainon a sheepish smile. “Sorry to say this, but I’m going to sleep now. You’ll be left alone to your own devices, though I do believe the sight of my unconscious face shall make great entertainment.” You endeavored to jest, knowing that outright apology would only make things more awkward.
The man always stayed up for the majority of the night, keeping watch, making sure no wild animal or potential bandits approached you in your sleep — he assured you that it was alright, that he was fine, that he wouldn’t sleep easy knowing you weren’t properly resting while he was, as he so put it, ‘indulging in selfish slumber’. Phainon said that he didn’t wish for you to stay awake during night, when the surroundings were dark and the shrieking calls of animals could frighten you, only waking you at morn so he’d be able to doze for at least two or three hours.
And you wholeheartedly believed that Phainon would laugh at your poor attempt at humor, yet he merely rubbed your side through the blanket, saying, “I’m not sure, [Name]. I do get quite overwhelmed when I watch you sleep, and I often wonder — where are you going that I can’t follow?”
Slowly, your smile faltered and you shifted to settle fully against the nest, finally facing away from Phainon, eyes staring into the sharp grass blades beside. You had no answer for that.
When thinking about how it came to this, on the sixth day of your journey, you felt quite tentative of all the details and reasons why — perhaps there was no reason why, the rain simply happening as it did most of the time, Aquila’s tears befalling on the land.
The path before you narrowed as it climbed, losing its previous softness. Grass thinned into dry, somewhat scattered patches that left not much to grab onto in case you needed support, giving way to exposed stone that broke through the earth. What was once certain, easy to tread on, now felt like a yawning mouth of peril, so simple to slip down into were any of you to take a wrong step and tumble along with the little rocks. Loose gravel shifted under your feet, sliding slightly, inconspicuously, each step causing it to move before settling again.
The thickets of the forests surrounding you did not disappear entirely, yet they appeared more sparse now, trees standing farther apart, their roots gripping tightly to the mountainside, twisted and partially exposed where the earth had eroded. Water gathered quickly along the slope, slipping between jagged rocks and cutting narrow, shallow paths through the soil; it moved without direction at first, then as if by some cruel force found its way towards you, downward, tracing the incline that crossed the trail unpredictably.
It was bad, you knew. You have been on the go since early morning and though it was barely afternoon, the sky was already dark and shrouded with clouds so thick that the sun couldn’t have pushed even a single ray through their density. Aside from the weather conditions being less than ideal, your body was starting to give up on itself too, lungs clenching uncomfortably with the lack of oxygen that you were, unfortunately, unable to fully take in; your legs trembled with each step, calves and thighs achingly sore, feet struggling to plant stably on the ground as every muscle locked up with the rain’s frigid chill.
“[Name]!” Phainon called over the loud thudding of the rain, looking up to gauge your plight with his squinted eyes, rain rolling down his whole face, dripping from the slope of his nose and chin. “Will you manage to keep going? The path’s getting steeper!”
You panted harshly, raggedly, a rasping noise that sounded more like a dying animal than a person, turning your gaze to look at Phainon’s soaked form, hair sticking to his temples and heavy clothing clinging everywhere. Even craning your neck felt like a lot of effort, eyes fighting to stay locked on the man who happened to be just a meter behind.
“I’ll try, but I don’t know!” You called back, hurriedly wiping your brow and eyes when the water started ruining your vision, making everything blurry and unclear.
Phainon nodded, still aflutter, “the southern village’s near!” He said, probably as a way of comforting you, before resuming the climb upwards.
Gathering any courage left, you pushed your legs to go, not feeling placated by Phainon’s words at all but deciding to move anyway, wrestling with the gravel and rocks and gnarly roots that seemed to be always in your way, making you trip, making you waver. Phainon followed closely behind, though you pleaded earlier that he goes first, that he does not look behind at your pitiful form that only slows you both down.
Another several minutes passed, maybe ten or fifteen or more, rain still heavy and unrelenting. The path ahead was, just as Phainon said, getting only steeper and steeper, causing your feet to tremble with uncertainty as you wondered which rock was safe to step on, which one you could grab on for support without fretting about it breaking in half and sending you rolling to death. The route that you decided to take was faster, yet unsafe, a risk you collectively decided to take with full conscience — now you were starting to regret it, wishing something persuaded you to do the opposite. What’s one or two more additional days? You must be a fool, yes, a complete fool, for even Phainon attempted to subdue your zeal and yet did not succeed in doing so, him out of all people.
One step, two steps, three steps, you felt the ground beneath your feet turning unstable and too soft, too uncertain to tread on safety, fourth step had you faltering and the fifth one was enough to cause you panic, legs wobbling as you suddenly began to slide along with the rolling wetness of rain, leaning forward as if only to grab onto the grass, the rocks, the roots, anything to keep you planted. But that was not enough to save you from your dreadful situation, fingers futilely scrambling and catching on jagged stone, skin slicing from the sharpness and bleeding, red turning pink with the falling rain, wounds caked in dirt and tree needles.
Still sliding down, struggling like a terrified doe with a broken leg and the wolf’s jaw hovering just above its nape, you looked over your shoulder, catching sight of Phainon’s alarmed face. At first he seemed quite unsure of what to do but his arms were quick to reach out, hands trying to catch you. Your descend continued, though, body sliding down the steep mountain even if Phainon grabbed you by your forearm, wet skin against wet skin, your weight already slipping from his grip no matter how hard he was squeezing, expression affrighted, which your own must’ve mirrored with equal intensity.
“Hold onto me!” Phainon yelled to you, lips twisting upon his efforts as he attempted to haul you upwards, your weakened body refusing to cooperate, “[Name], do not let go!”
But even as your knees dug into the gravel, one hand desperately gripping Phainon and the other one holding onto a few feeble weeds that were already starting to get ripped free from the soil, you were still unable to stop yourself from slipping. The man continued to drag you up, up, making your joint feel like it was going to dislocate and pop, skin chafed, scraped raw. Any fortune that you previously had must’ve already been used and evaporated, for your forearm slid from Phainon’s tight hold, hands scrambling to lock together, and the weeds that you were gripping finally snapped beneath the heavy weight of your more-or-less limp body.
“I’m— I can’t!” You forced out, stammering, body rolling on your side awkwardly. Even if Phainon was still wrestling to keep you away from tumbling down the mountainside completely, his fingers that were supporting him against a jutting-out rock were slipping with the wetness, your combined weight making it impossible to remain firmly planted for too long.
Before either of you could exchange any more panicked words, Phainon finally let go — willingly or unwillingly, who knows, both of you letting out a startled noise anyway. Aghast, you felt your body dragged down by the gravitation, watching the sharpness of stone ahead, unforgiving and deadly, and you whimpered in fearfulness, sending a thousand prayers to Georios to lessen the blow of rocks which already cut through your flesh, then to Thanatos, begging them for a quick death.
Despite your fervent prayers, death never came, Phainon’s bigger body folding around yours and shielding from the worst of the pain. He did not even cry in hurt or fright, merely grunting when his cheek got sliced, one arm wound tightly around your frame while the other finally managed to grab onto a pine’s trunk, abruptly stopping your descend as the two of you crashed into the tree, Phainon taking the major blow from the impact.
Panting and gasping for air, heart pounding so hard that you long stopped feeling any pain, you looked around yourself. Against your grim predictions, you were very much alive and kicking. All you suffered, or could feel at that current moment, was some sort of bruising underneath your eye and a split lip. The pine that you landed on creaked quietly under your combined weight, bending just slightly, and you let out a shaky breath, feeling tears of relief gathering in your eyes as you finally were, at least remotely, safe.
Then you looked at Phainon’s face next to yours, the gash running across his cheek. It wasn’t deep, fortunately, a shallow wound that probably wouldn’t even scar visibly, blending in with the shade of his skin. He was breathing harshly as well, labored pants leaving his lungs, and when you looked down at the muscled legs bracketing you partially against the tree, you could notice the bloody chafing there, the skin of his calves worn down as though someone rubbed them raw with sandpaper, the state of his forearms just as bad.
Instead of concerning himself with his own rather worrisome state, Phainon immediately turned his utmost attention towards you, shifting you in his arms so that you sat more fully against the rocky slope. “[Name],” he smiled with obvious relief, even if the situation wasn’t humorous by any means, “I am so glad that you’re fine, gods, what would be of me if I let you injure yourself? No, that… I simply would never forgive myself.” The man laughed nervously, evidently stressed, examining your form with eyes too wide and too frantic.
When Phainon reached to swipe your drenched locks away from your forehead, you grabbed his wrist with your own bloodied palm, wide lacerations running through the tender flesh, the worst of the injury washed away with rain, and you said, “what of you, Phainon? Look at yourself, you’ve suffered too because of my—”
“Though your concern is appreciated, you mustn’t worry,” he interrupted, shutting you up with a tone one octave firmer than usual, “it is me who agreed to this route, even if I knew how treacherous it might be.”
“You’re suggesting that you should take responsibility for the more important decisions?” You couldn’t help scoffing, suddenly a bit affronted. “What sort of logic is that? I, too, knew this path is dangerous, yet I still chose to take it — we both agreed, not just you, who apparently thinks that all fault rests now on his shoulders.”
Frustrated, you continued to measure each other with narrowed eyes before you finally conceded, sighing in defeat. “All right, we shouldn’t fight now…” you murmured, more amiable now, even if you felt as though you were missing some crucial detail, Phainon appearing more confused than vexed by your words.
“Agreed,” Phainon said. Slowly, he began to stand up, supporting himself against the pine, muscles of his legs spasming a bit before they settled down, and you regretted not telling him to wear trousers, instead simply letting Phainon strut through the mountains in just his chiton. Though, you supposed, the trousers would’ve been ripped to shreds anyway. “Can you walk or stand?” The man asked, then, extending his bruised palm towards you, bursted blood vessels making his thenar appear splotched in mauve, a pitiful field of violets.
You shook your head, attempting to get on your feet, “I’m not quite sure…” the adrenaline was already ebbing away and the longer you spent on calming yourself, the worse the pain got. Absolutely worn and still shaken, you grabbed Phainon’s hand as gently as you could, hoisting yourself up. Then you cursed under your breath, a broken sound leaving your lips the second you put pressure on your foot — it didn’t seem to be broken or snapped, no, you could stand on it, though the pain still rendered you trembling, knees wobbling.
“When did this happen…?” Phainon sighed, a flash of fatigue crossing his features, yet he was very fast to recover. “No matter. We’ll find temporary shelter till the rain stops, since you won’t be able to go by yourself for any longer.” He said it with such conviction that your eyebrows drew together and you frowned, quite eager to deny, but Phainon was already crouching in front of you.
The sight of his broad back waiting for you, beckoning to finally lean on him and rest, was too much. “True, it does hurt too much for me to walk,” you muttered, voice coy, barely audible over the all-engulfing sounds of rain. Admitting your weakness came surprisingly easy, a mindless action, just a few fickle words that really didn’t mean as much as the grip that Phainon secured around your knees once you climbed atop him, your arms hugging to his neck, forehead falling against the man’s soaked nape.
He hoisted you up effortlessly, adjusting your slumped body and starting to trudge forward, wordless, still somehow managing to remain calm. Time passed quickly when you kept your eyes closed, body drained from energy, brain detached; you barely noticed yourself being lowered before Phainon was starting to tug off your shoes, pouring the water out of them. Dazed, you watched him work, blinking a few times before realizing you were sitting in some sort of a hollow, rain unable to get inside the rocky cavity, water drizzling down but sliding ahead instead of inside, making it a great place to stop for a rest.
By then, there was no adrenaline in your body, nothing to push you through. Phainon seemed preoccupied with drawing the bandage around your ankle and foot snugly, secure but not tight enough to cut off your circulation, and you felt guilty for being so weak, so frail, tears already starting to sting at your eyes. The first sob that left you was quiet, almost not there, a strangled whimper. Soon, though, you were no longer able to hold back your fatigue mixing with despair and frustration, that helplessness ripping another cry, then another and another.
Through your blurry vision, you thought you saw Phainon smile under his nose, but maybe it wasn’t real. His irises rose, fixing on your face. “Why are you crying, [Name]? Does your ankle really hurt so much?” He asked, tone soft, hand settling on your shin and squeezing to get your attention as you continued to hiccup.
“No,” you answered, sniffling. “No, it doesn’t… I don’t know why I’m crying. It’s just— ah,” reaching to wipe your face, you shied away from Phainon’s gaze, feeling like a silly child, “that’s so stupid, isn’t it? Mydei always told me to stop whining so much, he must be right. The only thing I can really do is cry, for I…”
Before you could fully curl up on yourself, Phainon grabbed you by the wrists, pulling them away from your crying face, as if he genuinely wished to gauge the expression you donned. “Don’t speak of Mydei, he’s not here. Why are you even thinking of him now?” The corner of Phainon’s lips twitched, then he was smiling, eyes crinkling in the corners as he reached to wipe your tears away. “You were always so sensitive, [Name], always so quick to tears.”
You huffed a little, allowing Phainon’s thumbs to swipe gentle arcs across the apples of your cheeks, getting rid of the dampness there, and he continued, “but I do not think it to be something bad. You can weep when next to me, because I am not Mydei and I understand.” The man’s hands finally moved over to your chiton, grabbing the skirts and starting to wring them, rainwater splashing right next to you on the ground. It was cold, so cold. “Unlike the others, I’d rather gouge my eyes out than look at you with condescension. You must know that, [Name].”
Phainon was still smiling and you found yourself slowly starting to smile too, even if his words did make you pause. Mydei did understand you, he did, he was one of your best friends and it’s untrue to say that he perceives you in a condescending way — though after a short while of pondering, you couldn’t help but agree with Phainon. It might be that Mydei often dismissed your heartaches, making you feel lesser, a foolish, oversensitive girl, bereft of any values that could make one a truly respectable individual. How come you never noticed?
“I already know, Phainon.” You sniffled again, but this time the tears already stopped, a crooked smile stretching your lips weakly.
Apparently content with your answer, Phainon sent you a pleased look, then reached into one of the travel bags that he previously deposited on the ground and plucked out your warmer attire. “We should change. I wouldn’t want us freezing to death while we wait for that downpour to stop. Who knows when Aquila will finally settle.” He jested lightly, passing you the clothes.
“Right,” you nodded, a humorless chuckle leaving your mouth, voice still small and devoid of vigor.
So you stood up, having to hunch down a little in this cavity that you took for shelter, shedding your utterly soaked, heavy chiton in exchange for a cloth of warmer, thicker material, draping it over your body with shaky hands. Through the hollow’s stilly air, you could hear Phainon starting to change too. And even though you were now clad in a garment created to preserve warmth, you had no warmth to begin with, which caused your joints to keep shivering, body plopping down stiffly once you were done changing.
Phainon was quick to follow in your step, sitting beside you; you thought to tell him that your clothes needed to be wrung out, dried, that you’d be fine, yet he was already scooting closer, keen eyes judging your state. “Starting the fire might be hard now,” he said, “we foolishly did not predict the rain, and which one of us thought to save any dry wood?” A rueful smirk curved his lips upward.
His bigger hands held yours, starting to rub them, the friction of your skin meeting together enough to warm you up — shivers still wrecked your body, so you pushed yourself closer to Phainon, swallowing down your pride. It wasn’t like you minded being this close, anyway. The man’s eyes, previously locked on your connected hands, finally lifted, a grin splitting his still-damp face in half. Both of you laughed as he began to huff into your cupped hands, summery air heating you up. You leaned against the sturdy, warm frame, causing Phainon to pause. Was he surprised? You hardly believed that.
“I should carry you for the rest of the way,” Phainon mused. He reached for the flower-patterned blanket from his bag, finally tucking it around you both. “And you should agree.”
A hum, “maybe. I don’t know… but, then again, how can I demand this much of you?” Your head lolled to the side, resting against Phainon’s shoulder. He was always so very helpful, looking out for you and acting like you actually mattered instead of being a simple scapegoat that he used to lift his father’s expectations off of his shoulders. What did it matter to Phainon? You’ll break your betrothal soon and everything will be over anyway.
A clear answer never came, for Phainon merely muttered something incomprehensible under his breath, arm tightening around your midriff snugly enough to have you tilt into his orbit, unable to resist the pull.
Perhaps, despite having tried to convince yourself otherwise, you truly were half-witted.
Summary: You’ve been ignoring Sinbad for weeks, overwhelmed by his pushy and selfish behavior. He takes matters into his own hands, trapping you in the middle of the sea.
Contains: yandere!Sinbad, fem!reader, Sinbad traps reader, manipulating, forced kiss and groping, brief grinding, not proofread. Word count: 1,4k.
Note: After long months, I present Magi content again!! I wrote this under impulse. Also, I want to say I based this Sinbad more on his personality showed in the manga, than the one portrayed in anime where he wasn’t as detailed, so if you haven’t read it yet… Divider is by @/cursed-carmine.
“You know, I used to fish a lot in the past… with my father, my old comrades…” Sinbad recalls with nostalgia, a small smile passing his face. “It’s good to have one more chance to explore what the sea offers, now with you.” As if it’s some date; it’s no more than the trap he set on you.
He’s treating your current situation too lightly — he basically kidnapped you onto this narrow boat, before pushing it to the middle of the sea surrounding Sindria. All because you’ve been avoiding him for weeks.
“I don’t care about your fishing fascination, Lord Sinbad! I told you once, bring me back to the shore!” you insist with annoyance, despite the fact there’s real panic brewing in you underneath. He’s treating this moment like a fishing trip, but both of you know how obsessed he’s become with you.
And when Sinbad wants something, he always makes sure to get it; you included.
His grip on the rod tightens, and he adjusts it, pretending he feels some fish stir under the string. “I’ve heard you loud and clear, my dear companion.”
You’re well aware of the trouble your reluctance to appreciate his advances has been bringing him; yet at this point, he is straight up scary to you. You’re being reminded of what he can do to you and is only choosing not to, with you staying safe based on this “mercy.”
“Then…” you try to sit away from him some more, but you already leached the edge of the wooden boat. It’s narrow, with only two tiny benches so close your knees are brushing against his; it’s uncomfortable, especially when his eyes in this proximity ogle over your body he’s missed. You’re always avoiding him and his touch that’s been becoming inappropriate lately. “Will you comply or not?” You eye the paddles on the sides with hope — grabbing them is useless if he’s there to stop you.
As always, his answer is never straightforward. He’s good with playing with words, and unfortunately, you notice it more than others do. “Why so restless? It’s a beautiful weather, the breeze’s nice, there’s no one to bother you here? Most would have been flattered to be able to have their king exclusively,” his words are ended playfully, but there’s a certain edge to them that’s been growing ever since he caught you in the middle of the palace.
It is indeed a nice weather, painting a beautiful day; Sinbad looks as gorgeous under the sunlight. But any day is to you ruined, if the man that’s been chasing you for months and controlling your life is here. “Most also don’t know what a bastard you are,” the insult leaves your mouth before you could stop yourself. In other nations, you’re pretty sure you’d be beheaded already. Sinbad plays as this down to earth king, equal to others, and yet…
Besides the fact to you it’s no other than beguiling people, the devil is slowly showing his real face to you. No more gentle Sinbad, trying to over-feed you with affection and attention — he’s placing the rod down and is crawling towards you, sharp-eyed.
You’re pinned to your seat before you could even move, his hands behind your head, forcing you to lie down. The boat suddenly is swaying under your struggle, so hard you think you will fall into the water. Although, perhaps it’s the deep water where you’d be safer; unless he’ll follow you here as he does everywhere. He’s the sea monster his generals occasionally slay.
“What are you doing? Let me go!” you demand with panic, pushing your palms at his chest.
Sinbad doesn’t budge, having more strength than anyone in this world. Instead, his face lowers, until you can see the scary look on him clearly. At the first glance, he’s no more than stern, but you see the way his eyes stare you down with both contempt and hunger.
“Stay still,” he orders, keeping you frozen. Your mind goes through the possibilities of what he might do to you. “I’ve done enough for you to reconsider rejecting me, and you just have to cling to your pride so stubbornly. You should have been happy to see me again, not grimacing.”
“It’s not pride—”
“Shut up,” you flinch as he barks that. “You would never lack anything with me, you’d be spoiled and treasured beyond imaginable, I can’t believe you’re being anything other than ungrateful. Do you know how little others have? How little I used to have?”
The scalding session of words continues, even if you try to desperately free yourself and tell him why: how he’s so dark to you, how it’s not even him being a womanizer as it is him treating you like another possession. Men you find interest in always leave.
Sinbad prefers to blame it all on you. Nonetheless, you’re not naive. You know he doesn’t love you — this is the closest to love he can muster. He simply desires you — your challenge, your ire, your defiance, your uniqueness, your brains, and strenght — and wants to collect you. You saw through him and that entices him.
“Stop… Lord Sinbad… you’re scaring me…!” tears appear in your voice, right as your voice cracks.
You think he might show you some pity, his face softening momentarily; but when he sees you push away again, something snaps in him.
No more running away. You’ve been turning him insane enough. All because of one woman, when he could have many more. One he desires seriously doesn’t want him… which he finds the notion out of this world and challenging, as it is irritating, but still, merely an obstacle to the man like him.
“Good. Maybe you finally will learn, little fish,” he says dismissively, all cold.
It’s shock that comes to you first when you feel his lips on yours, not registering the kiss properly yet. And when you do, you thrash under him, doing anything to push him away; instead, you only spin your alarm, sensing as the boat sways again.
His mouth is insistent and hungry on you, and you feel one hand fondle your chest. It’s disgusting, but before you could truly ponder over how bad it is, he shoves his tongue into your mouth too.
You’re hoping anyone could see you two and save you — there’s no one so far away from the land, and even if there was, they’d probably think it’s their king playing with ladies again.
Chills of revulsion and fear spill all over your body, and the heat in your cheek is only shame and of mortified heart. Sinbad, on the other hand, moans into your lips, ecstatic to finally get something from you — even if he had to take it by force.
He’s heavy on you, overwhelming your nose with his scent you could never quite put a finger on; you imagine those typically come with pleasure he provides to women, now only ruining you.
You’re sobbing at this point, appointing your gaze at the blue sky still mostly obstructed by his body above yours, and when he draws you closer like some lover, you feel the outline of his hardness under his robes too. You squeak from the unpleasant feeling, and he hums, enjoying your noise; he even grinds into you and groans once, unable to contain himself.
Sinbad stops only when he needs to inhale some fresh air again. He’s panting above you, with blown eyes still holding hunger for you. “Thank you. That was amazing…” he says, even if you didn’t offer anything, and licks his lips.
When he notices your state, the amber gaze turns gentle; you suspect it’s just another of his manipulation. “Now, now, don’t go crying and ruining your beautiful face. You did good, and I’m sure you’re only a few kisses away from demanding them yourself…” he wipes your tears, watching them with satisfaction.
He chuckles when you’re tensing up again. “What? You can’t say I’m a bad kisser, can you? At least once this experience comes in handy…” he jokes as if nothing has happened. “Don’t worry, I’ll take you back now. We’ll talk about everything once you have rested.”
“T-talk about what?” you ask through hiccups and hoarse throat. The boat is still again but your heart is racing.
“What do you mean what? It’s about we start thinking about our future, don’t you think?”
Yes, the sea really would have been more merciful. He’s worse than the deep waters, instilling more fear than they do below you.
Three summers ago, your childhood best friend Phainon went up the mountain and came back a different person. Now you know why. What came back wasn't him at all.
Yan! Eldritch horror Phainon (Khaslana) x reader; wc: 8.4k
tw: depictions of unhealthy/toxic relationships, mental health problems, body horror, gore, non-consensual acts, etc. nothing explicit (as of yet (~￣³￣)~), all characters are 18+, mdni.
note: sorry it took me so long to post! Eldritch horror au has finally evolved into a full-fledged writing shit post (・∀・). Btw, it's based on this post here. Super nervous about posting this, I hope I haven't fucked it up. Let's all love Phainon/ Khaslana (●♡∀♡) and enjoy my artistic slop.
In the tongue of old, in ancient texts, and upon the desecrated statues corroded with time around abandoned temples, HE was called Khaslana– the bearer of the primordial burden.
HE was called Dawn Bringer when he brought about the first rays of warm sunlight over the shadowed lands. HE was named the Sun General when he rode upon his chariot to strike down the monsters, a band of heroes following him along on this long crusade against the tide. HE was worshiped as the god of worldbearing when he offered up his body to the old gods, asking for everlasting dawn to shine upon the broken lands.
Village elders, their eyes lined with crow’s feet and mouths full of stories, told many tales with the children of the village in the shared warmth of bonfires, all of them reverent and still devoted to a deity who no longer shouldered the dawn. HE had long since given it to the heavens and now slept beneath the earth, a well-deserved rest that no mortal could dare disturb; that is what they told the children when the days spent tilling the fields were too long.
His dad, Hieronymus, on the other hand, was a man with scars etched into his eyes that even a child like you could see, and spoke of the stories you had heard since birth as if they were facts, not fiction —a truth that all but he were deluded about. He shared the same blue eyes as his son, a clear blue after early sunrise, or like the calm waters of the creak where you both used to go swimming. Yet his eyes were duller, heavy with a burden, the weight of it sagging his broad shoulders.
He once sat you both down one night behind their backyard, a small fire was lit to keep you all warm, as if both of you weren't already swaddled with four layers of warm clothes at his mother’s insistence.
Phainon didn't handle the cold well. His hands would always become cold and red come winter, his cheeks full of fat resembling little ripe tomatoes that you would tease him relentlessly for whilst attempting to squish them. It was one of the few things you would miss, one of the few things he would shed, like a cicada molting out of its skin on a hot summer day.
“Khaslana, throughout the ages, has favoured our family the most in the village.” His dad’s voice was gravelly, the air choked with the scent of cigarette smoke, and unusually quiet that night, as if he were sharing a well-guarded secret under the curtain of stars —a secret not meant for any ears to hear. Especially yours.
“Why Phainon's family, Unca?” You had asked, curious eyes gazing at his ember-lit face.
He had smiled, his face lined with more scars, more burden. “That's because we give him the biggest offerings, the biggest prayers. Which none of the other villagers do. That's why we get more gifts.”
“So, Khaslana is like Santa?”
“No, dummy,” Phainon had said, bonking you on the head with the stick he roasted his marshmallows with. “Khaslana is real, Santa is not.”
“Santa isn't real?!” For a nine-year-old, it was quite a devastating revelation.
His dad had laughed while he ruffled a bird’s nest out of your carefully pinned hair, glancing at his son in shared amusement. “Don't listen to Phainon, (name). Santa is real, but he only gives gifts to good children,” he had explained carefully for you. “Khaslana, though, is a being that simply favours our family more because we are their best worshippers.”
You looked at him, a man who had fed you more sweets than you were allowed to have, the dad of your best friend, and another parental figure, and held his words like they were as precious as the star hung above them. “So, if I also give them a big offering, will I also get a gift?”
He looked at you after those words left your mouth, keeping silence like a vigil for a good while before he burst out laughing, clutching his sides. You had seen his dad do pretty weird stuff after drinking a few too many cups, but his laugh never felt hollow, so empty that it made you look at Phainon for answers.
He was mirroring your confused expression, his head tilted to your side as well.
His dad finally stopped laughing, but that smile, that stretched, forced smile never left his face, when he said those words that now haunt you in your dreams– “You can, if you want, kiddo. But better come up with a good offering, our lord does get quite lonely up there. He might come and steal you away as a bride if you don't hurry.”
You never could ask what he meant, why his words felt like a bad prophecy.
Phainon's dad would later turn up dead, his head missing, a year after that conversation, and in the same spot, Phainon would be found five years later, and not quite himself either.
But you wouldn't know that until three years have passed, that your best friend’s warm body has long since gone cold.
You wake feeling hot, beads of sweat accumulating and rolling down your forehead. The air conditioning was set to the lowest setting all night, yet you woke up with your t-shirt wet, as if you had taken a swim in the river. You run a hand over your sweaty face.
The sun has broken in the dawn, the first rays of light rushing through the sheer blinds. The floral scent of mosquito repellent you had lit the previous night still lingers in your room. Gravity pulls you back down, your head cushioned by pillows that don’t feel quite right. You haven’t been able to sleep in your bed since that day, after all. Those golden, frigid, inhuman eyes follow you everywhere you are, even the sanctuary of dreams isn’t spared from it. Either that or you would be dragged back into the cruel torment of bygone memories and wake up crying for his gentle blue irises that you will not gaze into again.
Two hours pass, and by then the sun has already stretched its arms towards all of the village. Your mother calls you down for breakfast, along with the reminder that you are going to be late for school. Sitting up in the bedroll on the floor, you stare at your shaking hands.
You cannot keep dodging him. He has already been courteous enough not to take it further than he could have the last time you saw him. That windless night, your room blanketed in cold darkness, the suffocation pressing into your ribs, and the heat of his paranoia and rage at your fear for him. How could you remain calm when the skin that you were intimately familiar with, as if it were your own, turned to dust at your frightened touch, cracks forming to reveal molten gold so hot that it still burns whenever you think of it?
Still, you do not know what caused him to pause mid assault. You only remember through the haze of evaporating tears the flicker of soft blue that passed beneath the tyranny of gold, his boiling hands hovering with a lag like an overclocking operating system. He had let you scurry out of his scalding hold, your back pressing against the wall as you gawked, mouth open, when he returned to human.
The moonlight had caressed his blonde hair with a silken ivory touch, and his eyes had faded to a blue darker than black, a chasm with its maw open in a lure. His face never betrayed any emotion, any signs of Phainon were buried deep if they were there, but he only showed you the cold indifference of a silent, petulant god to whom you had done a great disservice.
Do not run. He spoke in a voice belonging neither to a man nor a woman, and it had coalesced into a single haunting melody too inhuman to comprehend.
But the intention behind his words was clear, if not apparent– you will not get a second chance.
So, you do what your weary, sleep-deprived mind can allow. You freshen up, iron your shirt, pack your bag, and get ready for school like it's any other ordinary day.
Phainon is standing at the entrance, chatting with your mother, when you leave the dining room with the food untouched. His eyes immediately find yours, cornflower blue, not molten gold, and the smile he gives you almost makes you run back to your room. Almost.
“What took you so long?” she chides you lightly as she smacks your arm. “Do you know how long Phainon has been waiting?” It's not him, though, you want to answer, but remain silent.
He laughs in the polite way that Phainon did, his mimicry perfect to the finest detail. “It's okay, Auntie, I am used to waiting for her.” His eyes are especially bright today, seizing you up from the threshold of your house, not coming in but not leaving either. He is waiting for permission, one that you aren't happy to give. “Aren't I?”
You smile back, your facial muscles taut. “I am sorry. I overslept.”
You pick up your shoes and throw your mother a glance. She is looking at you, her eyes full of apprehension and unsaid worries she has kept since you locked yourself away for the entire week. You don't want to hear them right now. You are sure to break apart under her gentle caress.
“I will be back late,” is all you say before you grab his all too warm, familiar hand in your home and rush out of the house like it has caught fire.
His touch on you, his fingers digging selfishly at the morsel of skin, burns with agony, with barely held possession, scraping at your insides and filling them with hot lava.
The door shuts behind you two, and you both stand under the scrutiny of the sun. You break away first, and his hand comes after you with longing, only to retract back when he catches the poorly concealed melancholy on your face.
“....I am sorry,” Phainon’s apology is desperate, curled out of his chest like smoke. You are sure he would bare his heart for you, the organ thumping bloody in his hands, just to prove how sorry he is. It's just you don't know whether it would be his heart or the body he had so casually turned into his home. But it's not his heart that you want.
“Let's get going,” you answer, already taking out your bike from its spot.
You both remain silent the rest of the way, the sweet scent of wheat and summer dancing in the air. You almost cry how much it smells like him, and how much you wish you could smell it again. A single tear glides away with the smothering wind as if it were never there.
You bike your way to school with Phainon behind you on his cycle.
Like it's any other day.
“Thank Oronyx, you are still alive!” It's not the first thing that came to mind when you thought about how you would be received, but it isn't off the mark either.
Cyrene rushed the minute she saw you parking your bike in the rack. Her bright pink hair seems almost orange under the morning sun as she jumps at the opportunity to smash you into a hug. Her hugs have always been tight, but this time, they're tighter, like a noose hung around your neck, ready to break it with a single tug.
Phainon stays behind you, close, watching, his eyes sharpening at every breath, every tremble, every moment of your body, like he is attuned to it.
“Cyrene. Can't. breathe.” You paw at her arms in surrender, and she mournfully lets you go as she entwines her arms together with you, her eyes alight and blue. She starts walking towards the classrooms, Phainon following closely behind.
“It's just not the same without you here! And this big oaf was pouty all week,” she glares at him from her shoulder with a moue. It surprises you when he doesn't talk back; his expression remains unmoving and calm. “Talk about being cold. Forget about talking, he wouldn't even pick up my calls or meet me after class. He even refused when I said that we should visit you at your house together.”
That's because he already gave me a visit before he could ask you; he won't take it well if you say all of this. You remain quiet, your lips pressed together in a fake smile, your eyes anywhere where you couldn't catch his, and say a hasty ‘bye’ to her when you reach your and Phainon's class.
Hyacine spots you first and waves enthusiastically from your desk. Around her, Castorice and Cipher also turn around to see you entering the class, surprise and relief evident on their faces.
“You're back!” Her pink pigtails are especially curly today, and they bounce in her shared positivity when she comes to hug you, too. It's like you have won a war against cancer rather than the supposed cold that you were nursing.
“Thought we lost you for good, kid,” Cipher says, making her voice scratchy like an old man’s, as she pats your shoulder with a strong hand. “It's been tough without you here. Look at the mess you left me to work with!”
“I have only been gone for a week …” you say with exasperation. Castorice remains behind them both, but the smile she gives you says enough; she is relieved that you are okay. You smile back, glad for the non-dramatic welcome you got from at least one sane person.
“Do you know how worried we were when you didn't pick up our calls? Little Ica has been depressed all week, not seeing their favourite person.” Hyacine pushes her white, iridescent, giant plush key chain that she has been lugging around since elementary school in your face. Cipher and Castorice both nod in affirmation. You mumble a small ‘sorry’ to both Little Ica and the others as you look away from them in guilt.
You could have answered their calls or their messages if they weren't buried under the massive pile of missed calls and unopened voice messages. Once, you made the mistake of picking up a random call after making sure it wasn't his number, only to be met with a static so deafening that you thought your eardrums would bleed. Even the texts, all from numbers you didn’t know, were becoming more nonsensical, bizarre, and downright chilling, so you threw your phone straight at the wall, causing it to break.
Of course, you cannot, in good conscience, and for personal safety, say all of that.
A warm hand pulls you towards them, your head knocking against his hard chest. “Okay, okay. Enough with the questions.” Phainon says blithely while pushing away the plush toy from your face. Jealous bastard. “She had one common cold, and now she is fine. Can't we leave it at that?”
Cipher scoffs, her arms folded in front of her. “Says the one mopping around like a child who lost his mommy.”
Phainon shrugs, a small grin playing on his lips, but the warm fingers on your shoulders that are tightening ever so slightly say otherwise. “Well, she is back now.”
“Thank god for that! Hey-” Cipher’s snickers usually are a signal that she is up to no good, but her timing this time couldn't be any more wrong. She comes up behind you, her feet swift as ever, and grabs you, your back hitting her. The immediate glare you see light up in his eyes makes you panic. She throws her arm over your shoulder, her smirk still not gone as she pushes her face near your ears as if she was spilling some classified government secrets.
“Did you know? The class prez even tanked his test last week! His mom came all the way for a chat with the teacher too. Talk about being down bad–”
“That's enough, Cipher.” The voice, the freezing cold voice of his suddenly transports you back into your room, hiding in a corner in your blanket, only to be wrenched out of them to cower under his glaring radiance.
Similar to how he grabs your hand right now, still too warm to be human, as he pulls you back towards him. Where you belong.
“Don't forget she is still sick. Let's get back to our seats, and you, back to your class. Homeroom is in three.”
Cipher gives an exaggerated sigh, it doesn't seem like she picked up on Phainon’s anger, and says ‘yes, prez!’ before giving him a mock salute. She walks out of the class while pulling up her cat-eared hood over her pale hair.
Hyacine goes after her with a promise to save a seat for you during lunch. Castorice, the only member of the group in your class, stares at you for a second longer than necessary, as if she has something to say.
She folds her gloved hands in front of her tightly, her gentle eyes downcast under someone's fiery gaze, and walks to the front row where her seat is without a word.
I’ll have to talk with her later, you think as you sit and ready yourself for another gruelling school day.
You cannot do this.
It's too much for your dumb human brain to tolerate– the constant eye contact with your back, sending messages in class through the ancient art of chits, pulling up by your desk after every bell, smiling that cold, stupid, smile full of teeth–
The contents of your empty stomach are expelled promptly from your body. You wipe the bile messily from your lips. Your legs feel numb in the cold, dirty washroom stall, and you cannot get them to pull you up without thinking of going back to class. To him.
It's insane, no matter how you put it, no matter how much you decorate it with sparkles and affirmative words– he isn't your Phainon.
He is gone, has been gone for three damn years, and you only got to know by pure coincidence, or you could say late intuition. Phainon had played Phainon so well, the parallelism so remarkable that it guts you even more that no one else knows this terrible secret, this horrifying truth, maybe except you.
Phainon went to the mountain those three summers ago, and he stayed there, rotting and forgotten in that forest, his insides getting chewed on by the forest and its ilk, and what came back was–
What is he exactly?
Phainon looks like him, talks like him, moves like him, but even if you change the stuffing of the teddy bear from cotton to wool, that doesn't mean that it's the same teddy bear as before. Its insides are completely different. Replacing them and calling it the same is an ill-mannered joke.
A cruel joke.
A knock comes on the door, and you jolt at the sudden noise. When you don't answer, a knock comes again, this time in threes.
It cannot be him….right? Doesn't he have general boundaries and basic decency, or did he come to check since you said five minutes but took ten?
A voice comes from the other side, soft and delicate in its cadence, and it's a voice you know all too well.
“It's me, (name).” Castorice. You almost cry happy tears at how relieved you feel, how light you feel that it's not him standing behind that door with that look plastered on his face.
You quickly open the door and see her standing there, about to knock again. She looks surprised, her bright lilac eyes widened, but not in alarm. It is gone as a small smile graces her face. “You didn't look too good,” Castorice says as she pulls out a tablet and a water bottle, which you take kindly from her hands.
You can count on Castorice to come through when you are in a bind. She always has been kind and warm, even when she has kept some marginal distance from others; her hands have never been bereft of her purple gloves. She looks at you, her eyes assessing, both in worry and apprehension, as you chug as much water as you can from the bottle.
When you finish, you know she is going to ask the most dreaded question you have been waiting for the whole day– “Is everything okay?”
Your throat constricts, yet you answer, “Y-yeah, why do you ask?”
“Because you look too pale. Also…” she looks away, her lips playing with the words resting on her tongue. “Phainon is strange today.”
“Strange?”
Castorice nods, her gloved hand playing with the wisps of her bangs.“Yes, like the air around him has gone cold. Dead, even. He was fine until a week ago, before you got sick, but now it's like he has become a different person. Hyacine feels it too.”
She looks straight at you, and you feel all strength leaving your body when you meet her eyes. “Do you know anything about this?”
Do you? How can you tell that the Phainon has never been fine, that the thing she calls ‘Phainon’ has been wearing his skin and deceiving her, and everyone else, for three years? How do you tell her that the last time you ever saw him was the day when the summer was at its peak, and he was determined to go, no matter how many times you tried to dissuade him? That you failed to stop him, his unfair demise, just like with–
No, you do not know anything. You are the last person who does. You couldn't even tell that he wasn't who you thought he was.
You shake your head, your fingers curling on the inside of your palm, you hope to draw blood. It doesn't sting as you hoped it would. “No, I don't.”
You emerge just before the lunch bell is about to ring, Castorice has long since gone back to class, and you know that you will find him standing, waiting, like a pup waiting for his master, like he has been doing for the past three years.
Phainon looks way too comfortable standing there, leaning against the windows, but you can tell by the strained movement of his arms and his limbs as he walks towards you, the balls of his feet skidding against the floor, that he is restraining himself. That is something he has in spades.
“You were in there for quite a while,” he says, his voice casual. “Everything okay?”
You nod, staring at his school shoes.
“Do you need anything? Water, snacks, medicine? Do you need me to take you to the infirmary?”
“No,” you start to walk towards the class when he suddenly grabs your arm, warm and foreign, your skin feels raw with fear. Phainon lets go when he sees the expression carved on your face, his brows knitting in displeasure. “I-I am sorry. I was a bit too hasty,” he lets go of your arm and instead latches onto your shirt, but it doesn't make it any better. “Please, don't be mad. Please don't hate me.”
I could never hate you. You feel appalled at how easily such a thought comes to you.
It's instinctual, not something you have control over. There couldn't be a single day, or a single second, where you could feel genuine hatred for the one person you have loved selflessly for years and years, and you don't think you will stop now.
Even if it's not him? You remain quiet, to both him and the annoying voice in your head.
“Stop stretching out my shirt,” you try to swat him off, but he clings to you like a damn mosquito. After a few minutes, when you have come to realise that he will not let you go or leave, you sigh for the hundredth time, as all life force leaves your beaten body. It's agitating how they both behave the same way and also don't.
“Fine,” you say, and his ears perk up. “I don't hate you. Happy now?”
“Very,” he says. The boyish grin on his face makes you ill. With what, you don't wish to elaborate or have knowledge of it.
He lets go of your shirt, and you begin to smooth it out, but it doesn't seem like the conversation is over. “Hey, let's go to the fields after school,” Phainon says suddenly. “I have something to show you.”
Is there something you forgot to show me last time? You think cynically but answer him anyway, “Okay.”
It’s not like he will take no for an answer. You have seen what happens, and you can only push his capriciousness so far.
His smile is so big that it splits his face in half, and his eyes shine with a deep blue (it feels so wrong) when he tugs you by the arm, leading you back to class.
Or to your slaughter upon the altar. There isn't much difference left between the two.
You let yourself be led.
Five years have passed since you last visited the shack. It was a storage unit for grains before Phainon’s dad repurposed it as a playhouse for the three of you.
You, Cyrene, and Phainon have always played in the fields, sometimes getting lost in them as they were as tall as trees when you were little. The shack was a small respite from the country life, a hidden nook for the three of you to play, sleep, and eat to your heart's content. You remember one time staying the night in the shack for a sleepover and getting bitten all over by mosquitoes. The sobs you and the other two let out when you found each other pocked with red marks still brings out a snicker from you.
Why did we stop coming here? You think about it as Phainon leads you, his hand in a tight grasp with yours. Maybe you will ask Cyrene later. You wanted to invite her too, as you were still afraid to be alone with him for more than a few seconds longer than necessary, but no matter how hard you looked, you couldn't find one trace of her.
“Just a bit more,” he says, as he moves stray ears of wheat from his view. All around you is a golden sea, endless and sprawling. Phainon’s family has owned this land since the olden days when the village was established, and is one of the first residents.
Past the fields, you see the big old tree, its canopy casting a big shadow across a patch of land, where, under its embrace, there is one piece of childhood memory you haven’t visited in a long time.
The shack is just as you had left it. Old, dusty, dilapidated, with the roof caving in, and several patches of wild weeds and grass grow around it. Although it looks like the roof has been recently patched.
“We are here!” He announced, looking back at you expectantly. “I took some liberties with remodeling the place a bit. Don't worry if it looks a bit shabby on the outside, it's super nice and cozy inside.”
Phainon seems proud as he tells you, and all you can think of is how he has stained another cherished memory of yours with his burning hands.
Calm down, you scold yourself. It's not a big deal.
Yeah, no big deal, it's just a tiny little hovel where you used to play and spend time with Phainon until he went and died on that hill.
Phainon gingerly pushes you inside the cramped shack. Maybe when he took that creative liberty, he didn't realise that the body he had stolen wasn't as small as it should have been to fit. Nonetheless, he persists, and so do you, and you both collapse on a mattress that wasn't there before when you last visited.
“It’s because we have grown bigger, stupid,” you say, and catch yourself immediately regretting it. But Phainon doesn’t seem to mind or care.
Phainon snorts while cushioning your fall, a strong arm balancing your back. “Sorry, I didn't realise this place had become so small.”
You push away from him immediately, turning your face to hide the sudden, growing heat.
Phainon raises an eyebrow, “What? It is hot in here.”
“Yeah, you are right,” Phainon says.
He touches the old stack of comic books sitting near him, his eyes narrowing with wistfulness that shouldn’t be there.
Then, all of a sudden, without warning, he is shedding his school shirt. Your eyes widen when he throws it somewhere like it's a ball.
“What are you doing?!” You scream, flabbergasted by his nonchalance.
You don't have a retort for that. It is actually hot, sweltering even, and mid-day has long since passed. “S-still! You shouldn't do that!”
“So you want me to die from the heat? Fine, I'll listen and stand in the sun until it melts me away like wax.”
“What are you even saying? As if you aren't hot enough as it is.”
It's too late to take it back. The context is apparent to you both, yet the devilish smirk that appears on his face as the skin beneath his eyes crinkle in mischief, you know you have screwed up. Big time.
“To think I could make you say something pervy like that,” he hides his face behind his palm, but it flares up your embarrassment even further.
“Y-you know what I meant! Stop twisting the words.”
“Cover yourself, you moron,” you say when he grabs the thrown shirt with one hand. He acquiesces, wordlessly wearing back the shirt but leaving the buttons opened, the shadow of a smile still on his lips. A golden sun peaks from his neck, but is covered when he tugs on the collar.
“I am not twisting. If anything, you are twisting my heart saying things like that,” that damn bastard is even coquettishly fluttering his lashes like some maiden in love.
You smack him hard with your bag, and he laughs. It's the same cheerful, sonorous laugh you have been hearing for the past eleven years, but hearing it now, again, is strange.
Phainon keeps saying ‘stop’ in between broken barks of laughter, and in the end you decide to end your siege by throwing back his crumpled shirt in his face.
The memory of you first seeing the tattoo floods your mind.
Phainon had just graduated from middle school, and his white-mess of a hair was shorter back then. He had worn turtle necks all week before you threatened to strip him bare in front of the entire school if he didn’t fess up.
You also remember how you had felt when he stretched his pale neck out for you to see the inking closely.
Maybe he was red in the face, maybe you had something warm deep in your stomach pounding madly in its cage, but you distinctly remember him staring down at you, his white lashes fluttering softly against his cheeks.
You also remember trying to hold yourself from bursting when his mom beat the hell out of him with her sandals for getting inked.
You tear yourself away from Phainon to look around the place.
“Have you lost your mind?! Getting a tattoo before entering high school, and on the neck of all places?!”
You certainly did lose your mind when he tearily apologised to her, vowing to never let any needle touch his skin again. But that didn’t mean he didn’t have other ways of driving the poor woman mad.
You notice the small trunk sitting underneath it, and you immediately gravitate towards it.
Many things have changed, and many things have been replaced. Toys that Phainon had carved from wood and lined along the broken window are still there.
The astral chart Cyrene had stuck on the wall, drawn with a broken blue crayon on paper, has yellowed beyond recognition.
The three of you used to stargaze all night when Phainon had developed a sudden obsession with it after reading about it in a comic. Cyrene had sat him down and carefully mapped each one on a piece of paper while she pointed them out from their heavenly abode.
It was as Cyrene had left it, the old box with its edges dented and scarred, like an ancient treasure finally unearthed.
You take it with shaky fingers (you don't know why they are shaking), and open it after blowing off the dust.
Inside, along with several cheap romance novels, neatly stacked in a corner, are the hand-painted oracle cards Cyrene had made all those years ago.
“You …. don’t remember?” you ask cautiously, slowly levelling your breathing.
“Hmm, what are those?” you almost shriek in horror at the closeness of his voice.
Phainon scoots beside you and throws you a confused look as he juts his chin towards the deck in your hands.
Phainon shakes his head. “Not really. They do look familiar, though.”
“These cards are really pretty,” Phainon says as he picks up a card to admire it up close. “Did you make them?”
You spread them out on the mattress as he looks curiously at each card.
Everything that Cyrene touched always glowed with radiance; such is her talent that even after almost a decade, they still look the same as the day they were painted.
She used cheap paper and those chalky paints that she got from the convenience store three miles from your village. How can someone’s hands be this blessed? She would probably be happy that you managed to recover them since they were thought to be lost forever.
“No, Cyrene did.” The admission chokes you up a little.
You blink, pushing away the unease. “No, just some romance novels.”
Phainon would have remembered them, but it doesn't seem like this imposter does.
He stares at you, his expression unreadable, and your mouth goes dry. It unnerves you more when he smiles and says, “Is there anything else in there?”
“Hey, look! I found something,” Phainon holds up a book, coincidentally: the book that Phaion hated the most, in front of you like some trophy. “Can we read this together?”
“Oh, maybe we could read some together!” he takes out one book after another; he is careful with their fragile binding as he inspects the dust-covered novels.
You have half a mind to remind him that Phainon never liked those kinds of novels. He always gagged when Cyrene read them while giggling at a particular romantic scene; she is romantic at heart after all.
Phainon used to call her ‘childish’ and ‘immature’ for reading such novels while he hypocritically gravitated towards action-packed adventure novels featuring heroes who, after overcoming several adversities, always triumphed at the end. Talk about the kettle calling the pot black.
You want to laugh.
“Sure,” you say as Phainon makes space for you.
Time passes with each turn of the page.
You can recite each word of the novel by heart, that is how much love you and your other best friend shared for this book. Yet, watching the person who, in his childhood, swore off romance novels like a plague, reading every word with child-like wonder squeezes your heart painfully.
You see him look at you, his fluffy white hair sticking to his sweaty forehead, his cerulean eyes blown wide but never gold, and he takes in deep breaths, his attention solely on you. “Yeah?”
“Phainon,” he stills beside you when you speak his name.
You haven’t said it since that night, and your face burns with the warmth of its remembrance.
“Did … the things you said, back then…” You shouldn’t ask, you cannot ask, but the memory of this creature's admission, the truth he laid bare to you in a paranoid frenzy, haunts you every time you stare into his eyes and find him gone.
(“He died thinking about you, maybe that's what made me love you too.”)
“Was it all true?”
“What all I said that night, it's all true.”
Somehow it feels like all breathable air has been sucked out from this place.
You hold his stare, and your breath, while you wait for any emotion to pass by his neutral facade.
“Yes,” he says it with flourishing finality, with self-assured confidence that maims you in your uncomfortable seat.
The sun sets, and he takes you back home.
“Thank you… for coming with me,” he looks so much like him underneath the street lamp, standing there in front of your door, so big and tall, and meek like the boy you used to run after. “I didn't think you would agree.”
The cicadas chirp as loud as ever, louder than they are supposed to.
There is a lot you could say, a lot you want to say, there are questions that demand to be answered, as cruel as they may be.
But all you do is smile at him and tell him to get back home, as it's getting late.
I hate summer, you think when you see Phainon’s retreating figure from your porch becoming smaller and smaller, fading away as the sun is swallowed by night.
The countryside isn’t as romantic and enchanting as the influencers on the internet might make it out to be.
Not when you have to paddle three goddamn miles just to get a decent cup of ice cream from a 7-Eleven in this sweltering heat.
But the allure of a sweet treat doesn't fix your sour mood when you are armed with a grocery list that you aren't sure you can haul by yourself.
Why did you let yourself be caught on one Phainon free day? And where is Phainon when you need his absurd muscular strength?
But it's not ‘Phainon’ that you are talking about, is it?
You want to stomp on the intrinsic voice in your head. You have enough things to worry about.
The cart isn't even half filled with the list items when you spot something in the snacks aisle.
It's the brand of cookies that Phainon liked, those teeth-rotting baked lumps of sugar that he could munch on all day if he could.
There is a limited edition sale promoting some collab with an obscure anime you haven't heard of.
Does ‘he’ like these? You think as you put them in your cart without a single thought.
Phainon can eat anything, you have noticed, and is fast about it too, licking his plate off the remaining crumbs when you last visited his place for dinner. Maybe he has a sweet tooth as well. You hope he does.
You pull up at the billing counter and an exhausted, sleep-deprived guy greets you in a robotic tone like he couldn't care less if you left with your stuff without paying.
He looks new because you know all the kids your age who come to school, since there is only one in the entire district.
His mess of dyed blonde and red hair is tied in an even messier bun, his sun-tanned skin complementing such sloppiness.
The worn-out merch t-shirt he wears is too tight for his body, his crimson tattooed biceps peeking out as he scans the bar code languidly.
This explains why there has been an influx of female clientele as of late.
You can also tell that they are talking about you and what their conversation topic might be. It's all that the adults with too much free time can talk about– that and those unsolved murders that still pop up from here and there.
He is partway through finishing when you feel the pinpricks of a stare you are all too familiar with.
You glance back furtively and find two middle-aged women, both from your village, conversing near the drink aisle with their shopping carts filled to the brim. They think they are being sneaky, but you know they are looking at you.
Their gazes are becoming bolder, their whispers becoming loud enough to scream in your ears. Their voice drones out, and you find yourself back in the chair of your therapist’s office, where you were an hour or so ago.
(You always expected a shrink’s area of practice to be immaculate.
Beige or white walls, potted succulents adorning the built-in shelves, and a long couch where anyone could fall asleep before reciting why their life sucks while an older man with a graying moustache pens everything on a clipboard, the tiniest of details jotted upon his inferences.
What star would it be if you had to guess? Vega? Sirius? Or Betelguese? Maybe you could ask Cyrene later.
But this place isn't like that.
It's above a mom-and-pop noodle shop, the smell of seafood and vinegar tickling both your nose and stomach.
An older lady, no more than fifty, sits on a ratty couch opposite you, asking preliminary questions that she asks before every session, and you keep your eyes trained on the splotch of stain behind her on the wall in the shape of a star while answering her questions.
Your mouth moves in tandem with your brain, speaking when you can or humming when you can't or don't want to talk.
If you were back in the city, in Okhema, from where you had shifted to this small farming village almost eleven years ago, it wouldn't be strange for a kid your age to go to a doctor just to yap about your current mental status and your pressing problems. The elders here don't think the way the city folks do.
“I thought we were making progress,” she says quietly, more to herself than you. “You have been regular, but you are not engaging.”
There is a prolonged silence that shouldn't be there.
You turn away from the star stain to look at your therapist, who is not amused.
She closes her worn diary and sets it over the coffee table you are sure will die if she sets the little thing the wrong way. The table doesn't break, and the sigh she exhales isn't mirthful.
You have nothing you want to say, and nothing you could say overturns what has already happened. And even if you did say it, she will not believe you, and worse, will tattle to your parents.
‘That's because only you thought that,’ you sneer inside while crossing your arms. It's not like you asked to be put here, coming each week for the longest hour of your life just to waste it on pointless drivel.
You didn't ask to sit here on this shoddy couch, in a room that stinks like a fish market, only to satisfy your parents with answers they would like (you are sure she is breaking her therapist-client confidentiality, you saw her taking extra money from your dad).
She keeps on talking, and you keep on staring at the stain.)
A heavy thud pulls you out.
You look up to see the guy with the golden glare, and the frown he gives is enough reason to run without saying ‘thank you’.
You rush out of the store, the bag full of groceries and miscellaneous items that you are sure to be scolded for.
“You should stop right now,” a voice, smooth and sonorous, comes from behind you.
You don't see her coming from behind you when you unlock your bicycle from its spot.
A hand, pale and strong, rests upon your shoulders in a comfort that immediately disarms you and makes you afraid at the same time.
You feel small in your own skin when you question back– “Ummm, err…Stop what?”
You whip your head to see the most gorgeous woman you have ever laid eyes on.
She wears a huge trimmed sun hat, the gold spun hair resting beneath the article curling against her blushed cheeks softly.
The white and gold dress looks straight out of a magazine cover, the outfit tailored and form-fitting. She regards you from behind her cat-eyed sunglasses like she has walked out of a runway, taking you in.
“Whatever it is that you are doing with that being,” she says, and you feel like you have stopped breathing.
She knows? You cannot tell if the voice is incredulous or jovial, but it loops in your mind like an unskippable ad, and you don't like it.
“I-I think you have the wrong person,” you quickly put your purchase in the basket in front of your cycle.
Somehow, you have ended up in a booth inside a local desert shop with the lady.
The lady chuckles, “It's okay. I know it must sound strange coming from someone you don't even know,” she takes your open hand in hers, her palm pleasantly warm. Comforting. “But trust me when I say this, I can help you.”
They are two-toned, glassy, and her faraway gaze suggests her blindness. With the way she carries herself, you couldn't have guessed.
She discarded her wide hat when she sat across from you. Not one hair out of place. You need to ask about her hair care routine. But what surprises you more is when she puts her sunglasses on the table and looks at you with eyes that you can only think of as ethereal.
“What would you like?” She asks, already holding up the menu in front of her.
“It's okay! Y-you don't need to bother with this,” you stammer.
Behind the laminated cardboard, you cannot tell what expression she wears, but her tone remains neutral. “You aren't bothering me,” she tells you and beckons the waitress over with a wave. “If it were, we would be here having this conversation.”
Somehow, you feel flushed with shame as if you are helping cover up a crime you had no hand in. The waitress, with her customer-service smile, comes up with a notepad, and the lady is quick to tell both orders.
Minutes later, an absurd-looking parfait sits in front of you in a huge glass. There is a little flag sitting atop the melting ice cream. You remember the ones you bought and mourn their melted fate and your wallet.
The lady sips on her coffee, her lipstick pristine after wiping the cream from her lips. “I should introduce myself– my name is Aglaea,” the woman called Aglaea says. “I have just recently moved here and own a small tailor shop just around the corner.”
She hands out a card, it's in the same gold and white colour scheme, but the name is what knocks your socks off.
‘GARMENTMAKER’ is embossed in elegant gold cursive writing, and you look back and forth between her and the piece of paper with your mouth open.
It isn't just any small shop, nor is it small by any means.
It is one of the most sought-after clothing stores in Okhema with its month-long waiting lists. Normal people can't even afford it with their meager salaries, and she says it's a ‘small shop around the corner’?
“T-thank you,” is all you can muster up before stuffing it in your pocket. “But, I still don't understand what you meant by that?”
Your bewildered look must have thoroughly amused her as she chuckles, still elegant and demure, her eyes crinkling with mirth.
“You seem quite surprised, but that's okay, you can visit whenever you like,” Aglaea says as she winks at you. “Maybe I will give you a discount if you bring any friends over.”
The suggestion isn't lost on her. She smiles, resting her hands on her lap. “I meant what I said. You should distance yourself from whatever entity that has latched on to you,” she says. “And don't deny it. I think you know better than I about what I am talking about.”
You do, somewhat. The entity she must be mentioning should be Phainon. There is no one else who comes up in your mind and fills you with dread. “But, how do you know about him?”
“Ah, seems like I was right in assuming it was someone close to you,” Aglaea remarks. “And, as far as I know, there is a simple explanation for that.” She sits up a bit straighter, her posture still beautiful but there's stiffness in her shoulders that wasn't there before.
“My eyes are …. special, in some sense.”
Her glossy green eyes fall on you and suddenly her story doesn't seem all that crazy. No set of eyes can look like they can make out the material of your very soul. None like Aglaea’s.
“Long ago, I was in a similar situation just like yours, and somebody who should have died came back,” her eyes rest upon the condensation of your melting treat. “It took me some time and a significant loss to realise that the person I knew had long since gone. But by that time the damage was done…”
“Is that why your eyes are…?”
She nods, “It isn't complete blindness. I can make sense of the things happening around me, but it's like a fog has spread over my vision.”
“I-I see. Sorry for bringing it up.”
“Nonsense,” she waves her hand dismissively. “What's done is done. It's now gone and has left its scars that could heal with time, but it has also left something else,” she tapped underneath her eyes. “I can see things now that shouldn't exist.”
“‘See things’?” You parrot, and she smiles again.
Aglaea calls your name with soft fondness; her eyes are already hidden behind the glasses again, but you now know that they see more than they let on. “Give me a call when you feel like you need help. I will wait as long as I am able.”
“I can tell you more if you are interested,” she says, suddenly standing up, and you follow her, your hands straining not to clutch onto her.
She glanced at the analogue clock behind you, hung on the wall. “My apologies, but I have to leave now,” she looks at you apologetically.
“We can continue to chat on a different day. My number is on the card, please feel free to use it.” Her concern seems genuine, and the underlying feeling that you get from her peeves your interest.
She knows something.
‘Just like Chimera cookies.’
With that, the elusive lady leaves you in the booth, alone, with your barely touched ice cream. The wafers have softened under the wetness of the ice cream when you take a bite.
“It's too sweet,” you think out loud, filling the void she has left behind.
Synopsis: You are given a body by your professor and told that if you ever want to work in his lab, you must accomplish the impossible: bring that beautiful, very dead man back to life.
HSR Masterlist | References + Additional Notes
Pairing: Phainon x F!Reader, you will wish it was Mydei x F!Reader but no he just gets traumatized
Word Count: 11.8k
Dividers: @/thecutestgrotto
Content Warnings: the concept of khaslana as frankenstein's monster and basically any generally weird/gross warning you can think of with regards to him being the eventual love interest and reader being a substitute for frankenstein (although !! it is not romantic until he is alive I PROMISE), light smut (it's actually really barely there but i guess this implies cw monsterfucking and mdni please!), casual references to a corpse/body, reader is like . very strange and becomes emotionally dependent on aforementioned corpse/body (the beginning of frankenstein's monster you could say), lowk we gotta save mydei he is a victim, anaxa is ooc (he has ethics), science treated like fantasy idc, 80% second person narrative / 20% journal entry + additional media split (don't let the hook fool you i swear)
A/N: the weird ass halloween fic is here .. do i know how to write horror NO do i know how to write smut NO but one thing i do know is glazing tf out of phainon and at least AT THE VERY LEAST I ACCOMPLISHED THAT anyways as for the rest of it.....mea culpa T_T ❤️ thank you for reading anyways if you happen to !! and i can only hope you do not think lesser of me after reading this I PROMISE I AM NORMALLY NOT SO FREAKY ..
01 OCT 79 — Professor Anaxagoras has given me a body of uncommon beauty and proportion. I do not dare ask him where it is from or who it once was; he does not take kindly to questioning, and so, henceforth, for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to it in my records as ‘Subject K’ — short, naturally, for ‘Subject Killed’, an idea which did not come from me, I confess, but from the mind of a dear and trusted colleague.
Subject K was once a man, a laborer if I am to guess, for he has that sort of a constitution, hearty and hale yet a touch underfed. His hair is pale and his eyes, upon inspection, are a blue shade not unlike veronicaflowers; I am sure that in his life, he must have been quite admired. Ah, what a pity, then, that he died so young! My own heart does pang when I look upon him, but I cannot afford to be so distracted by the feebleness of my empathy. The good professor does not take kindly to delinquency, either.
How slowly the time did pass in Professor Anaxagoras’s class — even you, ordinarily so fascinated by the theories he described, found yourself frequently bored by the mundane, frigid monotone of his lecturing. It was worse for the others, you supposed, many of whom only attended out of compulsion, not choice, and thus could hardly remain focused as he rambled about the concepts of Nousporism. Abiogenesis, he would tell you all, and at your side Mydei would yawn, though he tried very hard to hide it, covering his mouth and giving you one of those gentle, hapless looks of his. ‘Life’ was once ‘not-life.’
Occasionally, someone might raise their hand, might ask him to clarify meaning or vision, but inevitably they were met with the same response: a blank, pinched look, the professor’s lips pursed into a frown, his singular eye narrowed as he considered the inquiry carefully. By the time he mustered up a response, it was well past the time for anyone to care what it might be, and besides, he spoke in such a winding, insufficient manner that one was only ever left with more questions, anyways.
“I don’t understand what interest you find in Nousporism,” Mydei said to you once, after a particularly dry session in which Professor Anaxagoras had explained the construction of the gaseous compounds he had used in his most recent experiment. “There’s far more exciting research to be done in Helkolithy, and far better professors, at that.”
“You’re only saying that because it is your own discipline, and so you are bound to convert as many promising candidates to its pursuit as you can,” you said. He gave you a sheepish grin, and you rolled your eyes. “You’re better off persuading someone else.”
“It’s not persuasion if I’m only pointing out the truth,” he said, holding open the door to the dusty lecture hall for you, waiting for you to wave at Professor Anaxagoras as was your custom, though he never reciprocated. “I can’t fathom anyone more deserving, more dedicated, but the only Nousporist lab is Professor Anaxagoras’s, and everyone knows he doesn’t accept assistants. You’re wasting your potential, that’s all. It doesn’t have to be Helkolithy, but…you know.”
“Thank you,” you said when he trailed off with a shrug. “I appreciate it, Mydei, really I do, but it’s alright. Studying Nousporism has been my dream since I was young, even if it is a slog at times, and I am willing to wait if that is what it takes. I will wait years upon years if I must, but I shan’t be dissuaded, not by your good intentions or the professor’s bad temper.”
“Well,” he said, patting you on the shoulder. “Let us hope it does not take nearly that long.”
Had he shown any continued skill at prophecy, you might’ve told him to become a Venerationist, but unfortunately this was his one and only divination, in that the very next day, when the two of you made to leave as you always did, Professor Anaxagoras looked up when you waved at him. Then, slowly, with a twisted sort of comprehension dawning upon his sallow face, he held out his hand and motioned for you to wait.
“You can go, Helkolithist boy,” he said to Mydei, who had paused when you had. “I only wish to speak with her.”
Perhaps you might’ve been excited, but indeed all you could think was that you had done something wrong, that you had acted overfamiliar or otherwise offended he who had such peculiar sensibilities. Your stomach dropped, and you glanced desperately at Mydei, as if he could do anything but look at you in return, as bewildered as you were anxious, before you nodded at the professor.
Nousporists did not believe in gods, but you found yourself praying to some unknown entity as the door shut behind Mydei and you were left alone in the great, looming cavern of the lecture hall. It was an entity which was not exactly a deity but would, if you had to guess, resemble one, should you give further thought to the matter; as it was, however, you could only repeat your frantic pleas in your mind and wait, frozen, for Professor Anaxagoras to speak.
“It has come to my attention that you have some notions of becoming a Nousporist in full,” he said. When you were silent, he raised his eyebrows. “Did I misinterpret you? My hearing is keen, but I suppose advanced age catches up to us all.”
“Not — not at all, sir!” you said. “Yes, it was — it is my dream. Ever since I was very young, I’ve wanted to be a Nousporist. That’s the entire reason I came to this university, you’ve always — I mean, I really admire you and your work, is what I’m trying to say—”
“Enough,” he said, mercifully cutting you off before you could continue to stumble and worsen what was no doubt already a poor impression. “Very well. Come with me.”
He was a long-strided man, walking with a clear and distinct purpose, and you felt rather like a little chick toddling after its mother as you raced to keep up with him through the winding, candlelit halls of the university. Even after so many years in attendance, you and Mydei frequently found yourselves lost in the twisted mazes of the academic buildings — sometimes together, mostly apart — but Professor Anaxagoras navigated them with such a haunting, careless ease that you were impressed, having never expected it from him of all people.
“What do you know of the principles of Nousporism?” he said, cutting through the silence with the dulled knife of his voice. He was livelier now than he ever had been in his lectures, and for a moment you were simply taken aback at the thought that these two aspects were of one and the same man.
“Very much, sir,” you said, eager to impress him now that he was giving you the chance. “The foundation is the phrase ‘life’ was once ‘not-life.’ All of Nousporism stems from it.”
“Good,” he said. “Then, assuming the theory is correct, there must be a natural process for ‘life’ to be born of ‘not-life’, wouldn’t you agree?”
“Yes, it’s true,” you said. “Though no one has ever managed to learn what it is…”
You entered a small, dark room, a flickering lamp in the corner serving as the only source of light. When your eyes adjusted to the bleakness, you found that it was all but empty save for an operating table in the middle, upon which a single form lay, the length and breadth of it covered by a white sheet.
“What makes ‘it’ different from you and me?” Professor Anaxagoras said, gingerly rolling back the sheet to reveal a smooth, handsome face, its expression frozen in repose. You gawked at it for a moment, unable to entirely comprehend what you were looking at, and when you understood, you flinched backwards. “‘It’ was once a ‘he’, after all. In this way, death is the inverse of Nousporism.”
A million questions brimmed in your mind — whose body was it? How had Professor Anaxagoras come across it? How was it preserved in such flawless condition, untouched by decay and rot, as if it were merely trapped in slumber, not kissed by death? But one glance at his firm, cautious expression made you falter, for suddenly you recognized this for what it was: a test. If you showed any fear, any uncertainty, then you would prove yourself unworthy of the designation of Nousporist. So, swallowing down your hesitation, you banished your alarm and nodded at the professor.
“Death is ‘life’ becoming ‘not-life,’” you said, and when he smiled — only slightly, but surely — you were heartened to continue. “That’s why ‘it’ is different from ‘us’ — it isn’t alive. It can’t think or feel or understand, not anymore. It’s no different than a statue.”
“Very good,” he said. “So what would it take to restore it to its original condition? That is the basis of the experiment I want you to take over for me.”
“What?” you said, because everything was moving so fast and you could hardly comprehend it. A part of you — and not a small part, either — was still on the first floor, leaving the lecture hall with Mydei, unacknowledged by the professor yet again. So what did it mean, this entire concept of taking over his experiment? What was he saying?
“Make ‘life’ from ‘not-life,’” he said. “That is my condition, if you are serious about Nousporism and wish to join my lab. Resurrect this corpse, and turn ‘it’ into ‘him’ once again; only then will I accept you as worthy of working alongside me.”
“When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which has had a history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, nearly in the same way as when we look at any great mechanical invention as the summing up of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic being, how far more interesting, I speak from experience, will the study of natural history become!” (Ruan Mei, The Origin of Species).
“He wants you to bring a dead body back to life?” Mydei said incredulously. Of course, to he who was so interested in the study of anatomy and physiology, Helkolithist as he was, the very thought must have been nothing short of blasphemous, but you could only shrug in the face of his shock.
“Nousporism is that kind of a field, after all,” you said. “I know you must view it as a sort of desecration, but that’s not exactly the case. The body is being used for advancement and progress. Isn’t that something that its owner’s spirit should be proud of?”
“That’s not what I’m worried about,” he said. “How are you supposed to manage that? Such an impossible condition he’s given…you’d almost think he doesn’t want you to succeed.”
“He would never do that,” you said immediately, in what he would, if he knew, likely dub a reflex. “Why would he go to all of that trouble in the first place? He could have just as easily ignored me. I don’t argue that this is meant to be a test of the utmost difficulty, but certainly it is possible. He would not have asked it of me if it weren’t.”
“If it is possible, then why hasn’t he done it himself?” Mydei challenged. You sighed, because he always was such a contrarian. It had been optimistic of you to expect him to take this victory at face value, not when he was so prone to this — this — this arguing, this fault-finding.
“Perhaps he is simply too busy to dedicate the proper time to research,” you said. “Such undertakings are not light, after all.” He opened his mouth to argue again, but you gave him a withering glare, cutting him off before he could. “You might be happy for me, if you were so inclined.”
“I am,” he said. “Really, I am. Wasn’t I the one who said you deserved it, before the professor even took note of you? I just didn’t expect it would come about in such a manner.”
“I didn’t, either,” you said. “But this is a rare opportunity. I cannot let it go, even if it isn’t the most favorable. Professor Anaxagoras has extended me his hand, and so I must endeavor to take it.”
“Alright, alright,” he said. “I won’t speak against it anymore, so don’t be angry. Tell me about this dead body of yours.”
“You’re incorrigible,” you said when he burst into a fit of laughter right afterwards, ruining his contrite image entirely. “It’s quite strange, actually. I can’t figure out what must’ve happened to it; it’s in entirely perfect condition, at least based on my preliminary examination.”
“Is it a man or a woman?” he said.
“A man,” you said. “Oh, Mydei, you’d gasp if you saw it. I can hardly believe how beautiful it is. He must’ve been so charming when he was still alive.”
“Beautiful isn’t exactly the first word I’d use for a corpse,” Mydei said, wrinkling his nose. “Or the second. Or the third.”
“I didn’t think I ever would, either,” you admitted. “But like I said, this one is odd. I’ve never seen anything quite like it, dead or alive. It belongs in a painting or a story, not an operating table or lab. Actually, it makes me quite sad whenever I happen to glance upon it; I don’t think he was any older than you or I when he died. What a horrible life he must’ve led, to end up like that, without a single person there to mourn him.”
“It’s a shame,” Mydei said. “Well, maybe his second life will be better than the first.
“Second life…” you said, trailing off in thought before giving him an earnest, worried look. “So you think that I can do it, is that what you mean?”
“Naturally, I don’t think anyone can do it,” he said, but then his brow furrowed into something sweet and pondering. “It violates the very basics of Helkolithy, wherein that which is dead must remain dead. But, if it is possible, if it can be done…then the one to manage it will definitely be you.”
07 OCT 79 — I cannot quite fathom where to begin in the resurrection of Subject K, so I have instead thrown myself into the careful and methodical categorization of the body. Perhaps this is ultimately an exercise in redundancy, but at least it wears the guise of productivity, and so I do not feel nearly as guilty as I would’ve, were I wasting my free time simply reading textbooks.
It is dead and yet undying at once, which is an inexplicable thing to say but is true nonetheless. Sometimes, I can delude myself into imagining the rise and fall of his chest, the beat of his heart beneath my palm — but, then, the skin of the corpse is cold and it is motionless in a way no man ever would be. I have never heard of anything like it, not in all my years of study, and none of the books I reference describe such a phenomenon. Ruan Mei, Ratio, Screwllum, Yang…if none of these great minds have encountered something like this, what does that mean? Doubtless Subject K is special; I wonder if Professor Anaxagoras understood this when he chose the body, if that was why he chose it, or if it is a mere and happy coincidence.
Without fail, you would cough upon entering the lab where Subject K — as Mydei had jokingly dubbed the corpse – was kept. It was dark and dusty and matched Professor Anaxagoras’s dour countenance exactly, but for someone like you, who was not yet used to such conditions, it was a valiant fight to accustom yourself. Yet you persisted, for if you could be vanquished by dank air and dim corners, then how could you ever consider yourself a proper researcher?
It was eerie, being alone in that room with only a body to keep you company. You liked to pretend that it was a sleeping man instead of a dead one, for it comforted you a little to think that there was someone other than mice and spiders huddled in floorboards alongside you as you pored over the various journals Professor Anaxagoras had left opened on the desk he had bequeathed you in the handing over of the lab. Once or twice, you considered begging Mydei to come and sit with you, you even came close enough to asking him for a favor with that intention, but at the last moment you grew wary and simply told him to make dinner for you, if he was not opposed.
What would the professor think? How could he accept an assistant who clung to a Helkolithist out of fear of her own experiment? Subject K was yours, so you ought not to be frightened of it, and you doubly ought not to be so reliant on someone whose philosophy was so opposite to your own. You had to learn to stand by your merit, and so you did not dare ask Mydei to stay by your side, knowing he would relieve you too well and thus would stunt your development too thoroughly. So, instead, to ward away the complete and total seclusion of the lab, you took to speaking with him: Subject K.
“Good evening,” you would say when you entered, smiling at the table through your coughing fit, a stabbing pain in your throat and lungs, tears welling in your eyes. “I hope you have been well in my absence, Subject K.”
Of course he did not answer, he very well couldn’t, but you imagined he might, if he had the capability, say something like this: I have been well, yes, albeit a little lonely. And what of you?
“Hm,” you would say, and then you’d launch into a recounting of your day as you settled in your chair, lighting your lamp and arranging your things around you. “Today was not so horrible. Mydei said he would leave dinner at my house for me, so at least I have one less thing to worry about and can spend longer here. I am near to a breakthrough, I have complete faith…do not worry, you will be back soon, and then Professor Anaxagoras will be forced to acknowledge me.”
Sometimes, you would complain to him, for few were as sympathetic of listeners as he was, and even fewer could keep secrets quite as well as he could. Perhaps no one in the world existed like that, and indeed there was a sort of freedom to this: you could speak as you wished without fear of judgment or reproach, and you abused the privilege, laying every petty grievance at his feet as you updated your records.
“Professor Anaxagoras has asked after my progress again,” you said once, punctuating it with a particularly harsh stroke of your pen. “I don’t know what to tell him. You are the same as ever, which in and of itself is a mystery, but one I am no closer to solving than I am to bringing you back to life.”
He continued his slumber, that pale-haired figure, unwitting of your distress, and with a sigh you got out of your chair and began to pace. What would it take? What were you missing? You could still hear Professor Anaxagoras’s clipped voice ringing in the back of your mind — ah. Not done yet? Such a pity. A disappointment, that was what you were, though he had not said as much. You had been entrusted with such a task, and instead of proving yourself capable, you had only served to fail repeatedly. How could you ever become a Nousporist now? If you were Professor Anaxagoras, you would never accept yourself, not after so many botched attempts, not after so many chances left unfulfilled.
“What if I ruin you?” you said, a new fear striking you as you pulled Subject K’s covering down his torso, taking his limp hands and moving them so that they were folded over his stomach. Such large hands he had, the skin worn and rough, littered with cuts and callouses, but arranged in such a way, they seemed princely and fine, as if clasped in wait. Despondency rolled over you in waves the longer you stared at him, imagining him rotting away, lost forever to worms and flies because of your own ineptitude. “I might ruin you. Oh, I will ruin you, I will ruin this experiment and you will become just another mound of dirt in the ground — I never should’ve accepted Professor Anaxagoras’s offer, I never should’ve believed I could do it — how you must hate me! If it were him, if it were anyone else, you might already walk amongst us once more, but instead you are here, trapped with me as your only hope.”
You did not know when the first tear fell, only that suddenly, you were kneeling with your face in your hands as you began to bawl, heaving and fitful. You could not do it. You could not do it. Why had you ever dreamt of becoming a Nousporist? It was too difficult, it was too difficult, you did not know how anyone managed, you should have given up long ago. You should’ve listened to Mydei, you should’ve become a Helkolithist — well, you still could, couldn’t you? But the thought of going to Professor Anaxagoras and telling him you were giving up was the most agonizing thing you could conceive of, so you allowed yourself only one more minute of tears, and then, wiping at your face, you straightened, brushing off your knees and arms.
“My apologies,” you said, adjusting your clothing so that it sat just so, professional and gathered once more, as if nothing had happened, nothing at all. “Let us continue, then, shall we?”
“The Lament for Khaslana” by Sunday Oak
Work Type: Painting
Medium: Oil on canvas
Measurements: H 182.9 x W 155.6 cm
“This picture shows the dead Khaslana from Amphorean mythology. He is surrounded by lamenting sea-nymphs. His mother, the tailor Aglaea, made wings out of wax so that she and her son might escape from the island of Okhema. But, overcome by pride, Khaslana flies too near to the sun, the wax melts, and he plunges to his death. This is Sunday Oak’s most famous picture. He belonged to the generation of Penaconian artists that was influenced by Belobogian Impressionism, but Oak devoted himself to the historical and literary themes of Lushakan artists such as Mikhail Char Legwork.”
There was something held under his tongue. You found it many days into your research, when you had given up hope and resorted to simply gazing at his face, willing him to give you some answer, some clue, one hint or several about what you had to do — if not the entirety, then at least the next step. His face belied nothing, not at first, but the longer you stared at it, the louder that persistent nagging in the back of your mind grew, that insistence that something was off, something was wrong about him. It took you a while to realize what, but then, in a flash of clarity, you understood: his mouth, his pretty mouth, curved into an unnatural crescent, just shy of a smile.
“Forgive me,” you said, smoothing his hair back from his forehead, your fingers itching with discomfort before you took his cheeks in your hand, prying his jaw open slowly, cringing back as you prodded about in the dry cavern, trying to remember to breathe so that you did not faint. You were somewhere else. You were a Helkolithist. You were in the library with Mydei. You were anywhere but here, doing anything but this. “Forgive me, please, forgive me—”
There it was, a stone the size of your thumb, gleaming crimson with an intrinsic fire that no ruby or garnet could ever hope to possess. You did not dare pull it from him, not when you recognized it immediately from the illustrations in one of Professor Anaxagoras’s journals: a philosopher’s stone, which did not, as was claimed in the myths, grant eternal life, but which did, according to the professor’s research, have extraordinary preservative properties. You did not yet understand how it worked, but you were sure, as you gently nudged his mouth closed, that this was the reason why he remained in such perfect, pristine condition.
But for him to be exactly as he was at the moment he had died, the stone would’ve had to have been placed right then, pressed under his tongue with precision at the very second he passed away. What did it imply? You didn’t want to think it, not of a man you had always so admired, but you could not stop your mind from ending up at that natural conclusion: Professor Anaxagoras had — he had — Professor Anaxagoras had —
You could not even make it to the wastebasket by the door; you threw up on the floor, hunching over as your stomach spasmed, gripping the edge of the table for stability. You counted to five — one, two, three, four, five — and then you pushed yourself up, wiping the corners of your mouth and your fingers with a handkerchief you produced from your pocket.
Then you retrieved a mop from the corner and began to clean the sick up, scrubbing at the stone until your hands were raw, as if that could do anything, as if this was something you could ever possibly hope to efface.
14 OCT 79 — ‘Subject K’ is such a clinical name, is it not? It feels so detached when I am speaking to him and must refer to him as that. And to think it is short for ‘Subject Killed’...such a cruelty, poking fun at his unfortunate state! I ought to have chided Mydei my colleague for the suggestion. No, no, it cannot do. I will give him a different name, a better, more apt one.
He is like a tragic hero from old. I am quite sure, now, that there was some foul play involved in his death, foul play that Professor Anaxagoras no doubt had a hand in, but I do not dare confront anyone, not as of yet. I am frightened, and besides the philosopher’s stone, I do not have enough proof — only a strange feeling, a protectiveness over his body, as though by bringing him back I can defend him from whatever happened to him in the first place.
Mydei My colleague did suggest, upon learning of this experiment, that perhaps his second life would be better than his first; that perhaps I could, in this way, save him from his horrible fate. How did he end up in Professor Anaxagoras’s clutches, anyways? Maybe it is that he was once like Khaslana, flying too close to a sun meant to burn him, always meant to burn him…
Khaslana. Yes, that name is familiar to me, I saw him in a painting once, his golden, winged form, his fine, seraphic features. Ah, now that I think about it, he was not so different from Subject K, was he? Well, perhaps it is fate, then, that even their names begin with the same letters. Henceforth I will know him as such, as Subject Khaslana — or, if I may be so informal, as simply Khaslana, like I would if we were close and particular friends.
“I worry for you,” Mydei said, and then you felt it, the ghost of his palm against your cheek, traveling to your shoulder and shaking you until you awoke, blinking up at him and wondering when you had ever fallen asleep in the first place. “When was the last time you slept for an entire night?”
“Hm?” you mumbled, your mind slow and groggy from exhaustion. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, ‘you don’t know?’” he said.
“The night is the only time I have to myself,” you said. “Thus, it is the only time I have to spend with him.”
“Him?” Mydei said. “Who? Do you — have you been courted, really?”
“Courted?” you said, and now it was your turn to give him an incredulous look. “Whatever do you mean? I speak of Khaslana — er, Subject K, as you know him.”
“Khaslana?” he repeated. “You mean…your dead body has a name now? And you are losing sleep because you are…spending time with it?”
“I don’t know why you act like he’s a puppy I’m raising,” you said. “It’s a genuine scientific undertaking. Professor Anaxagoras has already asked after my progress twice, and each time, I’ve had nothing to show for it but a few textbook articles that I thought might be of some relevance. Of course I have to spend time with him. How else will I figure out how to bring him back?”
Suddenly, it was as if every bit of compounded exhaustion you were feeling was suddenly thrust upon Mydei, leaving you light, leaving him overburdened. He raised his hand as if he might touch it to your brow, but then he did not, he only ran it through his hair and closed his eyes, like you were some great disappointment he could not understand how to fix.
“Very well,” he said. “If this is what you think is the best path, then of course I will believe you. Shall I leave dinner in your room once again?”
“If it doesn’t trouble you,” you said, and he did not seem angry, but you could not help wanting to tip-toe around him anyways, for although you had never once seen Mydei snap, that did not necessarily make him incapable of it.
“It doesn’t trouble me,” he said. “But in exchange, please promise you will rest.”
“I can’t promise that,” you said, which made you feel pitiful, but you could not bring yourself to lie to him, to give him that empty reassurance. His face fell, and how peculiar it was, that you were growing more and more tenured to Professor Anaxagoras’s dismay, but Mydei’s still brought you to fumble for an explanation. “He only has one body, Mydei, so I have to proceed with the utmost of diligence. What if I ruin it?”
“You are the one who is still alive. There will be other corpses, there will be no shortage of them, but there can never—” Mydei broke off with a heavy exhale, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Never mind.”
The callousness was so unlike him that you were visibly taken aback, which caused his eyes to widen, too, but he did not move to reassure you as he once might’ve. He only waited as you gathered your thoughts and your things, carefully placing each book in your bag before clearing your throat.
“There may be other corpses, but they won’t be his,” you said. “He is the one I have been trying for so long to resurrect. I don’t care about the others, Mydei. He is the only one I want to bring back.”
“Grandfather’s funeral was today. Mama has been crying and crying since we left the parlor, but when I looked at him in his casket, I was just a little curious. He didn’t look any different than when he would sleep on the sofa-bed at home, though when I tried saying that, Papa told me to hush. It made me very angry that he did that, but Mama was already close to tears, so I decided I would be good this time and listened very quietly.
“When we got home, I asked my uncle why it is that dead bodies resemble sleeping ones so greatly. He is always more willing to answer my questions than Mama and Papa alike. Both of them are so unreasonable, I am cross again thinking of it! But my uncle is different, he always tries to think over my questions and answer them seriously.
“He said to me, ‘Darling, it is because death is not separate from slumber — rather, it is a form of it, the eternal kind.’ So I asked him what eternal means, and he said it was some vast quantity beyond my imagination. I said — greater than one million? He nodded and said — many, many times greater.
“‘So if death is only a form of slumber,’ I said to him, because of course this new fascination he has introduced only made me more curious, ‘So if it is a form of slumber as you say, then could you not bring someone back as easily as waking them up?’
“He squinted at me, can you believe it? The thought of me confusing him! Well, he squinted at me, and then he sighed out his response the way Papa might, which would’ve made me cross again but it is not as offensive, coming from him: ‘You sound like a regular Nousporist.’
“A Nousporist! I have never heard of such a thing, and I tell him as much. He pats my head and tells me that of all the people in the world, only a Nousporist would ever ask as many questions as I do — although they are praised for it, where I am scolded.
“‘You would make a right proper Nousporist, thinking of it,’ he said, and now I am entirely taken with this idea of a place where I can ask as many questions as I want without Mama crying or Papa yelling or my uncle sighing at me. So I will be a Nousporist, then! It is settled, and in truth I feel a little relieved to have this plan for my future, since I have been unsure until now.” (Unknown Author, “A Girl’s Diary”)
“Khaslana,” you said. “This is what I have named you. Are you opposed to it? Do you know the story? It’s an old Amphorean myth, so there are nearly as many versions as there are stars in the sky. I guess you may have heard it, but heard a different version than the one I know.”
You moved your chair so that you were sitting beside him, propping your journal in your lap and continuing to take notes as you spoke idly, boredly. It was comfortable, the easy conversation, and more than a little unfamiliar, too, for you were used to your audiences cutting you off before you could complete your thoughts. Khaslana never did anything like that; he listened to you kindly, silently, without coldness or boredom with your rambling, winding ways.
“I suppose the story doesn’t matter as much as the ending, which is always the same,” you said. “He flies too close to the sun, and then he falls to his death. What a fool I have named you after! I am sure that is what you must be thinking to yourself, but that is not why I have dubbed you as such. Well, really, it’s a silly reason, I’m almost embarrassed to tell you…”
Khaslana did not say anything, and when you glanced up from your notes on one of Dr. Veritas Ratio’s papers, you found him as he always was, smiling slightly around the philosopher’s stone tucked away under his tongue, his body cold, his face set.
How had Mydei done it the other day? You extended your hand, patting Khaslana’s cheek, skimming it along his neck so that you could take him by the shoulder and shake him. Gently, barely, afraid of hurting him as you were, but you still did it, you still shook him as Mydei had shook you, out of some childish hope that maybe, maybe it would be enough. Maybe you had wasted your time thus far, maybe the secret really was just this, maybe all you had to do was beg him to wake up until he did.
But Khaslana did not stir, and eventually you gave up. Heat flushed your face, and you shrank back into your chair, hugging your journal to your chest and laughing miserably, wretchedly.
“How could you have allowed me to do that?” you said. “Now I look a greater fool than Khaslana himself.”
What would his laugh sound like? You figured it would be a handsome noise, musical and rich, befitting his stature and expression. You wished that you had already succeeded, that you had already brought him back to life, so that you could make these jokes and listen to his amusement in full, instead of relying on your imagination, which could never properly capture reality in any meaningful way.
“I don’t think Khaslana was a fool, though,” you said finally, your voice meek and downcast. “Who amongst us would not keep going, were we in his place? How could he ever be satisfied with the mediocrity of the clouds when the grandeur of the sun was within his reach? I cannot imagine which is a worse fate, failing in the pursuit of that greatness or contenting yourself with mediocrity. Well, I don’t know. If it were me, I would never accept either option.”
You paused, looked up at Khaslana, and then smiled yourself, your lips forming the same crescent-curve as his own mouth. Perhaps you were biased in loving that old story, when the rest of your classmates had preferred more romantic myths, but it was not such a bad bias to hold, or so you thought.
“They said he was terribly beautiful, which is why in some myths he was the sun’s lover, instead of just its victim,” you said. “They paint him as they paint angels; there is no other symbolic meaning for why I gave you this name. It is only because you are the only man I have ever met who comes close to resembling him.”
21 OCT 79 — Something of an idea is forming in my mind. I must consult some papers which our university does not hold copies of, so I have sent mail orders and eagerly await their arrival. Until then, I must continue as I have been, with what materials I have had access to thus far. Of course, I am too nervous to do anything to Khaslana himself, not when he is so delicate, so rare, and so I have resorted to finding little dead birds to experiment on. There is no small amount of these creatures, they are perpetually running into windows and doors and finding themselves in such a mess! I apologize to them when I find them, and then I cradle them in my hands and bring them to the lab.
I must work quickly on the little birds, because they do not have the philosopher’s stone preternaturally slowing down their decay as Khaslana does, and so they go bad quickly. Thus far, I have not managed anything, but I think that I am growing closer and closer to a potential solution, although I am loath to write it down in case it does not work and I am left looking like something of an idiot.
Maybe it is a strange comparison to make, but in a certain manner, Khaslana reminds me of those little birds. The bones of his face are exactly as fragile as those of their wings; the strands of his hair are as soft as the down of their chests; the slope of his nose is not unlike their beaks, just as straight, just as small. I wonder what he would look like with the wax wings of his namesake….if only I had the time, I might fashion a pair…but alas, the day is only so long, and I spend much of it in the lab as it is. I have other priorities, that is to say, and so I will have to content myself with picturing the ‘Lament for Khaslana’ and pretending that it is him in that hero’s place.
“Wait,” Mydei said when your lecture was dismissed and you shot out of your chair, preparing to hurry to the lab, to walk down the hallways you had long ago memorized, your feet traversing them without reliance on your mind’s commands. “Hey, wait!”
You had not realized he was talking to you until that second dictation, barked out with a sort of desperation. Furrowing your brow, you turned to look at him, because you could not fathom why he might be asking you to wait for him, and when you saw how crestfallen he looked, you did falter.
“Yes?” you said. Your response seemed to embolden him, for he moved so that he could stand beside you — you had not realized until he did how long it had been since you last walked like this, and somewhere deep within you, something like sadness brewed. You buried it, though, because what did you have to feel sad about?
“Why do you keep running off?” he said softly. “Is that body so important to you?”
“He is,” you said promptly, because of all the halfwitted questions he had ever asked, this was the most halfwitted of all. Was Khaslana so important to you? He was. Undoubtedly he was.
Mydei shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably, like he was steeling himself against something, and then he took a deep breath. You watched him curiously, passionlessly, finding yourself unable to understand what he might mean by.
“Am I allowed to see it — him?” he said.
“What?” you said, and his encouraging grin felt akin to the first peek of sun through cloudcover, a dawn breaking through the fog of your mind. Momentarily you thought to yourself, what am I doing? Really, what am I doing? But you pushed these thoughts aside, because if you gave in now, when you were so close to the end, then you would never forgive yourself.
“I want to see what you’ve been working on,” he said. “You don’t tell me much when I ask, but I’d like to know. This experiment is important to you, and you—”
“Okay,” you said, surprising even yourself. Professor Anaxagoras had never explicitly forbidden visitors, and anyways the lab was under your jurisdiction now, so his opinions mattered little, but you had never considered taking anyone to meet Khaslana. For one, you were not so beguiled as to think that another person might not be appalled by him; for another, the thought of anyone else coming near him made you feel distressed. You wanted to keep him in the lab forever, safe from that cruel world which had killed him once, which would surely, if given the chance, kill him again. But Mydei was not anyone else, was he? He had always known the truth about the experiment, the body. Mydei did not want Khaslana to die again, not anymore than you did. So you did not mind as much, not if it was him, and you nodded to affirm this to the both of you. “Yes, I can show you, and explain it if you’d like.”
“As long as you are willing,” he said.
“I want to,” you said, and you meant it genuinely. You really did want to. “It’s not so complicated, really, but you have to understand a little more than just the basics of Nousporism that we discuss in lecture…”
You spoke the entire way to the lab, explaining the things you had written in your journals, what you had read and reviewed and pored over for the past few weeks, the minute details of Khaslana’s body and even the philosopher’s stone under his tongue. Mydei took it all with a level, quiet calm, interjecting with questions only when he truly did not understand. It was nice, and you wondered if this was how it used to be, if he really had always been so straightforward without your noticing.
“Here we are,” you said, opening the door for him, feeling a sudden and girlish nervousness. What would Mydei think? You did not know, and you weren’t sure if you wanted to know. What if he told you that you had been dramatic in your recounting? What if he considered Khaslana to be painfully average? You could not bear the former, and the latter might shatter you. Still, you led Mydei in after you, and you decided that this once if never again, you would trust him.
“I can hardly see anything,” he said, and on your left, he began to blink rapidly, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the light. You lit the lamps for him with a soft chuckle, and in the candlelight, he appeared all but spectral, shadows flickering over the planes of his face, deepening in the angles and paling along the edges. Then you motioned him over to the desk; he tiptoed towards you, taking each step carefully until he was peering over your shoulder at the flock of birds propped up neatly along the wall.
“I’m still too worried to do anything to him,” you said. “So whenever I have an idea, I test it on them first, just in case. Good thing, too, because as you can see, I haven’t been very successful yet.”
“Where do you find them?” he said.
“Ah, just around,” you said. “They’re not exactly in short supply.”
“I see,” he said.
“But you’re not here to look at birds,” you said. “You’re here for him. Khaslana.”
Mydei did not move from his place by the desk as you swept over to the center of the lab, where the table and the body were as undisturbed as ever. You murmured your typical greeting under your breath, for you did not think Mydei would take kindly to it, and then you removed his covering with as much tenderness as the brusque motion allowed, revealing him to the world once more.
“Come closer,” you said, beckoning Mydei over. He had gone white, whiter than usual, but still he trudged over, though he remained nervously behind you, looming over your back like an enormous shadow as he looked upon Khaslana’s still figure for the first time. “Isn’t he the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”
“I didn’t realize how dead he would look,” Mydei said, his voice turbulent with unease. “I mean, he’s really just a corpse, isn’t he?”
“He’s not dead,” you said, looking up at him, stroking his arm to soothe him — and then you were overcome by how warm he felt, his skin blushing beneath your petting in a way Khaslana’s never could. “He’s just sleeping, and I will be the one to wake him up.”
He looked rather like a puppy, his eyes large and trusting, an agreeable tilt to his head as you continued to hold onto his arm, because you could not bear to let go of his heat just yet. So animated was he, a furnace in the cool of the lab, and you looked at Khaslana even as you clutched Mydei, wishing that it was him who had this vitality, wishing it was him who stood beside you.
“Do you want to touch him?” you said, and you did not wait for Mydei’s response, your palm moving from bicep to forearm to wrist, interlocking your fingers over his and guiding him to lay his hand against Khaslana’s cheek, holding it there in a gentle caress.
For a moment, none of you moved, and you began to shiver, because you could feel the blood spiderwebbing beneath Mydei’s skin, his pulse, every minute twitch of his muscles, the sound of his breath and the fever-pitch of his hand in your own — yet it was not him you were so consciously aware of. It was Khaslana you attributed these things to, Khaslana whose ardor you could suddenly conceive of with an aching closeness. Khaslana, Khaslana, he was alive, you could sense him begging to be freed from the confines of his slumber, Khaslana was waiting for you to save him from that which had been done unto him. There was no one else, there was no Mydei, there was only him, only Khaslana, you could feel it. You could feel it. You could —
Abruptly, Mydei wrenched his hand away from you, and without another word, he turned and left the lab. For a moment, you did not react, did not even comprehend what had happened, but then you startled, spurring yourself into action and racing after him, calling his name over and over.
“Mydei! Mydei, come back, please, Mydei, I didn’t mean to scare you—”
There was no answer. Mydei, who had always waited for you; Mydei, who had always listened to you; that Mydei, he did not respond. You stood in the doorway for you could not say how long, and then you closed it after you, collapsing into your chair and hugging your knees to your chest.
“You are the only one I have left,” you said to Khaslana’s slumbering form. “Please wake up soon. I am so lonely…”
“Abiogenesis, the idea that life arose from nonlife more than 3.5 billion years ago on Earth. Abiogenesis proposes that the first life-forms generated were very simple and, through a gradual process, became increasingly complex. Biogenesis, in which life is derived from the reproduction of other life, was presumably preceded by abiogenesis, which became impossible once Earth’s atmosphere assumed its present composition.”(Veritas Ratio, Encyclopaedia Intelligentsia).
You stared at the small thing in your palm in complete astonishment, tears welling in your eyes the longer you gazed upon it. The bird blinked at you, and then it chirped, ruffling its wings cheerily as it hopped about before pecking you slightly, ostensibly famished as it was.
“You’re alive,” you breathed. The bird chirped once more before pecking at you again, a little more demanding this time; you ignored it in favor of clamping your fingers over its wings and tearing off towards Professor Anaxagoras’s office, taking the steps two at a time in your haste.
You had done it. After all of the meetings he had called you to where you had had nothing to show, you had done it, you had resurrected this songbird, and soon would be Khaslana. Khaslana! He would be alive, he would be a person again, he would be yours and you would never be as lonely as you were now, as you had been for some time.
“Professor Anaxagoras!” you said, bursting into his office, out of breath from how fast you had run, hardly even remembering to knock. He was sitting at his desk, a pair of glasses low on the bridge of his nose, and he hardly looked up from the papers he was grading to greet you.
“What is it?” he said, and to anyone else, even to you on another day, it would’ve seemed unnecessarily curt, but as it was, you were too dizzyingly overcome with intoxication, too inebriated on your own success to care
You held your hands out before you proudly, brandishing the bird and waiting for him to say something. He narrowed his eyes at it, took off his glasses, narrowed his eyes even more, rubbed his shirt along the lenses as if to clean them, and then put his glasses back on, poking the bird in the chest before leaning back.
“You’ve brought me a bird,” he said. “Why have you done that, exactly?”
“Not just any bird,” you said. “A dead bird.”
His countenance shifted; suddenly, it was dark, malevolent almost. “What?”
“I did as you asked, sir,” you said. “I have resurrected this bird. I have made ‘life’ from ‘not-lie’ — now, I only have to replicate the same experiment on Khaslana — on the body you gave me, and then…”
“Vain girl,” Professor Anaxagoras hissed, and then he was snatching the bird from your hands, holding it up fearfully to the light. “Vain, arrogant, imprudent girl, you were never meant to succeed!”
“What?” you said. “But you said that if I didn’t, you wouldn’t allow me to work as your assistant?”
“It was a test!” he said, and then he opened the window and cast the bird from it without even waiting to see if it could fly. You shrieked as it fell and he began to pace the length and breadth of the room, his face in his hands. “A test, you simpleton, I wanted you to accept your failure. I wanted you to learn from it!”
“But isn’t it better that I have succeeded instead?” you said, genuinely confused at his reaction.
“Who are we to decide who lives and who doesn’t?” he said. “Who are you to go around bringing people back from the dead at your whim? No, it’s not any better. It’s worse! I only wanted to see how you might react when faced with an impossible task. The moment you accepted that it was too difficult for you…I would’ve taken you as my assistant then and there. Irresponsible, mindless, laughable girl!”
“You ought to praise me!” you snapped, struck by a sudden flash of irritation. So many nights you had spent laboring away, so many days you had wept, all out of fear — fear of him! Professor Anaxagoras, who had held your dreams in between his careless fingers, who had dangled them above you like bait on a fishhook, and now he was saying it was for nothing? Now he dared to say that there had never been any risk, that you had never needed to care about him or Khaslana or any of it? “What I have done is impossible, and you — you —”
He grabbed you by the shoulders and glared at you with such frightening intensity you almost cried out, though you knew that no one would hear you and, even if they did, they would not dare venture into his office to see what was the matter.
“It is impossible for a reason!” he said. You shoved him away from you, and he stumbled backwards, though he remained uncowed. “Do you think there aren’t people I wish to bring back? But we cannot go about acting like death is unnecessary, like we are the ones who allow it or don’t. You have to understand that!”
“You say that I cannot resurrect people as I will,” you said. “But how am I any different from you, professor? I know what you did to him.”
“And what, exactly, do you mean by that? Pray tell,” he said.
“The man in the lab,” you said. “I found the philosopher’s stone under his tongue. You killed him, and you preserved his body at the very moment he died. How can you say that I am in the wrong for restoring life, when you take it away for nothing but an experiment that was never supposed to succeed in the first place?”
Professor Anaxagoras did not say anything for a long while, before, all of a sudden, he burst into laughter. You watched him warily as he cackled and cackled, tears streaming down his face, the sheerest joy that you had ever seen lighting up his demeanor as he howled without acknowledging you until, finally, he exhaled in defeat.
“Oh, you really are an imbecile,” he said. “I went to the hospital and asked the head nurse which patient was the closest to death. She took me to the room of a laborer sick with consumption and told me it was him; I asked the man if he cared what happened to him once he was gone, and he told me no. So I instructed the nurse to place the stone under his tongue as soon as he died, and to call me afterwards. I didn’t kill him — he was already dead.”
“I will bring him back,” you promised. “I will not fail him.”
“You will do no such thing,” Professor Anaxagoras said, and there was no hint of humor left in his expression, not any longer. His grip grew gentle, but his words grew steelier as he took you back by the shoulders, impressing his seriousness upon you through the force of his hold. “Listen to me. Promise you will destroy that body tonight. Destroy the body and your research and never speak of any of this again. I will take you under my wing, I will teach you everything you need to know about Nousporism, but you have to promise me you will do that.”
“Very well,” you said, your tongue heavy with lead and lying. You did not know if he believed you, but you continued anyways, even as he took one step backwards and then another, incredulity etched across his face. “As you wish, Professor Anaxagoras.”
28 OCT 79 — Professor Anaxagoras is waving Nousporism in front of me as if it is some great incentive. He tells me he will teach me, but what is left for me to learn? I have made ‘life’ from ‘not-life.’ I have touched the philosophy’s core, and I have come back unscathed. He cannot take this from me. He cannot take Khaslana from me. Khaslana, who is the only one I have left…I will do it. I will bring him back to life. This I swear, here and now: I will definitely do it.
He is larger than a lark, so I will have to adjust the measurements. That accursed professor! If only he had not cast that bird from the window, I could’ve been exact and precise in my work. But as it is, I must estimate using the bird’s brethren. I do not think I have much time before the professor grows suspicious and comes to check on me — I am not as much of an idiot as he claims. I know he didn’t believe me when I swore I would destroy all evidence of my research, so I must work quickly and bank on his continued underestimation.
I would like to practice on a few more of the smaller creatures before daring to touch Khaslana, but again, I do not have the time for it. Even now, I write this in haste, for I am ever wary of the professor’s impending approach. I must simply have faith in my theory, in my experiments, in him. He will wake up for me, I am sure of it. He will wake up for me, and I will never, ever be lonely again.
Khaslana’s eyes, when he opened them, were no longer the same shade of veronicaflowers that they had been in his death. It was the first thing you noticed, that where once there was blue, now there was gold, as warm and incandescent as lamp-light, framed by the black flutter of his lashes. His hair, too, had darkened with the stain of alchemy, the pure white soiled by the resurrection, softened into a glistening cream shade. Yet beautiful he remained, and if anything, he resembled that mythical Khaslana even more now, forever touched by the eternal sun of his undoing.
“There’s something under your tongue,” you said when he gave you a wide-eyed, panicked look. You tried to sound reassuring, so that he did not shy away from you, and you must have succeeded, because instead of flailing about he simply waited for you to continue, watching you while taking fast, sharp breaths. “Can you open your mouth? I can remove it for you. You won’t be needing it anymore.”
He dutifully obliged, parting his lips and allowing you to press your middle finger against his tongue, nudging it out of the way and pinching the philosopher’s stone between your index and thumb. Carefully extricating it, you held up a glass of water to his lips, pouring it down his throat and watching to ensure he swallowed each drop.
“Are you able to speak?” you said. He scowled in thought, but you waited, giving him the time to consider it until, finally, he coughed and rasped something out.
“Who are you?” he said. The words came out slow and unhurried and scratchy, but now that he was alive, you had all of the time in the world to do with as you pleased, so you did not rush him.
“I’m the one who brought you back to life,” you said, offering him the glass of water. He took it in shaky hands, the contents sloshing about as he raised it to sip on, but the more he drank, the steadier he became, until he could hold it without wavering in the slightest. “That’s all you need to know.”
“Back to life?” he said. “I was dead?”
“For at least a month, yes,” you said. He lifted his hands, flexing his fingers experimentally, blinking at the way they bent and then straightened again. “Do you remember any of it?”
“No,” he said. “It’s as if I’ve just awoken from a long dream, the contents of which I can hardly recall. Even my life from before is growing dim, and I think I am soon to forget it entirely.”
He took your hand and held it to his cheek, which was so warm you nearly sobbed, running your thumb along the firm bone without worrying about whether it might shatter. Closing his eyes, he leaned into you, and this did make you pause, because you hadn’t expected it — though it wasn’t unwelcome, exactly. The sweet kiss of his breath against your wrist made you feel unreasonably flustered, so, tentatively, you used your other hand to comb your fingers through his hair, trying to distract yourself but ultimately only worsening the effect.
“You aren’t distressed by your amnesia?” you said. “Don’t you miss the people you used to love? Don’t you wish you knew who they were?”
“I cannot miss what I don’t know exists,” he said, and the unimpressed flatness was your first indication that he was lacking something a bird would never have in the first place, your first indication that you had not brought ‘him’ entirely back, whoever ‘he’ had been before his death. “I should, right? There are people in the back of my mind, begging to be remembered, but yet I cannot manage it, and it does not hurt me as it should.”
“You were a laborer,” you said. “Sick with consumption. That is all I know.”
“A laborer,” he repeated. “I know nothing of it, but it seems a miserable existence, if I died so young.”
“It was,” you said. “I am sure it was, but you will never have to go back. I will take care of you. Your life is mine, my greatest experiment, and I will defend it from the world if that is what it takes. I promise you I will…Khaslana.”
“Khaslana? Was that my name?” he said.
“I don’t think so,” you said. “But it is the name I gave you in the absence of any further knowledge, and I have grown used to it.”
“Then it is better,” he said. “I will keep it as a gift from you. Khaslana.”
“We should leave,” you said, because suddenly the blankness in his eyes made you more nervous than awed. You had brought back something, but whether he was a man or not, you were not quite certain, and leaning towards the negative — which begged the question of what exactly had you created? “Khaslana, the professor may yet—”
“Can’t it wait?” he said. “I have only just stepped into this realm of living for the second time, and I am so numb to it all, it’s like the world doesn’t exist — except for you. Your hand is the only warmth I have felt since you roused me from my slumber…everything else is freezing, and I am so unsure…”
Before you could reconsider, you embraced him, wrapping your arms around his shoulders and holding that shell of a man — because now you knew for sure that he was not whole, that you had only managed a partial success and left the greater piece of him to rest, either in peace or in agony — close to you, his bare chest against the material of your shirt, his hair silky where it grazed your neck. With a soft, nearly inaudible whimper, he wound his own arms around your waist, clinging to you tightly as the gooseflesh along his back finally faded.
“What have you done to me?” he whispered. “I wasn’t supposed to come back like this, was I?”
“I don’t know,” you said. “I was going to run more trials before I attempted anything on you, but Professor Anaxagoras commanded me to destroy your body and my research alike, and Khaslana, I could not bear it. I could not bear the thought of discarding you like that, and so I gambled, and I supposed I lost. I brought only this piece of you back, but…”
“But?” he said, nuzzling against the hollow of your throat in a manner that felt like an instinct more than a proper and conscious decision.
“But some of ‘you’ is better than none of ‘you,’” you said. “Even if it was the smallest fraction of ‘you’, I could not bring myself to regret it if it meant I could have that fraction with me forever.”
He lifted his head only slightly, batting his eyelashes at you, and then his arm snaked from your waist to your chin, which he held without any real force, gazing at you contemplatively. You did not dare move, and anyways his other arm was still around you, so you waited to see what his next action might be, finding that that aspect of unpredictability was nearly as exciting as it was agitating. You did not know what he would do; you did not want to know, either. You just wanted him to do it.
For a while he only studied you as you had once studied him, carefully, methodically. Then, with a brazenness that could only come from someone so overeager and long-deprived, he brought his lips up to meet yours, the hand on your chin moving to your neck. He tasted a little like how you imagined death might, but this was not a bad thing — it was coppery and minty and sweet, so sweet you did not ever want him to pull away, although of course eventually he did.
“I am a little more alive now,” he said as he caught his breath, and then he kissed you, again and again and again. “And still more, and even more.”
You had been standing before him, but he pulled you into his lap so effortlessly you forgot how weak he had been mere minutes ago. It was gone, all concept of that earlier man, who had been debilitated and puny. Now he was neither man nor decrepit, and when you adjusted your position as best as you could in the midst of his searching, searing lips and their quest for your own, you brushed onto something hard that drew a gasp from the both of you.
“I didn’t know you could still—” you began, which only made the pink of his face darken until his cheeks resembled twin apples. “I mean, I wasn’t expecting it to — to feel so—”
You broke off, because you found no value in continuing, and instead ground into him again. And perhaps he had lost his soul in death, but he could still understand pleasure and shame as well as any other man, so he did hide his face in the crook of your neck even as his hips bucked up into yours in response.
“I’m sorry,” he said in an endless refrain as he continued almost frantically, like he might wither back into death if you made him stop. “I’m sorry, is this — is this what it’s like to be alive, it feels so wonderful, thank you — thank you for bringing me back, thank you for letting me — I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
You wanted to tell him that you should be the one apologizing, but how could you? When he was bare save for the thin sheet his body had been covered with and he was so intent on proving his existence, how could you not allow him? You had never felt this way, and briefly you thought — might it have felt nearly this nice if it had been Mydei against you? Your old friend, who had not spoken to you in so long, was surely frightened of you now, there was no other reason for the continued avoidance…you wondered if it would have been anything like this with him, with a man instead of a monster beneath you.
Then Khaslana’s fingers sought permission just below your navel, helping you out of your pants, pulling aside the lace of your undergarments when you did not resist, and any thoughts of Mydei, of anyone or anything, were all forgotten. You did not care that Khaslana was a monster of your own making when he pushed inside of you, too overcome by the size of him; you did not care that his eyes were gold and empty, that his hair was stained and he tasted like death. You did not care for any of it, you only knew that he was alive and he was inside of you and he was yours. He was yours and he always would be, he groaned as much against you, and you — you did not say it aloud, but you could not deny that you thought about it until you could think no longer, the world turning as white as the sun when you came around him and collapsed into his waiting embrace.
“Khaslana, my Khaslana, how beautiful you are; how tender is your flesh, warm and flushed with vigor; how golden is your blood, now that it flows unfettered; and how terrible you are, too, a man — if you can even still be called that — returned from the dead without soul or mind, a heartless husk of a thing. Oh, Khaslana, how you frighten me so! Yet I love you, I am sure of it, for whenever I do think of destroying you as I ought to, I find I am unable.” (Unknown Author, “Letter to a Cherished Experiment”).
you’re a fugitive with forbidden magic in your blood, hunted by the masked killer known as the flame reaver. but when a chase ends with a fall that leaves his memory shattered, you’re left to deal with what’s left behind—a clueless man with the bluest eyes you've ever seen.
★ notes; for the first time ever: user kaientai cryoculus posts a fic on tumblr the same day they dropped it on ao3 <3 NO THANKS to the 3.4 trailblaze quest. we don't talk about her. this fic probably isn't any better angst wise but we do what we gotta do to cope with whatever shit shaoji puts us through, yes?
READ ON AO3
DIRECTORY: ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE
I. THE WAXING
There’s a fire in the hearth, burning low and smoky—more ember than flame with each quiet crackle. Inside the tavern, the air hangs thick with the scent of stale drinks, pine soot, and damp wool. Somewhere near the door, a dog lies curled against its master’s boot, half-asleep and steaming faintly from the snowmelt clinging to its fur.
The village is nameless to most, forgotten by the empire’s maps, remembered only by the ones who stay behind. Farmers. Blacksmiths. Widows. Hunters with crooked teeth and mouths full of tales. In a place like this, stories have more weight than anything else. They settle in your bones and linger in the corners of the room like smoke that will not lift.
“I heard he leaves no ashes behind,” an old man near the hearth says, his voice like something clawed from the bottom of a chimney. “Nothing but shadow scorched into the ground, like even the fire doesn’t want to remember what it touched.”
“And I heard,” adds the woman beside him, cradling a mug between hands reddened by years of cold, “that he once burned through a storm somewhere in Thalara. The wind howled, the rain fell in sheets, and still the roof caught his flames anyway. An entire manor, gone before the lightning did the sky in.”
You lift your cup to your lips, slow and unhurried as you nod along. A few seats away, a boy too young to drink but too proud to admit it leans forward with his elbows on the splintered table.
“Do you all think it’s true? That he doesn’t speak, only kills,” the boy says, as though the thought thrills him. “Like a wolf who just can’t sate its own bloodlust?”
“A wolf?”
You haven’t spoken since you sat down in your creaky little barstool, but the scoff leaves your lips before you mean it to—equal parts dry and amused. Eyes flick toward your form, but no one looks too closely. After all, you’ve always played your part well. The traveler, the wanderer, the woman who’s stopped in from the road.
You tip your head slightly, fingers idly tracing the rim of your cup. “Wolves don’t burn their prey.”
The boy frowns. His cheeks flush, but it’s the kind of irritation that passes quickly—youth making him pliable. “Alright, so what is he, then? A ghost?”
“Worse,” says the old man again, voice rasping through the low thrum of the fire. “Ghosts don’t chase you past the veil. This one does.”
The woman nods. “You can at least banish a ghost if you know its name. But no one’s ever gotten his. Not the real one, at least.”
You lower your gaze to your drink, letting the steam curl against your face.
The conversation drifts, as it always does. Talk of the weather. Of soldiers moving through the southern pass. Of beasts in the highwoods, and girls gone missing near the old mines. But the name lingers in the smoke above their heads like something taboo:
The Flame Reaver.
You’ve heard it whispered in places colder than this. In border towns and outlaw dens, in forest clearings where old women still leave sprigs of sage on their doorsteps come nightfall. You’ve heard it enough times to know when to lower your eyes, when to tuck your hands out of sight, when to vanish before the smell of ash returns.
But tonight, in this nowhere town with its poor ale and quieter mouths, you stay a little longer.
Just to see if the stories have changed.
The snow falls softly by the time you leave the tavern. Flakes catch in your cloak, melting in your hair before the cold can find your skin. No one stops you. No one calls your name. To them, you were just another woman walking into the woods with her hood pulled low, and not much to fear.
Snow is a rare thing in Ashkarra.
This is a land born from fire—a continent carved from the mouth of an ancient caldera, its mountains black with cooled lava, its rivers warm even in winter. Most villages know only ashfall, soot storms, and the red heat that sleeps just beneath their soil. Cold is unwelcome here. The empire has long cultivated warmth as both weapon and law.
But here, in the highwoods near the province’s forgotten edge, something in the land resists. The altitude, perhaps, or the stubbornness of old trees that refuse to die. Whatever the reason, snow sometimes falls here—quiet and thin, like it never meant to exist in such a place at all.
You take the old trails, not the well-known roads or the paths still marked with hunter’s flags. Your steps curve where the trees grow closer together, and the light doesn’t quite reach. Where memory clings thick beneath the bark and stone. The woods here breathe differently; older than conquest, older than the empire itself. You walk for what feels like hours before you find the hollow you’ve been searching for.
Here, at last, you let yourself breathe.
Your campsite is nothing more than a fold in the earth—sheltered between the roots of a gnarled tree and the lip of an old stone ledge, where wind seldom reaches and moonlight scatters like dust. There is no fire to betray you, no canvas to catch a wandering scout’s eye. Only your cloak, thick and travel-worn, and the quiet comfort of distance.
You kneel in the snow and lay your palms flat against the ground, where the soil is cold, but not dead. Beneath the frost, something stirs—slow, ancient, drowsing deep in the roots and marrow of the land. You close your eyes and reach gently, not to take, but to ask.
Without hesitation, the earth listens.
Magic rises from the soil with a patient breath. Faint warmth seeps into your fingers as the Thread stirs—verdant and veined with gold like secrets passed from leaf to leaf. It winds between your knuckles like something alive, something that remembers you, and you guide it outward with unyielding grace.
It takes shape in mere seconds: the curve of your back, the dip of the hollow, the uneven scatter of pine needles across the snow. You weave light into shadow and presence into absence, until the world no longer sees you the way it should.
You aren’t invisible. That isn’t what the Thread does. It simply bends the gaze elsewhere, toward things that make more sense—a boulder, a trick of dusk, a patch of overgrown moss. Something forgettable. Someone unremarkable.
If a traveler passed within a hand’s breadth of where you lie now, they would pause only for a moment and keep walking. Not out of ignorance, but because their mind would simply choose not to look too closely. You’ve done this before. The spell hums in your chest like a heartbeat; long enough to know the cost of living as you are.
But it still works, and that is enough.
You don’t remember the moment sleep takes you—only the weightless drift into stillness, the way the snow seemed to muffle even your thoughts, pressing them down beneath layers of earth and illusion. For a while, there is nothing but the gentle hush of snowfall piling in soft patterns overhead, and the distant ache of names you no longer speak aloud curling like smoke beneath your ribs.
They called you Princess in another life, back when Virelya still bloomed with wild apricot trees and pale glass towers. Before the empire came with fire braided into its banners and justice carved into the edge of their swords. Before the walls you were meant to inherit were swallowed whole by the very flames meant to cleanse you.
Your name had meant something then—heir to a kingdom built on rain and roots, daughter of spring, beloved of the bloom.
Now it lives only in rumors and half-remembered syllables clinging to the edges of worn parchment and bloodstained wanted boards. No longer a title, no longer a promise, but merely a mark. A bounty.
Sleep had been a mercy. It arrives only when you are too exhausted to fear what follows. But the waking is slower—less a return, and more a recognition that something in the air has changed. At first, it's barely noticeable. A tremble beneath your spellwork, a subtle pressure folding in on itself. The trees no longer sway. The wind has gone still. Even the snow, once gently falling, seems suspended in the branches above.
Yet, you feel it.
A presence.
It feels like the faintest unraveling at the edge of your magic’s weave, as though the forest has shifted to make space for something it does not trust. Your wards still hold, but they shiver faintly in your bones, drawn as taut as thread stretched too fine across a needle.
The scent reaches you next.
Not smoke, but something close. Something scorched and bitter, the aftertaste of iron and char. You’ve smelled it before—on the edges of blackened fields, where nothing grew back. When you open your eyes, there’s nothing in the clearing. No footprints. No broken twigs. No silhouette standing above you, cloaked in shadow or flame. The illusion still breathes quietly against your skin, but something has changed.
The Thread itself is well aware. It trembles as if some opposing force presses down on it, dulling its edge, unraveling its quiet trust in the shape of the world around you. You know better than to rise too quickly and disturb the silence. You’ve learned that the Reaver does not always announce himself. He moves like smoke, like something that should not be able to bleed, and yet somehow still leaves the world red behind him.
Weeks ago, in the marshlands north of Caerwyth Pass, you thought you’d lost him. Though barely, your illusions held fast, and when the glade was lit ablaze in deep black flames, you didn’t stop to see the ruin he left in his wake. Now, here in this snow-laden highwood, there is no fire—only heat simmering beneath the frost.
And the unmistakable knowledge that you are not alone.
You keep your eyes open. Beneath your skin, the Thread coils tighter, each strand vibrating like a plucked string as it shifts and recalibrates, feeling the way the forest breathes around you and where it now refuses to breathe at all, until—
There.
You sense a break in the flow, subtle but distinct. There is no movement or sound, only absence. Your magic can no longer see through a patch of air just twenty paces north, where the trees are thick enough to hide things that do not belong. The Thread doesn’t tell you what waits there, but that alone tells you enough.
He doesn’t know you’re awake. He doesn’t know you’ve seen him.
So, you ease a hand toward the soil, fingertips brushing away the frost. Carefully, you slip the Thread deeper into the roots beneath you, sensing where the ground dips just out of sight, and the exact spots where the underbrush thickens. You feel the deer path just west of your hollow, the slope of ice-glazed stone that might catch a careless step. You stitch the memory of it all into a single thought:
Go.
Your limbs protest the movement—still stiff from stillness, heart already surging in your throat—but your body obeys before fear can win. You slip from your resting place like water through reeds, a whisper of movement beneath the cloak of magic before you run.
At first, there's no sound but your own breath and the crisp hush of snow and soil crushed beneath careful feet. But it doesn't take long before the forest erupts behind you.
A blast of heat tears through the clearing you left behind, searing through snow and spellwork alike. Branches snap from the force; bark splits open with the shock of sudden flame, but you know better than to meet death with your eyes wide open. The Flame Reaver doesn’t falter. He moves like he was forged in a god’s dying breath—his fire sharp as a blade, his blades as swift as lightning. He isn’t bound by the same terrain. He cuts through trees instead of turning from them. Roots that might trip any normal man simply burn to cinders underfoot.
But the forest is still yours.
Even this far from home, even half-starved and weary, even with your spells fraying under the pressure—the forest remembers you, and it answers.
You conjure up vines that shift subtly beneath the snow, giving way where you step as the branches overhead bend just enough to clear your path. The undergrowth ripples behind you, not quite forming a wall, but close enough to put some distance between you. However, it's incinerated in seconds as another surge of fire roars too close to your left. The heat sears past your cheek, glancing off a tree that erupts into flames behind you.
He isn’t aiming to kill you yet. He’s herding you. Toward what, you don’t know, but it’s enough to make your pace falter just for a moment.
And that moment is all he needs.
A blade whistles past, embedding itself in the trunk just ahead—a warning, or a miss by design. You lurch sideways as you veer sharply down a slope, barely catching yourself as snow gives way to slick stone and tangled ferns. He doesn’t shout. Doesn’t taunt. Doesn’t even speak. You almost wish he would because at least then you’d know where he was.
But the Reaver was never trained to hunt like a man. He was made to hunt like a weapon, and tonight, his Ember Ledger waits to claim its final name.
Yours.
The slope steepens beneath your feet, slick with ice and shadow. You push harder as the air tears sharp in your throat, your cloak snapping behind you like the ragged tail of something being hunted. For a breathless moment, you think you might outpace him after all. Not because you’re faster, but because the forest keeps changing, twisting, and folding to meet your will as if some deep root still remembers the old pact made long before the empire took your name.
But then, the rhythm breaks.
A stone gives way beneath your boot. You stumble just enough to throw off your trajectory—and in that heartbeat of imbalance, the forest opens ahead into a ledge. The cliff appears too quickly, too suddenly. You almost go over, but your reflexes scream as you twist mid-stride, catching yourself on a jagged outcropping. Your fingers tear through frostbitten moss as your momentum drags you dangerously close to the edge. But you manage to stop before falling over the edge.
He doesn’t.
The Reaver bursts through the trees behind you like a shadow torn loose from the heart of a blaze. Too fast to slow, too relentless to care. He lunges for you with the certainty of someone who has never missed a mark in his life.
But the ground betrays him.
The stone crumbles underfoot with a thunderous crack, and he goes down in a flurry of motion—his dark cloak whipping behind him like a veil of shadows. He hits the slope hard, skidding across the uneven terrain and before disappearing over the cliff's edge without the slightest whisper of sound.
Silence wraps around you like snowfall on bare skin, thick and soundless and strange. The breath in your lungs stills. Even your heartbeat feels distant, like it belongs to someone else entirely. You remain crouched at the edge, one hand buried in frost, eyes scanning the ravine below without knowing what you’re looking for. The wind hisses through the pines like a warning, but all you hear is the memory of that final impact.
No fire rises from the trees. No heat stirs the snow. There is no warning flicker of movement, no sharp scent of scorched air.
Eventually, you rise.
Not because it’s safe or clever, but because something beneath your ribs—too human, too unkillable—drags your feet forward until you find yourself crouched again, this time at the very edge of the cliff, staring down into the hollow he’s carved with his fall.
And then, you see him.
Sprawled among the rocks like a statue cracked from its pedestal, limbs splayed at unnatural angles, his body half-sunken into snow and stone. One arm is curled beneath him awkwardly, the other stretched toward a blade he didn’t get the chance to draw. His cloak is torn and tangled beneath him. That infamously obsidian mask sits shattered across the slope in two jagged pieces, as though the forest itself decided he no longer had the right to hide.
Your breath hitches when you see his face.
Because you’ve never thought of what the Reaver would look like behind the mask. You don’t know what you expected.
But it’s certainly not that.
Not the blood matting white hair to his temple. Not the pale lashes brushing cheekbone. Not the faint, perpetual frown still creased between his brows, etched so deeply it seems less an expression than a wound that never healed. You take it in slowly, unsure where recognition begins and dread ends. For all the fire and fury he’s carried, he looks…
Young.
Too young for what he’s done. Too human for what he’s become.
Not a wolf, not a myth forged in fire; just a man—broken, unconscious, bleeding into stone.
You curse under your breath.
You should leave. You want to leave. There is no logic in staying, no wisdom in kindness, no reason to waste your magic on the very blade pressed to your throat for the better part of a year. And yet, there’s a heaviness rising in your chest, an irritation so familiar it almost feels like grief. You know this version of yourself. The one who still flinches at the sight of blood. The one who still bends, even after everything.
By the time you realize you're moving, your feet have already committed the crime.
The climb is slow. Steep and slippery in the worst ways. You pull the Thread into your hands just enough to light the way, but not enough to make yourself obvious—not enough to tempt the sleeping gods of your regret. The rocks bite at your knees. Twigs claw at your wrists. Every snag of your cloak feels like the forest trying to hold you back.
But still, you descend.
When you reach him, he hasn’t moved. The angle of his limbs hasn’t shifted. His breathing, faint as it is, has not faltered. He lies as he fell—half-shrouded in dirt and snow, as if the mountain meant to swallow him whole and changed its mind at the last second. You crouch beside him, and press your fingers to his throat.
The pulse you find is strong and insistent. Not the heartbeat of someone ready to die.
You exhale through your nose, and then, without looking at his face again, you call forth the Thread—letting it gather in the cradle of your palms, warm and luminous and reluctant. It does not like him. It knows what he’s done, and what he’ll do again, but it obeys you like it always has.
You press it into the worst of the wounds, watching as the green, gold-veined light slips beneath skin and cloth like moss returning to a ruined temple. You don’t bother with tenderness. You’re too angry for that. Too annoyed. Too tired.
This isn’t compassion or mercy. This is obligation—old and unwilling and so bitter it tastes like iron in your mouth. The Thread works quickly, but you don’t watch. Instead, you glance toward the slope above, where your escape still waits. The snow has already begun to fall again, delicate and silent like a blessing you do not deserve.
Still, you linger long enough to be furious with yourself.
Long enough to wonder what you’ll do if he wakes.
But not even five minutes into this understated reverie, you feel the Reaver’s breath catch. Your gaze flickers back, instinct tightening every muscle in your body, but it’s already too late.
He jolts upright with a guttural gasp, like a man dragged too fast from drowning sleep. His body curls inward, instinctively bracing against pain, and then his arm flails out to catch the ground with enough force to spray loose gravel. You pull back instantly, the Thread already coiling again at your fingertips, but he doesn’t move to reach for a weapon. Doesn’t move at all, really, save to clutch at his ribs with a quiet, strangled groan.
You freeze. So does he.
Your eyes meet, and it takes a moment for the full weight of it to settle. Because you’re looking for fire. You’re bracing for that unholy heat, that unerring judgment, the blade that should’ve already been at your throat. But instead, you find… something else.
His expression shifts. Blank at first, then unfocused, as if the world around him hasn't quite settled into place. Confusion follows shortly as it softens the hard lines of his face. Worse than that, it’s open—the look of someone who hasn’t remembered how to lie. His brow furrows faintly before his gaze drops—to your hands, to the Thread still glowing dimly between your palms, to the snow-draped trees beyond. He squints at the light like it stings.
“...Where am I?”
He tries to shift again, but fails with a wince. His hand rises to his temple, fingers coming away red. He stares at the blood for a long moment before lowering it, and when he speaks again, it’s not the voice of a killer.
“Did you…” He pauses, swallows. “Did you bring me here?”
You say nothing, even as your magic pulses uncertainly at your fingertips.
His gaze flickers to the slope where his mask lies in two jagged pieces, black as coal against the snow. To the blade still sheathed beside him. And then, hesitantly, back to you.
“I don’t—” He swallows hard. “I don’t remember...”
A lie. It has to be. Perhaps he’s learned that if he means to kill you, it’ll take more than brute force.
But even the Thread doesn’t recoil.
The look on his face—confused, wary, flickering faintly with fear—is not one you've ever seen on the Flame Reaver. There is no glint of recognition in his eyes. No sign he remembers the dozens of times he’s hunted you. No trace of the weapon the empire carved him into.
Only the bluest eyes you’ve ever seen, wide and unguarded in a face that, until now, had only ever belonged to your nightmares.
And somehow, that unsettles you more than any blade ever could.
You don’t stay long after the healing takes. Just enough to ensure he won’t bleed out on the rocks—then you drag him into a tucked-away thicket at the edge of the forest’s spine. There’s a hollow there, sheltered from the worst of the wind, thick with bramble and moss-covered stone.
By the time you’ve bound his wrists, he’s already stirring again, limbs heavy and useless but expression shifting between groggy and bewildered.
“Don’t try anything,” you mutter, adjusting the knots.
He blinks at you slowly, as though he’s just now processing the cold. His lashes are pale, and the streak of blood above his brow is drying unevenly. “Anything like what?”
You ignore him.
“You’re tying me up,” he adds after a moment. “Did I try to hurt you?”
You glance up sharply, but his gaze is too earnest. Too baffled.
Gods, he really does look like a kicked dog.
“Not yet,” you say, voice dry. “But I’d rather not give you the chance.”
He frowns. “You saved me.”
“I’m regretting it.”
He’s quiet after that, head tilted like he’s trying to solve a riddle that keeps changing its shape. The bindings around his wrists shift faintly as he tests their give, but not seriously. Not like someone trying to escape. More like someone poking at a bruise to see if it still hurts.
Then, softly, “You used… something on me. Back there.”
You glance at him from where you crouch, gathering a handful of dry moss and tucking it beneath the kindling you’ve managed to scrape together. You don’t answer.
He doesn’t seem deterred.
“It wasn’t light,” he muses. “Didn’t feel like it, anyway. Too warm. Too—” He trails off, searching for the word. “Alive.”
You pause, then shove the flint against the steel with a little more force than necessary. Sparks jump, catching on the moss.
“I’m not going to thank you, if that’s what you want,” he says after a beat, and it’s not unkind. Just honest. “I don’t even know what you did.”
You don’t look up. “Good. I don’t want your thanks.”
He shifts again, scooting very slightly closer to the fire with a grimace. His arms stay bound, resting in his lap.
“You don’t talk much, do you?”
“I do. Just not to you.”
“Is that a rule?”
“It is now.”
That earns a soft huff that almost sounds like a laugh, making you risk a glance in his direction. He’s not smiling, but there’s the ghost of something like it—bemusement, maybe. Or curiosity. It should irritate you more than it does, but the blue of his eyes does its job in disarming you in more ways than one.
He tilts his head again. “Did I deserve it?”
You frown. “Deserve what?”
“The fall.”
You study him for a long moment, then say, “You deserved worse.”
He nods slowly, almost in acceptance. “Did we know each other?”
“No.”
Another pause.
“…Did I try to kill you?”
You level him with a look. “That’s three questions too many.”
He lifts his bound hands a little. “Hard to shut up when my wrists are tied and have a head full of nothing.”
“Try harder.”
He settles back, exhaling a slow breath, steam curling from his lips. For a while, there’s only the quiet crackle of the fire as the wind rustles faintly through the bramble above. You sit back on your heels, fingers hovering over the Thread curled warm and sullen in your palms, still humming low from earlier.
He’s silent for a moment longer, blinking slow at the firelight like it holds answers. Then, without looking at you—
“…Do you know my name?”
You don’t respond right away. You press your palms into your knees instead, feeling the dull throb of magic still warming beneath your skin. He casts you a sidelong glance. Not exactly pleading—he doesn’t seem like the type to beg—but there’s a question in his gaze all the same. One that doesn’t ask who am I? But who was I to you?
“If you don’t stop asking questions, I’ll knock you out again and figure out how to sew your mouth shut with bramble.”
That earns another breathy little huff, and for some reason, that shakes you worse than any weapon might have. Because you’ve seen what he is. You’ve run from what he is. The Flame Reaver doesn’t laugh or smile or blink at a stranger like he’s trying to memorize the way she breathes.
Still, you wrap your arms around your knees, resting your chin in between.
“Phainon.”
His head tilts. “What?”
You don’t meet his eyes. “Your name. That’s what I’m calling you.”
He’s quiet for only a moment.
“Phainon,” he repeats slowly, as if tasting it. He turns it over in his mouth like it might spark some memory, but none comes. Instead, he just murmurs, “That’s… strange.”
“Then it suits you.”
Another pause. “Does it mean something?”
You shrug, poking the fire with a stick just to keep your hands busy. “A lot of things.”
You don’t tell him it was the name of the morning star in an old Virelyan dialect. That it once belonged to a celestial wanderer, cast down from heaven and bound to walk the world in flames. You don’t tell him it came to your mind the moment you saw his eyes in the dark.
Instead, you say flatly, “Go to sleep.”
To your surprise, he doesn’t argue. He only lowers his bound hands to his lap again and leans back against the mossy rock with a quiet breath. His lashes dip shut as the wind picks up a little, brushing snow from the branches above. Still, you sit up long after his breathing settles, just to make sure he stays asleep. Just to be sure he doesn’t wake up and remember what he was.
Because you don’t know which would be worse:
The Flame Reaver coming back to kill you—
Or Phainon looking at you with those deep blue eyes again.
Serrek’s Reach isn’t the kind of place meant for fugitives. The hills here roll soft and slow beneath the sun, covered in terraces of sage and myrtle that sway like waves in the wind. The air smells sharp with seasalt carried in from the coast not far beyond the southern cliffs.
But for now, it’s safe enough.
Locals call the village you’ve stopped in Crosspine, after the gnarled old tree standing at its center, where four roads meet. It’s a place for traders passing through the Reach, too small for maps and too stubborn to vanish entirely. A cluster of whitewashed stone houses huddled beneath clay rooftops, ringed by gardens and low walls, its streets twisting through shaded groves and shallow streams.
Here, news moves faster than travelers do.
Which makes it exactly the kind of place you shouldn’t linger in.
Yet here you are, halfway through the market at Crosspine’s southern square, weaving through stalls of fruit and leather, with Phainon still trailing after you like a tether that refuses to snap.
He’s too tall to blend in properly, too broad-shouldered, too pale in a way that draws the eye no matter how many layers you’ve shoved him into. The hood you forced him to wear casts enough shadow to hide the worst of it, but not quite enough. You can still feel him lingering two steps behind, watching your every move with that same stubborn focus that has followed you since the highwoods.
You try to ignore it.
You pretend not to notice the stares, the way people glance between the two of you, murmuring under their breath like they’re already halfway through writing the story themselves. Lovers, surely. Or bodyguard and mistress. Or something worse.
It’s when you stop to buy bread that it happens.
“Ah,” the vendor says, eyes flicking over your shoulder toward the looming shadow behind you, voice thick with amusement. “You’re lucky to have a man so devoted, miss. Won’t take his eyes off you, not even for a second.”
You freeze.
Phainon, to his credit—or perhaps his complete lack of self-awareness—just tilts his head faintly, like he isn’t quite sure what’s been said. He’s still watching you, calm and patient, as if this entire exchange is nothing more than a passing breeze.
You let out a sharp, awkward laugh and slam down a few extra coins with more force than necessary.
“For the bread,” you mutter. “And your silence.”
The vendor grins but wisely says no more.
You snatch the bread and turn on your heel, stalking off with Phainon following dutifully in your wake, unbothered as ever.
It’s ridiculous, really.
You never stay in the same place for long. That’s the first rule. After leaving the highwoods and slipping past that nameless village and its gossip-thick walls, you had every intention of continuing alone. Even with the Reaver—Phainon—technically out of commission, you knew others were still circling like vultures. Plenty of coin still dangled from your name. Staying meant risking not just yourself, but worse—being cornered somewhere too small to slip away.
You told him not to come with you, as any other sane person would.
“I saved your life,” you said, the night after you dragged him from the ravine, sitting across the fire and refusing to meet his eyes. “That doesn’t mean you get to follow me.”
But he only stared, quiet for a long moment before tilting his head—same damned puppy-like stubbornness curling into his voice.
“But that just means I owe you,” he replied simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
You nearly laughed. Or screamed. Maybe both.
It wasn’t just foolishness. Keeping the Flame Reaver at your heels was nothing short of suicide. Who knew when those fractured memories would slither back in? Who knew if they’d ever truly left? In fact, this could still be some elaborate act on his part—a trap coiled tight around your neck, just waiting for you to fall asleep.
But that night, after you gave in to exhaustion and drifted toward sleep, the Thread never stirred. No warnings. No danger. No heat curling too close to your skin. Just silence, and the soft, steady sound of his breathing across the fire.
So you’d begrudgingly agreed and muttered the first condition that came to mind.
“Fine,” you’d sighed, half in disbelief. “But we need to get you more… normal clothes.”
Because there was no hiding what he was, not while he still wore the remnants of that blackened uniform—the cloak gone, the blades left behind, but the rest still clinging to him like old smoke.
Now, days later, you’re regretting every single decision that led to this moment, with him shadowing your steps through the market like some overgrown mutt convinced it’s your sworn protector.
And worse, you’re starting to think he actually believes it.
By habit, you begin your usual search for somewhere to stay. Normally, you’d settle in the woods beyond the roads, tucked beneath the roots and thickets where the Verdant Thread curls strongest—where it can shield you, veil you, wrap around your bones like a second skin. The Thread answers you best where it’s greenest. You’ve always known that.
But this close to the sea, there’s little woodland to speak of. The hills are bare in places, draped in low shrubs and dry grasses that don’t sing to you the way the highwoods did. The Thread still answers, but not with the ease it did when you were running, breathless and desperate as you shook the Reaver off.
Though you feel the difference like a weight in your chest, you can’t afford to be choosy. The village has a small inn near the northern gate, half-hidden behind a crumbling stone wall draped in ivy. You barter for a room—barely more than a loft above the kitchen—and take it without ceremony.
Once you’ve secured the door and settled your pack by the hearth, you notice Phainon in the corner, quiet and watchful as ever.
“You don’t have to stand guard,” you mutter, peeling off your outer layers and unspooling the long scarf that hides your face from most passersby.
He doesn’t move. “What exactly is it that you do?”
The question comes so plainly, so without malice, that it nearly catches you off guard.
You glance at him, half-tempted to lie. But there’s no real point—not when he already follows you like a hound, not when he’s already seen the Thread.
“I help people,” you answer simply, turning away as you unlatch the window to let the salt wind in.
He tilts his head. “That’s vague.”
Your jaw tightens. “Exactly.”
You hear the faintest sound from him—almost like a huff of laughter, though he doesn’t press further.
Later, you slip out a few hours before dusk, with Phainon trailing behind despite your warning to stay. You don’t argue with him about it anymore.
The hospital lies on the edge of Crosspine, beyond the terraces where the hills fall away into rougher ground. It isn’t much—just an old granary converted into a sickhouse, with patched roofs and walls thick with the scent of herbs. You’d heard of the raid in whispers back in the last village, where a band of rogue sellswords, grown too bold on the Reach’s quiet roads, prey on anyone without enough coin to hire protection.
You find the steward near the entrance, a woman bent over a ledger. The moment she glances up, you explain yourself with quiet efficiency—no names, no details beyond what’s necessary.
Just a traveler passing through. Someone familiar with certain remedies.
She doesn’t question it. She’s too tired, too desperate for help. She only nods and waves you toward the worst of the cots—those left too long without tending, whose bandages have gone untouched because there simply aren’t enough hands to go around.
You feel his stare the entire time.
Phainon lingers near the door, leaning against the frame like he belongs there, watching every word exchanged with that steady, unreadable gaze. He doesn’t interrupt, but he doesn’t look away either, his eyes sharp as blades, summer blue and too clear for someone who supposedly remembers nothing.
You ignore him.
You’ve done this before—countless times, in countless places—and the routine steadies you. Once you’re directed to the farthest corner, you roll up your sleeves, kneeling beside the first patient. The Thread stirs immediately, called by instinct more than intent, winding up from your chest to your fingertips in soft, green-gold light.
They called it a heresy when the Ashkarran empire razed your home to the ground. Witchcraft. Blasphemy.
But the Verdant Thread is older than any empire. It is the magic of life itself—the stitch between root and bloom, between marrow and blood, between one breath and the next. It winds through the world like a hidden river, binding flesh and earth alike, and your kingdom had once been its cradle.
Virelya.
They called it the Blooming Throne, once. The last kingdom where the Thread was tended openly—where children of the royal line were taught to weave it as they learned to read, where gardens grew from their footsteps, and sickness was as fleeting as morning frost.
Until the empire burned it all.
You kneel beside the nearest cot, weaving the magic as you’ve done time and time again, your hands steady as you ease it into broken skin and bruised bone. You mend what you can—not all of it, but enough to buy these people another day, another breath.
You don’t need to glance back to know that Phainon’s still watching.
The weight of his stare is impossible to ignore. It lingers in the room like smoke that refuses to clear. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t ask, yet there’s something in the way he watches you that stirs unease beneath your ribs. The Thread moves easily under your touch, weaving through skin and bone as it always has, but you feel it tightening just slightly in your hands, wary of the one standing too close.
You almost expect the heat to come next. For his body to remember before his mind does. For that terrible fire to bloom where it lies dormant, wild and merciless.
But it doesn’t.
By the time you finish, dusk has begun to stretch long across the hills, casting the sickhouse in soft, amber light. You’ve moved from cot to cot in near silence, hands steady as you let the Thread do its work. You’re wiping your hands on a scrap of cloth when the steward approaches again, her expression drawn but grateful. She doesn’t ask what you’ve done—doesn’t seem to want to know. Perhaps it’s easier that way.
Still, she bows her head, pressing a bundle of cloth-wrapped fruit into your hands.
“Take it,” she insists. “For the both of you. We can’t pay coin, but… this, at least.”
You glance toward Phainon, still leaning in the doorway. He hasn’t moved once, but the steward doesn’t seem to mind his looming presence, nor does she seem to suspect the strangeness of the pair you make. You almost laugh at the absurdity of it.
You offer a brief nod of thanks, slipping the bundle into your satchel, and murmur something quiet about leaving before dawn.
She smiles faintly. “Safe travels, then.”
But as you step toward the door, she pauses—squinting at you, as if something has just tugged loose in the back of her mind.
“…Have we met before?” she asks, studying your face with sudden, sharp focus. “You look familiar.”
Your heart kicks hard against your ribs, but you force a thin, polite smile, already shifting your weight toward the exit.
“Must be mistaking me for someone else,” you say lightly, already nudging Phainon toward the door with a flick of your fingers.
But the steward’s gaze lingers, thoughtful, narrowing faintly in recognition—not enough to name it, but too close for comfort.
You don’t wait for her to puzzle it out.
By the time she opens her mouth again, you’ve already slipped out into the fading daylight, walking briskly down the hill with Phainon at your heels, his long strides keeping pace with unsettling ease.
“You’re walking faster than usual,” he remarks, more amused than concerned.
You don’t answer. Not until you’ve put enough distance between the sickhouse and yourselves to speak without fear of being overheard.
“She recognized me,” you mutter under your breath as the market square comes into view again, its streets beginning to fill with the evening crowd.
Phainon tilts his head. “From where?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
He watches you, clearly waiting for an answer, but you don’t offer one.
Of course it matters. You know exactly where she’s seen your face—on wanted posters, nailed to outposts and tavern walls across Ashkarra, alongside every price and charge they’ve pinned to your name. Your face has been passed from hand to hand, from bounty hunters to soldiers to mercenaries desperate enough to try their luck.
If any of your siblings could see you now, they’d call you a fool.
They always said you were soft—too prone to mercy, too willing to let the world sink its claws into you. Even before everything fell apart, they’d chide you for slipping from the palace gardens at dusk to tend to the villages beyond the walls, for wasting your time on strangers who would never repay you.
And now, here you are. Healing the children of the empire that burned your kingdom to ash. Mending wounds that should have been left to fester.
You can almost hear your eldest brother’s voice, cold and steady as a blade: Why risk your life for them?
Why use the Thread—your inheritance, the last remnant of everything they couldn’t kill—on people who would turn you in the moment they saw your face on a posting?
But they never understood.
To wield the Verdant Thread is to carry more than magic. It’s a duty—rooted deep, older than grief, older than vengeance. You were taught that from the moment you could speak. Those who carry the Thread must tend it, wherever it winds. To refuse is to let the weave fray and wither, to let life itself go barren.
You’ve told yourself, over and over, that it’s only pragmatism. Heal a few strangers, ease a few ailments, then slip away before anyone grows suspicious. But it’s a lie you stopped believing a long time ago. The truth is much simpler.
You help because you can.
Because you’re still the fool they said you were.
And now, with the weight of the Thread cooling against your palms, with danger once again breathing down your neck, you can only hope it’s enough to keep you ahead of the next hunter waiting in the dark.
You say nothing to Phainon as you both weave into the safety of the square, where noise and bodies make it easier to disappear.
“Let’s eat,” you tell him. “Make sure to have your fill because we leave at first light.”
Phainon follows without question, keeping pace like always—calm, steady, oblivious to the weight hanging between you. If he notices the tension crawling beneath your skin, he doesn’t mention it.
You can’t decide whether that makes him easier to bear… or far more troublesome
By the time dawn breaks, you’re already gone—slipping down the coastal road in the outskirts of Crosspine toward a city with higher walls and even higher stakes: Vherisport.
One of the Reach’s larger cities, perched right at the mouth of the Sarnin Bay, where ships from across Ashkarra dock in endless streams. The streets here are broad and bustling, paved in worn stone, hemmed in by colorful awnings and sharp-tongued merchants hawking everything from silk to saltfish.
You hate cities like this. But you need supplies, and worse, you need coin.
Because now, for the first time in years, you aren’t traveling alone.
You’ve been careful, making sure not to display open shows of magic. But even without weaving, you can feel the Thread fraying beneath your skin—tight with unease as you slip through the crowds, as Phainon keeps pace beside you like he’s been doing it his whole life. The worst part? He doesn’t even look out of place anymore.
You did what you could—traded out his old clothes for plain linen, shoved a hood over his too-pale hair—but nothing could disguise his height, or the way people’s eyes still snagged on him. However, in a city this crowded, no one stares too long. People mind their own business, too busy watching their own backs to care about a man who looks like he could break them in half.
Still, you tug Phainon aside the first chance you get, slipping down a narrow side street, away from the crowd and noise.
“We’re out of coin,” you say flatly.
He lifts a brow, entirely unbothered. “Then we’ll find more.”
You glare at him. “Oh? And how exactly do you plan to do that? You think coin just falls from the sky?”
He tilts his head, studying you like you’ve said something strange. “You don’t have a plan?”
“Not one that feeds both of us,” you mutter, half to yourself. You’re no stranger to going hungry, but you weren’t dragging around a second mouth to feed before, let alone his.
His gaze sharpens slightly. “Then we shouldn’t have wasted so much back in Crosspine.”
You scowl. “That’s not your business.”
“It is,” he says simply, without hesitation, as though this fact has been obvious all along. “You saved my life. I owe you. I’m not letting you starve because of me.”
You stare at him, stunned by how genuinely he says it—like it’s some eternal truth.
Gods above...
You scrub a hand over your face, sighing hard. “We need work. Fast. And before you suggest anything stupid—no, we’re not robbing anyone.”
“Alright, no robbing. But we’re allowed to take jobs.”
You narrow your eyes at him, already wary of whatever’s turning in that half-empty head of his. “Jobs?”
Phainon gives a small, self-satisfied nod. “I may not remember much, but isn’t that how people survive? By earning coin instead of doing everything free of charge like you do?”
You groan, wishing you’d left him in the damned ravine.
But he’s right.
If you don’t stop playing the bleeding-heart traveler in every town, you will both die starving in a gutter. No Thread, no magic, no mercy. Just a fool with too many secrets and a man with too many sharp edges.
That’s how you ended up lingering in the port city far longer than you’d like.
You’ve long since grown used to deprivation—scarcity has been your shadow ever since you became a fugitive. But your insufferable, newfound companion wasn’t having it. Phainon insisted, with that stubborn tilt of his head, that if the two of you were to keep traveling, you needed to stockpile enough coin and supplies to last at least a few months.
Remaining in Vherisport for more than a handful of days gnawed at your nerves, but you couldn’t deny the logic. Better to scrape everything together now than be forced to worry about it later, somewhere less forgiving.
You could’ve argued and said something harsh, something like I’d be perfectly fine if you just left me alone.
But for some reason, you didn’t.
So, the two of you did the most practical thing first—found a place to stay. Somewhere cheap enough to not drain what little coin you had left, with a landlord lenient enough to overlook rent being a few days late, at least until you and Phainon could find work.
As luck would have it, the person you came across felt like they’d been sent by the heavens themselves.
Old Merrow, a retired sailor known around the docks, owned a crumbling property near the edge of the shipyards—a squat little house with an attached workshop that hasn’t seen proper use in years. No one visits anymore. The workshop’s roof is half-caved, the walls leaning just enough to make you uneasy on windy nights. But it was shelter, and better yet, it came with a bargain.
Merrow isn’t interested in coin. He’s well past the point of needing it, living off old sailor’s pensions and favors owed. What he wants is stories, company, and meals shared over the fire every few nights, with tales spun thick enough to keep him entertained.
Phainon agreed before you could even blink.
You don’t trust it, of course. Who asks for stories as payment?
But you take the deal anyway.
It’s easy enough to satisfy Merrow. You’ve been on the road long enough to gather dozens of half-truths and scraps of myth, and you’re practiced at shaping them to suit your needs. You never give names or anything that might tie back to your past. Only tales of wandering healers, lost cities swallowed by the sea, spirits that guide travelers through fog and storm.
You always weave a little extra protection over yourself before every meal—subtle illusions draped across your features, just enough to blur recognition if Merrow’s old eyes ever happen to catch the truth beneath.
The first time you do it, Phainon watches closely.
After Merrow has gone back to his house and you’re both settling down on the worn quilts you’ve dragged into the workshop’s back corner, he asks—quiet, but direct:
“Why hide your face?”
You glance at him warily, but he doesn’t press for an answer. Phainon simply watches with that same steady patience he’s carried ever since the ravine. There is no fire in his gaze, only calm curiosity tinged with that faint doggedness that refuses to leave you alone.
Still, you brush it off.
“Some faces are safer hidden,” you say, and roll over before he can push further.
He doesn’t ask again after that.
Still, work finds you faster than you expect.
Vherisport thrives on hard hands and harder backs—too many ships, too many goods, and too many people in need of something mended, carried, or fetched. There’s no shortage of tasks for those willing to work without asking too many questions.
Phainon, predictably, falls into the heavy labor without complaint.
Most mornings, you watch him vanish into the maze of docks, roped into loading crates, hauling barrels, or wrangling shipments with the other dockhands. His strength makes it easy for him, though you still don’t understand why he seems to enjoy it. You catch him smiling sometimes with sleeves rolled up, the sun catching in his pale hair, as if the work itself pleases him—as if it’s enough just to have something to do, somewhere to belong.
It’s strange, but everything about him is.
Meanwhile, you drift through smaller jobs. Sometimes you brew salves for fishermen’s aching joints; in others, you tend to minor illnesses, and stitch up sailors too stubborn to see proper healers. You keep it quiet, making sure not to rely on the Thread to make a living here. Instead, you use your bulk of knowledge with just enough skill to pass as a hedge-healer.
And every time you slip away from the legitimate work to do something softer—mending a sick child’s cough for free, slipping a coin into an old woman’s hand—Phainon notices. He doesn’t scold you for it anymore. He’s long since given up on that, like how you simply resigned yourself to his constant presence.
But he always sighs.
Sometimes with the faintest shake of his head, like he’s wondering how he ended up tethered to someone like you. Other times, it’s just a soft, wordless breath, as if he’s accepted this strange rhythm you’ve both fallen into.
It isn’t quite a partnership, not in any formal sense. You wouldn’t dare call it friendship, either. But there’s something… steady about it. You’ve begun to move around each other without thinking—picking up the slack where the other leaves off, sharing what little you earn without keeping score.
After the city winds down and Merrow’s house grows quiet, you both sit by the cold hearth in the workshop, counting the day’s wages. You’ve managed to find an old clay jug tucked away in a dusty corner, likely once used for wine or oil. It serves the purpose well enough.
Each night, you empty your earnings onto the floor—rough copper, dulled silver—and split them evenly between what’s needed for food and what can be saved for later. Phainon takes it strangely seriously, watching the way the coins stack and clink together with an intensity that almost makes you laugh.
Tonight is no different.
You finish counting your share first, sliding the last of it into the jug with a soft clatter, and glance over to see Phainon still bent over his coins, brow furrowed in deep concentration.
“You’re acting like we’ve won a king’s ransom,” you mutter.
He looks up, and there’s something bright in his expression—something that catches you entirely off guard.
“It’s enough,” he says simply, his voice low but pleased. “Enough for a lavish dinner we can share with Old Merrow. And enough left for sweets, too, if we want.”
You blink at him, dumbfounded by what just came out of his mouth.
Sweets.
The Flame Reaver—terror of the empire, hunter of mages like you—genuinely looks pleased by the thought of buying sweets.
You stare at him for a long moment, unsure whether to laugh or be unnerved.
“Gods,” you mutter. “You really are impossible.”
Phainon only smiles, faint but honest.
The worst part is, you’re starting to get used to it.
By the end of the second month, you’ve more or less settled into Vherisport.
It isn’t comfort—you wouldn’t dare call it that—but the days have begun to blur together in a way that no longer feels dangerous.
The apothecary you work at is nestled near the quieter end of the market district, tucked between a glassblower’s shop and a stall that sells old books and stranger charms. The owner, Mistress Elwen, is a sharp-eyed, sharp-tongued woman well past her prime but still quick on her feet, with silver hair always tied in elaborate coils and a knack for knowing everything before anyone says a word.
She took you in without question, saying she could always use another pair of hands to grind herbs and stock shelves. But she isn’t blind.
You suspect she saw you use the Thread once, when your hands slipped concocting a rare tonic too delicate for mortal hands alone. You meant to keep it mundane, but the work was too precise, too tedious without it.
Mistress Elwen never said a word.
She only watched, calm and unbothered, as though she’d seen stranger things in her many years. When you’d glanced up, heart pounding in your throat, she merely arched a brow and said mildly, “About time you stopped wasting your talents on salves.”
And that was that.
Now, she keeps you busy with orders from all corners of the city—tonics for sailors with seasickness, remedies for merchants with failing eyesight, charms and teas to ease fevers in restless children. The work is quiet and patient work, perfect for someone like you. She never pries into your past. But gods, she does love to meddle elsewhere.
Especially when Phainon shows up.
The first time it happens, you nearly faint.
It’s just past midday, the shop feels just a tad bit drowsy in the heat, when the door creaks open. Phainon lets himself in with long strides—broad-shouldered, still dusted with salt and sweat from the docks, carrying a wrapped parcel under one arm. You freeze in place, but he doesn’t even hesitate.
The man just walks right up to the counter where you’re sorting dried lavender and sets the bundle down with far too much casual confidence.
“For you,” he says with a lopsided smile.
You stare at the parcel like it might explode. “What—what are you doing here?”
“Lunch,” he reminds you, entirely unfazed. “And this.” He taps the bundle lightly. “Saw it in the market district. Thought you’d like it.”
You can feel Mistress Elwen’s gaze burning holes through your back.
“Phainon,” you hiss under your breath. “You can’t just—”
“Why not?” He tilts his head, looking genuinely puzzled. “You’re working. You should eat.”
You want to die.
Worse, Mistress Elwen lets out a delighted little hum from her seat near the window, where she’s pretending to sort herbs but is very clearly eavesdropping on every word.
“Well now,” she says, bright as a bell. “Isn’t he thoughtful? You’re welcome here anytime, dear. My assistant forgets to care for herself more often than not.”
Phainon actually has the audacity to smile at that—clearly far too pleased with himself—before bidding you farewell and vanishing back into the sunlit street. You stand there clutching the cursed parcel of lunch he left behind like it’s some kind of trap, mortified beyond belief.
Mistress Elwen doesn’t wait long.
The moment the door shuts, she gives you a sly, knowing look. “Quite the handsome young man,” she remarks, as if commenting on the weather. “And bringing you gifts, too. You might as well just accept him.”
You nearly choke on air. “Accept what?”
Her eyes gleam with mischief. “Why, his proposal, of course.”
“What proposal?!” you hiss.
She only laughs, soft and amused, like she’s watching some play unfold before her eyes. “Oh, come now. You mean to tell me a man looks at you like that, brings you food from the market, and it’s not because he’s courting you?”
You gape at her, entirely at a loss.
Mistress Elwen chuckles again, utterly entertained, and goes back to her herbs as if she hasn’t just thrown your sanity into the sea.
You, meanwhile, sit there in stunned silence, staring down at the parcel Phainon left behind—still warm from the sun, smelling faintly of honey and roasted nuts.
His proposal.
Gods, you should’ve never let Mistress Elwen put such nonsense in your head. But no matter how hard you try to shove it away, the thought sticks like sap.
You and Phainon.
No, you and the Flame Reaver.
You almost laugh aloud at how insane it sounds.
Even so, you think about it later that evening, as you walk back from the edge of the docks with Phainon in tow, the streets already thinning out as the lamps are lit one by one. You’ve done this walk dozens of times by now, but suddenly you notice things that were easier to ignore before.
Like how every time you pass the market’s flower stalls, the vendors always seem to beam at Phainon, calling out with far too much familiarity.
“Oh! Here comes my favorite new face again,” one of them coos today, waving cheerfully from behind her baskets of wild blooms. “Bringing something for your sweetheart, dear?”
Your head snaps toward her, horrified.
Phainon only tilts his head. “Sweetheart?”
The vendor laughs, clearly finding both of you adorable. “Oh, don’t play coy. It’s plain to anyone with eyes.” She casts you a fond, knowing look that makes your heart sink into your shoes. “Such a devoted pair, the two of you.”
You don’t even have the words to respond—only a strangled noise as you all but drag him away by the sleeve.
But now the dam has broken, and you can’t unsee it.
No wonder Old Merrow always gives you both privacy after dinner, chuckling under his breath as he limps back to his house with a wink thrown your way. No wonder people smile at you two when you’re sitting together at the edge of the wharf after work, sharing quiet conversations over the day’s haul, too tired to bother moving apart.
To everyone else, you must look like—
You feel yourself spiraling.
It’s ridiculous. Completely, utterly absurd. You—fugitive, outlaw, last of the Verdant Thread—and him, the most infamous monster the empire ever unleashed. How could you possibly—?
But the more you try to scoff it away, the more your thoughts slip somewhere you don’t want them to go.
You’ve seen sides of Phainon no one else has.
The man who comes home each evening with sunburnt cheeks and bright eyes, speaking with quiet pride about how many ships they loaded before sundown.
The one who kneels down to play with the dockhands’ children, letting them braid flowers into his hair without complaint, his laughter low and steady and warm.
The one who shows up at your workplace every afternoon without fail, carrying some trinket or treat he thought you would like, as though the port city is something the two of you could make into home.
Right now, he isn’t the Flame Reaver.
He isn’t the butcher cloaked in fire, who reduced cities to ash and hunted people like you down without mercy.
This is just... Phainon.
You don’t know when you stopped being afraid of him. Somewhere along the way, between all the shared wages, quiet dinners, and long walks home, you let him in. And now, sitting here with your heart in your throat, you realize something far more dangerous:
You don’t know if you’ll ever be able to push him back out again.
The first whispers of the Moonlight Festival drift through the city like the scent of jasmine on a summer wind. It seems every other breath carries it now, tucked between dockside gossip and the sing-song voices of vendors in the market.
You’ve heard it mentioned in passing for weeks now. The festival is an old tradition, held once every year, when the sea glows with silver tides and every street from the wharf to the edges of the city is strung with lanterns. A celebration of safe voyages and the moon’s blessing, or so they say.
You hadn’t paid it much mind. You and Phainon had been too busy shouldering your work, too busy making ends meet and ignoring how easily the days had begun to slip by. Besides, you hadn’t expected to stay this long. Every time the festival crept into conversation, you let it drift past like smoke, another thing that didn’t concern you.
Until Mistress Elwen brings it up one late afternoon, as she watches you arrange bundles of rosemary by the window.
“It’s nearly time,” she says, voice light as ever, but her gaze sharp beneath her lashes. “The Moonlight Festival’s only a week away now. You ought to go.”
You glance up, startled, already halfway into shaking your head. But she isn’t finished.
“Take that handsome young man with the blue eyes,” she adds. “The one who keeps bringing you lunch.”
Heat creeps up your neck faster than you can stop it.
“Mistress Elwen,” you mutter, glaring down at the herbs as though they might save you. “We can’t afford that sort of thing.”
“Oh?” Her tone is far too innocent. “Coin troubles again?”
You hesitate for a breath too long.
It isn’t money, of course. You and Phainon have more than enough stashed away by now, tucked in the old clay jug hidden beneath the floorboards of the workshop. Enough to leave tonight, if it came to that.
No, it isn’t coin keeping you away.
It’s the way your skin crawls some nights as you walk through the market, senses pricking at the weight of certain glances. How some people linger too long when they pass you, eyes sharp, watchful, as if they can see through the veil of the Thread when you’re too tired to hold it steady. You’ve grown lax here, lulled by the slow ease of Vherisport and the strange comfort of Phainon’s constant, looming presence. But you know better than to believe it can last.
Mercenaries don’t forget debts. And the empire does not forget its fugitives.
One of these days—maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after—someone will look too long. Someone will follow too far. And when that happens, you’ll have no choice but to run again, before your throat is slit and your magic burns out in the gutter.
Still, you can’t tell Mistress Elwen that.
“We’ll be leaving soon,” you say, feigning nonchalance. “Best not to get tangled in city festivals when we won’t be here long.”
Mistress Elwen watches you closely, those sharp old eyes of hers missing nothing. She says nothing for a moment, letting the weight of her silence press into the air like another stone on your back.
Then, softly, she says, “You always say that.”
It cuts deeper than you expect.
You busy your hands again, tying rosemary into neat little bundles, but your pulse stumbles as the words settle under your skin.
She’s right. You’ve said it before—said it so often that even you’ve begun to forget whether you truly mean it anymore.
We won’t stay long.
We’ll leave soon.
Just a little longer.
And yet, here you are. Two months deep into Vherisport’s crooked streets, weaving roots into boiling pots, sharing wages by a cold hearth, walking home beneath lamp-lit skies beside the man everyone mistakes for your lover.
Later that night, you find yourself lingering by the window of the workshop, watching the city below.
The festival’s preparations are already well underway. Lanterns being strung across balconies, silk banners stitched in midnight blue and moon-white, fluttering in the sea breeze. Even the vendors have started stocking their carts with honeyed sweets and sugared plums, silverfish charms and painted masks.
You catch sight of Phainon in the distance, his pale hair unmistakable even in the fading light. He’s hauling barrels toward the docks, laughing at something one of the dockhands says. The children dart around him, trailing ribbons and laughter, and he lets them climb him like some great, gentle beast.
You grip the windowsill tighter.
It doesn’t matter what Mistress Elwen says, or what foolishness the city believes. You are not meant for this. You cannot afford to dream of lanterns and festivals when your shadow stretches longer than the streets you walk.
You will leave.
You must.
But as you watch Phainon smile below, bathed in the glow of a thousand hanging lights, you begin to wonder whether you’ll have the strength to go without him.
Come dinner, the scent of roasted fish and spiced rice fills the little workshop. It had been Phainon’s idea, and somehow you’d been foolish enough to agree. A proper meal, he’d said, something more than root stew and yesterday’s bread, since the wages had been good this week and the festival was drawing near.
Now, the three of you sit crowded around the low table in the corner, knees knocking together as you portion out the feast onto chipped plates. Merrow looks half in disbelief, half in delight, as he watches you and Phainon bring out a whole sea bream roasted in citrus and herbs, bowls of saffron rice studded with pine nuts, and flatbread slick with oil and rosemary. A meal far too fine for your station, but Phainon had been insistent, flashing that sun-bright grin of his as he traded coin for spice and sweetness.
Merrow claps his hands together, his leathery face creasing with mirth. “By all the gods,” he says, voice warm and raspy with age. “This is the finest spread I’ve seen in this house since my hair was still black.”
You manage a weak smile. “Don’t get used to it.”
But Merrow only laughs, deep and contented, already helping himself to generous portions. “Ah, let an old man indulge! I’ll eat like a king tonight and die happy tomorrow.”
Dinner passes in a slow, golden haze. The food is good—far better than you expected—and even better when shared in the soft hush of the sea breeze drifting through the cracked windows. You eat until your stomach aches, until the weight of the day begins to loosen from your shoulders.
Strangely, Merrow doesn’t ask for stories tonight.
That alone is enough to set you on edge. Ever since he took you both in, he’s always demanded tales in exchange for your keep. It’s been his only price.
But tonight, he leans back in his chair, cradling his cup of plum wine with a faraway look in his eye, and speaks instead.
“Moonlight Festival’s near,” he murmurs. “Hard to believe it’s come ‘round again.”
You glance at him warily, unsure where this is headed.
“Met my wife at the festival, you know. Many, many years ago, back when I was still a foolish sailor with more luck than sense.” He chuckles softly, lost in the memory. “She was standing beneath the lanterns—gods, I thought she was some sea spirit come to drag me under.”
You blink, caught off guard by the softness in his voice. You’ve only ever known Merrow as a sharp-tongued old dockhand with too many bad jokes and not enough teeth. But he’s different today. He speaks as though he can still see her, standing there in the glow of the lantern lights.
“Never missed the festival after that,” he says, voice turning quieter. “We’d dance every year, right until her last one. Even now, I swear I can feel her waiting for me, somewhere out there.”
You don’t realize how tightly you’re gripping your cup until the clay creaks faintly under your fingers.
Merrow’s gaze sharpens, and he grins. “You two ought to go.”
The words drop into the air like stones into still water, rippling outward.
You nearly choke on air. “What?”
“You heard me,” he says, lifting his cup in mock toast. “The Moonlight Festival. It’s not something to miss, especially not when you’ve got someone to share it with.”
You flush, stammering to find words that don’t sound utterly insane. “We—we can’t just—”
But before you can even form a proper excuse, Phainon’s voice cuts in, calm and maddeningly steady.
“All right,” he says, as if it’s the simplest thing in the world.
You whip toward him, staring in disbelief. “What do you mean alright?”
“We’ll go.” He doesn’t even look fazed, casually sipping his wine.
“But we don’t even have clothes for something like that!”
Phainon only lifts a brow, tilting his head in that infuriating way of his. “Then we’ll go to the boutique tomorrow. You can pick something for us.”
You nearly drop your cup right there.
Merrow lets out a great, bellowing laugh, the sound filling the room like thunder. “That’s the spirit, lad! Go on, let her dress you up proper. You’ll both turn heads, I wager.”
Your heart pounds, caught somewhere between utter mortification and some strange, traitorous fluttering that you refuse to name.
Phainon turns to you then, his gaze steady, his smile soft and warm beneath the lamplight.
As though this is all perfectly normal.
As though he isn’t the monster who once left ashes in his wake.
All you can do is sputter as your fate is sealed yet again by the whims of the man who once stopped at nothing to kill you. The same man who now speaks in the softest voice you’ve ever known, blue eyes brighter than any lantern Vherisport could ever light.
That’s how you know you’re well and truly doomed.
Morning finds you sullen, stiff-limbed, and determined to talk Phainon out of this ridiculous scheme.
You trail behind him through the winding streets of Vherisport, scowling beneath your hood as the first light of day spills golden across the harbor. The market is already stirring to life, stalls creaking open, scent of fresh bread thick in the air, and still he walks with that infuriating ease—like he doesn’t feel the weight of your glower drilling holes into his back.
“This is madness,” you mutter, hurrying to keep pace. “We don’t need to spend coin on nonsense like this.”
Phainon hums as though you’ve complimented him. “It’s not nonsense.”
You nearly trip over a stray cat darting across the cobblestones. “It’s splurging. Lavish, wasteful, unnecessary splurging. Do you know how long we could live on what we’ve earned already? Months. Months, Phainon. We could leave tonight and never have to work for the rest of the season.”
He glances at you over his shoulder, that same easy smile playing on his lips. “And then what? Hide again?”
Your steps stutter, nearly faltering in the middle of the street, but he keeps walking with his hands tucked into his pockets, calm as ever.
You shove past him with a glare sharper than any blade he’s ever carried. “That’s the plan, yes. We’ve stayed too long already.”
He doesn’t answer at first. Just follows, quiet and thoughtful as the streets narrow, leaving behind the bustle of the harbor in favor of the artisan quarter, where the scent of the ocean drifts from shaded courtyards. Then—so softly you almost wish you hadn’t heard it—he asks:
“Why do we need to leave anyway?”
You freeze as Phainon’s gaze finds you again, steady and piercing beneath that cloudless sky.
“Isn’t our life here good enough?”
And just like that, something splits wide open inside you.
Because of course he would ask that, in his blissful, maddening ignorance.
He doesn’t know the name that still haunts you through every border town, passed from mercenary to mercenary, spoken in low voices with sharpened smiles. He doesn’t know the legacy you carry in secret—the reason you’ve never allowed yourself to belong anywhere, never dared to call a place home.
Phainon doesn’t know that every time you laugh with him and let yourself feel safe here, it’s a blade held to your throat.
You’ve never told him.
Not when he first stumbled into your life as that half-dead amnesiac who placed his trust in you with the same thoughtless faith he still wears like a second skin.
Not even now, when he smiles faintly at you as if this city could be yours.
You feel something bitter crawl up your throat—shame, maybe, or something close to it—but you swallow it down with the sharpness of old instinct.
“We can’t afford to stay,” is all you tell him.
Phainon watches you for a long moment, but if he hears what you aren’t saying, he doesn’t press.
The rest of the walk is quiet.
You keep your gaze fixed ahead, heart pounding beneath your ribs, too tangled in your own thoughts to notice the way he lingers just behind you.
The boutique comes into view before you realize it, its windows bright with morning light and lined with fabrics in every shade imaginable. Velvets, silks, gauzes that shimmer like starlight. Phainon pushes the door open for you, and the bell above the frame chimes sweetly, beckoning you inside.
You hesitate at the threshold, every instinct screaming to turn back.
But when you glance at Phainon, you find yourself stepping forward anyway.
You smell lavender and pressed starch, hear the faint shush of fabric shifting as you’re ushered in by the seamstress herself.
“Oh, you’ve come just in time,” she says, hands already measuring you with a glance. “You’ll want something light for the Moonlight Festival. The evenings get warm by the water.”
You open your mouth to protest, to make some excuse about how you’re only here because he insisted—but Phainon, damn him, simply hums in quiet agreement behind you, too at ease for his own good.
The seamstress clicks her tongue, already rifling through the racks with practiced speed.
“No need to fuss,” she calls over her shoulder, pulling bolts of fabric free. “I’ve dressed enough couples for the festival to know what works.”
Couples.
You nearly choke, but before you can object, she’s pressing a soft bundle of fabric into your arms.
“This will do,” she says, firmly brooking no argument. “For you, something soft and cool-toned—brings out your eyes.” Then she turns to Phainon, utterly unfazed by his towering height or the way he watches her with mild curiosity. “And for you, something clean and tailored. Simple enough to move in, but elegant once the lanterns are lit.”
You glance down at the garments she’s thrust into your hands—fine linen and gauzy layers, silver threaded through soft blue.
“Wait, this is—” You struggle to keep up. “We’re not—”
But the seamstress only waves you toward the fitting rooms with a knowing grin. “Oh, don’t fret so much, love. I’ll have my girls help you dress.”
Before you know it, you’re whisked away by two giggling apprentices, your protests drowned beneath their chatter.
The fitting room is quiet, save for the soft rustle of fabric and the occasional pin prick as the apprentices fasten the gown around you. You flinch, but one of the girls’ hands pause for just a breath before continuing, gentler this time.
Of course they see them.
The burn scars along your back aren’t easy to miss—not with the way the gown dips low across your shoulders, the fabric barely brushing old wounds etched like ghosted flames across your skin. You keep your eyes fixed firmly on the floor, heart pounding in your throat as you wait for the inevitable gasp or whispered question.
But it never comes.
Instead, one of them quietly steps away, returning a moment later to drape a soft shawl over your shoulders—light as air, cool to the touch, matching the gown perfectly.
She tucks the fabric in place with steady hands, offering you a small, knowing smile through the mirror.
Somehow, that’s worse than pity.
You can’t look at yourself at first, but when the last lace is cinched and the girls step back with pleased little sighs, you have no choice but to lift your gaze.
The mirror is cruel in its honesty.
You almost don’t recognize yourself.
The gown isn’t anything like the ones you once wore in the gilded courts of Virelya, but it’s beautiful in its own way. Soft, layered fabrics that catch the light like mist over water, delicate without being fragile. The bodice shapes your figure with quiet grace, and the color—pale as moonlight—renders your features almost unearthly.
For a fleeting second, your heart aches.
It’s been so long since you’ve seen yourself like this.
Not a fugitive. Not a healer hunched over boiling herbs. Not a shadow slipping through alleyways with your face veiled in Thread. Just a woman in a lovely dress, standing beneath soft lamplight, gazing at a reflection that feels like it belongs to someone else.
You’re still lingering there, when one of the apprentices nudges you gently toward the door.
“Go on,” she whispers, stifling a grin. “He’s waiting.”
It takes more strength than you’d like to admit, but you manage to steady yourself, smoothing the fabric with clammy fingers before you step out.
Phainon is already in the main hall, standing near the mirrors—and gods above.
The seamstress was right.
His outfit matches yours perfectly—tailored navy linen, silver threading along the cuffs and collar, cut to sharpen his broad frame and lengthen his already impossible height. He’s rolled his sleeves just slightly, revealing strong forearms, and the dark color makes his pale hair gleam brighter than ever beneath the boutique’s soft lights.
But it isn’t just the clothes. It’s the way he looks at you.
Because the instant you step out, his gaze lifts and he stares.
Wide-eyed, utterly silent, every ounce of calm stripped away. His breath catches, his mouth parts slightly, but no words come out—just pure, stunned awe.
And then the seamstress’s voice cuts through the thick silence.
“Well,” she says, clearly entertained, “shall I mark it down for alterations? Or do the two of you plan to run off in those as you are?”
“I—I—this—this must be well out of our budget,” you blurt, clinging to the first excuse you can grasp.
The seamstress only laughs. “Nonsense. You’re the one from Mistress Elwen’s, aren’t you? The healer who brewed that salve for my mother’s joints a fortnight ago?”
You freeze, clearly not expecting that.
“You have a good heart, child.” The older woman grins. “My mother’s walking again because of you. I’ll throw in a discount—call it fair trade.”
You’re too stunned to answer. Phainon, however, recovers faster—still watching you from beneath those summer blue eyes.
“Well then,” he says, voice quiet but warm, “I suppose we have no reason to refuse.”
Never, until now, have you wished so fiercely for the earth to swallow you whole.
The days leading up to the festival slip by in a strange, breathless haze.
Your new outfits hang in quiet accusation in the corner of the room, far too fine for the cramped space you now call home. They’re tucked inside the old wardrobe Merrow lent you weeks ago—the same one Phainon hauled up the stairs himself, shoulders flexing beneath the weight, sweat lining his brow but his grin as bright as ever when he declared it “sturdy enough for two.”
You’d scoffed then, muttering something about how little space you had to begin with, but now… now it feels like the wardrobe itself watches you.
You try not to look at it as you lace your boots each morning, as you tie your apron and slip out before dawn.
Phainon leaves first, as always, off to the docks with that lazy saunter of his The city knows him now as the dockhand with the sharp smile and steadier hands, the man who carries crates like they weigh nothing and teaches the children how to carve little ships from driftwood.
You envy his ease, sometimes.
Your own days at the apothecary grow heavier with each passing hour.
It happens on the third evening after the boutique.
The shop is quiet, the air thick with lavender and mint as you mix a tonic for some merchant’s sickly wife. Mistress Elwen is out back tending the drying racks, leaving you alone at the counter. The bell above the door barely jingles. But when you glance up, you finally notice him.
A stranger, too still and sharp around the eyes. Clearly not a mercenary—they’re far more cunning than this one is—but there’s a wild edge to him. A hungry look, like a hound scenting blood. His hand twitches beneath his cloak, just once, enough for you to spot the glint of metal hidden there.
You don’t flinch.
By the time he lunges, you’ve already moved—grabbing the iron pestle from the counter, sidestepping his clumsy strike with the grace honed by too many nights running through streets darker than these.
You move without thought, the Thread flickering beneath your skin, weaving the faintest shimmer of illusion over your features as you slam the pestle into the side of his head.
He crumples.
It’s almost laughable, how easy it is. A child’s game compared to the hunts you’ve escaped before.
Phainon would have made quick work of him too, you think bitterly, as you drag the unconscious man toward the back door and dump him in the alley with nothing more than a whispered curse to keep him asleep till morning.
You don’t tell Mistress Elwen. She’d only look at you with those knowing eyes of hers and say something infuriatingly calm like “So they’ve caught your scent, have they?”
No, you carry the weight of it yourself, like always.
But it lingers in your chest as you walk home that night, heavy and cold.
You can’t stay. You know that. And yet…
The wardrobe waits for you when you return, its doors shut tight, hiding the fine fabrics inside.
Phainon returns late, as he always does, cheeks flushed from sea air and hands rough with salt, grinning as he sets down the catch he helped haul that day. He doesn’t notice the stiffness in your shoulders.
“Merrow says he’ll cook up a stew tomorrow,” he says, stripping off his boots and tossing them aside without ceremony. “Said we’ve been working too hard to bother with bread and cheese again.”
You nod vaguely, watching him from across the room as he rakes a hand through his silver hair, shaking out the last of the salt. You hate how easy he makes it seem—this life, this fragile peace.
You hate it even more when you realize you’ve started to crave it, too.
The shared quilts you’ve been sleeping under for months feel different now, too. He sleeps warm, always has, radiating heat like an ember banked low—but lately you’ve started drifting closer without realizing it, drawn to the quiet calm of his breathing, to the steady weight of him beside you.
One night, half-asleep, you find yourself curling toward that warmth, your fingers brushing the bare skin of his forearm beneath the blanket.
Phainon stirs slightly, but doesn’t wake, letting you settle against him as if this has always been your place.
You tell yourself it’s just the cold even if it’s the middle of summer.
But deep down, in the part of you that still aches when you catch him smiling at you like the world’s sharp edges don’t exist, you know the truth.
The festival looms closer, its glow already beginning to spread through the city—lanterns strung above every street, laughter spilling from taverns thick with honey wine and spiced cider. Your gown still waits in the wardrobe. Phainon always hums when he catches you staring at it from the doorway, leaning against the frame with that maddeningly soft look in his eyes.
“You’ll look beautiful under the lanterns,” he says, like it’s already been decided.
And gods help you—
You almost want to believe him.
The Moonlight Festival arrives with the sea winds, weaving its magic through every corner of Vherisport.
By sundown, the harbor has transformed.
Lanterns drift like stars along the water, their glow soft and golden, swaying gently with the tide. Silk ribbons ripple in the breeze, strung from mast to mast across the docks and curling down from rooftops in streams of silver and blue. The streets are alive with music while the air is thick with salt, spice, and smoke from festival fires.
It’s the kind of beauty only a port city could conjure, built from all the stories that pass through its gates.
You’ve never seen anything like it.
Phainon waits for you by the door, already dressed, and gods, you wish he didn’t look so effortlessly handsome.
He wears his festival clothes with an ease that should be criminal—navy linen tailored close to his frame, the silver of his cuffs like frostbite kissed across his skin. His hair looks well-kept for the occasion, but a few strands still fall across his forehead, softening the sharpness of his jaw.
“You ready?” he asks, offering you his hand, his blue eyes crinkling faintly as they meet yours.
You hesitate just for a moment before taking it.
The streets swallow you both in their revelry.
You try to keep your wits about you. But it’s hard not to lose yourself in it all: the scent of honeyed wine, the bright laughter of children darting through the crowds with lanterns in their arms, the calls of merchants selling sweets shaped like seashells and candied seafoam spun into delicate curls.
Phainon keeps close to your side, his arm brushing yours with every step, steady as an anchor in the rush of bodies around you. He never strays far—not when you pause to admire the fire dancers or when you stop to watch the sailors lighting candles along the docks.
And under the lantern light, he somehow glows.
You don’t know if it’s the wine or the warmth of the evening, but everything about him feels magnified tonight—the brightness of his laughter, the steady weight of his gaze when he looks at you, like there’s no one else here but the two of you.
They pull you into the dancing before you can stop them—locals and travelers alike joining hands in the streets as the music swells. Phainon laughs when you tug him along, stumbling over his feet as he tries to follow the rhythm.
“I don’t think I’ve ever danced before,” he confesses, breathless, as you spin him around.
“What? Your memories finally coming back or something?”
He shrugs. “Just a gut feeling”
You grin despite yourself, caught in the thrill of it. “Then you’re lucky I know how.”
And you do.
Some part of you still remembers the old lessons—how to move through the steps like drifting through a dream, how to guide your partner with nothing but a press of your hand and the sway of your hips. You lead him with ease, laughing as he fumbles and trips, his wide grin growing brighter with every turn.
“Like this,” you say, hands steadying his as you draw him close, and he listens, always so eager to follow your lead.
You dance beneath the glow of the lanterns, your skirts spinning like seafoam around you, his hands firm at your waist as he finds his footing at last.
By the time the music slows, your heart is pounding for reasons that have nothing to do with the dance.
You let him guide you away from the center of the square, both of you breathless and laughing, your cheeks flushed from more than just the heat.
You don’t stray far—only enough to catch your breath, slipping into the quieter fringes of the celebration where the music softens and the lanterns sway gently overhead. Phainon leans back against the worn stone of a fountain, his silver hair shining under the glow of hanging lights as his gaze settles solely on you.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you glow like this,” he murmurs, voice low and rough from laughter.
You try to summon a retort, something sharp or dismissive, but it slips through your fingers like sand.
You can’t unsee it now—how easily he fits here, among these people, smiling with the same warmth that drew you to him from the start. How the sailors call to him in passing, offering drinks and hearty slaps to his back, welcoming him without question.
He belongs here.
And that’s what makes it dangerous.
Because standing here in your borrowed silks, with his warmth still lingering on your skin and the taste of wine and laughter on your tongue, you feel it stirring in your chest—that awful, fragile thing you’ve spent your whole life smothering.
Hope.
Hope that maybe you could stay. That maybe you could call this place home, live quietly by the harbor with him at your side, share nights like this again and again until you forget what it feels like to run.
For the first time in your life, you let yourself dream.
But the moment you realize what you’re thinking, the weight of it comes crashing down on you.
You can’t stay.
You can’t keep living this lie, letting him pull you deeper into a life that was never yours to claim. You’ve grown soft, even more foolish than your siblings made you out to be. The girl who once slipped through cities like smoke, who outwitted the Flame Reaver himself, now dreams of lanterns and warm hands and laughter shared over wine.
You watch Phainon from across the street, laughing easily with the dockhands—his smile brighter than the festival fires, his eyes finding yours through the crowd, just as they always do—and your heart aches.
Because he’s the first thing you’ve ever wanted to stay for.
But you already know how this story ends.
Before your foolishness becomes your undoing, you’ll have to walk away from all of it.
Even him.
You both stumble back to Merrow’s workshop well past midnight, the streets quieting now that the festival’s peak has passed. Most of the lanterns are still glowing, but the crowds have thinned to scattered laughter and the lingering scent of spice and smoke. The house is already dark—no surprise. The old man likely retired hours ago, leaving the door unlocked for you as promised.
You fumble with the latch, shushing Phainon as he nearly trips over the doorstep.
“Quiet,” you hiss, tugging him inside. “You’ll wake the whole damn street.”
But he only grins as he sways where he stands.
“I am quiet,” he insists, entirely too loud about it, and lets out a soft, giddy laugh like he’s still caught in the spell of the night.
Gods, he’s a lightweight. You’d suspected as much from the way he flushed after the second cup of wine, but this is something else.
“You’re impossible,” you mutter under your breath, dragging him up the stairs toward the second floor where your shared room waits. He nearly takes both of you down the first few steps, and you tighten your grip, cursing him softly as he giggles again.
“I should gag you with the Thread,” you mutter through gritted teeth, earning yourself another breathless laugh from him.
“Sounds indecent,” he slurs, far too amused for his own good.
By the time you shove him through the door, you’re sweating and thoroughly regretting every decision that led to this.
He collapses onto the edge of the bed in a graceless heap, flushed and fever-warm, eyes half-lidded with the kind of lazy contentment that makes you want to throttle him.
“Off,” you order, gesturing sharply at his festival clothes. “Change before you keel over.”
He hums, clearly only half-listening.
“And don’t look while I change,” you add as you shed off your shawl, tugging at the ribbons of your gown with fumbling fingers as your cheeks burn at the thought of his gaze.
To his credit, he turns away at first, tugging at his sleeves with sluggish movements. But as fate may have it, Phainon when drunk is a menace, even when he’s trying to behave. You hear the soft rustle of his tunic falling to the floor just as you manage to slip out of your gown, the cool air brushing against your bare back. And then—
Silence.
You glance behind you just in time to see him staring—utterly still, his haze of wine-blurred laughter gone in an instant. It takes you only a moment to realize why.
His gaze is fixed on the old scars curling across your back, half-hidden by your loosened underclothes, but unmistakable under the lantern glow. Pale and jagged, the shape of it impossible to forget.
You freeze under the scrutiny.
When his voice comes again, it’s rough with something that doesn’t sound like drunkenness at all.
“…Who did that to you?”
You spin, but not fast enough. Before you can stop him, his hand is already there—callused and broad, pressing warm and steady over the scarred skin as if trying to shield it.
You should pull away. You should shove him off, curse him, thread his mind into forgetting.
But the heat of his palm seeps into your bones, anchoring you to the spot.
“…Who?” he asks again, almost pleading.
And you—gods, you don’t know why you say it. Maybe it’s the remnants of wine in your blood, or the weight of the night still hanging heavy on your chest. Or maybe it’s just the truth you’ve carried too long.
Without thinking, you answer.
“You did.”
Phainon goes utterly still.
The words hang between you, heavy as iron, impossible to take back.
He stares at you, blinking slow and heavy like the wine hasn’t fully worn off. His thumb brushes over the scar again, tender despite the callouses, as if he thinks he’s misheard. But you’re already drifting far away, too deep inside yourself to notice.
Because the moment his touch found you there, the memory surged back.
The palace had smelled of chrysanthemums that night.
You remember it clearly, how the blooms lingered thick in the air, heavy and cloying, even as the screams began to rise.
You’d heard them before you saw the flames—your people, your city, your home—crackling alive with terror beneath the violet sky. The fire didn’t look real. No ordinary blaze devours stone and marble with such hunger, eating through walls like they were parchment. And at the heart of it all, cloaked in shadows and crowned in black flames was him.
The Flame Reaver.
You remember the way he moved through the halls of your family’s palace, merciless and silent, cutting down every guard foolish enough to cross his path. You remember the heat of his magic, how it seared through the very air as he set the throne room ablaze.
You’d escaped that night, but not without scars.
You could have healed them. You already knew how to weave the Thread into yourself, how to coax flesh and bone back into place, and erase pain with enough time and precision.
But you didn’t.
You let the wound fester, let it burn into you, let it stay—because you needed it.
A reminder of what you lost. Of the home you failed to protect, and the only kingdom you would ever belong to, now reduced to nothing but ash and dust.
Virelya was all you’ve ever had. All you’ve ever been.
And now—now, you stand here with the monster who burned it down, his hands gentle where they once were cruel, his voice soft as he unknowingly tends to the ruin he made of you.
It makes you feel sick.
Because you can’t wrap your head around it.
You can’t reconcile the man who stands behind you now with the killer who razed your world to nothing.
You’re a fool for letting it get this far. For ever dreaming you could keep him close without breaking yourself open in the process.
Because no matter how softly Phainon touches you now, this scar has always been his.
And some wounds aren’t meant to heal.
He doesn’t speak. For all the weight of your words—for all the ruin they should’ve unleashed—Phainon simply… lets it go. His hand lingers only a breath longer, warm and steady over the mark he left, before it falls away, slipping back to his lap with a soft, shuddering breath.
He doesn’t ask again.
Somehow, that mercy hurts worst of all.
You’d expected questions. Rage. Horror. You’d braced yourself for the sharp edges of his voice, for accusations or apologies or something—anything—that would make this easier to bear. But Phainon, only leans back against the worn bedding, eyes heavy-lidded as he settles down, like it’s enough for him to simply know.
You should’ve known better.
Despite his easy laughter and careless charm, he’s never been a fool.
You saved his life that night—dragged him from death’s door with bloodied hands and trembling magic. You bound his wounds, nursed him back to health, sheltered him in the shadows of all the places that should have turned him away. Even without his memories, he must’ve realized what that meant.
That before you ever became his healer, before you were two nameless shadows bound by chance—your paths were already intertwined.
He never asked why you saved him.
He simply lingered in quiet ways you didn’t know you needed—carrying crates too heavy for your hands, fixing the leak in the workshop roof without complaint, dropping by the apothecary to make sure you were eating right. Always steady, always close, but never pressing where he knew it would hurt.
But even so, there’s no place for you here.
Not with him. Not anywhere.
So when Phainon finally succumbs to sleep—his breathing soft and even beneath the patchwork quilt, silver hair spilling across the pillow—you make your choice. The Thread answers your call with quiet familiarity, slipping beneath your fingertips as you weave it through the air, soft as a lullaby, delicate as moonlight. You twist it once, twice, and cast it over him like a veil.
A spell of quiet slumber, just enough to keep him from stirring.
You move quickly after that.
You take only what you need—just a small purse of coin from the jug you’d both filled over the seasons, leaving most behind without a second thought. The gown stays too. You barely spare it a glance as you hang it in the wardrobe, the fabric glimmering faintly in the dark. What use would you have for such a thing? It belonged to a version of you who shouldn’t even exist.
When everything is ready and your cloak is drawn tight around your shoulders, you pause only once.
Phainon sleeps so easily, as if nothing in the world could ever harm him. One hand curled loose near his face, the other resting over the empty space you’re about to leave behind.
You wonder, fleetingly, if he’ll hate you for this. For leaving without a word. For vanishing into the night after everything you shared. Your heart twists violently in your chest as it threatens to drag you down before you can even reach the door. But you’ve run from things worse than heartbreak.
With one last, aching glance at his peaceful form—at the man you should never have dared to love—you slip out into the sleeping streets.
And you do not look back.
⟢ end notes: OH MY GOD. i don't know what came over me lol this has been sitting in the drafts for a while now, but after playing through 3.4, i was struck with phainon disease just like any Completely Normal hsr player out there. amnesiac fics are always such a dear thing to me, and getting to write "who did that to you?" "you did" gave me unparalleled catharsis. they reunite soon, i promise <3 but thank you for reading what i have so far with retrograde! :3c
catch of breath, choke, gulp, heave, inhale, pant, puff, snort, wheeze, huff, rasp, sharp intake of air, short of breath, struggle for breath, swallow, winded
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