Ashes for the Astrarium | An Anaxagorus x Reader Series
A former soldier-turned-astrologist and a heretical scholar named Anaxagoras are drawn together in a crumbling world where gods die, constellations are outlawed, and truth is both weapon and wound. Their bond begins with bloodshed and defiance, grows through shared grief and cosmic rebellion, and deepens into a love forged in ruin and revelation. As Anaxagoras challenges divine order through soul-bound experiments, the astrologist becomes both his anchor and his mirror—fierce, loyal, and haunted by the child they vowed to protect. Across battles, breakdowns, and near-catastrophes, the two navigate what it means to choose love over fear, truth over obedience, and memory over myth—even when it costs everything.
A former scholar turned rogue metaphysicist, Anaxagoras seeks to dismantle the divine order after witnessing too many truths buried by sacred lies. With spectral hair and haunted eyes—one hidden behind a soul-seeing eyepatch—he speaks in riddles, quotes forgotten prophecies, and flirts with oblivion. Brilliant, tragic, and unpredictable, he is both the architect of revolution and its most fragile thread.
Once a blade for hire, now a protector and cosmic mapmaker. Devoted to their ward and deeply entwined with the stars they once served under divine command, the Astrologist walks a tightrope between violence and vulnerability. They are stoic, fiercely loyal, and constantly at war with their own capacity for love. Anaxagoras brings out both their gentleness and their fury—and in doing so, uncovers their truest self.
𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝 / 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐝
“𝑻𝒉𝒆𝒚 𝒉𝒖𝒓𝒕 𝒎𝒆.”
A quiet, starlit soul bound to prophecy and targeted for what they represent: a future where old gods no longer rule. Innocent but not naïve, the child anchors both Anaxagoras and the Astrologist in their moments of doubt. They are the moral compass, the fragile thread that keeps the two from self-destruction.
If you’d like to make a request or ask questions about any character(s) from Ashes for the Astrarium, please make sure to read the rules first! This helps keep everything enjoyable and respectful for everyone reading—requests that don’t follow the guidelines may not be considered.
"A Symptom Of Something" - Anaxagorus x Astrologist! Reader
(This one definitely takes a darker shift, the music alone speaks volumes. You mentioned not being the best with writing from music alone as a prompt, so I'm here to train you. Can also use the titles as ref!)
“Memento Mori, My Star”
Summary: In the ruined halls of the once-sacred Grove of Epiphany, an injured Astrologist stumbles upon forbidden truths—and Anaxagoras. As celestial alignments and soulbound experiments unravel around them, Anaxagoras must choose between shielding the Astrologist from divine retribution or allowing them to glimpse the truth no mortal was meant to see. Caught in a moment between blood, memory, and fate, they confront mortality, their bond, and the impossible weight of knowledge.
Warnings: Blood and injury, Body horror (mild, related to magical experimentation), Existential themes (mortality, divine defiance), Psychological distress, Trauma mentions (implied past enslavement, loss, manipulation), Power imbalance (emotional vulnerability, not abusive), Heavy introspection and emotional intensity.
Soot choked the skies where once constellations shimmered. The sigils engraved on its marble archways flickered one last time before crumbling. Between the tremble of the stars and the shriek of alchemical steel being ripped asunder, you found him—bent over the shattered remains of a Coreflame crucible.
"Anaxa!"
He didn’t look back.
Your fingers, cracked from defending your ward only hours before, now trembled for a different reason. The man before you — one eye veiled behind a soul-warped eyepatch, the other a hollow ocean of light and torment — moved like a marionette without strings.
"You shouldn’t be here," he murmured.
You stepped forward. "Neither should you."
He laughed. Low. Unstable. The kind of sound that made your bones ache. "And yet, here we are. Two symptoms of something wrong."
You didn't have time to argue before the structure behind him groaned like a dying god. You lunged. Pulled him back. Rubble collapsed where he stood.
For a moment, his forehead leaned against yours. Eyes closed. Breath shallow.
"Did you see it?" he whispered.
"What?"
"The truth. Burning through the veil."
You stared at him. Ash clung to his lashes. Gold blood still oozed from his knuckles.
You wanted to say: I only saw you breaking.
But instead, you replied, "I saw the stars fall."
Days later, you sat in the hollowed remains of the observatory. The dome had shattered long ago, and yet the night sky still spilled overhead in fractured beauty.
He sat beside you. For once, silent.
In your lap, the child you protected slept, fevered from the lingering poison gas of the Titans' failed countermeasures.
"You once called me a liar of light," he said, finally.
You hummed. "And you called me an obedient machine of starlight."
He tilted his head. "You weren’t wrong."
"Neither were you."
You looked to him. His eyepatch shimmered, and you wondered if he could see through your silence, your guilt, your clenching heart.
"They said this world is a Vanitas," you whispered. "But I never imagined it would take everything I cared for and leave behind... this."
His gaze didn’t waver. "Then paint something new. You have the stars still."
You scoffed. "You don't get to say that. Not when you almost let yourself die back there."
He reached over. His gloved hand brushed your temple, then down to your jaw. A careful caress. You flinched at first. Then leaned.
"If I die, remember this," he said softly. "Even when the truth is a blasphemy, it's still worth dying for."
"And what if I think you are worth living for?"
He paused. That mask of arrogance slipped.
His voice cracked. "Then perhaps... I have one truth left worth defending."
The child now slept safely in a hidden sanctuary, your blade set aside.
You and Anaxa stood beneath a dying star, its light pulsing slow and broken. It was the same star you charted when you first met him. The one he called the "chained god."
"It’s beautiful," you murmured.
"It’s dying."
"So are we all."
His eyes met yours. "Would you still follow me, if I declared war on the divine?"
"Yes."
"Even if I turned into a god myself?"
You stepped closer. Pressed your palm to the mark (idk what it's called?) on his chest.
"Only if you let me be the one to remind you what it means to be human."
He laughed. This time, it was soft. Real.
He took your hand. And in a rare gesture of fragility, he pressed his lips to your knuckles.
"Then promise me," he whispered. "That if I become a monster, you'll be the one to kill me."
You shook your head.
"No, Anaxagorus. I'll do worse. I'll love you."
And in the silence that followed, the dying star pulsed one final time.
"The Destiny Waltz" - Anaxagorus x Astrologist! Reader
This a piece that blends elegance with a tinge of melancholy, perfect for someone like him: enigmatic, philosophical, and most certainly burdened by intellect and isolation... One of my favorites of the Vanitas OST. They have to dance for this one, no matter how they get in this position... I want it. Need him analyzing us during it, ugh. <3
Waltzing Through a Vanishing Sky
Summary: You find yourself drawn into a bittersweet memory — a waltz with the infamous scholar Anaxagoras. Beneath the haunting elegance of a masquerade and the glimmer of false stars, you dance with the man whose mind shaped revolutions and whose soul defied gods. He analyzes your every move, worships your contradictions, and holds you like a revelation. But even in his arms, you remember: this is just a memory. He is already gone. Still, for a moment, you let the illusion breathe — because in this dance, he is alive again.
Warnings: Themes of grief and loss, Allusions to past enslavement and trauma (?), Canon character death (Anaxagoras), Emotional vulnerability and psychological depth, Brief mentions of violence (defensive context), Intense romantic/psychological tension.
The marble floor was veined like frozen lightning, the reflection of crystalline chandeliers splintered across the ballroom like stardust caught in amber. The gala was a masquerade, a satire of opulence held beneath a dome meant to mimic the heavens. The stars were false tonight — suspended gems glimmering coldly, as if mocking your gaze. You would have left, you truly would have, if not for the presence that tethered you like gravity itself: Anaxagoras.
He stood at the center of the chaos, untouched by it.
His capelet flickered with candlelight, stitched gold glimmering like constellations undone. The teal of his jacket was too solemn for the occasion, too sharp, too honest — much like him. A gloved hand held a crystal goblet barely touched, and his visible eye shimmered, calculating, already miles away from the chatter around him.
You caught his gaze.
An axis tilted.
He raised his eyebrow, a barely-there curl of recognition lacing his lips. “Astronomer,” he murmured once you were close enough, voice like velvet dragged through ash. “I thought you despised these kinds of gatherings.”
You tilted your head. “Only when I’m not expected to correct everyone’s understanding of celestial motion mid-toast.”
He huffed — a rare noise that might have been amusement. “How fortunate that you arrived, then. I was considering faking a collapse to escape.”
You brushed past him, feigning nonchalance even as your heart stammered. “You’d enjoy the attention.”
He followed, of course. He always did. “That, or I needed an excuse for us to leave together.”
The music shifted — languid, romantic, haunted. It was composed for a court that no longer existed, and cursed for the ones that did. The chords tangled like starlight with shadow, a song that pretended to dance, but grieved with every step.
A noblewoman brushed past you with a trill of laughter, and Anaxa caught your arm. Not roughly. Not gently either — like he was making a statement.
“Dance with me,” he said, and you froze.
Your pulse faltered. “You don’t dance.”
His smile — sharp as frost on the edge of a scalpel. “Then let this be my first and only heresy performed willingly.”
You didn’t realize how tightly you gripped him until his fingers pried yours apart, guiding them to his shoulder. His other hand settled low at your waist — a silent, scorching brand. The violins arched overhead like meteors, and then—
You moved.
Step. Pivot. Draw.
He was terrible at this. Calculated and deliberate, like dissecting a corpse. He over-analyzed every angle, every press of your palm, every breath.
“You’re thinking too hard,” you murmured.
“I’m documenting,” he corrected. “This is a rare instance where the motion of heavenly bodies doesn’t follow Newtonian logic. Your gaze… it contradicts gravity.”
You flushed, furious at how easy he made you feel delicate. “Shut up and sway.”
The ballroom blurred. All else became irrelevant. It was him, you, the music — and the soft glow of fabricated stars reflecting in his lone, magenta-rimmed eye. He studied you like a passage from a forbidden codex, like a map of constellations no one else had ever traced.
"You looked beautiful when you threatened to decapitate that nobleman earlier,” he said, too softly.
You snorted. “He insulted the child.”
“And you reacted precisely as expected.” His grip tightened fractionally. “You are both fire and tide — and that dichotomy, it’s... intoxicating.”
You lost a step. He caught you.
“You're mocking me,” you accused.
He leaned close, breath brushing your cheek. “No. I’m worshipping.”
The orchestra swelled. So did the pain.
Because beneath this masquerade, beneath the masks and the myth and the dancing, you remembered what he had forgotten.
He was already dead.
You were dancing with a memory.
An echo.
But gods, you let yourself stay there — in that dreamscape of sound and silk and searing eyes — because in that fleeting second, he wasn’t the Demised Scholar.
He was Anaxa.
And he was holding you like you mattered more than the truth.
"In The City Of Flowers" - Anaxagorus x Astrologist! Reader
This particular track emanates a serene and contemplative atmosphere. Similar to the previous song, but not quite the same. Maybe we could toss them on a date or something... Up to you <3
Where Petals Fall, So Too Do The Stars
Summary: In the flower-draped streets of Okhema, the Astrologist and Anaxagoras share a rare, tranquil day together. Amid music, petals, and fading sunlight, they exchange thoughts on fate, gods, and the fragility of love. A quiet moment of intimacy unfolds, woven with unspoken fears and unshakable devotion. It is a memory preserved in your mind — gentle, fleeting, and already slipping into myth.
Tags: Anaxagorus x Reader, Astrologist!Reader, Angst with Comfort, Bittersweet Romance, Found Family, Vulnerable Characters, Pre-Tragedy, Memory Sequence, Soft Moments, Existential Themes, Hand-Holding, Star Motifs, Implied Past Trauma, Slow Burn Vibes, Unspoken Love, Semi-Poetic Prose.
Warnings: Implications of character death (Anaxagoras), Discussion of mortality and godhood, Emotional vulnerability, References to past trauma, manipulation, Melancholy undertones, Romantic intimacy.
The wind carried the scent of rosewood and old books. The streets of Okhema were aglow in the golden hour, their cobbled paths scattered with petals — scattered not by design, but by wild wind and the city’s irrepressible life.
It was the one place Anaxagoras allowed himself to walk without his gloves.
You remember this day — vividly, impossibly so — the kind that burns so deep into memory it defies time. His left hand, warm against yours. His right, still gloved.
"Even gods are jealous of cities like this," he said, and his voice had that rare softness. "They hold no dominion here — only memory does."
You had argued with him earlier that morning, of course. Over a star chart. Over the meaning of a flame-shaped constellation whose pattern you claimed predicted a catastrophe, and which he stubbornly called a "statistical coincidence amplified by myth-making." His words. You’d thrown a chair. He had laughed. And now here you were, walking alongside him like nothing had happened.
Anaxagoras stopped before a street musician playing a lyre, the notes faint, meandering like drifting stardust. He tilted his head toward the music, eye half-lidded as if listening to a voice only he could hear.
"You know," he said after a pause, "I’ve always found something poetic about your belief in destiny."
"You mean foolish."
"I said poetic." A pause. “Besides, I only call things foolish when I secretly wish I believed in them.”
You narrowed your eyes. “You’re being sentimental again, Anaxa.”
“Mm. And you’re not running away this time.”
He was right. Usually, intimacy made you freeze. But now — walking beside him, amid flowers, music, and that waning sun — you felt calm. Tethered. Real.
You paused in front of a small fountain, where dromas pecked at fallen petals floating on the surface. It reminded you of the stories he told you when you couldn’t sleep — of artificial birds, of wind-powered toys that never soared, of a boy who knelt alone beside a burned house and never once cursed the gods.
He sat on the stone edge of the fountain. His eye was brighter than the sun through stained glass. And for a long moment, he said nothing. Just... looked at you. Like he was trying to memorize every fragment of your face, should time rip it away.
Then softly — so softly — he said:
“I never thought I'd live long enough to fall in love.”
You flinched. The words stung more than they soothed.
“You won’t,” you whispered. “You’ll die, won’t you?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.
“I’m not scared of death,” he murmured. “I’m scared of becoming a god. Of losing the capacity to change. To fail. Of forgetting what it meant to feel—this.”
He took your hand again. This time, both hands were bare.
“I’m scared of forgetting you.”
The stars weren’t out yet, but you knew them by heart. You’d named constellations after his scars. His laughter. The asymmetry of his love.
You sat beside him, pressing your forehead to his. He smelled of dust, ink, and something sweet — Antila oil, maybe. The silence stretched between you like silk.
“If I become a god,” you whispered, “will you destroy me too?”
He smiled — that crooked, beautiful smile. “Only if you ask me nicely.”
And the petals kept falling. And the birds kept singing.
And somewhere in the echo of a future that had not yet collapsed, a Titan’s heart trembled.
"Paris, The City Of Light" - Anaxagorus x Astrologist! Reader
(Honestly speaking, this song is very unrestrained and enigmatic in a way then reaches a calmer more serene moment. Think it's very fitting of him during a grand speeche or something n' the reader comes in frame. Or perhaps an event of some kind they go to alongside each other.)
“Vanity in the Time of Love”
Summary: Amidst the grand halls of a celestial symposium beneath, Anaxagoras—the heretical scholar known as the Demised—delivers a blistering speech on truth and defiance, watched by the one person who has ever made him falter: you, a fierce and emotionally scarred astrologist once known only for your wrath and loyalty. Through quiet glances and a shared history carved in loss and memory, the two of you navigate the blurred boundary between philosophy and affection, intimacy and isolation, as the stars watch in silence. The city around you pulses like music—unrestrained, enigmatic, fleeting—and for a moment, so do you both.
Warnings: Mentions of past enslavement and trauma (?), Hints of emotional manipulation, Oblique references to death and loss, Introspective melancholy, Academic/religious heresy, Existential themes (mortality, divinity, vanitas), Subtle romantic tension with emotionally complex dynamics.
The auditorium swelled with murmurs, a sea of scholars, dissenters, zealots, and gods-in-hiding filling the Grove’s shattered heart—now a sanctum of forbidden discourse. Moonlight leaked through fractured glass, casting broken constellations upon polished stone, and at the center of it all stood Anaxagoras. Not a man anymore, not entirely. A ghost of genius, draped in defiance and golden embroidery.
You leaned against a pillar at the rear, arms crossed, stars glinting within your eyes—not the reflection of chandeliers, but something innate, celestial. The child you protected—small, curious, and seated beside you—gripped the hem of your clothing, their breath caught between awe and fear.
Then his voice rang out—sharp as frost, warm as flame:
"They call me 'The Foolish,' and perhaps I am. For I do not tremble before the gods, nor do I kneel. The truth needs no altar, only fire."
The music of his words—resonant, unshackled—carried across the marble veins of the hall. Each phrase was a rebellion. Each pause, a provocation. The crowd responded like shifting tides, some cheering, some jeering, others too spellbound to move.
He saw you.
Of course he did. He always saw you.
A flicker—his pale aqua eye met yours, briefly veiled by the golden-patterned patch. The magenta shimmer behind his iris flared, a silent recognition. And suddenly, that unrestrained symphony shifted, grew quieter, gentler.
He spoke not just to them now, but to you.
"I have dissected souls and transcribed screams into scripture. I've danced with death, and I have not wept. But I have feared only one thing in this life—that the stars might forget their names. That the cosmos, vast and ancient, might abandon its promise to those who still gaze up from the dirt."
Your heart tightened.
He was talking about you. About the night you first met, when you mistook him for a charlatan trying to mock your astrological charts. You had nearly slit his throat when he laughed, not cruelly, but in wonder.
“Ah. A fighter who reads the heavens. A contradiction. A poem.”
He had seen through you then too, peeling past rage and pride, down to the trembling hands of someone terrified to hope.
Later, you walked the garden ruins together. The child slept beside a sculpture of an eyeless deity. The air was cool, kissed by the scent of crushed Antila petals.
"You shouldn't have said those things," you muttered.
"What things?"
"About the gods. About the scholars. About me."
"But they were true," he said, brushing his fingers against a wilted flower. "And I’ve spent too many years with liars."
You sat beside him, the stars above softening in their brilliance. The silence that passed was not awkward—it was rare. Sacred.
"Do you still see souls?" you asked.
"Only when I want to," he replied.
He turned to you, gaze no longer blazing but soft, mournful. "Yours… was the first that didn’t try to escape when I touched it."
You laughed. "That’s because I didn't know how."
He reached out, gloved fingers brushing your cheek. A gesture too intimate for someone so cerebral. But there he was, trembling again—like the boy with the mechanical bird.
"You should’ve run from me," he whispered. "But instead, you… stayed. Even after I failed. Even after I became a vanitas."
You leaned into his touch.
"Because I saw the truth too, Anaxa. Not the kind in equations or soulflames, but the one that makes you human."
He closed his eyes, and for a moment, the music of the world stilled—no lectures, no experiments, no divine verdicts. Just the lingering heat of your presence. Just the quiet acceptance of a man who had scorched the heavens and found, somehow, love in the ashes.
You rested your head on his shoulder.
The stars above blinked slowly, like ancient eyes closing in reverence.
And below, in the ruin where gods once dwelled, a former slave and a fallen scholar held each other, both pretending for just a little while that truth did not hurt.
"If I die tomorrow," he said softly, "burn my body into ink. Let someone write something kinder with it than the world ever did."
You smiled faintly. "Then you'd better live. I've already written your name in my stars."
And like that, the music swelled once more—an enigmatic sonata turning serene, twining through the ghosts of memory, threading into fate.
"A Happy Moment" - Anaxagorus x Astrologist! Reader
This particular track is characterized by its gentle melodies and harmonious arrangements, which together evoke feelings of tranquility and introspection. It's the kind of piece that might accompany a poignant scene between them and serve as a backdrop for moments of reflection. <3
“The Future will Understand Us”
Summary: The world roared louder when he spoke—wild, defiant, and fierce as dawn breaking through storm clouds. Before the fall of the Grove and the firestorm of accusations, Anaxagoras was a force of nature you couldn’t help but love. Together, you shared stolen nights beneath forbidden knowledge and whispered truths beneath star-studded skies. Through rebellion and broken walls, through grief and quiet moments of unexpected tenderness, your bond became an unshakable anchor. Against the cruel weight of prophecy and the gods’ gaze, you found in each other a fragile refuge. Though he died a thousand deaths before the final one, you carry his memory—defiant, brilliant, and achingly alive—in the silence between the stars.
Tags: Anaxagoras x Reader, Astrologist!Reader, Slow Burn Romance, Mutual Emotional Healing, Academic Heresy, Angst with Comfort, Tragic Past, Forbidden Knowledge, Found Family, Intimacy Through Philosophy, Memory Fragment Format (basically after Chapter 1, the other chapters are just memories of Reader with Anaxa), Soul Experiments, Tenderness in Defiance, Subtextual Devotion.
Warnings: Themes of death and grief, Implied past enslavement and emotional trauma, Religious and academic persecution, Body modification (eyepatch, tattoos from experiments), References to experimentation on the soul, Hints of war, child endangerment (non-graphic), Emotional vulnerability and intimacy, Mild language, Bittersweet ending/prelude to canon character death.
Even before the war of thoughts, before the tribunal accused him of blasphemy and treason, before the Grove collapsed under the weight of prophecy and ambition — Anaxagoras spoke like the sky breaking open at dawn. Wild. Free. Terrifying. Divine.
And you loved him for it.
You remember a night gilded by starlight, long before the fires. There had been a lecture — not one sanctioned by the Grove, of course. One of his unsanctioned symposiums deep within the library’s forbidden wing. Titan dissections diagrammed in chalk on the stone floor, soul-fusion theories sprawling across parchment.
You had entered unnoticed, your young charge asleep in your arms, until you asked him:
"What if the stars disagree with you?"
He had stopped mid-sentence.
His head tilted, ponytail shifting like silk over his shoulder, and that one visible eye — the one that still shimmered with reckless clarity — locked on yours.
"Then I shall argue with them," he said, grinning like a heretic under moonlight. "They, at least, have the decency to be brilliant in their defiance."
There was a festival once. A celestial convergence — five planets aligned perfectly in the heavens, a sight that would not return for another two centuries.
You had taken him with you, disguised among the crowd.
It was laughable, truly. Anaxagoras — the Demised Scholar, the fallen golden boy of the Grove — hiding beneath a traveler's cloak and wide-brimmed hat. Still, he complained less than expected.
"This is beneath me," he said, brushing crumbs from his lap. "That child just wiped jam on my cloak."
"You're enjoying this," you replied.
He didn’t deny it.
Later, beneath the star-kissed dome of the sky, he held your hand. Not in passion. Not in desperation. Just held it. Like it was his anchor. Like you were.
There were darker nights, too.
When they tricked you — used the child as bait to silence your rage.
You shattered three walls and bled on the temple floor before they forced your surrender.
Anaxagoras found you there, broken but breathing. He said nothing for a long while. Then he knelt and touched your hand. Not your wounds. Your hand. That was when you cried.
"They will pay," he said simply.
You knew then: he would not rest until they did.
In the observatory you built together, tucked in the ruins of a temple abandoned by gods and men, he traced constellations onto your back with ink-stained fingers.
"You’ve always been a galaxy," he murmured, voice quieter now. The bravado dulled, but not extinguished. "And I—an errant comet, foolish enough to fall in love with one."
You laughed. You kissed him.
And in the silence that followed, you allowed yourself to believe the world might allow this. That the gods wouldn’t notice. That prophecy would forget to arrive.
He died a thousand deaths before the final one.
Each theory rejected. Each student lost. Each lie he told himself.
But you—
You remember him beneath the stars. His hands cradling your cheek. His voice soft. His defiance — momentarily— at peace.
