disclaimer: dancae/phaidei are implied to have had a (consensual) little somethin somethin (lowkey situationship) together in the previous cycle. no cheating here! just my poly ass smushing my yaoi dolls together going now kiss. also, caelus unreliable narrator for some of this.
au where when cycle 33550337 starts caelus gets sent back to the very beginning, all by himself. no cyrene, no phainon, and to his knowledge, no dan heng. most days, he tries not to think about them.
he usually fails. after spending so long with dan heng at his back, caelus is never quite able to stop looking back, expecting his dragon to be right behind him.
he spends the first few hundreds of years just wandering aimlessly, telling no one anything. after all, what if he shares his plans and they dont believe him? would they attack him? what if it corrupts the cycle?
he cant risk it. he cant risk phainon's suffering (his sacrifice? caelus doesnt know if hes still alive) being all for nothing.
once the chrysos heirs start popping up, he goes and joins them in okhema. its just cerydra and hysilens at first, but tribbie and aglaea join them soon. he manages to change things enough to where hysilens doesnt die, but her and cerydra still end up taking a backseat to things, leaving aglaea in charge.
the others join on their own eventually, too. cipher, cas, anaxa, hyacine...until the day comes that they get word of the approaching kremnoan detachment.
he stands there watching the group approach in the distance, sent just like phainon was to parley with them. caelus has heard all about it of course, the legendary fight between the crown prince and the deliverer that lasted 10 days and 10 nights.
it makes a pit open in his stomach. he shouldn't be the one standing here. caelus is not his deliverer. not the man he was in love with. yet here he is.
the familiar quietly-amused look that caelus had gotten used to is nowhere to be seen on this mydei's face. he knows it's not fair, but he cant help but compare them. this mydei's face is stone cold, meant to intimidate, most likely.
because this mydei doesnt know him. this mydei has never fought beside him, woken up in the same bed as him. it hurts more than caelus expected.
so, while caelus is not the deliverer meant for mydei, not the one he deserves, he's the only one they've got. so he forces himself to smile and play diplomat. they need mydei, after all.
(caelus doesnt know that, for mydei's entire life, the world itself has felt...tilted. off-center. that he's felt the buzzing of wrong wrong wrong in his veins with every step across the earth. he doesn't know that while mydei has no idea who the grey-haired man in front of him is, that wrong feeling gets a little quieter. the second they lock eyes, something. clicks.)