For most days of the year, the Grove of Epiphany is graced with pleasant temperatures and clear moonlit skies, forming the ideal atmosphere for quiet study. However, on occasion, Aquila’s fickleness reaches even this sheltered abode, and the foliage receives a more than ample watering at the expense of its citizens.
Today is one of the worse days. Early in the morning, a collection of grey clouds gathered stealthily in the sky above the Sacred Tree and, without warning, broke their contents over the unsuspecting residents of the Grove. The onslaught has continued through to what would now be considered afternoon. Sheets of cold rain lash against the greenery as if holding a personal grudge. Thunder growls in the distance.
Outdoor lectures have been hastily relocated or cancelled due to the downpour. Students hurry past each other in search of shelter, holding books or clothing above their heads to protect themselves from the rain.
Anaxa is no exception to those seeking to avoid the worst of the storm. He walks with brisk steps along the muddied paths in the direction of his office. His timetable has not been too greatly affected by the weather save for one suspended lecture, which gives him the time to sort through some sources on ancient alchemy which he has not yet had the opportunity to read.
As he turns around another bend, something catches his eye. He hesitates. Sheltering beneath the branches of a tree by the roadside is a familiar silhouette.
You are sitting on the grass with your limbs drawn up close to your chest. Your clothes are soaked through and your unruly hair plastered to your skin, yet you are staring into space, seemingly at peace with your surroundings. Anaxa stops by the tree and looks down at you, crossing his arms.
“What in Amphoreus do you think you are doing?”
Startled out of your thoughts by his voice, you glance up. Your expression eases when you recognise him. “Ah, it’s you, Anaxagoras. I thought my intentions would be rather obvious. I am seeking shelter from the rain, like everybody else.”
“You would call this shelter?” He gestures towards the patchwork of branches you’re sitting beneath. The canopy is not thick enough to completely ward off the rain, and drops slip down from the leaves and onto your head.
“I said I was seeking shelter, not that I had found it,” you rectify. Anaxa clicks his tongue. “But, please, do not concern yourself: I have sat out many storms in a similar manner.”
The sight of you sitting there like a bedraggled wet cat is simply too exasperating. Anaxa fixes you with a look of utter unamusement. “Come,” he says. It’s an order, not an offer. “With me, to my office, before you get yourself a cold.”
You blink. “Are you certain?”
“Would you rather stay here and freeze to death?” he remarks sardonically.
Anaxa holds out his hand to you. You take it, and he pulls you to your feet. Raindrops hang like beads on the ends of your eyelashes and the tips of your hair. He turns away from you and marches briskly through the downpour back to his office, with you tagging some sorry, dripping paces behind him.
When you arrive, Anaxa steps in through the door first. You make to follow, but he moves to block the doorway, preventing you from entering, and fixes you with a sharp glare. “You are not entering my office like that.” A puddle is already forming at your feet. You look down at it and then shrug, as if to say, Fair enough. “Wait there.”
He disappears into his office. Shortly thereafter, he emerges again and tosses you a towel. You catch it and set to work drying first your hair, and then the rest of yourself. Once deeming your state satisfactory, Anaxa permits you to enter.
“Don’t touch anything. And change out of your clothes,” he says. “A dry location won’t do you any good if your clothing is keeping you wet.”
“Have you anything else I could wear?”
He sighs out sharply. What a bother this all is. “I will find something.”
Thankfully, owing to his own tendency of enclosing himself here for days while researching, the office serves decently enough as a living space, and for that reason contains a small wardrobe which houses a decent selection of garments. Anaxa searches for something appropriate (for you are certainly not borrowing his dromas onesie; that is a step too far). He settles on a dark tunic. It is not in your size, but if you want to complain, that is not his problem.
You do not complain, and accept the clothes gratefully. Anaxa turns his back to you as you change. He does not have to guess why you were forced to shelter under a tree: evidently nobody in the Grove was willing to take you into their own accomodation. This is sensible enough, considering you are not officially part of the Grove and thus do not count as anybody’s direct responsibility. However, Anaxa knows that the true reason for your dismissal lies not in the factual recognition that you are not their responsibility, but rather a certain sentimental factor which prevents them from engaging with one whom they would otherwise have no qualms about helping.
He hears you sneeze behind him. You walk back over, now clothed in his tunic, and place yourself down cross-legged in the middle of the floor. As expected, the size of the tunic is off, but it does not not suit you.
“I am rather afraid,” you announce, slightly nasally, “that I indeed would seem to be catching a cold.”
Anaxa kneads his brow in exasperation. “What did you expect to happen, you daft fool?”
“I admit to misjudging the strength of my body’s resistance,” you reply with dignity. “So I must thank you again for taking me in. It was kind and not necessary of you.”
“Hmph. Think little of it. I simply do not want my most engaging conversational partner perishing prematurely through their own folly.” His response comes out more barbed than even he expected; but if you take any offence, you give no indication of it.
Over the next few days, your cold steadily worsens. You stay in Anaxa’s office, slowly accumulating a makeshift nest of blankets around yourself as you drift in and out of sleep, murmuring incomprehensibly to yourself about justice, knowledge and death. Anaxa checks in on you if he finds the spare minute between teaching and conducting research. When he takes your temperature, the result is so alarming that he has to call Hyacine to determine whether it is truly a cold you have contracted or something more serious.
“From what I can tell, it really is just a cold,” she concludes at the end of her inspection. “But that doesn’t mean it can’t get more serious. Keep a close eye on them and let me know if anything gets worse. In the meanwhile, you can give them this medication to help with headaches, and make sure to keep them well-hydrated, as well as avoiding any foods which might agitate their sore throat.”
The voices must have roused you from your partial slumber, because once Hyacine is gone, you stir from within the depths of your cocoon.
“Are you busy at the moment, Anaxagoras?” you croak out.
Anaxa casts a glance in your direction, pausing in penning a detailed list of the various recommended treatments Hyacine has given him. “Not at the moment, no. Why?”
“I am afraid that I am terribly bored, lying here all day.”
“And this matter concerns me because…?”
“I was hoping that we could converse.”
He scoffs. “Considering the state of your throat? Absolutely not.”
Disappointment creases your brow. “Then… perhaps you could read something to me instead?”
“Read something to you?” Anaxa repeats, sceptical. “Such as what?”
“Whatever you think would take my best interest. You know the Library of Philia’s contents far better than I do.”
Anaxa is silent for a while. A long list of texts he is certain would intrigue you flit through his mind. On the Duality of Cerces, Foundations of Erythrokeramism’s Theory of Consciousness…
“I’m unable to do that,” he eventually says.
“Whatever ‘takes your best interest’ is sure to do with philosophy, and whatever is to do with philosophy is sure to get you talking, which is precisely what this alternative was raised to avoid in the first place.”
“You do have a point, yes,” you admit with a frown. “Furthermore, considering that—”
“However,” Anaxa continues, cutting you off before you can foolishly exhaust your voice even further, “that does not mean I cannot read to you on principle.” His eyes pass over his desk, where any number of scrolls lie at any given point, courtesy of his students’ peculiar research topics. One in particular catches his attention. Anaxa crosses over to the desk and picks it up. “Is A Slate Guide to Grove Flora sufficiently unremarkable to keep you quiet?”
The expression which passes over your face is difficult to decipher. You seem at once both infinitely grateful and terribly disappointed. It’s good enough for Anaxa. Before you can make any further comment, he clears his throat and begins to read: “Ever dreaming of distant flora but trapped by the black tide? The Veil Greenhouse, jointly developed by…”
Even this text, however, proves enough to stimulate your curiosity. You croak questions and comment on the narration until Anaxa has to snap at you to be quiet for your own good. The only benefit is that you tire yourself out so much that you fall asleep again afterwards, attested to by your finally growing silent. Anaxa places aside the scroll with a sigh and falls to silent observation of you. There is a sickly flush in your skin brought about by the illness, and your eyebags are more pronounced than usual despite your increased hours of sleep. The sight of you so subdued and vulnerable irks him in a way he cannot describe.
After a few moments, Anaxa stands up and approaches you with quiet footsteps. He takes your temperature with his hand before pulling back with a frown. Still hot.
“Stubborn old fool,” he mutters under his breath, though there is no true bite to his words. He pushes a stray strand of hair from your clammy forehead. “Just come in next time it rains. If your condition doesn’t improve soon, I will have to start cancelling classes. I would rather not have to do that, so you had better come to your senses.”
You mumble something unintelligible in your slumber. Anaxa clicks his tongue, raps you lightly on the head, and returns to penning the list.
A few more days pass in a similar manner: you stir now and then, trying to make conversation which Anaxa swiftly shuts down, and he reads the odd passage to you when time permits. By the end of a week or so, under Hyacine’s continued guidance, your temperature begins to fall, and eventually you are well enough to return to your usual habits of milling about the Grove’s campus and interrogating unwitting passersby. Anaxa allows himself to let go of a tension he was not even aware he had been holding onto once he sees you back to your normal self, in conversation with one of his students.
The next time it rains, you do not seek his permission: Anaxa finds you already seated on the floor of his office when he enters. You spend the time absorbed in animated discussion which continues long after the rain has stopped.
