Hello, it’s 100night! Please read this before saving~
I’ve decided to share the fake twst screenshot templates I made with the world. Here they are as transparent pngs (2880x1440)! So far I have made:
(1) Episode title
(2) Location
(3) Character dialogue
(4) Player dialogue with 2 options
(5) Player dialogue with 1 option
(6) SSR get (EDIT: turns out this one is 1920x1080, find the new ones in my tag)
(7) Groovy text
I know I’m giving y’all a lot of power, so use it well…ufufu.
For anyone curious, I made these by editing and lining up the assets uploaded by (my hero!!) @alchemivich over game screenshots.
Credit to me is not necessary when you use these, but PLEASE DON’T REPOST the blank templates – if you would like to share them with others, please REBLOG or SHARE THE LINK to this post!
Let me know if tumblr eats the quality of the images. If it does I’ll be happy to upload these to Google Drive!
Example of template use with twst incorrect quotes (you can find more on my tumblr):
I also have a fake homescreen template, but it’s incomplete because I don’t have all the assets. You can see what it looks like in use with a fake screenshot I made with my OC Arisa – it’s on my blog but tumblr won’t let me into the tags if I put a link to it. Parts of it are faked. ^^;;
By the way, thank you so much for all the love for Arisa! <3 I’m currently working on another sprite edit for another twst OC, so look forward to it!
If anyone would like a tutorial on how I make fake screencaps or has any other questions or requests, my inbox is open! Have fun!!
gulp...first post guys kind of nervous... but anyways I made this template for my yuusona and I decided to share it with everyone!! obviously its modeled after the twst wiki page and I tried to add all the necessary (and extra) information that i could to it! every section has its own separate tab that you can click the icons to get to as well! pls don't remove my credit (which is found on the three dots in the right hand corner) or try to claim this as your own bc I worked really hard on this. if you guys have any questions feel free to send me a message!
other than that I hope you guys enjoy this template!
! fair warning you will need to be on computer in order to access parts of this bc a lot of it is made up of drawings. if you really wish to look at it on mobile, put in print mode !
Something I like about book 6 is how other than just the obvious inspiration it draws from Hercules, it also references Greek mythology in general, with one of the main examples being how Idia and Ortho's story clearly parallels Orpheus and Eurydice.
The main parallel is of course obvious: both stories are about trying and failing to save a beloved person from the Underworld. But there's actually quite a few details that match up between these two that I personally find interesting to point out.
First, I want to bring attention to how Eurydice dies. She's bitten by a snake and depending on the version, it either happens while running away or while dancing on her wedding day. So either an escape attempt or while celebrating a happy promise made with someone she loves.
In Ortho's case, it was both. He and Idia made a promise to go on an adventure together. That adventure involved getting away. Escaping. They're excited and happy when they get to do it. And then Ortho gets attacked by a phantom and that happiness is cut short.
Some versions portray Orpheus's attitude as cowardice because he wanted to bring Eurydice back to life instead of following after her. So he is only given an apparition of her. We know Idia blames himself for surviving alone from how he tells Ortho he's not leaving him alone this time and falls with him after the book 6 boss fight. Another important thing in book 6 was how Idia couldn't have the original Ortho back alive and go back to how things were. The humanoid he built was a separate being. The og Ortho has already turned into a phantom.
Here, I just wanted to point to the common elements. Orpheus reached the Underworld (same as Idia), protected by the gods (Idia could do it due to his curse), got past Cerberus safely (shutdown of the Cerberus system). Then, of course, he tries to get Ortho out of the Underworld.
Orpheus fails by the exit. Ortho and Idia are close to getting out when Ortho gets struck from the fight with the Pomefiore trio. Idia turns around, at the same time reverts to his normal form (and loses the power he was using to lead Ortho outside) and has to watch him fall.
Lastly, Idia tries to follow Ortho this time, as I mentioned. But it is not his time yet so he is stopped by Ortho and dragged out by Vil.
I love the writing in twst a lot, especially in books 5-7, so this is something I've been wanting to make a post in a while. Book 6 conclusion and main themes were fantastic in my opinion and I love looking closely at different aspects of how it was executed.
in which you wove him a flower crown, made with love and a very special flower
character: idia shroud
content: no thought only fluff, implied long term relationship with idia, huge nod to greek mythology, just a sprinkle of my favourite godly couple, reader isn't yuu, gender neutral reader, reader is implied to be shorter than idia (very sorry to my tall readers, i am not)
happy birthday to my favourite wet cat, idia shroud ^-^
tags🏷️ @identity-theft-101 @dove-da-birb @ameleii @cave-of-jade @krenenbaker @vioisgoinginsane @edith-is-a-cat @twistwonderlanddevotee @mermaidfanficlibrary + idia kissers out there
winter was here, the ground was covered with layers of fresh snow and harsh winds blew mercilessly.
meanwhile, you were holed up with idia in the confines of his room. the two of you huddled close, wrapped in his warm fuzzy blanket.
you watched idia play some games on the screen as your hands wove together flowers upon flowers, as if they were on autopilot.
at one point, you spaced out while still weaving, which made idia turn to you with a confused look.
he had to poke you out of your daze, then sent you a questioning stare.
you only hummed, and tied the stems, finally finishing the flower crown. you then proceeded to place the crown gently on his head.
idia blinked, staring owlishly at you as his hair gradually glowed a pinkish shade.
he knew what those flowers were, they were native to the island of woes after all. he had read about its meanings, too.
as individuals, narcissus flowers represent creativity, inspiration, awareness and inner reflection, forgiveness, and vitality, all of which described him quite accurately. but giving a bunch of them means to ensure happiness and loyalty to your significant other, which was also directing at him.
idia felt as if his heart was doing backflips. he didn't expect to receive such a gift from you, and on the day before his birthday, no less.
looking down, he noticed you made another flower crown that was on your lap. he picked it up and gingerly placed it on your head, a tiny smile formed when he saw the surprise evident on your face.
"whee hee hee... now we're match." you only chuckled with him, feeling a familiar heat rushed to your cheeks.
the two of you decided to binge-watch some anime series, but underneath the blanket was your hands entwined, fingers interlocking as your hearts beat together as one.
Sorry I’m late, Idia 💦 The holiday obligations are beating my ass right now… *coughs* also your birthday banner may or may not be overshadowed by episode 7 part 1 drop
This birthday piece has a slightly somber tone (well, it is Idia we’re talking about here), but it has a happy ending 😅 I drew some inspiration from the various meanings and interpretations of the flowers in his birthday bouquet, but I didn’t want to make this too sad since it’s meant to be celebratory!
A nice detail in Idia’s Groovy is all the snow! Between this and the leaves in some of the autumn boys’ Groovies, seems like the Groovy illustrations do pay attention to the season.
***Spoilers for episodes 1 and 6 of the main story!***
A Boy in Bloom, and his Flowering Future.
“What’s one thing you hope to do this upcoming year?”
Idia hesitated. He stared at his interviewer with wide, buggy eyes, the sickly pallor of his skin somehow even more pasty than usual. As helpless as a loading bar stuck on 99%.
“… You must properly answer this, Idia-senpai,” Riddle prompted, frowning. “I will not tolerate a wishy washy reply! Stand up straight, maintain eye contact, speak with a proper indoor voice, and let me hear it!!”
“………………………. Go out. I-I’d like to go out.”
“Excuse me?! Did I hear you correctly just now? You want to… go out? Not stay cooped up in your room avoiding sunshine like it’s the plague for the next year?”
“When you give a reaction like that, it makes me reconsider…”
“What was that?!”
Idia startled, throwing both arms up to shield himself from his interviewer’s rage. “E-Eeep…!! N-Nothing, it’s nothing at all, Riddle-shi!!”
“… Very well.” The redhead’s face relaxed. “Why don’t you elaborate on the answer you’ve provided then? What is it that you most look forward to doing when you go out?”
“Hihihi…" Idia’s mouth stretched into an eerie grin. “Isn’t it obvious? Of course, the only reason to part with the sweet sanctuary that is my room is… irl events with no 100% online or streaming alternatives!!”
“… In other words, if you have literally no other option…” Riddle sighed, a hand to his forehead. (Had he really been expecting anything less of the introvert supreme?)
“That’s right.” The birthday boy’s timid tone turned decidedly confident. His blue-lipped smile was smug and as sharp as his teeth.
“Recently… I’ve been playing this augmented reality game, *Dokémon Go. But you can’t catch many monsters if you stay in one place, because they spawn as you visit new locations. That kind of suboptimal play won’t make me strong enough to dominate all the raids and gym battles on Sage’s Island!!
“The burger place in town is having a limited time promotion, so I plan to start there to replenish my health bar for the long trip ahead, then head to the park—a prime location for…”
“Again with the obsessive gaming talk,” Riddle shook his head, remaining patient. “I didn’t expect you to be quite so adventurous, even if it is a hobby of yours serving as your motivation.”
“W-Well… I-It’s not that, really.” Idia shyly glanced away, clamping a hand down on the crook of his arm. “It’s… Ortho.”
“Your little brother?”
“Yeah. I had zero interest in playing that sort of game, but he was the one that suggested it to me. He wanted to play it together, even looked up places to go… so I couldn’t really say no.”
Riddle chuckled softly. “It seems that you have a particular weakness for requests made of you by Ortho.”
“H-Hey, I didn’t come here to be bullied by my junior, so cut it out!!” As frantic as Idia’s pleas were, the tips of his flaming hair were turning a bashful hue of pink.
“You needn’t be shy about it. I can’t say that I understand the experience of having a sibling—as I am an only child myself. However, I can say with certainty that your bond with Ortho is a special one. He is your hope in the darkness that is the Underworld, no?”
“E-Eeeep!! Wh-What’s with you suddenly giving super inspirational speeches like a high and mighty shounen protagonist standing triumphantly over his defeated rival?!”
“I am only speaking my mind.” Riddle straightened, gesturing toward himself. "It was not long ago that I was in a dark place. Since my boyhood, I was expected to excel–but though I was always surrounded by stacks of study materials, it could never truly replace the good company that I was lacking in my life.
"The more I buried myself in my books and my rules, the more estranged I became from those around me… almost as though I had fallen down a rabbit hole and into a topsy turvy world, leaving the others behind in the old world. It is for that reason that I am happy to see that you have found that ‘light’ for yourself in Ortho.”
“A-All those lofty expectations put on you from such an early age…” Idia’s voice was lost with his train of thought. “It sounds…”
Just like me.
The memories were so clear. Harsh and bleak, like glaring lights set upon a test subject raised only in darkness, like shards of glass piercing his flesh.
Cold, sterile laboratories. Endless textbooks and tests. Isolation.
Faceless guardians, too distant to be called parents, an unfeeling absence. Men and women in lab coats and nitrile gloves. Rows and rows of cells, inhuman screams and screeches radiating from within.
A bedroom littered with games and shows that told of a wonderful world beyond his bunker. The two young boys playing in it. Talk of stars and superheroes.
The promise left unfulfilled.
“Let’s go on an adventure together, Nii-chan!”
“Okay. Leave it to me.”
And then…
Idia squeezed his eyes shut, fighting off the thought–and the tears that came with it.
He willed sarcasm to return to him as he spewed out his next words. “… It sounds like you had a traumatic childhood. Haaaah… it suits your character archetype to a T. Must’ve been pretty rough.”
“Hmph.” Riddle crossed his arms and frowned. “In any case, the past is in the past. We must focus on the present if we are to have any hope of shaping our futures. You agree, don’t you, Idia-senpai?”
“H-Huh? What, me?!” The birthday boy startled. “S-Sure, I agree…”
“That was surprisingly fast.”
Idia felt as if all of the elements were clashing with each other within him. Roaring wind, searing fire, numbing ice, and rumbling earth. His legs shook, and he clutched harder onto his broom to keep himself upright, to not collapse in an embarrassing heap before Riddle.
A promise.
A promise of adventure.
He took a deep breath. “A long time ago, I told Ortho that we’d go out and see the world together. That’s why… I have to try, even if it kills me…!! I have to keep on living, just like Ortho wanted me to.”
“Fufu, well said.” For what seemed to be the first time that day, Riddle’s mouth bloomed into a rosebud of a smile. “Now then… You shouldn’t keep Ortho and the others waiting. They’re waiting for you, adventurer.”
“Hihihi... Who knew that you could actually be light-hearted?”
Idia laid oddly upon his broom, pressing a pale cheek against the wood of the handle. “O-Okay…! I can do this. Be like the wind, summon all your strength…!!”
Be ready to face tomorrow.
Riddle would have lodged a complaint about his flying form, had the broom not already begun to levitate off of the ground. He zipped his lip and stepped back, granting space.
“… Ne, Riddle-shi.”
“Yes? What is it?”
“It’s–” Idia hesitated, keeping his eyes trained not on his underclassman, but on the frosted road ahead of him. “It’s… not actually a bad idea to enjoy this while I still can. The time I have with Ortho at this school is limited. I can’t waste it.”
“Idia-senpai…”
Snowflakes kicked up, nestling in Riddle’s tresses. Rose red turned into snow white–and when he looked again, Idia was already hurtling towards a sea of dead trees, their twisted limbs extending toward the blue-grey sky.
A cheeky grin spread across his face.
Today, the clutches of Death did not reach for him.
I hope this isn't too much of a request xD Can I ask for a scenario of Idia dating someone he has known from childhood, and him remembering proposing to them with a pomegranate when they were kids? If it's alright, a fem s/o, though I'm quite alright with gender neutral pronouns!! Thank you so much!
word count: 796
pairing: idia x f!reader
content warnings: none!
His room always has a bit of a blue tint to it.
There’s also usually something flashing on a screen, sparks and shifting images of characters that sometimes you know, sometimes you don’t. Fictional chatter and opening tracks and scattered packaging from candy all over the desk. Half-baked ideas, some being worked on, some being ignored.
With all the screens, the trinkets and garbage out of the way, it’s just blue — Dimly lit, constant gentle, soothing glow surrounding Idia’s hair, locks splayed all over the mattress where he laid right next to you.
You’d gotten used to sleeping with that night light on, already.
But sleepy as you were, you couldn’t really drift off when you could see him looking so awake, stare pinned to the ceiling like something about it was just so fascinating.
You shift on the mattress, looking at him. “What’re you thinking about?” You ask, your voice blurry with sleepiness. Idia’s eyes, the contrasting yellow in the middle of all that cool light, turn to you, and he gives you one of his strange, yet charming smiles.
“Uh, j-just...” He stutters. Both of your voices sounding quiet, even though you didn’t really need to whisper when the room belonged only to the two of you. “It’s kinda stupid. But I guess I just realized we’ve known each other for a really long time.”
A small chuckle leaves you. “Since we were kids, yeah.” You say, turning to your side so you could face him better. “You used to look so miserable in those family parties.”
“That’s because I was.” He replies, snarky as always. “It just feels like it’s been so long. But also like the first time I saw you was just yesterday. I remember my parents going crazy when they found out I was talking to a girl...”
Something in your chest feels all warm and fuzzy. The conversation feels serious and not at the same time. Sentimental, but not heavy — Natural. Loving. You look at Idia’s hand, splayed on the mattress right next to the rest of his body. You let yours trace a path towards them, your index finger poking his.
“But we always ended up playing together in the end.” You feed into the memories, take his hand — Not literally yet — to lead him down the trail of the past. “And you’d show me the stuff you liked to take apart and explain to me how it worked... but I never really got it.”
“You weren’t paying attention.” He huffs, but keeps that amused expression on his face.
“Because you were too cute.” You say, the hand that hadn’t been flirting with holding his coming up to his face to flick him on the cheek gently. “And you still are.”
“So that’s why you never know what I’m working on even when I tell you about it?”
“Precisely.”
Idia’s laugh is as quiet as his voice, slight exasperation but mostly entertainment. You hook your index finger around his, decide it isn’t enough, and lace more of your fingers together, scooting closer so you can press your face against his shoulder.
“You were adorable and you still are.” You say like a musing, and chuckle when you feel the flames around you, usually a neutral temperature, growing warmer, pinkish, without a doubt.
“S-Shut up.” He stutters, still laughing, though nervously this time. “I remember when, um... nevermind.”
“What?” You ask.
“Nothing!” He retorts, but you know at least a part of his is aware it’s useless to deny it now, having piqued your curiosity. “I-It’s embarrassing.”
“Idia. We’re embarrassing all the time, you dummy. You can tell me about it.” You demand. “I’ll tell you something embarrassing about me too, okay? If that makes you more comfortable.”
“You’re too curious.” He says in a huff. “Um, well... I don’t know if you remember that but, one time, I picked this pomegranate and I, y-you know... asked you to marry me with it.”
You feel your eyes light up — The memory flooding back in, the two of you standing in the backyard, playing and laughing and dreaming up all kinds of scenarios, a small Idia sitting by the stairs next to the door, smiling shyly as you tell him what you wanted to be when you grew up. There hadn’t been any thoughts of a perfect moment to pop the question, just pure enthusiasm as he presented you the fruit, sitting on his open hands.
“I remember.” You say, voice full of emotion, unable to help the smile that sprawls across your face. “You wanna know my embarrassing thing, now?”
summary: As a humble librarian, you're only interested in stories. Anaxa promises to give you the grandest story of them all.
notes: 8.9k words, author's notes, spoilers for 3.2, chest cavity and organ touching, ambiguous relationships
You were eighteen the first time you heard about Anaxa, though you didn’t think much of him at first.
“Watch out for that mad alchemist. If you’re going to survive here, then avoid Anaxagoras,” someone joked to you, and you nodded numbly.
Back then, in those first few days of your arrival at the Grove of Epiphany, you had little time for anything outside of survival. You had nothing save the clothes on your back and the torn edges of a few slim books you managed to save before the black tide swallowed your home and your family.
If you weren’t staying up late each night reading the books your father cherished, then you were disoriented by the swaying whispers of divine branches that woke you every morning, the eternal night that shadowed your window, the internal politics of a people entrenched deeply in academia.
Still, you couldn’t escape Anaxa even then, infamy blooming with his every odd experiment and reckless movement. His name was always on the tips of everyone’s tongues, accompanied by admiration or reprobation.
He was mad, people said. A heretic, using the intelligence Ceres blessed him with for all the wrong reasons. The sages should kick him out for the ideas he held, ones that seemed more intended to outrage than to produce any meaningful discourse.
“It’s better to stay out of his way,” one of your gossipy classmates advised you. You had decent enough relationships with your peers, but you primarily kept to yourself and took internal notes of the various topics that fascinated them. “He’s so rude, and he doesn’t care about anything but his experiments!”
“He’s very smart, though,” someone else chimed in. “If you can stomach the way he talks, you can ask him for his notes. Best ones I’ve ever seen.”
Anaxagoras, Anaxa, the Great Performer. What an odd man. You kept his name tucked away in the corner of your mind to turn over like a golden coin, spied his fluttering hair out of the corner of your eye, saw the sheen of black fabric covering his eye, and heard the echo of his brisk steps passing you in the halls.
He was an oddity that sparked your interest, even if he never seemed to notice you. That was fair enough; you were only another pair of eyes in a crowd of them, and he must have grown used to the attention by the time you arrived.
Still, you had little time to worry over Anaxa outside of those stray moments when your paths collided, heretic or not. You had fled to the Grove of Epiphany for a particular reason, out of all the other city-states you could have taken refuge in.
You were here for the library, which housed the largest collection of stories Amphoreus had ever seen. Its wealth of knowledge would have fed a starving man for centuries, and you were a supplicant begging for even a morsel.
You were weaned on stories from your very first memories. Your father read you books from his private collection, and your mother spun stories from her own imagination or that she remembered from the words of others. Even your older brother took you out to see travelling storytellers or the nearby temple to hear about the myths of gods.
“Stories are the most beautiful things in the world,” your father told you. “They can house a world’s memories, a culture’s legacy.”
Stories were the only ways for things to survive, and it was how people could outlive their limited lifespans. After all, if you didn’t tell your family’s story to yourself, then you would have killed them twice. You poured over your memories, even when it was a story that could only end in the same way every time: your mother, pushing you out the backdoor and telling you to run as she gripped a rusty knife in hand. You father, handing you a few cherished books from his private collection, your only inheritance. Your older brother, biding you to hide with shaking hands as he ran out to distract the monsters.
People were finite. Stories were not
In a few more months at the Grove, you wormed your way into an assistant librarian position, content for now with the jobs of shelving books and organizing the catalogue, cocooned in your world of ink and paper, getting to touch the face of every new scroll or book that passed its way into the archives.
For all intended purposes, your life was going according to plan. You were surrounded by stories, and you were certain that after studying library sciences and dedicating all your time here, you could take the role of head librarian one day. Yet, why did it feel like you were still missing something?
That was when you first met Anaxa as he glided into the library with a relaxed arrogance that drew ire and admiration from all of your classmates, robes fluttering behind him.
“I need these books,” he told you curtly, without looking at your face. He slid a sheet of parchment across your desk, scrawled with the names of tedious-sounding titles. His handwriting, you were surprised to find, was an elegant, looping scrawl.
“Some of these books have restricted access,” you said, scanning the list. He was a man you had heard so much about, and yet, he was still just that: a man. Still, there was a gravitas to his bearing. This was someone who would truly do something remarkable in his lifetime. “You need permission from a professor or a librarian before you can check them out. Some of these books are quite controversial.”
“Controversial only because people were unwilling to acknowledge anything that didn’t reinforce their limited worldview,” Anaxa said.
“Well, in a world ruled by the Titans, it’s controversial to posit that they could ever be similar to us.”
“The boundary between divinity and humanity is a false one,” he said. “But you can’t access these books?”
“It’s not within my authority,” you acknowledged. “These books are especially rare because their production was stopped early, or people burned so many copies we only have these few left. So they’re kept under tight supervision.”
Anaxa turned, his interest in you gone now that you couldn’t give him what he wanted.
Your heartbeat quickened at the loss of attention, of how easily this strange man was going to slip through your fingers. Maybe that was why you couldn’t stop yourself from saying, “But I could, technically, find a way. If you made it worth my time.”
Anaxa turned back around, finally looking you in the eyes, observing you in the same way he looked at a lab specimen on a dissecting table, keen gaze intent on flaying you open. “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing that would inconvenience you much, really. Something simple. You’re an alchemist, right? Consider it an act of equivalent exchange.” The idea spun itself into existence as you voiced it, an answer to your tedium you hadn’t realized you were considering until now. “I want to witness your story.”
“A story? You’re surrounded by books.”
“I’m curious,” you said, “about a story only you can tell me. They call you a heretic, you know. The things you’ve told me are things most people wouldn’t even dare voice. So I want to see where your path leads.”
Anaxa still watched you, as if the dissection he thought would be simple had suddenly unearthed a new complication. “If you’re going to bring up an equivalent exchange, what am I getting out of this? You’re the only one who benefits from such an arrangement.”
“I know this place better than anyone else. It’s easier to get your hands on something when you have someone on the inside, don’t you think? There’s a chance if you ask for permission from someone else, they’ll refuse your request.”
“And if someone catches and punishes you for misconduct? You would risk your position for a story?”
“Not just any story,” you corrected. “Your story. This is beneficial for both of us. Besides, you’re a performer, right? Don’t you want an audience who’s going to watch you attentively until the very end?”
“That’s a bold proposition, librarian,” he said.
“Are you going to refuse?”
“No. I think it’s an interesting idea. I’ll agree to your terms.”
“It’ll be a pleasure to work with you,” you said.
You held out your hand, and after a beat, Anaxa slid his into your grip. His hand was papery soft and cool, thin, elegant fingers wrapping around yours. They didn’t seem like the hands of a heretic.
“Now. My books?” Anaxa prompted, withdrawing his hand immediately.
“I’ll get them for you.”
Basking in the afterglow of your unexpected meeting and his ready agreement, you relished in the chance to observe him up close. Anaxa was a bizarre character who challenged everything that was determined as an immutable fact, and he would change the Grove.
You would watch him until he didn’t find you useful, or you grew bored. Fate might spin its wheels, and tangle you helplessly in its threads as it wrenched you along, but this relationship, at least, was clear.
In a matter of weeks, you came to recognize Anaxa’s presence in the library by the sound of his light and decisive footsteps and the scent of ink, chemicals, and paper that trailed him wherever he went. He showed up at a similar time every day, and his appearance became so embedded in your routine you didn’t even have to raise your head to acknowledge his presence; he only announced himself by sliding a paper of all his various requested books across your desk.
“I need these books,” he said.
You scanned the list. “This one hasn’t been mentioned in our records in several decades. I’d have to dig through our archives to find it.”
“Well? Is it too hard for you, then?” Anaxa raised an eyebrow in silent challenge.
Asshole. You stood with a clatter of your chair. “Not at all.”
He was one of your most frequent patrons, and easily the most annoying. Every day it seemed he came with new demands and a list of obscure books that you had to dig through the shelves to find. As soon as you brought out his staggering collections of tomes, he perched on the edge of your desk, flipping through them and remarking on their contents.
It didn’t bother you too much as you were always flitting between shelving new returns, sorting through the catalogues, and helping students with their various requests. But no matter how long it took you to accomplish all of your tasks, Anaxa was always waiting when you came back, posture still neat and legs crossed, one over the other. Privately, you’d begun to think of him as the library’s resident cat in the way he lounged in places that most inconvenienced you.
“It took you twenty minutes to assist the student this time, librarian,” he said, without looking up from his book. “Perhaps you aren’t as familiar with the library’s layouts as you claim.”
“It’s still faster than you would be. There are centuries of books to sort through, and sometimes these students only have a general idea of what they want and not a specific title,” you replied. “Wouldn’t it be more comfortable for you to sit in my chair or find somewhere else to read?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Anaxa said. “What do you think about the soul?”
“Immaterial, difficult to work with, and the basis of an overwhelming amount of philosophy books in the library.”
“And the gods?”
“I don’t care much for them, though I am familiar with all of their stories. They only matter to me insofar as they relate to the books housed here.”
Anaxa laughed. “Why, that sounds borderline blasphemous.”
You sighed, slouching back in your chair. Your desk was a curve of polished wood located near the center of the room, in perfect view of every student who wandered the library so they knew exactly where to go for help. Though with Anaxa’s presence, they only approached you when you wandered the stacks, or he was absent for the day.
There were already rumors springing up about your relationship and how much time the two of you spent together. You warded off your classmates’ inquiries with a practiced smile, as you were the more approachable of the two. Even if you wanted to answer them, there wasn’t one you could give. You barely knew what to call the two of you yourself.
Were you close to him? You wouldn’t say that. You hadn’t really let yourself grow close to anyone here on principle. What word described the two of you best? Friend felt too kind of a word. Lover was irrefutably wrong. Partner was at least somewhat correct, but lacked context. If nothing else, then the best explanation was that Anaxa was a planet and you were a moon, drawn into his orbit for no other reason than the natural rules of gravity.
“I believe your only god is memory,” Anaxa said.
You didn’t spare him a glance as you idly picked at the supplies lining your desk, lining the stacks of papers and colorful pots of ink in neat formation. “Then your god is truth, though I’d like to say your god is also yourself.”
“Then we’re not so different.”
“Are you going to keep needling at me, or are you going to fulfill your end of the bargain?”
Anaxa tilted his head. With his hands braced on the edge of the desk, he leaned closer to you, an insufferable smile playing on his lips. “I already am, librarian. A story can only be defined in the retrospective, once it comes to an end. Right now, you’re in the process of witnessing mine, aren’t you?”
“I just hope for more from the person they call the great performer,” you said evenly.
“And what are you hoping for, precisely?”
“A good story.”
Anaxa placed a hand on his chest in mock sincerity. “Then you won’t be disappointed. Have some patience! Good stories require proper build-up.”
He was an infuriating man, through and through. But he was an infuriating man you had decided to tie yourself to, and you would see where his road would lead him in the end.
In the next several years that passed, Anaxa devoted himself to the pursuit of higher knowledge, working as the assistant of professors and pursuing his doctorate, and you pulled yourself up one tedious position at a time until you were working full-time at the library, losing yourself in documentation and categorization. There were always new books being brought in that had to be labeled, sorted, and registered in the library’s catalogue, more stories for you to devour.
No one had a complaint about you as you cared for nothing but your stories, it seemed Anaxa always found a way to needle those in charge, and he never tired of their outrage and indignation. His dreams were lofty, his inspirations grander than anyone could understand. And through it all, you watched him, taking note of all his movements: how he slept little and mumbled to himself, scribbled alchemical equations on any available surface, and the way manic light suffused his eyes when he came to a supposed breakthrough.
Anaxa slid into the framework of your life without any preamble or fuss, as natural as the air you breathed or the blood in your veins. His presence by your side was natural, and you only paused to acknowledge him when someone brought him to your attention. Your strange little relationship eventually expanded beyond the confines of the library. Anaxa still visited you there, but now, the two of you were prone to meeting in courtyards or various classrooms, wherever it was convenient to steal a moment to converse.
Your classmates no longer commented on your relationship, though you did still get the odd stare here and there. The two of you existed in your own little bubble, uninterested in other people outside of what they could offer you.
“Is it true that the two of you are dating?” New students were prone to asking you that question, with all the boldness and innocence that youth commanded. This one was no different, and she watched you with curious eyes.
“I can’t date Anaxa because he’s already in a committed relationship with his research. I can’t ask him to cheat,” you replied dryly.
“I didn’t give you permission to call me Anaxa,” he sniped.
“That’s because I gave myself permission.”
However, the closeness you semi-enjoyed with Anaxa came with one major detriment: a lack of respect for your personal space.
“Librarian, wake up.”
You grumbled, emerging from your fragmented sleep, the cobweb of dreams still clinging to your mind. With sunlight warming your face and a nest of blankets wrapped around your body, you were loath to wake. And yet you did to Anaxa staring unsmiling down at you, arms crossed.
You swore viciously, scrambling upright and drawing your blankets closer to yourself. You launched a pillow at him, which Anaxa promptly side-stepped.
“Good morning,” he said.
“How did you get in here?”
“You left your door unlocked.”
“And you didn’t knock?”
“You didn’t answer, and I needed your assistance. I’ll give you ten minutes to get ready.”
“Make it thirty! And get out of here!” You threw another pillow at his retreating back.
It really was like you had become close to a cat. Without a care in the world, he flounced into your life and took your lack of rejection as an invitation to make himself comfortable. It was simply more effort to chase him away than to let him in.
After making yourself as presentable as you could, you were out the door five minutes earlier than expected. Anaxa waited just outside, and the two of you took off side by side at a leisurely pace.
“So? What do you want?” you prompted.
“I have an invitation from Okhema. One of the Chrysos Heirs came directly to speak with me.”
“And…?”
“They were extending me an invitation to become a Chrysos Heir and join them on their journey.”
It was impossible to exist anywhere in Amphoreus and not hear of the Chrysos Heirs. They always felt more like distant legends than anything tangible, but it was a story you had some vested interest in. “You? A Chrysos Heir? What did you say?”
“Of course, I rejected their offer,” he said. “I have no interest in the Flame-Chase Journey, or going to Okhema for some grand destiny laid out for me by the gods.”
“But once you’re chosen, even if you don’t go to Okhema and you reject their path, you’re a Chrysos Heir for good.”
“So what? Other people can call me whatever title they like, but it has no influence on who I am or what I intend to accomplish,” Anaxa said.
“And what is it that you intend to do?”
“I plan to start my own school of knowledge here, and then I will become one of the seven sages.”
You couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of your throat. “Arrogant as always, but I expect no less.”
The two of you had been winding through the various gardens and courtyards that interspersed the Grove. Soft light filtered playfully through the grove, branches and plants twining around marble patios and columns. It was beautiful, and this was the closest place you could call home.
“And you?” Anaxa said. “What do you plan to do?”
“Stay here and work in the library,” you said. “Someone has to manage it. You should know this.”
“And the Chrysos Heirs?”
“They only interest me insofar as they relate to you and whatever you plan to do,” you said. You skim a hand along one of the branches closest to you, an outshooting of the Sacred Tree, the manifestation of Ceres, the Titan of Reason. The wood is full of delicate whorls like the tight folds of a brain, emanating its own heat and humming under your touch.
“You have the capacity to be one yourself. The messenger they sent hinted as much. If you were interested, you could talk to them.”
You laughed again. “Well, I only have the capacity to be one, right? I wasn’t chosen, not like you, and that’s for good reason. I have no interest in being a saviour for other people.”
The two of you come to a stop in a secluded garden. Everywhere you gazed, you saw the soft, verdant green that announced Ceres’s continued presence and blessing. There must have been irony somewhere that Ceres accepted everyone in the pursuit of knowledge, even those who didn’t believe in them, or loathed them.
“You really don’t believe in the gods,” Anaxa mused.
“I don’t believe in anything but my stories,” you said. You couldn’t stop the bitterness that creeps into your voice. “If the gods were truly omnipotent and omnipresent, they would have stopped the black tide.”
A breeze rustled Anaxa’s hair. He watched you in silent contemplation. “You’re angry.”
“Isn’t everyone? I’ve lost my family, Anaxa. They sacrificed themselves so I could escape, but for what? There’s no safety. There’s not even a guaranteed future I can look forward to.”
“You doubt humanity’s ability to succeed, librarian, even after all the stories you’ve read.” There’s a rare note of intense emotion in Anaxa’s voice, like you’re a stubborn student in one of the classes he assisted in. “You should understand more than anyone else humanity’s potential. If the gods can fail, then that means they are no different from us, and we can succeed where they can’t.”
Despite what everyone thought of Anaxa, his mania and arrogance, what you couldn’t stand the most was his unrelenting faith in humanity’s future. It was a clear belief, one you didn’t understand. You strode closer to him until you were only a breath apart. His single eye stared down impassively at you, a brilliant, jeweled shard that you could cut yourself on. “Then show me something I can believe in.”
Before you could pull away, Anaxa gripped your wrist, using your momentary shock to guide your hand to his eyepatch. Your fingers rested gingerly on the fabric, though you had an inkling that if you were to slide them under, Anaxa would let you. It was a dangerous sort of permission, a line crossed in your relationship that hadn’t been breached before.
Neither of you moved. In a conversational tone, as if this was another one of your light-hearted spats, Anaxa said, “I lost this eye when I tried to bring my sister back from death. Like a fool, I had failed to consider that an eye was not an equivalent enough sacrifice for one life.”
“Your sister?”
“Lost to the black tide, like your family.”
You brushed a finger down the fabric covering his lost eye, as gentle as a butterfly’s kiss. “So we’ve both lost people we loved. How do you find it to keep going?”
“Simple. The gods are false shackles, binding us to our uncertainty and passivity. I intend to break those shackles. Isn’t it the same for how you live for your stories? Because you want something more than the pitiful narrative that’s been penned for humanity?”
“So I live for my stories, and you live for your goals. But that does make me wonder. What else would you sacrifice, Anaxa?”
He burned with an unnatural fervor, a pale flame that would never extinguish. “Everything. So if you can’t believe in anything, believe in me. Don’t look away. Watch me.”
His hand on your wrist seared into your skin, the proximity to his body too intense, too much. You wrenched your hand back, rubbing your wrist, and Anaxa let you go.
“I can’t believe someone like you is a Chrysos Heir. Maybe they’ve finally lost their minds,” you muttered. “Either way, you don’t need to tell me to watch you. I couldn’t look away, even if I wanted to.”
You could never let your past go. It was a simple truth you were forced to acknowledge. Anger and pain rotted in your soul, carving out a home in the same way termites burrowed into healthy wood, destroying it from the inside out. It was easier to cling to apathy, to watch people from afar rather than risk destruction from attachment.
You still dreamed of your family, though their faces were starting to fade from your memory. Even your father’s tomes were beginning to disintegrate, no matter how careful you were when handling them. The gods could save nothing, not your family, not your people, not this world, so how could you believe in them?
You were set on being alone, on burying yourself alive in your library. Not much moved you.
That was why it was frightening that Anaxa stirred your heart in ways you dared not dwell on for too long, like the ripples from a stone thrown into a placid pond, spreading farther and farther still.
It didn’t take more than a few years after that for Anaxa to achieve the lofty goals he had presented to you, though you suspected he laid the groundwork for his plans much earlier than he admitted and was simply watching them come to fruition. Despite the opposition, he established his own burgeoning school, and students flocked from afar to study concepts of the soul. He was one of the youngest people to become a professor and a sage, an impressive achievement.
You became the head of the library, and when you weren’t buried among mountains of books and tomes retrieved from the farthest corner of Amphoreus, you still made time to watch Anaxa. You visited his classrooms, shepherded his confused students to the correct materials he required, and chased him down when he returned rare books far past the due date.
Research was always his first priority. You never doubted that he would choose his alchemical experiments over you. It never bothered you, because if you had to choose between the library and Anaxa, you would have sacrificed him in a heartbeat. The way he threw himself into his research with a vicious mania wasn’t new or unexpected.
But the way his clothes hung so much more loosely on him, the sharp bones jutting beneath his waxy skin like outcroppings of rocks in a murky sea, his drawn, pale face: that was all new. His body couldn’t keep up with the strain of what he was doing.
He had told you as much, that he would sacrifice anything for his goals, but it disconcerted you to watch it happen in person. Nothing was sacred, not even his body or his soul.
You knew Anaxa’s schedule as well as your own. When his final class of the day ended, you made your way to his office, where the occasional student milled about in the hallway, chatting with their friends or grumbling about course assignments. It was a familiar sight from your own student days.
“Professor,” you greeted, shutting the door behind you when you entered his office.
“Librarian,” he said. Anaxa flipped through his notes, frowning. He was leaning against his desk, as if the mere act of sitting properly on his chair pained him. “What is it?”
“You’ve been using your body as materials for your alchemy experiments,” you said. Blunt and straight to the point, just as he enjoyed.
“Is that all you came here to say?”
“If you push yourself too much, you’ll die. You’re still only human.”
“I know my limits. There can’t be advancements made without sacrifices.”
“What have you used so far? Your blood? Your organs? Are you going to rip pieces of your soul apart next?”
You’re close to him now, close enough to pin him against the desk, your arms placed on either side of him like bars. Though it didn’t seem as if Anaxa had any intention to; he only watched you with that same curious stare he leveled everyone. It was always a chess game with him, the way he sizes up your next movement, readying his pieces in hand.
“I don’t want a premature end to your story,” you said, “I want to see what you’ll do next. How far you go. You still haven’t given me an impressive performance yet.”
“Oh, librarian,” Anaxa said. “It seems as if you’ve grown soft. Why do you sound so worried? Would you like to check for yourself how I’m doing?”
Coyly, he grasped one of your hands, bringing them to rest against his chest, right above his heart. Your fingers curled over the fabric separating you from him. You laid your hand flat enough against him, and felt the slow, steady pace of his heart, like a story marching toward an inevitable end.
Anaxa barely gave you enough time to settle into the soothing rhythm before he brought your hand to the center of his chest. Instead of solid flesh, there was nothing there but empty space, barely covered by his flimsy robes; you bit back a sharp gasp, driving your teeth hard into your lip.
“Well?” he said. The word fell like a taunt.
This was an invitation, a provocation, really. Anaxa let you go as you pulled back the buttons of his shirt, almost ripping it in your haste. You were met with a milky galaxy, swirls of blue-green and bright stars, the infinite cosmos unfurling in his chest. His skin broke into a jagged scar shaped like a star, all sharp angles made from soft flesh.
“That was quite bold of you,” Anaxa mused. “We’re still in public, you know.”
“No one is going to come in,” you snapped. “And I locked the door.”
“Were you planning on jumping on me?”
“Were you planning on letting me?” You could do nothing but breathe in tandem to the rise and fall of his chest, to the ripple of the galaxy held within him. This foolish, infuriating man. “How did this happen?”
“Consequences from an experiment,” Anaxa said cryptically. You weren’t going to get any more out of him, if the stubborn silence he fell into was any indication.
Instead, you brought one hand to the cracks, feeling the edges of skin. Warm, and smooth. It still felt like his human body, and you let one finger drag along his flesh, tracing the outline of the cracks.
You glanced at him, and met an eye that was watching you with palatable intensity, like you were another equation he was trying to solve. There was nothing else for you to do except gently dip your fingers into the hollow of his chest. It was a warm, smooth liquid consistency, like ocean waters from a sun-warmed beach, inviting you to draw your hand further in.
You noted the way Anaxa tried to hold back a shudder at the first contact. This was affecting him more than he wanted to let on, and you wanted to see his insufferable composure break. He was always so poised, so above everything. You dipped your hand further in, up to your wrist, to your elbow, further than you should have been able to touch.
Perhaps you could fit your entire body in here. It was a strange thought, unbidden, the idea of letting yourself be swallowed up by him forever, nestled close to his heart, so every time it beat he would be reminded of your presence.
“Librarian,” Anaxa said in a strained voice. His eye was unfocused now, his breathing shallow.
“If you’re going to give pieces of yourself away,” you said, swirling your fingers in absent loops in the space inside him. Every part of you felt weightless, like you weren’t really there. “Why not give something to me?”
“And what would you do with it?”
“What do you think?”
Anaxa’s head dipped slightly. “Something untoward.”
“I think you would like it, though. Is your heart still here?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Can I touch it?”
“Only if I let you.”
“Will you?”
You were met with silence, so you spread your arm through the hollow space, bracing your other hand on the desk behind Anaxa. Everything was disorientingly expansive, like the hole in his chest has pushed the pieces of his body apart, a trick room where the space inside was larger than the space outside. You angled your hand sideways experimentally, towards where his heart should be, and brushed the edge of his rib. Clean, hard bone that you held tenderly, gliding your fingers along the length of it.
It was this provocation that proved too much for Anaxa. His head fell on your shoulder, and his hands moved to grip your waist, as if he would fall apart without you to anchor. His hands were still slender and elegant, the sort of beautiful hands built for creation.
This sight, the great Anaxa brought so low at your touch, was reserved just for you. As was his body, the tender caverns of it. You took your time to ghost along his bones, relishing in every shudder that wracked his body, and then you found it. A wet muscle, pulsing ever so gently, the center of Anaxa’s body.
You caressed his heart, squeezing it slightly, feeling it contract in your hands. Anaxa’s hands tightened around your waist, his nails digging into clothed flesh. Still, you did nothing more but hold it gently, feeling it quicken alongside Anaxa’s shallow breathing. Soft, warm, inviting. You stroked a thumb along the tender muscle.
“If you want it, you’ll need to give something else to me,” Anaxa said, his voice a low, hot murmur in your ear. “As is the manner of equivalent exchange.”
Before you could respond, a knock resounded on the door. “Professor? I had some questions about the material covered in the lecture today.”
At the sound, you jerked your hand back, your arm emerging pristine and untouched. It felt heavy, gravity weighing you down, unlike the inviting, weightless expanse within Anaxa. In a few seconds, you straightened your clothing as Anaxa buttoned his shirt back and smoothed his robes, leaning heavily against the desk, hand curled around his mouth. You were across the room and pushing open the door, revealing a surprised student, curled fist raised mid-knock.
You schooled your face into a neutral expression, and threw a quick shout over your shoulder. “You aren’t excluded from the rules of the library just because you’re a sage now, professor! Turn your books in on time.”
And then you hurried on, keeping your eyes straight ahead, flexing and unflexing your hand as you walked. The two of you would never speak of that moment again, though you noticed Anaxa looking unbearably smug in the weeks that followed, and you found a new habit of touching his shoulder when you talked.
In the following years that passed, more Chrysos Heirs came to study at the Grove, working under Anaxa’s strict tutelage and wandering the rows of your library. Your favorite was Castorice, who kept a respectful distance back and asked you numerous questions about the books in your archives. Your least favorite was Phainon, who had a habit of being a little more clumsy with the books than you liked.
“Do you enjoy teaching them?” you asked, hand cupped in your cheek. Anaxa retained the habit of perching on your desk, still preferring to claim your space as his rather than find one of his own.
In turn, however, you had grown bolder with his body. If he wasn’t going to take care of it, you might as well put it to use. His arm lay stretched across your desk, and you scribbled notes on the creamy, smooth skin of his inner arm: alchemical equations he taught you, or reminders of what books he had to return, or doodles of dromases.
“If they’re going to embark on the Flame-Chase Journey, it’s prudent for them to find their own path, instead of blindly believing what they’re told,” he remarked. You put down your pen, and Anaxa glanced at the fresh ink still shining on his skin. “Librarian, what is this?”
“A dromas,” you said.
He examined the inked doodle, eye borrowed. “The proportions of its facial features are off and too close together.”
“How picky, professor. I’ll draw a better one next time.”
It was easy, so easy being with Anaxa that it frightened you. New students of Anaxa’s assumed the two of you were “together,” and it wasn’t right, but it wasn’t wrong, either. The two of you were a pair, and it felt wrong to be away from him, like you were being denied part of who you were.
Did you love him? Did you need him? Your desire took on confusing forms, eluding categorization and convention. Maybe you were simply greedy: like the day he let you touch the galaxy in his chest, you wanted more of Anaxa, to shelter within him forever.
How to understand this? Was there even a way to understand it, or were you helpless to desire’s whims? It was an unsolvable equation.
The years could have passed so sweetly and comfortably, until you heard news of Titankin flooding Okhema and strange new warriors appearing. As Hyacine made to venture into the holy city to treat the wounded, Anaxa approached you one evening while you were in your bedroom, flinging it open without a knock, another habit he retained.
“Go with Hyacine to Okhema,” Anaxa said.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re curious about the new strangers in the city, and what happened with Strife, aren’t you? Go with her and learn.”
“Are you kicking me out of the Grove, professor?” you asked.
“I’m telling you to seek new knowledge, and see the center of a new, great story. Or have you grown complacent here, tending to your dusty scrolls?”
“Aren’t you going to miss me?”
Anaxa leaned against the door of your bedroom. “Why should I?”
“You want to know about those strangers and the status of Okhema,” you guessed. “Don’t you?”
“If that’s how you chose to see my words, I don’t see any need to refute you.”
“You’re as frustrating as ever, professor,” you said. You stood, making your way over to him. Idly, you started playing with the hair that fell over his shoulders, silky strands slipping through your fingers. “Why don’t you say you’re also worried about me? Shuffling me, a poor librarian off to the holy city, when there’s so much turbulence in Amphoreus right now… It doesn’t feel coincidental.”
Anaxa dipped his head, chin lowered to his chest. “Will you admit that that sort of concern makes you happy, then?”
“Do you have any evidence to support that?”
“Do you?” he challenged.
“Well, since my expertise doesn’t lie in debating, so I’ll refrain from answering.” You withdrew your hand, reached down, and pulled Anaxa’s hand up by the wrist, placing it over your heart. His fingers rested lightly against your chest, as if he could cage your heartbeat. “I’ll see you in a few weeks, then. Goodbye for now, professor.”
“Goodbye, librarian.”
The road to Okhema was relatively pleasant. Hyacine was cheerful and made for good company, perceptive enough to know when you tired of talking. Still, you couldn’t help but feel a little disoriented. You weren’t attached at the hip to Anaxa, as your duties took up most of your time, and he had his spells where he forgot the rest of the world existed when he was buried in research. But you weren’t used to being far enough away where if you called his name, he wouldn’t be able to hear.
Okhema was still vibrant and bustling when you and your retinue of exhausted scholars approached, shining with a ferocity that denied any rumors of defeat and downfall. Kephale rose grandly above the city in the distance, arms outstretched as if ready to take on your burdens.
“I need to go look at some of the soldiers now,” Hyacine said. “Why don’t you go greet Lady Aglaea first? I’ll follow you as soon as you can!”
It was as solid a plan as any. You trudged through the city, making your way to where Aglaea waited. As you walked through sunlight and vapor from the local baths, through laughter and the splash of carefree citizens: it seemed humanity would prevail no matter what.
When you found Aglaea, she was waiting, patient as ever, an enigmatic smile on her lips and hands folded in front of her, as pristine and flawless as a god carved from marble.
“Hello, librarian.”
“Hello, Lady Aglaea. I’m here from the Grove of Epiphany along with a few of my companions. Hyacine will likely come greet you soon,” you said. There was no need to go through any formalities with her; her golden threads had likely picked up on the vibration of your conversation with Hyacine. It cut down on any need for pleasantries and explanations.
“And I’m sure you’ll be reporting everything we say back to that man?” Her smile was still cool, unruffled; you admired her composure. You had no quarrel with Aglaea, and you could not grudge her need for control and protection of all her citizens. Still, it was a daunting task to stand in front of someone like her.
“Reporting is a strong word,” you said. “I would prefer something more like observation. I’m not here to make trouble, only to note what I see.”
“They say you’re a recluse, a librarian who’s only fond of stories and barely has the time to give to anyone outside of a certain professor,” Aglaea said. “You would have made a good candidate for the Coreflame of Time.”
“Ah, but I’m too selfish to sacrifice myself for humanity,” you said, filling in the gaps of her words. “I know my flaws.”
“Indeed. You’re too caught up in your own stories, narrating everything you see as if it has nothing to do with you.”
“And is that so wrong? It’s simply the most interesting thing for me to do,” you said.
“You and that man are alike in that way,” Aglaea mused. “Caught up in your respective research and acts. You’re a narrator and a performer on the same stage together, though I wonder. It seems as if that man is eager to perform great feats for the distant narrator to watch, so they won’t turn their attention away from him.”
You settled your gaze somewhere over her shoulder, your hands grasped tightly in the folds of your clothing. “Lady Aglaea, I apologize for my bluntness, but I daresay you’re wrong. We both know Anaxa is the sort of man who would only stir to action for the sake of his own goals. Anything else that happens is incidental to what he achieves.”
“Do we both know that?”
“You’ve seen how he acts.”
“Regardless, I only wanted to extend a word of caution to you, librarian. You’ve long refused the invitation to step on the stage, and so your chance to take the spotlight has passed. Are you truly prepared to witness the story playing out in front of you without being able to raise a hand to stop a single event from transpiring?”
“Is this advice from you personally, Lady Aglaea, or is it advice from a demigod?”
She smiled. “What do you think? I’m sure you’ll come to a conclusion all on your own. I only find it a shame we couldn’t work together more.”
That was the end of your conversation with her. But throughout your stay in Okhema, Aglaea’s words rang in your head, like a burr stuck to the folds of your thoughts, even as you found yourself preoccupied by greater worries. The Grove being overtaken by the black tide. Political unrest in Okhema. And Anaxa, who, from all accounts, had seemingly escaped the fate that befell your coworkers and peers.
Once more, your home was lost, but this time, at least one person had survived. Yet, to your growing ire and confusion, Anaxa did not approach you once when he came to the city. You only received reports from Hyacine in the temporary room you took refuge in, provided by Aglaea.
You thought nothing of it at first, certain he would seek you out on his own time. It wasn’t uncommon for Anaxa to rush headlong into whatever project or scheme caught his attention. He would make his way back to you eventually.
As the hours passed, malaise and discontent settled on you like a heavy veil. You were not a Chrysos Heir, so you were not privy to the inner politics of their number. You were nothing more than a civilian. But this was the first time you had to hear about Anaxa’s movements from other people instead of relaying them to others.
His silence was a purposeful message: Anaxa was not going to involve you in whatever he had planned. You were to sit and wait and watch on the sidelines, as you always had.
You could guess at his motivations: he was playing risky games, getting involved with the Council of Elders. He had done something outrageous, brushed right up against the divine, and had to undertake his trials alone. You were not useful to him in these games, and it would be dangerous for him to openly associate with you and alert people of your presence in his life.
People were lost so easily, but stories lived forever. You had believed this all your life, and yet, as you melted in your chaise, stacks of half-finished books piling around you, all your beloved stories felt stale and tasteless.
Someone flung open your door, and you jerked upright as Anaxa strode into the room with the same arrogance as if this was your home back in the Grove. You barely had time to smooth your rumpled clothing and pull your legs to the side before Anaxa was settling at the end of your seat, legs folded.
“Where have you been, you ass?” you snapped, kicking him with your foot.
He didn’t move, taking your kick with stoicism. “I’ve been researching,” he said.
“Well? Are you going to tell me what you’ve been working on?”
“These theories are still being worked on.”
“That hasn’t stopped you from telling me before. Honestly, what have you been doing? The Chrysos Heirs are all over the place, and there’s been talk that you’ve joined the Council of Elders. Not to mention what happened with the Grove. How did you get out? What happened? Why–” You choked on your words, all your nameless frustration and fear surging out. “Why couldn’t I be there with you?”
Anaxa’s eye was focused on you, but his gaze was distant and foggy. His lips moved, as if he was speaking to himself, and you could only wait in impatient silence before he said, “I’m dead, librarian.”
With a furious burst of energy, you lunged at Anaxa, pinning him down to the chaise. His green hair fanned across the cushions, as your hands shook.
“Anaxa, I don’t have time for your games. For once in your life, just tell me the truth.”
“I haven’t lied to you.”
“You’re still here,” you pressed. “If you were truly dead, you wouldn’t be moving like this.”
“That’s simply because I bound my soul to a Titan. I don’t have that much time left.”
“Titan…? You can’t mean… You bound yourself to a god? Are you mad?”
“Only in the eyes of fools,” he said.
“Anaxa. How long do you have left?”
He called your name, said in such a soft tone, as if you were still teenagers in the Grove of Epiphany, still young and foolish with your entire lives in front of you. “Only until the end of today. You know the black tide takes all, and you know the principles of equivalent exchange. A life for a life. It’s fitting.”
“But it wasn’t supposed to be like this,” you whispered. “You were going to show me a grand story. Things I haven’t seen before. A brilliant conclusion.”
“I will.” Anaxa brought his hand to the back of your head, pulling you down to rest on his chest. You closed your eyes, burying your face in the fabric of his clothing. You sought desperately for his heartbeat, but it wasn’t there. “But all performers must leave the stage eventually.”
“I don’t want you to,” you said. It was a childish, petulant protest, the likes of which you hadn’t made in years, not after your family died. “You’re supposed to live forever, Anaxa.”
“I will. I will live forever in your stories, librarian. You should understand this.”
“You infuriating man.”
“You meddlesome librarian.”
“Are you telling me goodbye? Is this what this is?”
“It doesn’t have to be something permanent,” he said cryptically.
“And I’m sure you won’t explain what that means, either, will you?”
“All will be revealed in due time. Have patience, librarian. That’s one of your strong suits.”
“Anaxa!” Your shout came out to a strangled whisper as you fisted your hands in his robes as if in some vain attempt, you could bind him to this earth forever, as if he wasn’t already lost to you. “You’re a wretched, blasphemous fool. But you’ve forgotten something.”
“And what have I forgotten? Enlighten me, dear librarian.”
“You let me touch your heart,” you murmured into the hollow of his chest. “Remember? That day in the classroom?”
“Well, it’s difficult to forget the liberties you took with my body. What about it?”
“You asked me what I would give in exchange for your heart. I never answered you, and as per the laws of equivalent exchange, as you so like to espouse, I’d like to give you something now,” you persisted.
“Oh? And what are you planning on offering?”
“My heart,” you persisted. “If you give me a part of you, then I’ll give you a part of me.”
“Do you plan on ripping your heart out for me?”
“If you asked, then it’s yours, to do with as you please.”
Anaxa did not speak. He only stroked the back of your head, as if he was tracing alchemical equations. “What an audacious claim.”
“You don’t dislike it, though.”
“I told you I don’t lie, librarian.”
“Then you need to understand this,” you confessed, a supplicant before a god, the words tumbling out in a way they never have before. Your heartache, laid raw and bare, the weave of your soul exposed. “I’ve kept myself distance from everything. The Grove. The other scholars. Even Amphoreus itself. But you, Anaxa. You make me act so foolishly, want irrational and unattainable things. I can’t keep myself apart from you.”
“Well, well,” Anaxa said. “The reclusive librarian has finally shown me a bit of what lies in their heart.”
You hit him lightly with your fist, the action carrying no anger or weight to it. “Come on. Is that all you have to say to me?”
“I don’t need to say anything. All you need to do is to keep watching me, like we once promised,” he said. “Come, librarian. If you’ve laid claim to my heart, you should understand it by now. What I do, I do while thinking of you and of the best way to keep you entertained.”
You wrapped your arms around Anaxa. He was still touching you ever so gently, stroking your back in a way that belied the harshness of his words. Neither of you spoke. You closed your eyes, imagining what it would be like to fall asleep in his arms.
“I’ll see you again,” you mumbled. “If not in this life, then in the next. Don’t think you can get away from me so easily.”
You thought you could feel him smile. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
This was the last time you ever saw him. When you did drift off to sleep, you awoke on your chaise, a blanket pulled up to your shoulders, with nothing left of Anaxa but the cooling spot he once occupied.
—
After his death, you dream of him. His body cracking, flaking away to reveal a cosmos birthed beneath his skin. His smile and unfocused eyes, looking at some grand scheme beyond you. The hard, red crystal of heart, the white lines of his ribs.
One day, you will return to your library in the Grove, to your archives and books and your catalogues. But for now, you reside in the holy city, recording what you see, marking history in your own words. The narrator to a play you could not change, as Aglaea called you, in love with a performer who left the stage of his own accord.
Anaxa does not lie, so you know his theories to be true, even if others decry them as blasphemy. You will find him again, in the next life, in the next world. You will find a way to keep his memory alive, weave it into the fabric of the universe itself, so not even the gods could rip him from you even if Amphoreus as you knew it fell to pieces.
You imagine what it would be like, in the next world. You would pull him close, your dear professor, and tell him every story that happened in his absence. This time, you would not let him go.
I created a font based on the text in the Birthday Boy cards so people can use them for making cards of their OCs.
Some letters I had to create myself using parts of other letters. The spacing is kinda wonky because I've never made a font before and I'm unfamiliar with fontforge. It also means the font is only available as Opentype. However, I have all the individual SVG files you can use!
I spent a LOT of time on this, so I would appreciate credit if you use it!
Hello, it’s 100night! Please read this before saving~
I’ve decided to share the fake twst screenshot templates I made with the world. Here they are as transparent pngs (2880x1440)! So far I have made:
(1) Episode title
(2) Location
(3) Character dialogue
(4) Player dialogue with 2 options
(5) Player dialogue with 1 option
(6) SSR get (EDIT: turns out this one is 1920x1080, find the new ones in my tag)
(7) Groovy text
I know I’m giving y’all a lot of power, so use it well…ufufu.
For anyone curious, I made these by editing and lining up the assets uploaded by (my hero!!) @alchemivich over game screenshots.
Credit to me is not necessary when you use these, but PLEASE DON’T REPOST the blank templates – if you would like to share them with others, please REBLOG or SHARE THE LINK to this post!
Let me know if tumblr eats the quality of the images. If it does I’ll be happy to upload these to Google Drive!
Example of template use with twst incorrect quotes (you can find more on my tumblr):
I also have a fake homescreen template, but it’s incomplete because I don’t have all the assets. You can see what it looks like in use with a fake screenshot I made with my OC Arisa – it’s on my blog but tumblr won’t let me into the tags if I put a link to it. Parts of it are faked. ^^;;
By the way, thank you so much for all the love for Arisa! <3 I’m currently working on another sprite edit for another twst OC, so look forward to it!
If anyone would like a tutorial on how I make fake screencaps or has any other questions or requests, my inbox is open! Have fun!!
I was so hype to write these!! Family dramas are my favorite flavor of angst :3c They should attend group therapy together, I think it would be beneficial to everyone—
I would recommend reading this interaction beforehand, as that previous post leads into Rollo first meeting Ortho and gives more context for how these headcanons start off.
A Big Ignihyde Welcome to Rollo!
Unlike the other dorm leaders thus far, Idia has yet to extend Rollo an invitation to Ignihyde. It leaves Rollo with no choice but to confront the boy himself. (The sooner he gets these courtesy calls over with, the sooner he can be on his way out of this hellhole.)
Tracking Idia down proves to be a more difficult task than Rollo initially thought it would be. Idia’s rarely seen in public, nor does he allow others into his room. On those few occasions where Rollo makes a beeline for his floating tablet, Idia automatically mutes him and directs the tablet to retreat!!
It’s only through a chance encounter with Ortho that Rollo learns of loopholes in Idia’s schedule: he’s always physically present on exam days and Board Game Club meetings. This leads to Rollo insisting that he will join Ortho to “pick up” his brother from that day’s meeting. His real goal? To chew Idia out for all the trouble he has caused both him and his innocent little brother!
When Rollo shows up at the Board Game Club’s base, Idia stands up so abruptly that he sends a board and its pieces scattering across the floor. Thrusting a pale, shaking finger at the doorway, he manages to stutter out, "R-R-ROLLO-SHI?!?! Wh-What are you doing here?!"
"He told me he was looking forward to speaking with you, Nii-san! I brought him with me so you two could spend some quality time together," Ortho reports cheerily. He glances at their guest with a smile. "Hehe, so that’s your name?"
Their guest stiffens for a second--and Idia braces himself, expecting a tirade--but to his shock, Rollo instead gives a small smile. "That is correct. As you can see, your brother and I are already... acquainted with one another." Idia's eyes bulge, his jaw dropping. "Wh-Who are you and what have you done with the real Rollo-shi?! He’s way too introverted and rage-filled to want to associate with…”
Before Idia can finish his statement, Rollo yanks him (“Excuse us,” to Ortho) into an isolated corner of the emptying classroom. With a harsh glare, he launches into a lecture about “how dare he leave his brother unsupervised” and “isn’t he aware of the sorts of hooligans that run rampant around campus” and “what if he were to be hurt due to your negligence”.
Idia shrinks further and further into himself as Rollo'a anger builds. He passes a helpless look at Ortho in the doorway, who just smiles and waves back. W-Why is Ortho endorsing this?! Idia's gaze flickers back to Rollo, whose face is contorting as he continues to chide him. Ortho, Rollo, Ortho, Rollo...
A realization sinks in, and a grin slowly forms on Idia's mouth. His confidence returns to him. “Hihihihi! I get it now. You’re big mad and flying off the handle 'cuz you can with me. You can't do the same with Ortho. You don't want to show this side of yourself to him. That's it, isn't it? He reminds you of..."
Rollo's eyes are dark and filled with a silent sorrow. It mixes with his anger, creating a far deadlier concoction. "You have no right to speak of him!!" he hisses.
"Heh. I'm right," Idia says smugly. "... Don't blow a fuse. I don't care about your family affairs or your past or whatever. Just don't butt into mine. And if this is about doxxing you to Ortho, I haven't." Rollo's eyes narrow in skepticism. "LMAO, not for your sake," Idia clarifies, jerking his chin at Ortho. "For his. He'd never stop worrying about me if I dropped the bomb about your inner chunnibyou.”
"You're lucky you even still have a brother to…" Rollo's words catch in his throat, and he forces them back down. "You have no clue how lucky you truly are, Shroud-kun."
"Weird, cuz I don't feel very lucky with you breathing down my neck. What'd I do to earn your ire, huh?"
“Stop!” Ortho declares, suddenly popping up between the two older boys. He glances eagerly between Idia and Rollo. “Did you two have fun catching up? We should head back to Ignihyde to hang-out now~"
"Huh?!" The third years are not happy with this arrangement—but with Ortho grinning at them like that, shooting off all kinds of ideas for what they can do together, neither of them can say "no" either.
Entering Ignihyde, Rollo is automatically put off by the cold, sterile environment of it. Lights and screens blip everywhere, everything is straight and geometric, metal and circuits. They’ve embraced the technology of the modern era, he laments. No respect for tradition whatsoever.
They stop by Ortho’s room first upon his insistence (he wanted to pick up a game or two to bring along to his big bro’s place!). The young boy flings the doors open, revealing pristine living quarters. Rollo is very impressed, even going so far as to give Ortho a stiff pat on the head for his efforts at staying meticulous.
E-Eh? I’m not dreaming this, am I? Idia’s heads practically bulge out of his skull. Rollo-shi seriously smiled and showed some sort of affection to someone else?! What’s with this absurd gap moe? C-Could it be that… n-not even Rollo-shi can withstand Ortho’s cutness…? W2G Ortho!! Your power levels are unrivaled!!!
Out of the corner of his eye, Rollo spots a few wooden figurines lined up on a shelf. There’s no mistaking it; those are the souvenirs Idia brought back for Ortho from the City of Flowers. For some reason, seeing them makes his heart palpitate uncomfortably.
Even stranger, there are odd tubes and wires in plain sight. Rollo wonders what they’re for—and his thoughts go to Ortho and his strangely metallic body, the lights on him that flash. His strange way of talking, the inhuman nature of him. Why does he appear this way? Rollo wants to know, but he thinks it rude to ask directly of the boy, so he has to default to pouncing in a moment alone with Idia.
Ortho retrieves a copy of the game he wanted (though he hides it from Rollo’s view). Off to Idia’s room they go!! (Idia nervously bites his nails at the prospect of allowing Rollo inside his mancave; Rollo snippily reminds Idia to trim his nails like a normal person would.)
Idia nervously pushes the door to his room open (every second of it seems to drag on, only prolonging his suffering). Rollo stares at what unfolds before him: cardboard boxes with games spilling out, an unmade bed, books and cables littering the floor… His expression crumples as if to say, Damn, bitch. You live like this? but Rollo (generously) only presses his mouth into a thin line.
He instantly tries to go about cleaning Idia’s mess (while simultaneously chewing him out for it). Idia trails after Rollo while wailing about the disruption of his “organized chaos”. (“Noooo, not my mint condition signed copy of the Sled Over Heels manga anthology!!” and, “Don’t touch that!! It’s a super exclusive one-of-a-kind Premo! T-shirt I pulled in a lotto…!”)
Rollo finds a pair of headphones with… cat ears… on them. “What is the purpose of this?” he asks of Idia, who looks absolutely mortified. (“I-It’s for the kawaii aesthetic! You wouldn’t get it…” ) “I don’t see the point of it. Felines are vermin all the same.” Well, that sets Idia off. They get into an argument about the pros and cons of cats.
Idia rushes to grab his most obscene materials snd hurriedly shoves them under his bed. Rollo obviously notices, but makes no effort to tear them away from Idia (in case poor Ortho is exposed to a glimpse of those lascivious materials). Instead he settles for chastising Idia again for his “impure” tastes.
Once everything has been (sort of) tidied up, Idia is nudged to offer their guest food! … But all that’s available are candies, Doritos chips, Mountain Dew soda, and energy drinks. (There’s also instant ramen, but they’d have to boil water for it.) Rollo wrinkles his nose and starts to criticize Idia’s diet. “L-Like yours is any better!” Idia retorts. “All you do is inhale croissants and grapes like a madman! That’s hardly a balanced build!”
Rollo sits by kneeling on the floor, which makes Idia’s skin crawl. “It feels like you’re going to start praying for the power of God and anime to be on your side,” he grumbles.
They attempt to play various card and tabletop games, with Ortho as their audience (if he were to play, he says, it would be unfair to them both). As Idia keeps sweeping Rollo and (loudly) gloating about his wins, the tension in the room builds. Rollo doesn’t care about wins or losses, but Idia’s attitude is most certainly rubbing him the wrong way. Ortho cheers both of them on regardless!
Ortho pulls put the game he had retrieved from his room: it’s a copy of Star Rogue! “It’s a classic. Nii-san and I used to play it all the time. I think you’ll like it too.” He pops it in and hands the controller to Rollo, then the other to his brother. Enter the second round of Rollo being obliterated 💀
… Rollo begrudgingly finds that it feels therapeutic to button mash to shoot down the final boss. (He pictures it as his mortal enemy, Malleus Draconia, and relishes in its fiery end as the boss disappears into a starry void.)
When the games become old, Ortho suggests a movie! He happily shares about his experiences in the Film Research Club—how he provided the special effects for their last production, and how he played the part of the villain in the one before that. It’s been a great help with understanding the full scope of human emotion, so maybe watching a film together can help them all come together as friends!
There’s a bit of squabbling over what they’ll watch. Idia wants to check out the live action adaptation of Two Piece, a swashbuckling high-seas adventure based on a popular manga series—and if Rollo has to choose something to watch with Idia, it would be a documentary to hopefully instill some sense of culture in the heathen.
In the end, they let Ortho make the decision (since it’s clear they can’t agree to anything). He picks out a horror movie—because, according to him, his data says that humans easily confuse high adrenaline feelings with like fear and intimacy! It’s the most effective way to get his big bro and Rollo to be besties!
Idia tries to enjoy the movie but it keeps being undercut every five minutes with Rollo griping about how “unrealistic” certain details are or complaining about how they probably used magic (ick) to achieve some special effects. “You’re ruining the suspension of disbelief!!” Idia hisses at him.
Whenever there’s a terrifying moment, Idia has a habit of screaming and clinging to whatever’s closest to him. That, unfortunately, is Rollo today. He tries to counter by shoving Idia off, but the nerd’s grip is surprisingly iron clad when reinforced by fear.
When the movie is over with, Ortho excitedly asks what their thoughts on it were. (He loves leading the film analysis talks in Film Research Club!) Idia starts to mumble something, but Rollo speaks over him to express that he thinks it was “an affront to nature” for the mad scientist in the movie to have robbed graves to reanimate his son. “He just couldn’t let the dead rest in peace, could he…? No, he went and selfishly desecrated the memories of a boy long since passed. How despicable!!”
Idia falls suspiciously silent at the comment. “… M-Maybe… he just really missed him,” Idia tries. “and that’s the scientist’s way of grieving and coping with the circumstances. He did what he could to bring his son back.”
“He trifled with something he could not understand. A man so arrogant as to play God,” Rollo spat. “His son is dead. Gone forever. To attempt to revive him, to try and turn back the clock…! It is utterly futile, and it has resulted in an abomination walking upon the earth, trapped between life and death with no end in sight!”
“Th-That’s not…! Who are YOU to act all high and mighty? Missing a loved one so much you’d do anything in your power to bring them back… I-It’s no different than pulling some end-of-the-world level bullcrap in their name!”
“EXCUSE ME?! You take back those words this instant!!” (“Make me!!”) Both boys are shouting now, each fiercely defending their own stance. Neither of them even pay attention to Ortho, who’s trying desperately to calm them both down. Their feelings are far too hot, too frenzied.
Rollo has never seen Idia show this much gall—not since that night atop the bell tower, not since Idia had spouted off all those accusations, lamenting that they were one and the same. It’s almost as though…
“Say whatever you want about me, but leave Ortho out of this!!”
At Idia’s exclamation, everything clicks into place. A deceased younger brother, the sorrow Idia had shed, the claim of their similarities, Ortho’s robotic form… Oh, god. Horror seizes Rollo’s heart, and he feels sick to his stomach. “You…!! What have you done…?”
Hot anger erupts like a plume of lava. Rollo, shaking like a madman and his expression grave, clutches onto Idia’s shoulders and vigorously shakes him. If looks could kill, Idia would already be a corpse by now. He’s frozen with fear and terror, unable to so much as summon any magic to fend Rollo off. The other boy is shouting in his face, spit flecking Idia. “What have you done, Shroud-kun?!”
BZZZT!! A strange sound suddenly fires off, and the air is warm and filled with the smell of smoke. Rollo and Idia slowly turn their heads—there’s Ortho, looking none too pleased. In the wall just a little above both third years’ heads is a hole, courtesy of a certain robot’s laser beam.
“… That was a warning shot,” Ortho says, glaring intensely at their guest. The scornful look breaks Rollo’s heart—the look of a betrayed brother. The accusatory words Idia uttered to him on that fateful night resound like haunting bells in his kind: “Do you think your brother would want this? Do you think he would be happy knowing you’ve done all of this in his name?”
Rollo releases Idia, who scrambles over to his younger sibling with a squeak of relief. “O-Ortho, you’re my savior!!” he happily sobs. But the robot isn’t looking at Idia.
“Rollo Flamme-san,” Ortho says in a resolute tone, “I definitely won’t forgive you if you hurt my brother!”
“Your brother?” Rollo can’t help but scoff. “That man? Don’t make me laugh. He’s nothing of the sort. He is a usurper, having dredged you up from the Underworld and stuffed your soul into an unrecognizable body…!!”
“He is my brother, and I’m his brother. We know each other. We care for each other. That’s enough for us.” Rollo’s brow furrows at the response given to him, spoken as if it were so easily the truth. His will cracks, his shoulders slump. Again, he has lost to a NRC student. Again, he’s defeated. Again, he has nothing left.
A new heat rises up, this time to his eyes. He hangs his head, furiously swiping away at his traitorous sockets. How dare they—how dare they decide to have a moment of weakness now! “Rollo-shi…” Idia awkwardly starts, but Rollo snaps at him. “Shut up, shut up! I don’t want your pity!!” (Idia was actually going to say something trolly and insensitive, so maybe it was for the best that he didn’t continue.)
An uncomfortable silence falls upon the room. Silent tears dribble down Rollo’s face. He wipes them away, but new leaks spring up to replace them. So many emotions be has repressed are coming out in full force. He’s lost control of himself, bringing on a new wave of shame.
Rollo composes himself as best he can (which isn’t a lot) and forces out something resembling calm. “… I will see myself out now. I apologize for exposing you to my unseemly display.” He isn’t even able to take a single step before he is stopped.
“Rollo Flamme-san!” Ortho calls out. Rollo looks back at the boy who is no longer mad. “I think… I understand what you must be feeling. You’re scared and angry and full of guilt. I know because nii-san and I have felt the same before. We wanted to tear the world down and rebuild it into a new, shiny utopia. That was your dream too, wasn’t it? For us, a world where we can be heroes. For you, a world where you and your brother can be at peace. Grief can drive mourners to do unbelievable things. That’s why I exist—and that’s why it’s not too late for you to restart. I think your brother would agree with me.”
Rollo looks entirely taken aback by the young boy’s speech. Even Idia is flabbergasted by what he’s saying. “O-Ortho?! What are you saying… How do you know about all of that?!”
“Huh? I didn’t tell you? I heard about it from Deuce Spade-san, Epel Felmier-san, and Sebek Zigvolt-san!” (Of course it was from the blabbermouth first year normies! Idia cringes.) As it turns out, Ortho knew all along but made the conscious choice to not let on until now.
“But then why keep up the charade?” Rollo demands, confused. To that, Ortho replies, “I thought it would be more difficult to forgive and to give you a second chance if that information was at the forefront of my memory banks.”
“Second chance…? You would grant that to a person who has knowingly attempted to backstab your beloved brother multiple times? Feh, you’re naive, Ortho-kun. Far too naive. Your ‘brother’ should have built you with more skepticism in your programming. Some nasty misfit might come along and commit an atrocity right under your nose, then take advantage of your innocence to get away with the crime.”
The boy shakes his head. “… That’s not true. I’ve run the numbers. There is a non-zero chance that you can change, Rollo Flamme-san. Nii-san could turn his 0.01% to 100%. He returned from the brink of despair. I know you could too.”
Ortho’s words strike him. It’s as though Rollo himself is the body of a great bell, and Ortho, the clapper rattling against him, producing a great, full-bodied sound resonating within him. Hope chases away the darkness clouding his heart, drying his tears.
Idia, Rollo realizes, truly is very lucky to have someone like Ortho by his side. Rollo lets out a bitter chuckle. “… Hmph, what childish, comforting sentiments. It must be nice to see the world in such a way.”
He feels like he should be mad. He wants to be mad. But he can’t be, not at Ortho. Ortho, who now looks at Rollo with such sad eyes, so big and shiny they almost seem wet with tears—how can a robot have such a heart, such a very human soul?
“Shroud-kun!!” Rollo barks, making Idia jump. “You had better appreciate and cherish him. Do you understand me? The instant I catch wind of you mistreating Ortho-kun… There will be dire consequences in store for you.”
“H-Huh?! Where’s this protectiveness for Ortho suddenly coming from?! He’s MY little brother, so back off! Find your own party members!!”
“It only makes sense to remove a child in a toxic environment and replace them in a far better one. I’ve witnessed the perverse content and entertainment you consume. It’s no sort of example to be setting for the youth.”
“Dude, are you seriously shaming me for my interests? I won’t stand for it!! Hell hath no wrath like an otaku scorned! I’m so gonna defend my waifus to the bitter end!!”
“Hehe!l Ortho giggles to himself. “It looks like Rollo Flamme-san and nii-san are getting along after all.”
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