Archive of Our Own

“It’s okay, Phainon, everyone is safe. The battle is over. You can rest now.”

Weightlessness grants him oblivion once more. 

“Snowy!” 

A childlike voice travels beyond the void. 

“Be sure to give him some room, everyone.”

A bedside manner fit for the most dutiful of healers. 

“Come on, wonder boy, time to wakey wakey!”

Mischievous purrs with ends sharp as claws. 

“With this racket, he may opt for sleep over consciousness.”

Rhetoric declared with unquestionable reason. 

A soft laugh. Delicate as butterfly wings.  

“Mydeimos, why don’t you try calling out to him?”

The voice of order learned from lifetimes of leadership. 

Silence. 

“Phainon.”

Pause. 

“Well that confirms it then.” Phainon opens his eyes. “It must be a dream if the crown prince is calling me by my name.” 

The sky above him mixes in blues and oranges. Not an eternal sun, nor a darkness to herald in the end of times. It is somewhere in between.

Phainon wakes at dawn. 

“You’re up!” A woman jumps into his arms, tucking her head underneath his chin. “We were waiting forever for you to wake up!” 

Phainon doesn’t immediately recognise her. Hair long and crimson, eyes wide and wondrous. The spirit that catches in her voice though…

“Tribios?” 

She giggles into her hand. “Not used to seeing us all grown up, are you?” 

“How?” He cuts himself off when he glances past the person in his lap to all the others gathered around him. And where they are. 

“This is… Marmoreal Palace.” Confusion and astonishment, both making his voice weak. 

“I thought you said his head was fine,” Cipher mumbles, lightly elbowing Hyacine’s side. 

“Cifera, hush!” Aglaea is sitting nearby. A torn piece of black cloth covers her eyes.

“Aglaea.” Phainon addresses his commander in hopes that she will explain everything. She’s never been blindfolded in his dreams before. 

“Welcome back, Phainon. You kept us waiting for quite some time.” She smiles in his direction. “Teacher, perhaps you could…”

“Oh!” Tribios gasps, suddenly conscious that she is still pinning Phainon to the ground. “Sorry!” 

Castorice helps her up, holding her hand. Holding her hand. 

“What’s happening?” The panic starts to hit him. He must be dead. Properly dead. This is the last glimpse of a life he always wanted for his friends flashing in dying synapses. 

Just when the shakes start to get too much, a hand comes down on his shoulder, heavy and grounding. 

“Mydei.”

“You’re not dead,” Mydei reassures, reading his mind. He always had a way of doing that. 

“Arise, Phainon of Aedes Elysiae!” Anaxa declares, loud enough for everyone in the surrounding vicinity to hear. “And bear witness to your countless efforts!” 

Mydei gives him a small nod, and backs away for Phainon to shakily rise. His seven friends, mostly as he remembers them, hold their breath while he takes stock of his surroundings. 

The air is warm and sweet. Chimeras lazily stretch on the lush lawns. The distant flow of water from the baths can be heard. And the sun barely breaks the horizon as a moving day begins. No dawn device. No statue of Kephale. Everything else is in its place, and most importantly—

“You’re all here.”

Phainon’s voice breaks as tears well at his waterline. Legs unsteady, he fears that he will find himself back on the ground once more. But Castorice is in front of him, wetness threatening to spill from her eyes too, and without a moment's hesitation, she is wrapping her arms around Phainon’s waist and giving him a hug that is so warm. 

“Yay!” Tribios squeals and takes her place to Phainon’s left, arms circling him and Cas. 

Hyacine follows soon after, nudging herself underneath Phainon’s right arm and holding on tight. He returns the embrace, cradling the three women to his body with all the love he has. 

“See what you’ve started?” Cipher pokes Castorice in the shoulder, giving Phainon a wink. 

“I am grateful I was not greeted in the same manner,” Anaxa scoffs to Aglaea. Still the same egregious tone as ever, though the scowl he would normally wear when addressing Lady Goldweaver is absent. 

“It would take more than a miracle for someone to threaten you with a hug.” Aglaea’s laugh is soft and musical. Come to think of it, Phainon can’t remember hearing his mentor laugh all that often. It’s lovely. 

Something else that he can’t remember ever hearing starts to beep in the garden. A foreign device with indescribable glyphs glows a blue light. Instinctively, Phainon tightens his hold on the girls. 

A transparent image of a woman appears. It’s… Madam Herta. One of the Geniuses that helped during the cycle with the Nameless. Anaxa and Mydei both stand to attention. Aglaea moves her covered eyes towards the interstellar saviour. Castorice and Hyacine remove themselves from the hug. Tribios stays by his side, holding onto his hand. 

“It’s okay, Snowy,” she smiles. He knows. He doesn’t. It’s nice to hear it. Phainon squeezes her hand.

“Well, looks like the last of the famed Chrysos Heirs has woken up!” Madam Herta smiles at Phainon. “We got a signal spike of Emanator levels and I said to Screwy that I bet it's the knight that single handedly took on The Destruction.”

“Emanator?” Phainon asks, to Herta and to his friends, neither have time to answer as the Genius keeps talking. 

“Anyway, now that you’re all materialised and awake, I guess you’re probably wanting an explanation.” 

“Hardly,” Anaxa cuts in, “given the sequence of events, it’s obvious what kind of outcome has befallen Amphoreus.” 

“Perhaps I could explain it anyway for the people that didn’t hijack the simulation with their consciousness, hm?” Herta snips. Surprisingly, Anaxa sighs and doesn’t fight back. “Firstly, for those that do not know, I am Genius Society Member #83 Herta, and in short: congratulations, you are three dimensional beings and most certainly alive.”

Castorice raises her hands to clap, but Cipher stops with a fond shake of the head. She keeps her hands clutched onto Cas’s like a precious treasure. 

“Your hero’s tale: As I’ve Written, reached so many people across the galaxy that the formation of this planet materialised far sooner than we initially predicted. It’s been six months since Zandar tried to annihilate The Erudition; though the flow of time worked differently whilst Amphoreus was re-building, so there isn’t really an easy way for me to explain those calculations to you.

“I’ll keep this short because I have places to be; but make no mistake that the birth of Amphoreus from Remembrance is an official Herta Project. This means that no other Genius is allowed to intervene or experiment on its growth. Though I will say, you eight were the last to manifest as the forefront Pathstriders of this new world; whatever growth from here on out is up to you.”

“Lady Herta,” Aglaea tentatively takes off her blindfold to address the hologram. Her eyes are vastly different. No sign of dulling or paling. 

Her eye-sight… has it been restored?     

“You mention the eight of us. May I ask, what of the fates of Lady Hyselins and the Imperator Cerydra?”

“Oh you mean the short, angry one and the tall, less angry one? They’re gone. They woke up first and were ferried off-planet by the little one. Something about wanting to show the tall one a world full of oceans. I get the idea that they won’t be returning to Amphoreus.”

“It’s okay, Agy,” Tribios says. “They will be happy if they are together.” Aglaea smiles back at her, nodding her head once. 

“I suppose while we’re on the topic of off-planet ventures, I, aforementioned Genius Society Member #83, Herta, would like to formally extend membership to one Anaxagoras, Sage of the Grove of Epiphany.”

Both Hyacine and Castorice gasp. Aglaea tries to hide her smile behind her hand. 

“Nous appears to have found you worthy of joining our ranks due to the feats you managed to accomplish whilst operating as little more than data code with consciousness.”

“I see,” Anaxa rubs his chin in thought. “And you are offering ferryship from this new world to explore the great knowledge the cosmos has to offer?”

What? No! We’re finally all here together!

Tribios squeezes Phainon’s hand. 

“If that is something that you want, a ship can be made available to you,” Herta concludes, less enthused but admittedly professional. 

“It’s a great opportunity, Professor.” Despite her words, Hyacine’s voice doesn’t carry much enthusiasm. Phainon can understand the sentiment. He doesn’t want his teacher to leave either. 

“If it is not a necessity, then I shall decline. The travel, not the membership. However, do not take this as an acceptance. There is much I wish to research about this Society before pledging myself to its ranks.” Anaxa makes his decision, like most, with his chin held high. Like he was never more certain of anything in his life.

A collective sigh of relief is felt throughout the group.  

“Very well,” Herta shifts her attention back to Phainon. “The little one said the gift of travel extends to you too. The spirit of The Trailblaze can be felt through anyone. All you have to do is make the call.” 

As if on cue, his teleslate chimes in his pocket. 

Stelle

Welcome home, partner. Cyrene’s wish has come true. 

She’s still watching over Amphoreus, even now. 

We’ll see each other again, but in the meantime, get some rest! 

They must all be okay. Stelle, Dan Heng, and their lost friend, March 7th. Traversing the galaxy. Onto their next adventure. It all seemed so enticing, back then in the train car, the appetite for a new journey behind the stars. 

Phainon looks around at the people he loves. He finds Mydei is already watching him. Caught out, he doesn’t look away, a little smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. 

There was no way Phainon was going to leave now. 

“Thank you, Madam Herta,” he eventually responds, “for now, I also wish to remain here.” 

“Hmph!” The Genius huffs. “Suit yourself!” And with a blip of blue light, her hologram fades back into the device. 

There’s a long silence that no one quite knows how to fill. 

And then—

“What do we do now, Agy?” Tribios asks. 

Agaela hums. She puts the blindfold back over her eyes. “I think… I would like a nice, hot bath.”

Professor Anaxa doesn’t join them for a bath, which comes as no surprise. Shared bathing had never been a pastime he and Phainon enjoyed together. It had been a constant source of annoyance—Phainon never got to learn what happened when the alchemical void in the Professor’s chest was subjected to water submersion. A scientific curiosity he had never been able to satisfy. 

Naturally, with the women heading to their section of the Heroes' Baths, that left him alone with Mydei. If it were anyone else, Phainon would feel too anxious about leaving his friends out of sight so soon. However, he can stomach the fear with the Kremnoan by his side. 

The same man who doesn’t feel fear, yet has a tendency to frown or otherwise draw his eyebrows together any time he is awake. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he is angry, just that he is feeling something so strongly that it appears to physically pain him to keep it in. He used to say that the agony of this world was only fit to be carried by an immortal body. Maybe that’s what made Mydeimos’s brows perpetually furrow. 

Now, Mydei could very well be asleep, were it not for the tell-tale heart rate that lends itself to consciousness. Phainon can’t remember the first time he figured out he could tell the difference in Mydei’s waking and sleeping heartbeats. Another detail lost to the cycles. 

“I get that you just woke up, but would it kill you to remember some manners?” Mydei peaks one eye open and the furrowing returns. “Staring is still considered rude, you know?”

“Ha, sorry,” Phainon huffs low, turning his attention to the swirling bath waters. It lasts all of a second before he’s looking back up again to see that both Mydei’s eyes are open now. 

“Tsk.” Eyes that roll but show no real annoyance at being stared at so intensely.  

“What will you do now?” Without the Black Tide to fight, or impending Era Nova, Anaxa is not the only one who would be contemplating the future. What does that look like for Mydei?

“Return to Castrum Kremnos. See what the world has made of it. Whether there is a kingdom left to rule.”

So it is not fate this time, but duty, that is the force tearing them apart. “And if the Kremnoans are all here? In Okhema?”

“Hmph, I would have thought you’d be eager to see the back of me.”

Steel through flesh. Shattered spine. Golden blood. 

“I wish you eternal victory.”

“You should look into what happened to your home in this life,” Mydei continues, “Maybe the fates of memory were kinder than the world we knew.”

A kinder world. There’s a hopeful thought. 

It must be true, too, because Mydeimos is sitting across from him in the Heroes’ Bath. Very much alive and very much real. Phainon could touch him if he wanted to. 

He wants to. 

Just to check if you’re real. 

Tell me you are real. 

“Enough of this though, now is the time for not making decisions.” Mydei stands, steam from the hot vapours blooming from his skin. Water droplets, imbued with lavender oil, lazily trail down his body. They effortlessly slide through every line of muscle that is either covered in red ink or thickened flesh. It’s mesmerising.

Phainon would use the excuse of the excessive temperature rendering his brain a sluggish wreck; but he’s been in this position far too many times to deny himself the simple truth that he’s openly staring. Yearning to reach out and brush away those droplets with his hands or his tongue. 

Mydei looks over his shoulder at him. He catches him staring at his naked form and says nothing. 

As the day fully takes form, Phainon finds himself aimlessly wandering. The Eternal Holy city is just as he remembers it. Though this time, not quite so literal in its eternalness. The same vendors at the markets are there, Chartonus at his forge, and mouthy Verax Leos scattered throughout. They all greet Phainon like an old friend. They don’t seem to understand what’s happened to them or how they came to be. The people here are also born from Remembrance. 

That's the way though, isn’t it? In epics of heroes and triumph and glorious battle. Never does the author tend to pen down what becomes of the townsfolk during the clashes between gods. The Demi-gods, the titans, hell—even the villains are granted an epilogue. No one pays any mind to the countless background souls that get caught up amidst the chaos.

Phainon is no different. He’s scared to ask the woman at the fruit and vegetable shop whether she remembers being nothing and then suddenly an octogenarian. However, when he stops by to purchase pomegranates, she talks fondly of her daughter studying at the Grove. How she’s so proud of her as there hasn’t been a scholar in her family since her grandfather. The produce clerk holds memories, a history, and hopes for the future; who is Phainon to question that?

He carries his pomegranates from the market up to the Chimera Garden where he knows Mydei is. Already he can imagine that this will become a place where all of them will tend to hover around. Only a handful of hours have passed and he already expects to be greeted by at least one or two former Chrysos Heirs.  

It’s just as he predicted; the calamity trio are bathing themselves in the cloudless sun. Mydei is lounging on one of the lilypads, eating an apple and reading a book Phainon had lent him. Over a million cycles had seen him give Mydeimos that book, and still he has yet to finish it. 

Phainon laughs under his breath, once, before the amusement completely drains. The countless losses of Mydei play out behind his eyes. Holding his limp body. Screaming into the void as both Phainon and Khaslana when his great love had perished before him. The memories don’t feel as raw as they did when he was the Flame Reaver, and for that, he is grateful. 

Time has helped to heal this particular injury. Wounds that have closed and thickened into scars. A stitched together skin that stays on your body long after they hurt to touch. But just because you’re not in danger of bleeding out anymore, doesn’t take away from the fact that you were cut. 

Sliced. 

Stabbed. 

“Dawnmaker will pierce your tenth thoracic vertebrae.”

Mydei is covered in scars. Far more than Phainon. If this were truly a blank reset, he wouldn’t have materialised with any imperfections. But they are creatures born from memory. Made real by the stories that the Nameless and Cyrene shared with the stars. In those tales, Mydei was the most fearsome warrior—and he came to be human with a form that reflected his battles. 

The re-tellings of Phainon were kinder to his body. Perhaps because he wasn’t re-made as Khaslana. He carries these memories; a punishment for his sins as the Flame Reaver, maybe. Nevertheless, As I’ve Written gave people the opportunity to experience Phainon as a Chrysos Heir; and that is the body that he has been given. 

It doesn’t seem fair. 

Then he looks at Castorice, the most gentle and caring person he’s ever known, who walks arm in arm with whoever's with her just because she can. 

Tribios, who was made whole again. Unused to the singular body but excited over the prospect of growing old. 

Aglaea has been gifted back her sight. 

And Mydei can die. 

These curses that had bound them throughout all the cycles have been cast off not unlike iron chains. The newfound liberation is a good thing, even if they’re still growing accustomed to such a freedom. Mydei’s scarred body means nothing to him if it means he can experience life as a fragile mortal. 

Fragile. Mortal. 

Both words sound ridiculous in describing Mydeimos the Undying. 

On his lilypad, the crown prince bites off a piece of fruit, taking it from his mouth and bringing it down to the hungry jaws of a chimera. The little animal chews and trills in delight, nuzzling its head into the offering palm. Mydei smiles at no one but himself and the beast.  

Mydei is not fragile. 

Phainon is. 

Phainon the false Deliverer who can’t look at the people he loves without falling apart. 

“Would you like to join us for tea?” Castorice’s voice sounds softly beside him. She looks up at him with a smile on her face and understanding in her eyes. She holds out the palm of her hand, closing it warmly around Phainon’s. The hold settles the tremors.

“You should also join me for writing this afternoon. I find it helps to get my thoughts on paper.” 

She leads him towards where Cipher is stealthily replacing her cup of tea with sweet wine. Castorice just shakes her head when she catches the not-so-nimble cat. 

“I’d like that.” Phainon means it. 

Cas offers him a cup. Delicate china. 

Fragile. 

Together, they enjoy the tea and their new sun.

They go out for dinner that night together, all of them. A restaurant that Tribios chooses stating that it was Trianne’s favourite. Getting used to the triplets all being one person is a difficult experience. Everyone aside from Aglaea shares in Phainon’s confusing adjustment. At least that is one aspect that he has in common with the others. A part of him is wondering if he’s not processing this resurgence the way that he should be. Everyone else seems so much more… put together. 

Professor Anaxa is on his fourth glass of wine, filling up Aglaea’s cup each time he drains his own. Lady Goldweaver has swapped out her make-shift blindfold for something white and woven. It still provides a covering to her eyes, but the sheerness of the fabric means that she has some sense of vision. It’s only when Anaxa stands that Phainon notices the tear to his jacket hem; the origin of her initial blindfold announcing itself.  

Anaxa sways a little, enough that the chair legs complain when he shifts his weight. His foot lands on the table with deliberate ceremony, toe nudging aside a forgotten bread plate. Hyacine inhales sharply. Cipher protectively raises her glass from the table.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Anaxa says, lifting his goblet. “I’m not proposing anything barbaric. I simply require elevation. A heightened perspective.”

“Perspective,” Hyacine echoes.

“Yes.” He nods, pleased with himself. “Perspective is the luxury of those who outlived their usefulness.”

Instead of ushering him down from his theatrics, Aglaea merely drinks deeply from her cup. The wine darkens the fabric at her eyes where a drop splashes too high.

Anaxa continues, voice gaining that familiar, professorial cadence. “We speak of survival as though it were synonymous with purpose. As though remaining upright long enough entitles us to a destination.” He gestures broadly at the friends gathered around the table. “But look at us. Unmoored. Wandering. Like children released from a lesson early and left to invent meaning in the hallway.

“We call it freedom. We call it mercy. Yet all I see is the start of something pointless. A great deal of pacing in circles, convincing ourselves the motion itself is progress.” He smiles, thin. “Survival does not bestow direction. It merely prolongs the search for purpose.”

Phainon shifts in his seat. The words scrape oddly, but he cannot yet name why. He glances at Mydei, expecting irritation, perhaps even anger. Mydei’s expression is unreadable, his attention fixed somewhere beyond the table’s edge.

Anaxa, naturally, is not finished.

“History adores a survivor,” he says ever so indulgently. “Not because they were worthy, but because they remain available. We assign them gravity after the fact. We give their continued existence the weight of intention.” He raises his glass in mock salute. “As though the universe did not simply forget to close the door.”

“Professor—” Castorice makes a quiet sound of protest. Anaxa waves it away.

“The dead,” he adds, almost kindly, “are spared this farce. They do not wander. They do not reach for purpose like a mirage. They simply stop being tested by time’s arduous reflection of unimportance.”

That is when Mydei’s hand tightens around his glass.

Phainon notices the small things first—the careful placement of the cup back onto the table, the way Mydei’s shoulders draw in by a fraction. Phainon thinks, dimly, of the boy-prince wandering the Sea of Souls. Of drifting without anchor and feeling unwanted. Of the long, aching uncertainty of movement without end.

“Is that what you tell yourself?” Mydei asks. His voice is calm. Even curious.

Anaxa blinks, the smile on his mouth pausing as if it has momentarily lost instruction. “No,” he says, lightly. “I tell myself nothing. As a scholar, I merely observe simple truths.”

Mydei doesn’t try to hide his scoff.

Anaxa adjusts his stance, weight rolling on the heel of his boot. His foot remains on the table. “It’s a common pattern,” he continues, conversational, as if he has not blatantly poked the lion. “When structure collapses, people wander. They mistake motion for intention. Even aligning poetic names to it such as: the suffering of fate. It’s hardly a moral failing—just an understandable response to being left without instruction.”

Phainon swallows. He assumes, with a quiet sting, that this is what Mydei is reacting to. The reminder of endless drifting. The reminder of survival without companionship or conclusion.

Anaxa gives a small, dismissive laugh. “If the description feels uncomfortably close, that is coincidence, not accusation.”

Mydei exhales through his nose. He stands, chair legs scraping against the floor as he pushes it back into place.

“Very well,” he says, and there is something in his tone that makes Phainon look up sharply. It’s not anger nor grief. “Excuse me, I need some air.”

Phainon watches him go, violently unsettled. Mydei did not wander aimlessly in the Sea of Souls—he endured. He has always endured. 

Phainon stands.

“I’m going to—”

“It’s alright, Phainon,” Aglaea tilts her head toward him, “Go after him.”

Anaxa watches Phainon leave with an expression that might be confusion, or might be something closer to regret. Observing scholar, through and through. 

Though he could stand to occasionally keep his mouth shut. 

Phainon follows Mydei up a set of stairs, across a few balconies, and over an aqueduct until he finally settles on a rooftop. 

The view is breathtaking, it’s the first time Phainon has seen Okhema in the dark. The lights from the restaurants make the city seem more lived in—even without the dawn device. It’s beautiful, really, and yet the only thing Phainon can really think is:

It’s so quiet here. 

With Mydei, he’d grown used to the clashing of sword against gold, loud words thrown in good-hearted sportsmanship. Another part of him also remembers the fights where words weren’t exchanged at all. Where he got the upper hand, like Khaslana always managed to do, and pierced his back. Phainon has spent thirty million lifetimes fighting alongside Mydei—defeating him on the battlefield became simple. 

But never easy. 

Below in the market square, minstrels play lutes and harps, singing songs of Titans and heroes alike. What songs would they sing of him now if they knew? Stories of how Phainon changed into something that was fit to destroy the people he loved? 

What does the ode of a killer sound like?

“You’re welcome to sit down,” Mydei offers without turning his head. 

Phainon crouches down, hanging his legs over the rooftop the same as Mydei, close enough that their shoulders brush on his descent. Neither of them speak for a moment.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” the apology was sitting impatiently in Phainon’s mouth. “Professor Anaxa has always spoken tactlessly and freely. Although, his social decorum does get worse when he drinks.”

“Mm.”

Not an overly promising response.

“I don’t think he knows about your years spent in the Sea of Souls. Though I will admit, even if he did, he probably wouldn’t have changed the words he said. But you did not wander without purpose, Mydeimos.”

“You think that is why—” Mydei groans in frustration. “It is not my own suffering that I took offense to.”

Tilting his head, Phainon bids him to continue. 

“You—you were on your own for so long. What is ten years to millions of lifetimes of isolation? Or tortuous endurance?”

Phainon of Aedes Elysiae. The boy who was told he would be this epic’s hero only to be the sword of its villain.

He doesn’t realise he’s white-knuckle clutching the fabric of his pants until Mydei’s hand closes over it. No gauntlets. No need for them. Just the warmth of his palm coaxing Phainon to let go.

They listen to the music of the city. They watch the stars fill out the sky. 

“It’s getting late,” Mydei announces, letting go of Phainon’s hand to stand. He turns to bid goodnight to the Kremnoan prince to find that Mydei is waiting for Phainon to rise to his feet too. And does he look, dare Phainon say, nervous?

“I’m alright,” Phainon tries to assure his friend’s worries. “You’re right, it is late,” he sighs, getting up, “strange to say that sleep would do us good, but… we are all plainly mortal now, aren’t we?”

There’s still the undercurrent of anxiousness in Mydei’s brow. “You may…” He clears his throat into his fist and starts again at a more bravadoious octave. “You may share my bedchamber. If you wish for it.” 

Phainon just stares at him, stupidly blinking. 

Mydei sighs. “You don’t have to be by yourself tonight is all that I’m saying.”  

“No, no, thank you,” Phainon nods, “I would like that.” He follows Mydei from the rooftop back to his sleeping quarters. 

Like there was ever a possibility that he would say ‘no’ to such an offer now. 

Fate may have bound him to Mydeimos, like it bound all the Chrysos Heirs to one another, but it was never something that Phainon thought completely out of his control. The Flame Chase, the inheritance of coreflames—all nodes pre-established by a system created back when he was still a figment of an Aeon’s rage; they never defined the relationships that Phainon built. The love that he had for his Okheman family was something created despite the Thereos and his god. A gift, perhaps given by Cyrene herself, that had the Heirs form that dual bond of friendship and shared duty. 

Mydei was never thrust upon Phainon to love and adore; that happened of his own accord. Something that Phainon walked towards, open and unguarded, every cycle—loving Mydeimos. In every touch that was restrained and kiss that never came; Phainon would find himself inexplicably incapable of sharing his great love with anyone else. 

Without the sense of unwavering duty, he finds that ‘aimless wandering’ has once again led him back to wishing for Mydei’s heart. 

Once they reach his home, Mydei sheds his usual attire in the adjoining chamber and returns dressed simply, a bed-skirt tied low at his hips, the lines of old scars no longer obscured by golden jewellery or a red chiton. He lies down on the far edge of the bed with his back to Phainon, broad shoulders rising and falling with a steady, unguarded breath.

“I did not invite you here to stand guard all night. Rest.”

Phainon discards his boots, coat and belt, but leaves the rest of his clothes on. He lies down on his back on top of the covers, leaving enough space between their bodies to be innocent. Naturally, the ceiling holds no interest to him, so Phainon turns over. His next breath catches somewhere in his chest.  

The sight of Mydei’s back pulls something loose inside him. Memory intrudes, unbidden: the angle, the force, the inevitability of what would happen once he saw this opening. How routine it had become. How practiced. How many times his blade had found that same place, again and again, because Khaslana always knew where to strike.

His stomach twists.

“Could you…” Phainon’s voice falters before he can stop it. He swallows and tries again. “Could you turn around?”

Mydei does not ask why.

He turns at once, shifting so that he faces Phainon instead. Eyes remaining steady as a lion’s—watchful and patient. He waits, as though he has all the time in the world to give Phainon this moment to breathe and decide which path he wants to take next.

Truthfully, it would be easier if he weren’t looking at him like this.

Eons of resolve crumble around him like the fallen walls of Styxia. Comfort calls out to Phainon and, god, he wants to take it. He wants to remember what the panting in Mydei’s mouth tastes like. He’s tired of pretending that daring to want makes him reckless. 

So he brings their lips together.  

Because kissing Mydei does not feel reckless. It feels ordained by the gods. The ones that don’t exist and the ones that do. They have only done this once before. The first cycle. Before Phainon was forced into his ultimate fate. Even after he feared he’d lost his humanity, completely transformed into the Flame Reaver, he never faulted on that promise he made to himself at the start of cycle two: “You will never love him again.”

Love—the way that Mydei deserved to be loved. Phainon will still fall for Mydei in every lifetime, but he would never know what his lips felt like, what he sounded like in the midst of passion, the smell of his hair after it had been combed through with fragrant oils. Those memories only belonged to Khaslana. He was the only one strong enough to bear their weight. 

This body he now wears is Khaslana as much as it is Phainon. As such, a push and pull rages inside his mind about how much of this he is allowed. It causes him to falter his lips’ movements. Grip Mydei’s face and ask for either absolution or damnation in his regal eyes. 

Just tell me, Mydeimos— 

“Who am I?” Phainon asks, when Mydei fails to address the pause in a reunion that’s waited countless lifetimes.   

Mydei, to his credit, appears to think over the question with no small amount of reverence. He finally settles on: “A man who seeks forgiveness where none is needed.”

“Tch.” Phainon pulls away. He does not need these false truths to comfort him. 

“You think that is a joke? Or a lie?” Mydei’s voice grows in volume. He shifts his body so that he’s pinning Phainon on his back, thighs on either side of his hips. “Coreflame or not, dammit, you were Amphoreus’s worldbearer!” 

It hurts. It hurts. It hurts. 

“Mydei…” 

“So don’t start with that crap! The man I know would blame himself for everything that led us to this freedom.”

“Wait, what—“

Mydei prods his chest with an accusatory finger. “That’s how I know you’re the Phainon I know. Because even now, you’re thinking the same as him, because you are him! You’re the man who unapologetically met me in battle and proved to be my equal! Who I trusted my weakness to in every life because that is the man that you are to me.”

“I…” he's at a loss for words. How can one even attempt to match the thunderous roar of a mighty lion? 

“Tch, I can see that brain of yours moving. Always thinking about others. Well fine. You want a simple answer to who you are?” Mydei crashes his full weight onto Phainon’s hips. “Tonight, you are mine, Phainon.” 

He leans in with his tongue first and Phainon remembers what Mydei’s pants taste like: victory. 

Mydei kisses underneath his jaw. A gentle press of lips that quickly turns into something else. His tongue comes out, wet and hot, drawing lines beneath his choker to trace the golden sun tattoo. The band snaps against his throat and Phainon realises that Mydei is grabbing at it with his teeth. 

Well that won’t do anything for the barbaric Kremnoan image. 

And Phainon goes to say as much, when Mydei slots one of his strong thighs in between Phainon’s legs. The meaty muscle shifts against his crotch, which is rousing a reaction that Phainon hadn’t allowed himself to experience in Kephale knows how long. 

“Mydei,” he whines, pulling the back of the scruffy mane to get Mydei’s attention away from where his neck is getting thoroughly abused. 

Mydei looks down at him with slick, red lips and a flushed face. The sun had always looked glorious at his back, but moonlight is an entirely new perspective of beauty. Pale blue light caressing warmed crimson-marked skin. He’s everything Phainon ever wanted in a lover, a friend, a soulmate. 

“You’ll let me have you.” It’s a statement phrased as a question, Phainon is sure of it, Mydei would never force anything onto him. Hell, Mydeimos made it his personal mission to try and alleviate Phainon of any unnecessary burdens. 

“You want me.” Phainon’s reply is also an unasked question. 

“Tsk, you’re talking stupid again.” 

The pressure against Phainon’s growing arousal is increased. He seethes in a quick breath between his teeth. 

“Of course I want you.” Mydei’s hand lifts the bottom of Phainon’s shirt. “Every… ugh.” His hand grips at Phainon’s waist. “Just, take your shirt off.”

Whilst Phainon sits up to pull the tight fabric over his head, Mydei gets off the bed to retrieve something from his bathroom. When he comes back, he halts, watching Phainon take in heavy breaths on his bed. His eyes dart to the tent in Phainon’s black trousers. 

“Those too.” 

He anticipates Mydei to re-join him on the bed, yet he remains standing, a vial clutched in one hand, the other lightly fondling the bulge underneath his bed-skirt. 

As Phainon starts to wiggle his hips out of his pants, Mydei’s fingers untie his skirt, the burgundy cloth falling to the floor. His cock isn’t fully filled yet, a memory that is both arousing and painful for Phainon to recall. How long has it been since he’d appreciated Mydei’s nakedness? His masculine sex? Erotic imagery that only comes from the type of intimacy that he can’t imagine sharing with anyone else. And why would he?

Mydei opens the oil bottle and splashes some on his hand. He takes a hold of himself at the base, starting to lazily stroke, never taking his attention off the man in his bed. 

“Pants,” he reminds in a smug tone, revelling in the way Phainon is staring slackjawed at him. He thinks he hears a rip when the trousers completely come off. 

“Good.” 

Phainon makes a low noise in the back of his throat. Mydei clicks his tongue. Understandably too, it wasn’t exactly enthusiastic praise and Phainon is melting for it like a puppy. 

But Mydei doesn’t follow his scoff up with teasing, he releases himself, walks back over to the bed and crawls over him. With his clean hand, he pinches Phainon’s jaw up to look at him. 

Phainon’s mouth hangs slightly open, but his eyes are wide because so are Mydei’s. So wide and open and staring into Phainon’s like he’s searching for something that he lost long ago. 

I returned your ring to you every time. You don’t need to look for it anymore.  

“I missed you.”

And then Mydei’s surging forward, or Phainon’s reaching up. Both, together. They meet and kiss with such force that the thundering of Georios’s boulders would be pebble skipping in comparison.

Phainon’s nails dig deep into muscled shoulders. His knees rise to box Mydei in from either side, pinning him close so that the heat of their bodies can rub together. Between kisses, Mydei reaches between them and takes his oiled cock in his hand, rubbing it against Phainon’s. It’s unadulterated bliss. 

Phainon’s head tilts away from Mydei’s mouth to moan openly into the room. The throbbing of blood so insistently beating against his most sensitive parts is utterly intoxicating. He could get off just like this, a part of him wants to, and yet another greedier, hungrier urge fills his stomach with butterflies that feel as heavy as stones.

“Do you remember—” He starts to say, caught off by another moan when Mydei’s slick hand drops below his cock and starts to massage his perineum.

“I remember,” Mydei breathes into his neck. 

The arrangement that they had at the start of their relationship in cycle one. Where the victor of a challenge got the right to choose which one would take the other. It started in earnest at first, both men fighting to be the one that penetrated—some childish notion that bedroom dynamics were conducive to power. Eventually, as they grew used to each other’s bodies in a more intimate sense, their roles during sex changed depending on the mood. Both were happy to play either penetrative position. Both were happy to play neither—take each other in their hands as Mydei had started to do tonight. But there were times like this, when Phainon felt an ache of unquenchable emptiness, that he desperately needed the man he loved to fill it.          

Mydei being on top became Phainon’s comfort sex—is that strange?

The fingers at his rear start to move their massage further back. Phainon tilts his hips up to allow better access, and gasps when they finally reach their intended destination. Mydei slips the tip of one inside and Phainon can’t help but whimper at how good it feels and how much he missed this. 

“You’re too far away,” Mydei gusts, removing his finger and sitting back on his knees. “Come here, put your back to my chest.” 

Phainon does as he’s asked, scrambling onto his knees and lining himself up against Mydei’s thick chest. He preemptively spreads his legs. 

“Perfect,” Mydei whispers into his ear, sending shivers down his spine despite the fact that sweat is dripping there instead. 

The first finger goes back inside of him, all the way, soon followed by the second. He crooks them just so to rub against his walls. Pushing and probing in the most delicious way. Phainon arches his back against the feeling, chasing the pressure and fullness. Mydei wraps his other arm around his chest, keeping him close. His hand travels up to hold Phainon’s jaw up, allowing him unadulterated access to the column of his throat, where Mydei licks a long line.

“I missed you,” he says it again, with so much sincerity that Phainon almost cries. All he can do is pant, grip at Mydei’s arm and the back of his head, keeping him at his throat so that his heart beats against Phainon’s back and his breath fans across his neck. 

Alive. Alive. Alive.

“You have no idea…” Phainon doesn’t know how to finish that confession. No idea how much he missed Mydei too? How much he loves him? Or how much his body ached for this? Perhaps he means something even more personal; like how lonely Khaslana had been. How broken he became that he was no longer a man by the end. The only shred of humanity he had left was the love for his friends, and even that became twisted into unbridled rage, that then decayed into an unfeeling nothingness. 

You have no idea how good it is to feel again. 

Mydei understands though, because of course he does, understands that there are some things that he couldn’t understand. So he holds Phainon closer, kisses the side of his face, and reminds Phainon of who he is:

“You’re mine.” 

Two more fingers are added. Less focussed on pulling out pleasure and more so on preparing to take in something larger. This, Phainon distantly remembers, was the only downside of Mydei holding this position: it was a lengthy process to prepare for.

Impatience gnaws in his gut. 

He drops his arm from Mydei’s wrist, snakes it between their bodies to try and get a hold of what he really wants inside of him. 

“HSK, wait!” Mydei jabs his fingers against his prostate in reprimand. Phainon cries out, wriggling and gasping for more. 

“Please, please,” Phainon begs in broken whimpers that would embarrass him under usual circumstances. Relenting to his pleas, Mydei extracts his fingers, rubbing the residual oil around Phainon’s rim in one last act of preparation. 

“Lay down on your back,” he instructs, gently moving Phainon down to the mattress. “I want to see your face.”

I want to see yours too. I’ve never forgotten it. I’ve never forgotten you.

Phainon lies down and pulls Mydei along with him. Their chests crash together and Phainon pulls back the sun-kissed hair from his face. Mydei is so beautiful. Surging forward, lips first, Phainon pulls him into a heated kiss filled with so much passionate longing that he feels his heart may explode. 

Consumption by Mydeimos; it doesn’t sound like a bad way to go.   

Not that Mydei would let him—not now that he has him, that they have each other. He lifts one of Phainon’s legs up onto his shoulder. 

“I’ve always loved your thighs,” he growls, pressing open-mouthed kisses to them. His teeth come out, barely a bite, and yet Phainon still hisses and jerks at the sensation of it. 

“Myd—”

“It’s alright, I’ve got you.” One last kiss and Mydei is throwing the other leg over his shoulder and lining himself up. 

“I’ve got you.” Said again as a promise across Phainon’s lips.  

He pushes in and fires burn at the back of Phainon’s eyes. Mydei groans, low and guttural, hesitantly moving more of himself inside. He seals his lips over Phainon’s, masking both of their sounds as he gradually gets the full length of himself seated. When their pelvis finally meet, he pulls off Phainon’s mouth and brings their foreheads together. 

How long did Khaslana wait in the depths of Iron Tomb? Burnt out but not yet extinguished? How long did his heart beat, so faint and undiscernible to anyone, alone at the bottom of oblivion? Holding out hope that the Deliverer would come and put an end to his torment? And then another part of him, the still very Phainon part, who was just waiting for…

“Waited. So long.” He keeps Mydei pressed against his face.

“I know,” Mydei whispers, the timbre of his voice breaking and sounding much softer. He kisses Phainon’s lips. “I know.” 

Then he rocks his hips. The room around them is warm, the sheets tangled beneath them, their breaths mixing as their bodies move together in something not entirely unlike a spar. Learned and practiced, falling into place like no time had passed since that first cycle.

Usually, he would have straightened up onto his knees. Taken Phainon’s ankles in his hands and pounded himself into him so that all moans were silenced by the slapping of skin against skin. Both men would normally revel in the fact of being thrown around and maneuvered so easily. 

This time, Mydei pushes himself back up on his arms, muscles flexing as he does so. Golden-red hair falling over his face. Sent adrift with determined pants gusting out of the man. He looks so breathtaking up close. The focus on his face. The sheer will to not lose control like he so obviously wants to do. Mydei is insistent on putting his own animalistic tendencies aside to properly indulge in Phainon’s body. 

Making him feel loved. Cherished.    

A rhythmical pulse of hips. A push, a drag, a deeper push, Phainon whimpers, and Mydei watches him fall into a river of affection. Drowning in it. Completely boneless and sinking deeper until his lungs are filled with the honey-thick ambrosia called pleasure. 

“Hngh-! Phainon.” Mydei accentuates his name with a clawing grip against his backside, pushing it up and apart to allow better, deeper access into his guts. 

And he loves him. He loves him. He loves him. 

“Mydei, please!” Phainon cries out in lieu of a declaration of love. 

Mydei buries his face in the side of Phainon’s neck, egregiously huffing in his scent between drags of teeth and tongue. 

He finishes inside him like that. Gripping, desperate, and close. 

The warmth feels so different to the heat of the coreflames. Not a flicker from one, or a burn from a million—this heat ignites Phainon in a way that is more primal and undeniably human. Lust and hunger. Blessings of Strife painting his insides. 

Phainon practically screams when Mydei takes him in his hand, kissing his neck, his face, his lips, and rutting into the mess he’s made inside of him. 

The agony of this world. 

Phainon ejaculates over Mydei’s knuckles. 

The dawn-bringer that never bore witness to it. 

Mydei presses their foreheads together and groans, pleased and satiated. 

The folly of man. 

They kiss one another and neither mentions the tears. 

“What is this?” 

Phainon looks up from the puzzle board towards the sound of Mydei’s voice. 

“Lord Mydei,” Hyacine greets, “I didn’t expect to see you in the Scholar’s Quarter. What a nice surprise!”

Before Mydei can take any kind of offence to that, Tribios enthusiastically pats the cushion next to her. 

“Dei! Come here! You can help me win!” 

Mydei has always had a soft spot for Tribios, and her bright smile is no match for all those Kremnoan muscles. He gives Phainon a small nod and a smile as he takes his pillowed throne. 

He looks far more relaxed these days without having to wear his gauntlets. Phainon, himself, has shed his usual regalia for a white chiton with navy trousers. He doesn’t need all the buckles and braces his old attire had, now that he isn’t carrying Dawnmaker around with him. Not having to be ready for battle at all times is something both he and Mydei are still getting accustomed to. 

Only seven days have passed since they woke up—in the scale of everything, a week is nothing. 

“I know this game,” Mydei sounds surprised. “Members of the Kremnoan detachment used to play this.”

“I didn’t know Nike was played outside of Okhema,” Hyacine smiles, “why didn’t you ever play with us before?”

Mydei glances at her, then back to the board. “I didn’t really have the time.”

“You should always make time for rest and relaxation," she insists with a stern nod. “We could have been humiliating each other with proper military doctrine this entire time.”

Tribios tilts her head towards Mydei. “Have we been playing it wrong?”

“Not wrong,” Mydei says, tone softening as his eyes flick to Tribios. “Just… loosely interpreted.”

Hyacine presses a hand to her chest. “Loosely interpreted? We have been improvising sacred battlefield traditions?”

Phainon inquisitively looks at the pieces on the board. “Is there a correct spiritual posture for moving a Titan two squares left?” He laughs.

“There is now,” Hyacine declares, straightening her back to attention like she were back in one of Professor Anaxa’s lectures.

Mydei leans forward, elbows braced on his knees. “You’ve built your formation too wide,” he observes, tapping the edge of Tribios’ outer flank. “If this were played properly, your citadel would already be under siege.”

“Oh! Show me.” Tribios brightens and excitedly claps her hands together.

Phainon shifts aside to give him space. Mydei reaches across the board, long fingers nudging a piece into place with careful precision. He explains as he goes; in the same tone a commander would use to outlining battlefield adjustments.

“In Kremnos, the Titan is rarely the centre. You build pressure elsewhere. Force your opponent to commit first.”

Hyacine squints at him. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”

“It’s battle strategy,” Mydei huffs, badly masking his grin. “Not enjoyment.”

“That smile suggests otherwise,” Phainon murmurs.

Mydei ignores him.

Within a few turns, Tribios has reversed her losing position. Hyacine stares at the board like it has personally offended the lineage of all Sky-folk.

“This is collusion,” she grumbles, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

“It’s mentorship,” Tribios corrects, elbowing Mydei in the side with a playful wink. “Now perish forces of Hyacinthia!” The madness of her laugh sounds frighteningly like Anaxa’s. 

“You’ve created a monster, you know that right?” Phainon rests his chin in his palm, staring at Mydei.

“If I lose because of you, I’m blaming Kremnos entirely.” Hyacine points accusingly at Mydei. 

Mydei shrugs. “You were losing already.”

Tribios giggles while Hyacine gasps. “I retract my earlier statement. You are not a nice surprise.”

Laughter breaks around the table, easy and carefree. For a moment it feels startlingly normal. No prophecy or Flame Chase to occupy their conversation. No threat of the ever-looming Black Tide. No Iron Tomb or endless cycles of fighting. Just pieces sliding across carved stone and mock outrage over imaginary wars. It could have always been like this. 

It will be now.

“Oh! It’s later than I thought,” Tribios looks out of the window to the setting sun. “I promised Agy I would review the archives with her at dawn.”

“You’re right,” Hyacine agrees. “I’m working at the Twilight Courtyard tonight and I would like to have some dinner beforehand.” She rises, stretching her arms overhead. “Very well. I will spare you both from my tactical genius for the evening.”

“You mean tactical recklessness,” Phainon grins.

“Fortune favours the bold, Lord Phainon,” she playfully flicks him on the back of the head.

“Fortune favours the prepared,” Mydei corrects alongside a smug grin.

Tribios laughs, bidding goodnight to the men and departing with Hyacine, their voices fading down the corridor of the leisure hall.

The room grows quieter with only the board remaining between the two of them.

Mydei studies it for a long moment before sweeping the fallen pieces upright. “Another match,” he decides without asking.

“You’re dissatisfied with your performance?” Phainon chuckles, putting his pieces back into their starting positions.

“I wasn’t playing seriously.”

“No, of course not.”

It’s strange to think about: Mydei holding back his punches. Never once had he done that in one of their training spars or (reflectively) pointless competitions. Whatever the challenge was, Phainon could bet that Mydei would bring his all. Always one to put his whole heart and body into something. 

He watches Mydei make his opening move. A risky move that invites a competitive game where both players will need to make strategic sacrifices if they’re to claim their opponent’s King.

The first quarter of the match plays out without either of them saying a word. Mydei looks up, occasionally, perhaps asking in his own way for Phainon to speak.  

“You’re quiet.”

So that’s what he starts with? Well, suppose the Kremnoan dictionary was short on words.

“I’m concentrating.” 

And Aedes Elysiae wasn’t known for their poets. 

“You’ve always been such an open book, even when you thought you were hiding it.” Mydei moves his piece two spaces forward. “It’s not like you to be so closed off.”

“Maybe I've finally learned that letting my emotions run so openly only leads to de—“ 

“Destruction,” Mydei says it for him. “It’s just a word, Phainon.”

He can recall countless lectures at the Grove where Professor Anaxa would speak at length about the power of words. How they could cut through a person with more precision than swords or spears. 

Yes, destruction is just a word. 

And Phainon feels the slice tearing him in two. A vessel for coreflames that revoked his humanity. A farm boy who wanted to protect his village. 

He doesn’t even realise he’s shaking until Mydei places his hand on his knee. 

“It’s your turn.”

The puzzle board awaits his next move. Phainon takes his weakest piece and sends it into firing range of Mydei’s offence. 

“Foolish,” Mydei grunts, displeased, and takes Phainon’s sacrificial piece. 

“Ha,” Phainon gusts, and brings forward the Titan piece to avenge his footsoldier and steal Mydei’s victory. 

“Dammit,” Mydei grumbles. He covers the lower half of his face and studies the board. The last echoes of the golden blood they once all shared are hidden within Mydei’s eyes. There’s something poetic about that. If he were a better author, Phainon would write pages and pages of prose dedicated to the way the light sends Mydei’s eyes aflame. How they are warm and fierce and devastating all at once.

“You say it is just a word,” Phainon brings the conversation backwards. “And yet you haven’t called me ‘Deliverer’ once in this cycle. Why is that?”

Mydei freezes. He lifts his head out of his hand and narrows those golden-blood eyes. “We’re not in a cycle.”

No, of course. Though can Mydei blame him for forgetting?

“You’re avoiding the question,” Phainon nudges. 

“Hmph, I’ll tell you if you beat me at this game.” 

The game goes on for much longer than Tribios and Hyacine’s. Both men seemingly evenly matched at yet another activity. While Phainon surpassed with academic knowledge, Mydei was far superior in the act of warfare stratagem. It made a game like Nike a level playing-field. 

In the end, Mydei is victorious. 

“Well played,” Phainon congratulates his opponent whilst they pack away the pieces. “Though I don’t believe I put something up to wager, did I?” 

What kind of question could he offer Mydei that he didn’t already have free-range of? 

“A question as well then—one that you don’t think I’ll want to answer. I promise I’ll give you my honest truth.”

Mydei looks around the leisure hall to search for nearby ears. There are a few people left, playing their own games in quiet corners. The semi-privacy seems amenable to him. “Why does asking you an uncomfortable question still not feel like a win for me?”

Unable to resist the urge, Phainon dances his fingers up Mydei’s arm before lightly tapping his nose. “Because you’re seriously uptight.” 

He pulls away with a sigh and Phainon can only laugh. “Really though, are you sure there isn’t anything you’ve been itching to ask?” Not that he can recall Mydei ever being a man that held his tongue for politeness-sake, but doesn’t everyone have a burning question that they wish they could so candidly ask? 

Fighting back the clench on his jaw, Mydei steals his resolve and looks Phainon in the eye. His next words are coated in something that sounds awfully close to rejection. “Why just that once?” 

Phainon pauses just as the Nike box is placed onto its shelf. Further context to those four words is not needed. 

Why didn’t they have that relationship in every cycle? The one that they both wanted? Because Phainon promised himself that he wouldn’t. Because duty felt far greater than indulging in the pleasure of the flesh and the softness of the heart. Because romance was bound to Agaela and left no place for Phainon to take some for himself.

“Because you never made a move.” 

The most immature, petulant reason, but still an honest answer nevertheless. 

“Please,” Mydei rolls his eyes, sarcasm thick, “like it would be appropriate for me to cross that line first. You were the one tasked with the Flame Chase, who was beloved by all of Okhema. What would it have meant for my people if you refused me? ‘The Kingslayer Prince defiles Lady Aglaea’s Golden Boy’; the people of Kremnos already carried enough prejudice without their leader accosting Amphoreus’ Deliverer.”

Mydei clenches his fist at the slip of the title. 

“It’s just a word,” Phainon repeats softly, taking a hold of Mydei’s fist and rolling out his fingers. “And I don’t think there would have ever been a reality in which I let those rumours spread.” He would have never allowed the Kremnoan people to suffer over baseless slander.         

“It still didn’t feel allowed,” Mydei huffs. 

And what a ridiculous thought that is. 

Still holding his hand, Phainon brings it up to his mouth and places a doting kiss on his signet ring. “You are always allowed to touch me.”

“Well in that case,” curling his hand around Phainon’s jaw, Mydei brings him in close, “to the victor go the spoils.” 

Mydei presses their lips together. He kisses him for the first time, for the second time, for a lifetime of kisses that never came. The consistency with how his mouth feels against Phainon’s own is something that transcends lifetimes and ushers him home every time; with that same sense of familiarity and assurance that he is welcomed here.   

And much to the surprise of others, (though none shall know), Mydei does not make love the way that he fights. 

He’s devotingly gentle. Even when he’s asked to be rougher, meaner, Phainon can take it—he always responds the same way: “I will not hurt you.” 

He says it sometimes with a tender kiss, other times with tired frustration. And every time it’s promised, Phainon believes it, and it makes him want to die. 

And Phainon?

Well.

Phainon is not gentle. 

They are barely out of the Scholar’s Quarter when he’s pushing Mydei, face-first, into one of the quieter alley walls. His hands dig deep into his hips, shamelessly grinding himself against that pert backside. 

Mydei laughs against the sandstone wall. “We’re still a good walk from either of our homes.”

Curse this obscenely large city. 

“You want it that bad, huh?” Is Mydei’s response to the aggravated growl Phainon lets out, because yes—they are still a decent ten minutes from the privacy of a bed. 

“You wanted it like this, right, victor?” Teasing, Phainon thrusts his incessantly hardening problem into the back of the red chiton. 

Mydei bites down on his fist to keep back a trembling sound. It’s unbecoming for royalty to be so taken apart in public. 

“I’d fuck you here in the street if I could.” Phainon bites his ear and the aborted moan slips out anyway. 

“I’ve never—ngh, heard such filth from you.” Despite his apparent protests, Mydei grinds his arse back against him.  

“Do you not like it?” Phainon asks in a surprisingly level voice, heard perched over his shoulder. 

“Heh.” Mydei flips himself around and lets Phainon’s hands automatically pin his wrists to either side of his head. 

“Well go on,” he goads, shifting his thigh in between Phainon’s legs and applying a gloriously brutal pressure. “Fuck me in the street.”

Now it’s Phainon’s turn to be the untamed animal. Growling again, he wraps his arms around Mydei’s waist, lifting him up, over his shoulder. 

“D—Phainon! What are you doing!?”

Phainon starts to run towards Mydei’s home. Closer by about two minutes. He’s not going to subject all of Okhema to what he’s about to do to the Kremnoan’s prince. 

Vases are knocked over. Oils run messily along the floor. Tapestries torn to shreds. And bodies press against the wall.  

Phainon leaves bruises over the scars. Raw power making his hips snap into Mydei at a brutal pace.  

Mydeimos lets out a thunderous battle cry. Open and flayed. Handing over the agency of his body to the person he trusts most with it. 

With his mouth, his fingers, his cock: Phainon takes Mydei five times that night. 

The first orgasm is felt like a hammer strike. The last more closely resembles how his body felt when the blood crystals would penetrate from his veins through his skin. Mydei tells him this, afterwards, when they’re spent and soft. Phainon stretches the muscles he’s thoroughly abused and Mydei fills the silence with descriptors for each of his climaxes. The man falls over words when he has to talk of his own emotions, but is oddly comfortable analysing the nuances of cumming dry. 

A strange man. 

A perfect man. 

Phainon might have him again before the sun comes up. 

A month passes before the inevitable split that Mydei spoke of their first night rears its head. 

Tomorrow he will leave Okhema to return to Castrum Kremnos. 

Aglaea and Tribios insist on holding a feast for him and the Kremnoan soldiers that will be accompanying Mydei back to their homeland. Without Jansus’ Passage, none are sure what will be found there. An expedition into a city that has been disconnected from the rest of Amphoreus since her last King was slayed. Eurypon was dead before they materialised here. Mydei killed his father, he also didn’t. Remembrance is an odd thing to be built from.  

After noticing his absence from the tail end of the festivities, Phainon excuses himself and goes to search for Mydei. He finds him on their rooftop. He’s watching those real stars again. 

“Wish you could see them up close?” Phainon joins him and looks up into the infinite cosmos. 

“Hmph. No, I don’t. Do you?”

Phainon sighs. “Someday, maybe, yes. I’d like to see other worlds, hear of the tales told across galaxies. Visit places that are like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

“You always did like adventures.” 

“Mm.”

They’re silent. The sound of the lively town-square below provides ambience for such a bittersweet night. Tomorrow Mydei will journey for three days through the Thera Wilds and Achilles Desert before arriving on his home soil.  

Tomorrow.

What a melancholic word that weighs so heavy on all of them. A day that sits at the end of things and the start of something new. A place for both goodbyes and reunions. 

How bittersweet. 

“Do you still think you’ll go back to your hometown?” Mydei asks, head still tilted towards the endless nightsky. 

Aedes Elyisae. Seas of golden wheat beckoning for young children to play through, their hands grazing upon those grassy stalks. Phainon can still see Cyrene there; chasing after her whilst she runs between plants nearly as tall as them. His heart pangs with the nostalgia of their childhood. How precious it was. That those children that ran through wheat fields together, exist only in memory now. 

“Not yet,” Phainon settles with. He’s not ready to return to such a fragile place. 

Mydei gruffs, amused. “Not yet ready to go beyond the stars, not yet ready to return home. Do you plan on staying in Okhema then? Living out your days in the comfort of Marmoreal Palace?”

“It’s not the worst option, I’ll give it that.”

Mydei turns to face him, one eyebrow raised. 

Phainon laughs. “Don’t misunderstand, I don’t intend to stay in one place forever. Just… comfort and familiarity—that wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”

“You know, you could always come back with me. You’ll always have a place by my side. I can offer you that comfort and familiarity in Kremnos.”

Smiling at the seriousness in which Mydei’s face has taken, Phainon can’t help but tease—he pretends to think it over. “Tempting. Tell me, would that make me the crown princess of Kremnos?”

“HSK!” He shoves Phainon’s shoulder. “I’m not asking you to wed me!” 

Phainon’s eyes widen. Mydei’s follow soon after. 

“Besides,” he clears his throat, “you, uh, no. No, you would not.”

Turning his body around to properly face him, Phainon takes a hold of both Mydei’s hands. Thumbs trace over the raised skin of callouses forged from countless battles. Palms as hard as gauntlets. So soft when they hold him. 

“I wouldn’t care if you took me to Castrum Kremnos like a spoil of war. As long as I’m there—with you.” A tear escapes his eye. 

Mydei brings their hands up to his face. He presses his lips devotingly to each of the knuckles that wielded the genocidic blade. 

Always so gentle. 

“I’m with you too, Phainon.” Gilded eyes convey no trace of doubt. Purest form. Amber that remembers a promise made in eternity. “You won’t be alone.”

Such sincerity, and tears fall freely down his face now. Phainon hiccups back a sob that just turns into an open weep. Mydei pulls him into his chest and clutches the back of his head like he’s afraid to let go. 

Not alone. Never alone again.

“You’ll get sick of me,” Phainon sniffles, nuzzling his face into the warm chest, and hearing the heart he covets so dearly beating strong.  

“Hmph. Probably.” Mydei holds him tighter, kissing the top of his head. 

“But I will still love you.”

"Khaslana, my friend, and Phainon, the Hero of Amphoreus; enjoy this new epic. A story that continues to be so hopeful and romantic. Trust in the love that your friends have for you. Revel in their laughs and smiles. You have all the time you need in this new world; there is a lot of space between now and Tomorrow.”