#Anaxa

[miothle]

anaxa/goras/ 🌌

[st4rofeden]

Phainon does not hide his love.

he shouts it from rooftops. he turns compliments into poetry. he would serenade you on a battlefield if the acoustics were good enough. would.

to him, loving you is a privilege.

he buys you flowers because behind the fake sky—"the stars aligned nicely." he crafts a necklace from fallen shards of starlight "so your beauty reflects in every mirror of the universe." he kneels to tie your shoe and ends up pressing a kiss to your knuckles.

when you''re sad, he monologues dramatically,

"pie—"

"who dared wound my beloved?! i shall write a strongly worded letter. or perhaps… duel them with a spoon!" he says that, but he's already prepared to burn them to ashes.

beneath the theatrics is sincerity. raw, honest devotion.

he notices when your voice trembles. he cups your face like it might dissolve. he sings to you when you're asleep, even when you throw a pillow at his face. he'll take it. because you need to hear it. his one in countless proves of his love for you.

for Phainon, devotion is worship. loud and lyrical. but also quiet, when you need it most— his arms tight around you, his lips against your temple, whispering

"I was born under many stars. but I only orbit you."

Anaxagoras doesn’t say he loves you. not at first.

he proves it, like a thesis, in the same way the sun proves daybreak— precise, reliable, inarguable

he learns your patterns like he studies the stars. how many degrees your eyebrows bent depending how sad you are, the kind of books you reach for when you're tired. the exact flavour of tea that calms you fastest. the angle you lean when you're sad but don't want to say it.

he adjusts, he leaves you notes on your desk— questions you like to debate, half-formed poetic thoughts, sometimes just "Today, I considered your laugh and lost 7 minutes of productive thinking. Worth it."

when you're ill, he slips a schedule for your medicine on one of your books. If you cry, he sits beside you in stillness and lets you rest your head on his shoulder like it’s sacred. when he thinks you’re asleep, he whispers

“You are my exception. My constant. My only logical fallacy.”

he doesn't say "I love you". But you can feel it — in the way he lets you annotate his lecture drafts, how he pauses mid theorem just to brush a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

to Anaxagoras, devotion is not passion unbound. But faithfulness made daily, made conscious, made eternal.

Mydeimos ? isn’t good with words.

but he is good with keeping you company. with sharing his presence if it calms you even the tiniest. he just knows what to do when you sulk, when your tears rolled down from your cheek, when you're awfully quiet, he takes care of you delicately like a withering violet

showing up with a paper bag of loaves at your door. when you said you "weren’t feeling like talking." he sits with you in silence until you do.

he shows love through his hands. he often bakes your favorite bread. even if you’re too tired to stand, he just lifts you. If you look cold, he'll offer you a hug by spreading his arms without a word.

and when he decides to speak it? it's short. but it lands like gravity.

"I dont care if you're a mess. I've cleaned worse and loved harder (you)."

He doesn't look at anyone the way he looks at you— gaze lowered, like you’re the most vulnerable truth he knows how to hold.

for Mydeimos, devotion is physical, tangible. never flashy, never loud.

but real — as warm as the bread he bakes and the way his arms never let go when you need them.

[koifish-kk]

what is wrong with him

[kiraandfriendss]

amphoreus summer

[xxenon-54]

the great performer

[manytoonepoet]

I sit by the window of our second-floor classroom, and I like to think of several characters by then.

I think of Veritas and Anaxagoras and how, before a long day of lectures and paperwork, they would sit in their office, eyes closed, breathing even, and simply listen to the birdsong that seeped through the barely-open window.

I think of Phainon and Mydei sparring under a bright sunny day, free from the burdens of war and bloodshed.

I think of Jing Yuan, Silver, and Ritsu as they nap under the shade of a tree, nestled by the dewy grass beneath and caressed by the dappled sunlight that pierced through the tree's canopy.

I think of Izumi as he stretches and breathes in the cool morning air as he prepares himself for yet another day of dance practice and photoshoots.

I think of Leo, laughing and exclaiming "INSPIRATION~♪★" as he runs closer to the origin of the sound and revels in the treasure that is the birdsong, naturally and specially made by nature for us to enjoy, even if we forget about it sometimes.

I think of all of this. A quiet moment by the window is a good time to think of all of this.

[yourtaxcoll3ctor]

Who should Bobby be?

[localapparently]

hand moved on its own and anaxaglaea appeared on my canvas im normal im normal they dont make me feel things nuh uh . a aAAa aA

[rezoeline]

[yuechihua]

as it was and as it will be.

summary: To Anaxa, there is no world where you do not exist by his side.

notes: 4.4k words, author's notes, angst, unhealthy relationships, obsession, minor self-violence for the sake of rituals, grief, disregard of one's health, art trade with @uncookfish

i. body

It’s been four months, three weeks, five days, and thirteen hours since Anaxa has received news of your death and he’s first formulated his plans to revive you. 

Since then, the eternal night of the Grove blurs into a meaningless smear of time, broken up only by his incessant research and the physical limitations of his own body, where exhaustion overtakes him and he’s forced to either eat, sleep, or collapse on the spot.

It’s this that bothers Anaxa the most: the inability to keep going, a reminder of his own mortal failings, irritating above all else. The time he spends resting is time he can spend working, and yet, he has to concede defeat to his own need for sustenance. 

Besides that, sleep has not come easily to him, not since you’ve been gone. He spends late nights in his office, the wick of his candle burning long past the hour everyone else has retired to bed. Alchemical equations scatter across his desk while tomes on Thanatos and the nature of death spill off his shelves and pile on the floor in messy heaps.

To wrench someone back from the hands of death requires a sacrifice of equivalent worth. Anaxa has experimented with his own blood, with the ragged chunks of his remaining soul, with organs he can live without, even if it becomes slightly inconvenient: his spleen, a kidney, his liver.

But nothing is enough to pull you back. Anaxa only summons snatches of memories that dissipate like mist under sunlight before he can cling onto them more closely: lotuses floating in the steam of a warm bath, golden blood tracing patterns onto his back, the soothing motions of your fingers in his hair. 

It’s a sweet distraction, the recollection of old memories, but it pales in comparison to what he really wants. So, he keeps going.

Anaxa takes a leave of absence from teaching to further his own research, announced without any room for debate. The notices from his coworkers pile up at his doors, full of both reprobation and concern. It’s all inconsequential compared to his mission, and he’s long since stopped reading the requests for him to return or to give up on his current blasphemous research.

He hasn’t heard another voice in a long, long time, outside of Hyacine’s, who still knocks on his door and leaves plates of non-perishable food for him. She shows up like clockwork every evening, dedicated and kind even though she is no longer officially working as his assistant. 

“Please, Professor Anaxa,” she urges. “If you need anything, you can come to me. Whatever you’re going through, we can face it together. The Twilight Courtyard will always welcome you.”

She’ll linger for a few seconds, as if giving him time to answer, before the sound of her footsteps recede. She was a great assistant and she is a talented healer, but even Hyacine cannot remedy death.

To understand death, one must first understand the body. The human body is a miracle of machinery, a system of countless, dizzying components that combine into one relatively efficient being. He’s studied each system and organ in exquisite detail, pouring over every diagram he can get his hands on. 

Anaxa has gathered all his materials, calculating the average percentage of elements that should compose your body mass and form into something for you to inhabit. The human body is sixty percent water, and comprises over twenty elements. This is simple enough to understand. He could reconstruct every inch of you, cell by cell, if he has to.

Yes, the body is simple. But it is the soul that still eludes his grasp.

No matter how many times he attempts to call you back to him, you refuse his summons. The hands of death are gentle and firm, gripping your soul much too tenderly for you to slip free from them. Or perhaps you’re the one who’s been enchanted by the fragrance of flowers in the land of the dead, and you’ve forgotten that he’s waiting for you.

It should be easier for him than most, considering that Anaxa has insurance just for this circumstance. The alchemy symbol on his back burns whenever he thinks about the piece of your soul sewn to his, the one part of you that he has left. Even this part of you, which should have been ample enough motivation for your soul to return to him, is not tempting enough.

What is it that he’s missing, then? Does he need to offer his entire body, as battered as it is? Or is there something he has yet to discover, some simple knowledge about the soul that will make all the pieces click into place?

No matter. He can formulate his theories later, and adjust his practice accordingly.

Anaxa kneels in front of the alchemy circle in his office, knife in one hand, and notebook in the other. The circle is lined in golden blood that’s long since dried–perhaps he will retrace it later to insure potency. The runes shine faintly under the candlelight, and, in a single, practiced motion, he pulls his knife across his palm.

It hardly registers as nothing more than a dull sting, and his blood falls like a river, and the circle glows with a new, greedy intensity at his offering. Sweat beads down his forehead, his mind blurring as he struggles to focus. 

Anaxa croons your name, more divine than the gods he shuns. There’s a flicker of light within the circle, and he calls you again, more incessantly. The light burns bright, bright enough to hurt his eyes. He has not seen the sun in a week, and this is as close as Anaxa will get.

But it’s all worth it: you’re so close now. He can almost hear your voice, imagine the touch of your fingers, the smell of your shampoo–and the connection snaps, the light fading, his concentration broken. Anaxa falls back, warm blood still spilling down the length of his forearm as he brings his free hand across his tired eyes.

So he fails yet again. You remain just out of reach, irresistible in death as you were in life. But you’ve stayed just a few seconds longer than last time, which is a victory in and of itself.

Anaxa brings his notebook to his face, wearily penning his next entry, muttering the words out loud: “Experiment #1343 has failed, but the results have proven to be rather valuable…”

He will do this again, and again, and again. Until his body falls apart. Until you’re back by his side. Because you’re his, and he’s yours, and there is nothing in the world that can ever separate you from him.

ii. heart

The night before you leave on an expedition to look for rare tomes, Anaxa sleeps in your room. 

There is nothing particular salacious about the gesture. Since you were students, he often camped out in your room to study or to pester you with his ideas. You always had something interesting to say, whether it was with a bite of annoyance or genuine reflection, which meant he found it worthwhile to stay by your side. That hasn’t changed even now, and it’s strange to remember a time in which you two weren’t close.

Anaxa can still remember the day you met. You were one of the Grove’s librarians, someone he had classes with on occasion, but had never talked to for long. He and you existed in your own orbits, and any interactions were simply momentary intersections of your respective paths.

One unusual day as he was visiting the library, you had, for some reason or another, looked him right in the eyes and asked if you could witness his story, the sole audience to his heretical acts. It was the sheer confidence it took you to ask him that question that piqued his interest. It was also true: every great performer needed an audience to witness their deeds. 

After that, Anaxa spent every moment he could spare in your presence. On one hand, it was for the sole sake of satisfying his curiosity over who you were. And on the other, he enjoyed the way you never shied away from any topic of conversation he broached, and never watched him with judgements already formed regarding his character or theories. 

Time with you contained a curious ease, in a way Anaxa had never experienced before.

Before he could explain why he let you so close, you had become entangled in his small world, as vital a part as the sun or the wind. The Grove was a place of transience. It was the nature of academia for scholars to come and go, and for a new bevy of students to sprout up every semester. And yet, you were always there.

His visits to your room gradually evolved to the point that he often fell asleep in your room, awkwardly positioned against piles of books on your floor, until you started dragging him to sleep in your bed instead.

“If you’re not going to leave, the last thing I want to do is trip over your body in the mornings,” you reasoned.

That was when Anaxa developed an errant habit of his. The two of you began sleeping side by side in the same small, cramped bed, limbs occasionally touching, so close your warmth was a fever he couldn’t ignore. Whenever he couldn’t sleep, which was often, he would listen to and calculate the number of times your heart beat per minute. It was steady and constant in a way few things were, and every thump was a reminder of your presence.

If it wasn’t that, then it was the length of your slow, sleepy breathing that he measured. The human body was truthful in ways words were not, and he could rely on its precision to tell him everything that you would not voice.

You often blame his intrusions into your room on his lack of regard for your personal space. If anything, it should have been a sign he regarded your space highly. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have seen the benefit in staying near you. Yet, despite your complaints, you never locked your door and always let him in.

This night isn’t any different. As you sleep, Anaxa lays his head on his chest, counting each and every beat, feeling the steady rise and fall of your breathing. This is a melody that proves you’re still alive.

Your hand strokes his hair, one long, lazy movement through his silky locks. He stills. You’re still awake. He has been too uncharacteristically careless to notice.

“I’ll be back before long,” you murmur. “There won’t even be time to miss me.”

For the rest of the night, he listens to your heart, and you card gentle fingers through his hair. 

The next morning, you leave. The days stretch into weeks as Anaxa waits for your expedition to return home. And then it does, without you, half its members lost to monsters and the Black Tide.

The only part of you that returns home is a tattered book of children’s fairytales, the binding already falling apart and made worse by the long journey. It was your father’s, and then it was yours, and now, it is his.

The cover is disintegrating, the pages yellowing, the paint fading. But you’d kept it in as pristine a condition as you could. When he flips it open, he thumbs through simple stories about heroes who save their lovers from every trial, and sons who return home from terrible journeys, and monsters who are always vanquished. Would the world be so simple, that a child could believe in it still.

Anaxa has never believed in miracles.

Most miracles are born of the interference of gods, and gods are as fallible as any man. If there is any miracle he could trust, it would be the miracles he wrings from his own hands. So he cannot call it a destined miracle that he’s met you, something woven by the works of Mnestia’s golden threads and drawing the two of you together, like some of his pious peers would claim.

If anything, your meeting is nothing more than simple, random circumstance, and your continued relationship is by choice. He chooses to approach you, again and again. He chooses to keep you by his side. He chooses to have you in his life. The gods have nothing to do with it.

If it is a miracle you’ve met, then it is a miracle he will recreate to pull you back to his side. Death is a simple nuisance, your loss only a temporary impediment to your relationship with him. Others may call it madness, but to him, it is only logic.

You’re gone. That is the simple truth, like harsh, bleached bone. Anaxa is no fool, has no time for misty tears or stammered denials. He knows the others call him cold for his reaction, but he has no time for their judgement.

You’re his, nothing more, and nothing less. You may have had the audacity to leave him without permission, but he will simply pull you right back where you belong. 

iii. blood

The only time Anaxa remembers his sister’s face is when he looks in a mirror. 

Somewhere in the planes of his face, the ridges of bone and seas of flesh, he can find her again. She exists just below his skin, a ghost trapped beneath, that rises every time he traces the shape of his own skin.

They have the same hair, though she kept hers just a bit shorter. Similar eyes, some combination of green and purple, a miniature galaxy. He is intimately familiar with mapping out the shape of her where he can, though he suspects that, at some point, he must have confused his own features for hers. Her face has faded, her voice dulled. It’s only human fallacy, the mind’s trick to protect itself, to try to forget what pains it.

People are lost so easily, if not to death, then to memory, so he must find a way to circumvent both. Humans are not gods, but they will transcend them in time. With your help, Anaxa might find a way to do it sooner than expected.

It’s early morning, some time where even the most stalwart academic has returned to their bed for the night. The two of you are an oddity, made even more so by your ready agreement to participate in one of his experiments, a few days before your expedition away from home, searching for some rare book or another that caught your attention, with a group of enterprising students.

Anaxa hasn’t expected your cooperation in his experiment to be so ready. Maybe it’s some latent curiosity within you, or perhaps you’re simply participating for a selfish reason of your own. Either way, no one except for you would be willing to assist him with this experiment.

“Are memories inscribed in the soul, as well as the mind? If souls are made of the same material, could one transplant pieces of a soul to someone else? If we are to believe in reincarnation, where do new souls come from?”

You hold up a piece of parchment, straddling the edge of his chair, reading off the list of questions he had scribbled one night, facing away from him. Your back is bare in the dim light of his office, flickering candlelight gilding each bone visible through your skin, shadows pooling in every hollow. 

From this angle, you can’t see his own bare chest, the ribs emerging under his skin like shipwrecks, skin stretched tight over missing organs he’s long since given away for his alchemical research. You’re both partially naked, but there’s no lust in his gaze as he assesses your back, mapping out where he’ll draw his diagram. The body is simply another tool for his pursuits, nothing more and nothing less.

“By the end of this, we’ll have answers for one of those questions,” Anaxa says.

“If we’re lucky,” you say.

“Luck has nothing to do with it.”

He can’t see your face as he moves to stand directly behind you, knife gripped in his hand: plain, unadorned, with a thin blade. He drags it along the meat of his palm, and golden blood blooms across the cut, the pain of which registers as little more than a quick sting.

He dips his finger into blood pooling on his palm, and begins tracing alchemical patterns along your back. Golden ink shimmers against your skin, and he can feel the slow shift of muscle and skin beneath your back, the swell of your breath. He’s closer to you than he’s ever been before, and soon enough, he’ll be closer to you than anyone else will ever be.

The shape on your back slowly takes form, concentric circles and alchemical runes placed at even intervals. There’s a certain mathematical precision to his work, and it’s soothing how each piece falls into place.

Your voice breaks through the stillness. “After this, I’ll have a part of your soul within me, isn’t that right?” 

“And I’ll have a part of yours.”

“An experiment in transplanting pieces of the soul… If the other Sages found out, they might really kick you out. Or burn you at the stake.”

“Which is why they won’t learn anything about what goes on here. Now, it’s your turn.”

Anaxa hands you the knife, still wet with the edge of his own blood. You stand, and the two of you switch seats.

He hears a faint hiss as you cut your palm, still receptive to physical pain in a way experience has trained him out of. Then, there’s the smooth glide of your fingers along his back. Your movements are slow, hesitant, light to the point of ticklishness; you’ve memorized the alchemical circle required for the transfer, but it’s still unfamiliar to you. 

“Anaxa, are you afraid of anything?” 

“You think there’s anything in this world that I have reason to be afraid of?”

“Well, aren’t you? Everyone is afraid.” Your fingers press into his back. “You just hide it better than others.”

Your perception, Anaxa thinks, is something that irritates him at times, and yet, is also annoyingly endearing. “You frighten me more than anything else I’ve known,” he says. 

You say nothing to that, and only continue your slow movements. He wonders what face you’re making now.

After a while, your work is finished. You let your fingers rest against his back for a touch longer than he expects you really need to. Anaxa stands, and holds out both his hands. With golden blood weeping down your own palm, you interlace your fingers with his, pulling your hands flush, palms pressing together so close it chafes at his new wound.

Your touch is painfully warm and he can feel the fluid drip of the blood from your palm mingling with his own, like gold temptation, carving new paths down his wrist and yours. He has the sudden urge to lick the trail it traces down your forearm, but it would be a fruitless waste of time, satisfying nothing but his own perverse desire.

“We’re beginning now,” he says, and at your nod, he launches into a slow recitation of spells under his breath. There’s a pinching sensation somewhere in his chest as he continues, a sensation that feels akin to a loop of wire tightening around his neck until it explodes into red-hot pain, lopping off his head as he continues to speak.

There’s a phantom void within him, born from a sudden absence in his soul, before it’s soothed by the sensation of something cold and uncomfortable, like a block of ice being slowly pressed into his wound. Your soul, filling the newly vacant space. 

Your fingernails dig into the back of his hands as he continues to chant, your face glazed with sweat. You sway slightly, but remarkably, you still remain upright, keeping your gaze locked onto him as if he’s your only anchor to this world.

Maybe he is. When this ritual is complete, you’ll be indelibly intertwined, in ways even the Titans could only dream of. One day, perhaps he’ll be able to transfer all of his soul into you. As of now, it runs too high of a risk of fracturing your mind in the process.

As an experiment, this simple transaction is good enough. It serves as proof of his theories, of course. And for more selfish reasons, it also serves as insurance. No matter where you go or what happens, the two of you will always be bound so closely no one can tear you apart. Not any human, not gods, not even fate itself.

iv. eyes

Though public baths are primarily an Okheman cultural phenomenon, the Grove is not altogether devoid of its influence. Baths here are more quiet, cramped affairs, housing a maximum of several people at a time. Instead of pure marble where every sound echoes and the presence of  constantly flowing water, there is aged wood and still, perfumed water, with flowers drifting on the surface of every bath.

Anaxa has never had a particular affinity for the practice of bathing, though he has known the occasional academic who luxuriates in the scented water, claiming it to aid in their thinking. It is an activity for solitude, not for socialization, though some students still cram into a single room together to gossip. Personally, he believes showers are altogether more efficient, and there has never been a single person who passes through the Grove’s meandering halls that he has wanted to take the time to share a cramped bath with.

Alas, you have always been an exception to his every rule. 

This is why, in the early hours of the morning, he finds himself sitting across from you, your legs occasionally brushing if either of you stretch your limbs out far enough. Your respective white clothing billows out in the waters like the reflection of clouds, as small, blue lotus flowers drift slowly along the surface.

Neither of you speak. This is something Anaxa enjoys about you: how you never force his conversation with meaningless chatter, how he can pass his rare free time in relative quiet in your presence.

You lean forward, one smooth, graceful motion, and he closes his eye in anticipation. Your fingers smooth over the thin skin of his lowered eyelid, hands cool and damp from the bath waters. “You haven’t been sleeping well.”

“Is this what the lotuses are for?”

“They are known to be sleep aids. I read it in a botany book,” you admit. You remove your hand, and he opens his eyes again.

Anaxa lowers himself farther into the water. “I can function well enough. Are you worried for me, librarian?”

“Me? Worry over you? That would be quite presumptuous of me,” you say. There’s a hint of mirth in your voice. “But you do have a habit of pushing yourself a bit too far.”

“Ah, so the pot is calling the kettle black. I recall you spend quite a bit of time reading into the early hours of the morning, and wake up at an unreasonably late time.”

“In the Grove, all geniuses have their own eccentricities,” you say. Your eyes skim across his body, the simple eyepatch on his face. He feels naked under your scrutinizing gaze, flayed alive by your keen observation. And yet, he would never desire you to look away from him. Your eyes are devoid of all judgement, and instead are full of nothing save a deep curiosity. You observe all, the flawless audience to his performance.

He knows what you see when you stare at him. Ghostly pale skin, beneath which bones jut sharply like broken rocks. The limp fall of his hair. The dark bruise under his eye. The various scars, gleaming silver in the light: scattering of dots from needles, healed cuts and starbursts of burns stretching across every inch of him. 

You lean forward again, this time brushing your hand over his eyepatch. It’s less elaborate than his usual one, a simple piece of black fabric meant to be soaked by the bathwaters. You don’t ask for permission, but you don’t need it. You push back the fabric until the galaxy in his eye socket is revealed, slow inch by slow inch.

Anaxa has seen his own empty eye socket enough that it feels like nothing more than a simple parlor trick, white diamond stars set across the blue-purple velvet of space, but you stare at it as if you’ve never seen anything quite so fascinating before. Your mouth parts slightly as you press your thumb into the hollow beneath. You’re close enough that he can hear the hitch of your breath, see the dilation of your pupils, and feel the droplets of water sliding down your face as they land on his own body.

The press of your thumb is insistent. It reverberates out from his eyesocket, a ripple of warm motion that he can feel lap across his entire body, straight into his very marrow. Your finger descends deeper, and he tilts his head back to grant it greater access. He can feel the weight of your touch, every motion you make resonating outwards, like a stone being dropped in a pond.

You swirl your thumb, and he lets out the faintest sigh. For just a few seconds, it’s you and the press of your finger, deep in the spaces within him, before you slowly withdraw. You don’t pull his eye patch back down, and he doesn’t make any motion to do so, either.

You stretch your legs until your feet nudge against the side of his knees. “This isn’t too bad, don’t you think? I see why baths are so popular in Okhema.”

“It’s too crowded in Okhema.”

“I agree. I prefer it like this,” you say. “Just you and me. We don’t need anything else.”

Anaxa can still feel the shadow of your finger in him. If there was a way to capture your touch and keep it close to him, he would have done so. Nothing is assured. If he can’t have anything else, he wants to have this moment where it’s just you and him, to let it stretch and linger into infinity, so it will last forever.

[knarchive]

plush

[milkyhalovian]

au sketches

[nemkero]

the heretic

[rii-ra]

he doesnt aware who is behind him rn

[dimitriblunt]

Which Could Mean Nothing!

[misocupnoodles]

ooc doodle but idk (i have not met anaxagoras in game)