#and how much is being lost and especially Phainon’s role in it all

[knickety]

Anaxa’s character stories all being in mediums that have already been destroyed has me climbing the WALLS. Cerces looking through his memories. A study record that no longer exists. An improvised speech that nobody would have written down. Another fragment of memory that nobody got to see. The complicated bits of his character and explanations for his goals and Why he is the way he is will fade away and he will be remembered largely as a performer and a blasphemer. How will they remember him when so little of him yet remains?

[starcurtain]

More Phaidei Fics I Want to Read (Part 3)

1. The Hades and Persephone AU but with a twist: Phainon is the lord of the afterlife (Aedes Elysiae is the literal Elysian Fields) but mostly by accident, because Cyrene just didn't want the job and up and went off adventuring(?) one day. Really, Phainon's not suited to ruling the Underworld at all; he's got a terribly soft heart, and half the time when people beg to be sent back to life, he can't find it in him to say no. But then there's Mydei, the guy who won't stop dying, despite the fact that the glaring "death day countdown clock" in his life's record keeps telling Phainon it's not yet Mydei's time. Mydei keeps insisting that death is where he should be, to reunite with his mother and friends, but as sweet as that is (and as much as Phainon would like to keep seeing him!), letting people out of the Underworld is one thing--but letting someone in early? Big no-no. Yet, no matter how many times Phainon sends him back to life, Mydei keeps finding new ways to die, and when one of the wandering souls from the River finally lets slip that eating the pomegranates of the Underworld can bind you to the afterlife forever... Well, Phainon's about to find out just how determined Mydei can be.

2. The mostly angst one: After Mydei leaves Okhema, Phainon does his best to keep his promise and take over Mydei's role looking out for the Kremnoan people. It's not easy, especially with Krateros lurking over his shoulder like the world's most unpleasable father-in-law guard dog--or with Okhema's prejudice. Was it really this bad all along? The more Phainon struggles to help the Kremnoans and to learn their ways, the more he realizes just how much Mydei was truly doing to protect his people all these years, sacrificing his time, his funds, and his own reputation to make sure all the others could get by. On every step of his journey with the Kremnoans, Phainon learns something new about the incredibly strong and giving person Mydei really was when the Chrysos Heirs weren't around to see it. Who could avoid falling even more love, with every kindness and grief revealed? They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, but how can fondness endure when Phainon knows his heart won't ever come home? (Bonus points for Phainon even moving into Mydei's dwelling in the Kremnoan Enclave--for convenience, of course, and not because it makes it easier to dream that one day Mydei will walk back in the door. Right.)

3. The canon-divergent one: Everything else stays the same, but Mydei never left the Sea of Souls. Eurypon's plan to attack Okhema is thwarted by Aglaea and Tribbie alone, at great cost to civilian lives, and Phainon and Castorice arrive years later to a much subdued Holy City, barely able to ward their walls against Kremnos's repeated onslaughts. Willing to chase any rumor to find a tool that might help her defeat Eurypon and seize Nikador's coreflame, Aglaea sends Phainon on what seems like a wild goose chase: to track down the mysterious "King of the Sea" mentioned in hushed whispers among the merchant marine--and to determine if this mysterious being really is the long-lost prince of Castrum Kremnos. Finding this elusive "Sea King" is hard enough, but ascertaining his identity--in these conditions? Next to impossible. "Aglaea, he's growling at me. ...What do you mean 'That's better than what happened to the last person we sent'?!" (Otherwise known as: Phainon tames a wild Mydei with the power of love and this pomegranate juice he just found lol.)

4. A wholesome 5+1 fic where, shortly after meeting and befriending him, Phainon discovers that Mydei, despite being a crown prince, has led a very strict and harsh life and missed out on many experiences that are commonplace for "normal" young people in Amphoreus. He hasn't ever made a chimera meme or been to a theater production? Really? From racing dromases to trying on the newest Okheman fashions, Phainon becomes determined to help Mydei check off all his "firsts" and experience the joys that life in the Holy City has to offer. The +1 is something neither one of them has done: Going on what qualifies as an actual date date, of course. (But then... they were all dates, weren't they?)

5. The modern exchange student AU: To escape the pressures put on him by his miserable father, Mydei transfers to a college on the complete opposite side of the world. Unfortunately, in his haste to leave home, he might have neglected to take several important considerations into account, not the least of which is the massive language barrier. A fish out of water, with no idea how to fit in to his new school or even make himself understood, Mydei needs all the help he can get--and thankfully, Okhema's golden boy Phainon is happy to be of service. What starts as an odd friendship quickly turns into something more, but just when Mydei is thinking he's found where he wants to spend the rest of his life, his father catches wind of his new relationship and demands Mydei return home to Kremnos immediately. If they don't want to be parted for good, Phainon's got to find a way to keep Mydei with him--no matter what Eurypon, Eurypon's money, or Eurypon's army of bodyguards have to say about it.

6. The ghost AU: When Phainon posted on social media about his tragic "missed connection" with a man wearing... some kind of... revealing armor (a costume?) at the local library, he really didn't expect the first reply to be "Oh, you saw the ghost!" But further trips to the library prove that internet rumors can sometimes, beyond all belief, be true--the main branch library of New Okhema really is haunted, by the most beautiful and difficult man--uh... being?--that Phainon has ever met. "Mydei" doesn't remember his past or how he came to be stuck in the library, but he doesn't seem to be in any particular rush to move on. For Phainon, who's really been in need of a new friend lately, this works out great... Until it doesn't, until he falls in love with a person he can't touch and can't free, someone who was already gone long before Phainon ever lived. (The inevitable twist, of course, is that Mydei isn't actually a ghost but just trapped intangibly between timelines in Amphoreus's timey-wimey cycle-y weirdness. By finally finding and working through his lost memories, he discovers this secret--and, with Phainon's help, manages to literally break into the better timeline for good.)