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There's a delicate beauty in the veil of the night. Shimmering stars, ephemeral in their splendor from where they hang in the sky. Rivers of liquid starlight span from edge to edge of the world, curtains of greens and blues suspended for eternity.
A breathtakingly bitter reminder that even the Sky has abandoned them, their gaze no longer shining upon the world.
Hyacine walks silently along the ever-reaching branches of Cerces, footsteps ringing through the dead of night. The world itself seems to hold its breath in its slumber, leaving only fragile silence.
Hyacine does not dare break it.
The wind combs through her hair gently as she settles down on a thicker branch, letting her feet dangle off the edge and simply breathing.
Inhale. Exhale.
Hyacine leans forward and her balance shifts. Below her is nothing but an infinite void, and for a moment, her brain fears she is falling. A rush of exhilaration, a slow spread of relief.
Hyacine feels his presence before she hears him, the soft click of his shoes on wood piercing the air.
Hyacine holds her breath.
(The silence does not shatter. It ripples.)
“Hyacinthia.”
Hyacine exhales. Her head turns, and she meets his gaze.
There he is, her mind whispers, breathless.
Anaxa.
There is an exhaustion clinging to his figure that most would not catch, considering his robes are as meticulous as they would normally be.
Hyacine is not most people. The circles under his eyes are slightly more prominent. The muscles in his shoulders are tense in a way that would suggest he's been slouched over his desk working for far longer than any reasonable person would. The soles of his feet drag for just a fraction of a second—enough for Hyacine to catch.
Hyacine knows he was likely working late into the night, marking papers or delving into his research.
“Professor Anaxa,” Hyacine greets softly, tilting her head to the side.
(He does not correct her use of that nickname.)
Her mind is already working to analyze him for injuries or pains, an instinct borne of her duty. She's pleased when she finds none beyond his fatigue.
“You've been working late.” It's a simple statement from her, not an accusation nor a query.
“Indeed. I have.” Anaxa's lips twitch—a barely-there frown. “Imagine my surprise when I felt my assistant's presence nearby when she should be sleeping.”
“Ah… I suppose I'm feeling a little restless…” Hyacine admits with a sheepish smile. “Have I bothered you?”
He scoffs, making a show of annoyance with the soft tsk. “As if your presence alone could interrupt me. Don't overthink. It's useless to do so.”
It's a rather elaborate way of saying no, but Hyacine finds she doesn't mind, her smile becoming warmer at his words.
“You should take a break from your work,” Hyacine suggests after a beat of silence. She tilts her head up towards the sky, letting the breeze kiss her cheeks. “Sit.”
“I do not need breaks. I need answers,” Anaxa sighs. Despite his words, he shuffles down beside her. She feels his shoulders brush against hers, featherlight.
“You need sleep,” she corrects. Hyacine is not blind to the dark circles painting his undereyes, nor the way his cheeks have sunken in. He may be a demigod, but he is only a human painted in a god's visage.
“Humanity needs a way to deal with that Antikytheran. There are some sacrifices that must be made,” Anaxa retorts. There is no bitterness in his voice, only tired resolve. What else can they feel, fighting a war they know they will lose, hoping, praying that their hero, once lost, returns once more?
“You won’t be of any use if you’re dead on your feet,” Hyacine reminds him as she always does. It’s become a routine at this point, even if she knows he hardly heeds her advice regarding resting.
Sometimes, she feels this pit in her stomach—a voice that tells her to spare her heart, to step back before this man tears his own heart to pieces in pursuit of the truth.
(Hyacine knows that voice is right, but she loves all the same. Mercy does not mean innocence. Kindness does not mean naivety.)
“Have you ever tried crocheting?” Hyacine asks despite knowing the answer. She wants to hear his voice, to keep these memories in a little box close to her heart. Hyacine has never been one to be greedy—quite the opposite—but she finds herself hoarding precious smiles and soft moments of everyone she cares for all the same.
“Crocheting?” Anaxa repeats, bemused. “No. I do not have time for such things.”
And because he knows her far too well, he finds himself sighing before Hyacine even says anything. Hyacine was never one to say things without reason. “I am not going to crochet—”
“Just for tonight? I can even teach you to make a dromas plushie!” Hyacine smiles, knowing full well she's won already. There are few things that can get Anaxa interested as easily as anything to do with dromases, even during a time of war.
Anaxa would like to say he's embarrassed by how fast he folds.
He is not, however. In the end, he is a weak, weak man for those majestic creatures.
Before long, they find themselves in Hyacine's home. It's warm, comforting, with plush blankets and flowers spread around her abode. Despite how little Hyacine is actually at home—and he knows just how often she's running around helping others in the forefront and completing errands—it still feels lived in—cluttered, yet neat.
“Come here.” Hyacine gestures to the sofa, looking through a basket to find some spools of yarn, all in various shades of blues, purples, and even pinks.
Hyacine nudges the yarn closer to Anaxa, an encouraging smile playing on her lips. “What colour do you want?”
Anaxa eyes the options before him, then takes the light blue yarn.
(Blue for the skies once blessed by the light.)
Hyacine nods approvingly, taking a light pink yarn for herself, then putting it to the side. She starts the first row for him, occasionally piping up to ask how big he wants the plush to be. With gentle hands, she guides Anaxa's movements, weaving him through the motions until he can memorize them himself.
Anaxa is a quick learner. It doesn't take long for him to begin methodically working stitch by stitch, a comfortable silence settling upon them—something content and warm in a way he hasn't allowed himself to feel in a long time.
Put the hook through the next stitch over.
Neither of them feel the need to fill the silence with needless chatter. Anaxa doesn't see the point in doing so, and Hyacine knows he feels comfortable this way.
Put the yarn over and in your crochet hook.
Still, even in the silence, there's a gentle hum of care. It's the little glances at what the other person is doing, the subtle nudging to help straighten the other person's yarn, or quietly even pointing out uneven stitches so they don't have to undo everything later on.
Pull the yarn through, and you have a single crochet stitch!
“Why crochet?” Anaxa asks, halfway into his dromas’ head.
Why crochet? he asks, making Hyacine pause. She has a lot of answers. Because it's relaxing. Because it gives him something to do with his hands. Because she wants to see him get some semblance of rest. Because she wants to spend time with him, away from the war raging on. Because, because, because—
(—she does not want to see him wither away.)
“Because you can make something with your own two hands, with your own love—something that will exist in the world even after everyone's hearts stop beating.” Hyacine feels like she's teetering on a sheet of ice, voice hushed with emotions she refuses to bubble over.
To mourn is not the same as to grieve.
To mourn is to adorn yourself in sadness, to shed enough tears to make up for the dry cheeks of others, to water the grave of what once was.
To grieve is to fill the hole left behind in yearning, ruminating in memories of the past because they no longer have a future.
Hyacine can't afford to mourn nor grieve. War made time precious and tears scarce for those written in the prophecy.
So much to mourn, but not enough tears or finery to do so.
So much grief, but not enough time to feel.
How is it, then, that Hyacine finds herself grieving for a man who has yet to pass?
“...How sentimental.” Anaxa murmurs at last, his words dropping into the brittle quiet. Neither of them move, suspended in their thoughts.
Anaxa does not press her.
(He continues to crochet.)
—
Their days go like this.
Anaxa will drown himself in his research for hours upon hours—sometimes days—on end, usually with Hyacine by his side. On the days she is not, Hyacine will spend countless hours aiding the injured, healing, mending until she has nothing left to give.
And in the rare moments of reprieve, they will tuck themselves in Hyacine's living room, slowly crocheting their dromases in comforting silence.
Anaxa's gun will be lying on a table, one of the few moments the scholar will part with his ‘teaching tool’. Ica will be dozing off in a corner, an apple core tossed to the side, and lights low—warm.
The windows will always be covered, yet they still know what lies beyond: a shattering sky, cracks lined by stardust that cascade and fall into the abyss, rivers of molten starlight burning, burning, burning past their false sky.
Hyacine will glance at it on Anaxa's way out.
She'll breathe.
(... And her shoulders will ache.)
—
The first time Anaxa sees her with her wings out, it's after a grueling week tending to the injured and sending off the dead on the frontlines with Mydei and Castorice.
Hyacine is far too tired, exhaustion clamping down at her limbs like a vice. She doesn't realize her control over her wings has faltered, ivory plumage bursting forth from her back in a brilliant cascade of feathers as she brews some tea.
The soft clink of her spoon against porcelain lulls her into a relaxed state, her shoulders finally dropping down.
Until she hears a knock on the door.
(Her shoulders ache.)
Hyacine lets out a shuddering breath, trying to scrape together the last vestiges of her energy to handle what she assumes to be someone from the Twilight Courtyard—or perhaps one of the students from the Grove?
She sets her tea down, mustering a gentle smile as she sets her hand on the doorknob.
(It feels heavy in her hands.)
Hyacine turns it.
Click.
The chilly evening air caresses her cheek.
…And she breathes.
“Anaxa?...” Hyacine whispers, eyes wide.
Anaxa looks, for lack of a better word, like shit. His breathing is laboured, skin a sickly parlour. The circles under his eyes are darker than ever, but worst of all are the inky black cracks that crawl through his skin, faint wisps of smoke emerging from them. Shimmering gold flows out from his broken body, and Hyacine wants to hurl.
It isn't the first time she's seen him injured from his own experiments. She has patched him up time and time again, always scolding him on being careful knowing he will not listen.
Because that is how Anaxa was made. With a yearning for knowledge and brilliance in his gaze so bright, it burns through his mortal flesh—his life for enlightenment.
“Hyacinthia,” Anaxa rasps, exhaling shakily with a laugh. “My… apologies for interrupting your much needed rest, but I'm afraid this feeble scholar requires your aid.”
His words are what force Hyacine from drowning in her dread. She ushers him inside with gentle hands, sitting him down on the sofa, uncaring of the gold now staining it.
Her hands tremble, peeling off the blood-soaked layers off his skin, only to reveal more and more cracking, whole chunks of his skin and the crystalized flesh below that crumble off like some grotesque imitation of a marble statue.
“How?...” Hyacine's breath hitches, choking on a sob that she forces down her throat. She refuses to cry at a moment like this.
(But he's breaking, shattering, and Hyacine can't do anything but heal him, just so he can do it all over again—)
Anaxa grimaces. “...An experiment.”
An experiment.
Two words. That's it.
He doesn't explain himself further. He doesn't tell her why. He holds his cards close to his chest like always, even when he's spilling out half of his blood onto her living room sofa.
For a brief, brief moment, Hyacine allows herself to feel a pang of frustration.
Anaxa is a man who keeps his walls up high through sarcasm and dry wit. He is also a man with few acquaintances, and even less friends, if anybody could even be called that—Hyacine included.
But that does not mean he does not care, because he does. He has his own ways of caring for wildlife, for his students, for Hyacine. Anaxa just does not care for his own life. Whether that is due to his hunger for knowledge or his own way of saving this dying world, she does not know.
(Both. It has always been both.)
All Hyacine knows is that someone she cares for dearly is quite literally breaking apart in her living room.
Hyacine wishes she knew what was going on in his head, if only so she could prepare her aching heart for what was to come and stand by his side the day he became naught but a whisper in the wind.
Most of all, she wishes that he would care about himself as much as she cared about him.
But there's blood staining her hands, the most precious of golds dripping into her palms as she so desperately tries to piece him back together.
She holds the half-crystalized pieces of his body between her fingers, somewhere between bloody flesh and glittering rubies, slotting them back into place while the shimmering waters of her aquamancy try to fill the void of what was once smooth skin.
How does one piece back together a man who has willingly shattered himself?
(You don't.)
Every second feels like an eternity as she heals over his injuries until they are mere hair-thin lines that branch out across the tapestry of his body. It's a delicate operation, one that Hyacine can not afford to fail.
Only when she is finished does she allow herself a sigh of relief.
“Thank you,” Anaxa murmurs, fingers dancing along his newly healed limbs, testing and prodding.
“I—” he frowns, eye narrowing in grumbling annoyance, “You're giving me a look.”
“I'm not looking at you like anything,” Hyacine hums, smiling just to irritate him more. You're being careless, her eyes scream, voice sickly sweet.
So what if she's being a bit passive aggressive? Hyacine is allowed to be at least a little petty after that stressful ordeal.
Anaxa bites his tongue, choosing not to retort. For all his lecturing and horribly blunt words, Anaxa knows when to step back and let his assistant get the last word, because an angry Hyacine was rare, but frighteningly scary. Instead of a dry retort, Anaxa huffs, crossing his arms and refusing to meet her gaze.
Hyacine sighs, eyes fluttering shut as she shakes her head, a soft smile gracing her lips. She stands up, going back to the kitchen to brew a new pot of tea.
Even geniuses can be idiots, sometimes, Hyacine thinks to herself with a heavy, but fond heart.
There's something therapeutic about menial tasks like brewing tea. The measuring of the dried tea leaves, the earthy and sometimes floral scent wafting through the air as a steady stream of hot water flows down in ribbons, the slow change from a colourless liquid to gorgeous shades of warm ambers and rich browns.
When she returns carrying a tray with a teapot and teacups in hand, she finds that Anaxa's gaze is glimmering with a subtle curiosity as he looks at her.
“What is it?” Hyacine asks, carefully setting down the tray, pouring and serving a cup of steaming tea—chrysanthemum, this time.
Anaxa inclines his head in thanks, taking the cup by the handle and taking a small sip. “Your wings,” he says. “I've never seen them until today.”
Hyacine blinks, flummoxed for the brief moment between hearing his words and looking back to see that yes, her wings are, in fact, out, and ruffled after that whole ordeal.
“I hadn't even noticed,” Hyacine admits, sitting down next to Anaxa and working to smooth over her feathers. “I usually have better control than that.”
There's another beat of silence as Anaxa simply observes, his one eye tracking the way her fingers comb through downy ivory feathers. “Why hide them in the first place?” he asks with a raised brow.
“They've… always been a bit troublesome? It's difficult to find clothing I like that can fit my wings, and sometimes they slow me down or get in the way when I'm working,” Hyacine explains with a thoughtful frown. “I suppose I've gotten used to being without them.”
I suppose I've gotten used to being without them.
When… did that become the case, Hyacine wonders? When did she start waking up with an ache in her shoulders, a dull pain between her shoulder blades that never seemed to go away? When did that pain become an echo, rippling through her body in every step she took, bones creaking and shifting, begging to be let out of their magically bound confines?
Perhaps it’s the way Hyacine trails off quietly, or the somber look in her eyes. Whatever it is, Anaxa catches it.
“You should try flying once more, sometime. I’d like to see it.” Anaxa pauses, clearing his throat and averting his eyes, unable to meet her gaze head on. “For research purposes, of course. The skyfolk are few and far between, and the results could prove to be greatly beneficial, granted—“
Hyacine laughs, a soft giggle of sorts as he droned on—equal parts fond and amused at his rather poorly veiled attempt at comfort.
“Of course. I promise. You’ll see me high in the sky one of these days, Anaxa,” Hyacine promises, hiding her smile behind her hand.
A warmth blooms throughout her chest, her anxious thoughts pushed down and drowned in effervescent fondness.
Let me have this, Hyacine thinks to herself, a fragile hope that she cradled with her aching heart.
Just this once. Just one more time.
(Just this once, before she had to bid farewell to this warm dream.)
—
An ascension to godhood, in any other world, sounds like a grand affair.
Godhood. The shedding of mortal skin, the elevation of one’s entire being and power to something distant—untouchable and incomparible, impossible, by normal standards.
Hyacine ascends as the Demigod of Sky alone.
There is no fanfare. She does not do so much as usher a word to anyone she knows.
When the Trailblazer arrived all those years ago, long before Hyacine had even been born, they had regaled a tale, one with her name on their lips.
Eternally drowning in molten gold to mend the sky she would become part of.
That was her fate, once upon a time.
So she should be happy, shouldn’t she?
Here she is, falling, falling, falling, but alive.
Alive, but not whole.
Her wings—once luminescent and grand in their splendor—have been reduced to ashes, bone ravaged by the inescapable heat. And oh, it burned. Though her body was not drowned in liquid gold, she burned all the same—a searing pain that tore through her body with a vengance.
Hyacine chokes on a half-sob, half laugh, throat raw and raspy as wind rushes past her. There is no glory. There is no satisfaction, not even at managing to retain her mortal body, at retaining ‘Hyacine’. There is only a bottomless well of grief—an inexplicable feeling of loss for the wings she never used.
(But oh, how much she yearned to do so.)
Hyacine is falling, falling, falling—
“Hyacine!”
…when she feels the stirrings of wind slow her fall.
It is sharp. It is kind. It is wild. It is careful.
“Anaxa…” she whispers as she is gently set down on the ground. Hyacine dares not look him in the eye, does not dare see the way his hands tighten with frustration and helplessness. “I’m… sorry…”
(Sorry for going alone. Sorry for getting hurt. Sorry for not telling him.)
He does not reply, lips thinned out in a tense line.
Hyacine does not need to look him in the eye to know he is livid.
Anaxa’s touch is careful, almost tender as he dresses her wounds, wrapping gauze around the exposed flesh and bone from what is left of her wings. Oh, what a sight she must be, bleeding and broken with only her newfound ‘divinity’ to show for it. His fingers tremble, and his exhales shake.
It breaks Hyacine’s heart. ”Anaxa…” she whispers once more. Her voice cracks, unsure and scared as her heart claws at her chest. “Say something, please.”
(Inhale. Exhale.)
Her pleas are met with silence.
She feels like she’s suffocating, the tension thick and taut—like a rope on the precipice of snapping.
When Hyacine finally meets his gaze, she mentally braces herself to find that—
Oh. There is no fury. There is no incandescent rage. Yes, there is anger, a simmering, cold anger, but more than that, there is something heavy, something lost—as if she were already a ghost, lost to the wind.
Oh.
He—
She—
That look.
She knows it.
Hyacine herself donned that expression like a worn jacket countless times, has submerged herself in it enough times to know it like an old friend.
It’s grief.
For some reason, that is the realization that breaks her—the realization that just as much as she has been grieving his meticulous self-destruction, he may have been doing the exact same for her. Anaxa is rational, but not unfeeling. She of all people should have known that.
Hyacine does not apologize again. She simply lets out a shuddering, wet exhale, and asks:
“Can we go home? I want to crochet together.”
Something hardens in Anaxa’s eye—determination, or perhaps resolve.
Anaxa nods.
(He says nothing more.)
—
The story goes like this.
There is a world woven in memories and epics—an infinite tragedy that is doomed to end in a blaze of fire.
The story goes like this.
There is a world built on code and echoes of divinity—an infinite tragedy that is doomed to set the world aflame.
The story goes like this.
There are humans made in the image of divine, bound to their flaws and golden blood meant to echo the gods above even the divine. There is Reason, and there is Sky. There is truth and logic, and there is mercy and kindness.
The story goes like this.
Anaxa meets a student who seeks only to heal, to use her knowledge—not to be a hero or something equally pretentious, but for soothing the hearts of those left in the margins of their endless tale.
The story goes like this.
Hyacine meets a blasphemer who seeks the truth of the world—who seeks to use his broken body to pave the way for the generations to come.
The story goes like this.
Anaxa tells more than asks Hyacine to be his assistant. Hyacine accepts.
The story goes like this.
Anaxa tears his body apart in the name of reaching apotheosis.
Hyacine wears her body down in the name of saving lives.
The story goes like this.
She/He grieves the erosion of His/Her body/mind, only able to watch as He/She shatters/melts. Because that is all They can do, bound to carry on endlessly so this storybook did not end before they could reach the ending They so yearned for.
…
The story goes like this.
They still manage to find quiet nights where they will bask in the warmth of Hyacine’s living room. They will sit side by side, Hyacine humming a soft melody under her breath, careful not to lean back and put too much weight on the tender skin there. She will smile and laugh with affection and warmth, even when she notices the way the fractures on his body turn to gaping cracks even she cannot heal.
Put the hook through the next stitch over.
Anaxa's eye will dull with a bone deep exhaustion, and his limbs will gain a stiffness that makes him drop his crochet hook, muscles seizing up and refusing to work with him. Hyacine will fret and temporarily soothe the ache for as long as possible, and he will let her.
She does not ask what he is doing to become like this, knowing he will not answer.
(Part of her already knows.)
Put the yarn over and in your crochet hook.
Anaxa will rush to finish his current dromas plushie.
By now, an army of plushies have been made—a family of dromases painted in familiar hues.
(Mint and crimson. Pink and teal. Scarlets and violets and golds and blues—)
The last few stitches are more sloppy, less uniform as he approaches the end. Hyacine will guide his hands when he cannot, will be his hands when they fail to respond to him.
He will ask Hyacine to help him plan his own destruction.
Turning himself into the Philosopher’s Stone, scattering himself in the waters of the Vortex of Genesis.
She will grieve. She will argue.
But she will resign herself to it with a teary smile, voice trembling as she whispers a see you tomorrow.
Hyacine will be left utterly alone.
She will survive hundreds of thousands of tomorrows until she is left alone and defeated.
She will survive hundreds of thousands of tomorrows until there is no tomorrow left for her.
She will survive hundred of thousands of tomorrows until she wakes to a tomorrow where she can stand side by side with everyone she has ever loved.
Pull the yarn through, and you have a single crochet stitch!
How does one piece back together a man who has willingly shattered himself?
…
(You don't.)