Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

March meets the blonde she knows, for a long while, as August on the Xianzhou Luofu, just after the mess with the Ambrosial Arbor suddenly growing. He has his sun-gold hair tied up in a quick ponytail and he speaks with an accent that March automatically marks as subtly different from the Luofu residents around him, enough to mark him out as a tourist. Helps that he’s in Aurum Alley, eating a snack at one of the newly-revitalized stalls.

“—from the Astral Express?” she hears him say, as she rounds the corner and climbs up the steps to the food stall. “The little gray-haired kid?”

“Caelus!” Tall Auntie says, delighted. “Yes, we know him, he’s the business consultant who’s been helping revitalize the place.”

“A…business consultant,” says the man. He’s tall, is the first thing March clocks about him—taller than most people she can think of except, horrifyingly, Sampo. He’s wearing a shirt, technically, but it’s so open that he might as well not be wearing one, and March takes note of the red tattoos on his chest, snaking up his neck, his face. “Caelus. That—is not as much of a surprise as it should be.”

“He’s such a good boy,” says Tall Auntie. “Why are you asking after him?”

“Friend of mine wants me to pass something along to him,” says the man. “In thanks, I guess.”

“Well, I don’t know if he’s around here right now, he could be at Youci’s place listening to the bird,” Tall Auntie says. “But—oh! March 7th, you’re here!”

March shakes her head, mostly to clear the surprise, and grins back at Tall Auntie, giving her a quick little wave. “Hi, Auntie!” she says. “I’m just here to take pictures! And try your berrypheasant skewers, too—who’s this guy?”

“March 7th?” the man says, incredulously.

“Uh, yeah,” says March, squinting up at him.

“Thought I was the only one who got named after a date,” the man mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. Those are nice gloves, she thinks, sleek black fingerless things. “Just because some people can’t be bothered—” He lets out an annoyed sigh, and said, “August 16th.”

“Seriously?” March yelps.

“August is fine,” he says.

“You’re like me?!” March says. “You—Did you wake up in ice—”

“Do you just say that to everyone you meet,” says August, floored. “Do you just tell them, out loud, about what happened to you?”

“You don’t?!” she squawks.

“Uh,” Tall Auntie says, “what can I get you, March?”

Oh! Right. That. March points at August, and says, “We’re talking about this after I get my food!” Then she whirls on her heel and says, huffily, “I want a berrypheasant skewer and also what was he saying to you before this?”

“Sure, coming right up,” says Tall Auntie.

“I’m right here and I can hear you,” August says, annoyed. He steps up, and says, “Your friend Caelus helped out a friend of mine.”

“He’s like that,” March says, a little peeved when she thinks about it. Caelus is the sort of person who’ll help anyone, even Stellaron Hunters, and even though he jokes he’s just doing it to spread around his reputation or to get cash money for pulls, whatever that means, she knows for a fact that even if he didn’t get paid he’d do it anyway. Case in point: he’s sure not getting paid for being a museum curator in Belobog. Another case in point: he’s sure nicer to Kafka than anybody should be, he’d helped her and her buddy get off the Luofu just last week and not even regretted it. “What do you want with him?”

“I’m just here to give him a package,” says August. “And…to check up on him. For my friend’s sake.”

He looks away as he talks, and March thinks of what Caelus said—she knew me. Wonders if August knew him too, before.

“Well, he’s fine,” she says.

“I can tell, I saw the trail of trash cans he rummaged through,” says August. “Didn’t know he was hanging out with—someone else like me, though.”

Someone else who doesn’t remember. Someone else whose memories only go back so far. Someone else who looks out at the stars, sometimes, and wonders which one they’re from. Wonders if they can ever go back.

March says, “Well, ta-da! If you want I could bring your gift to him—”

“No,” says August. “He’s at Youci’s, right? I’ll go see him myself.”

“He’s fine!” March says. “I swear to you he’s doing just fine!”

“I’ll go see him myself,” says August, flatly, and March grabs hold of his arm and digs her heels in as he moves…and moves…and keeps moving, despite March’s best efforts, because. Uh. Well. Apparently he’s really strong! She’d be more appreciative of his biceps if he also wasn’t, like, a stranger, about to bring a super suspicious package to her best friend.

“I’m telling you that he’s fine!” she says. “Don’t you trust me? I’m a Nameless, we’re really trustworthy people!”

“I’m aware,” August says, his stride not even slowed by her weight. “Let go of my arm.”

March, instead of that, digs in her fingers into his sleeve, refusing to let go. “Why can’t I just take your message to him, huh!” she snaps.

“I am not telling you in public,” says August, continuing along his path with March attached to his arm. He hasn’t tried to dislodge her, but then if he tried, March’s back-up plan is to bite down like a dog and just not let go. “But your friend is in no danger from me. You have my word.”

“Cocolia said that too,” March says, “and then we got arrested.”

“Ah,” says August. “Your first time being betrayed, huh.”

“My first time?” March says. “Where have you been that you apparently keep getting betrayed?! Are you okay?”

“I wouldn’t know, where I am now, everyone is doggedly loyal to each other and to our superior,” says August. “I’m simply…more naturally cautious. Are you going to let go or not, March.”

“No,” March says.

“I should’ve known you would all be insanely protective of each other,” August says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine. Stop trying to break my skin with your fingernails. We can go find Caelus and you can posture as much as you like when we get there.”

--

The Nameless—and the Stellaron Hunters, awkwardly hanging around—don’t leave Amphoreus immediately. Yeah, it’s a shock to Phainon too, he thought they’d all be raring to leave the second the dust settles. He’d understand why, it’s been a little on the traumatic side for everyone (which is an understatement), but. They haven’t taken their train and left.

Dan Heng says, “Well. I haven’t finished adding to the data bank yet.”

“Is that really it?” Phainon dubiously asks him.

Dan Heng shakes his head. He’s brought a desk out to the balcony and is transcribing the documents they’ve all picked up into the Express’s data banks, and by all accounts he looks pretty satisfied with himself. “You’d have to ask Caelus and March for their reasons,” he says.

Phainon winces. “Cy—March is fine?” he asks.

Dan Heng narrows his eyes at him. “She’s fine,” he says, shortly, which…hurts, oddly. Sure, he deserves it, but. They’d grown to like each other. He’d grown to rely on Dan Heng’s solid judgment. Now Dan Heng looks at him with the same narrowed eyes he looks at incoming enemies with, with a hand ready to call his spear at any time. “If you want to find her, try somewhere with a good view.”

It’s a peace offering if Phainon ever saw one. Or a test. Whichever.

“I’ll give her your regards,” Phainon promises him, and goes off on his own through Marmoreal Palace to see an old friend.

He doesn’t find the one he’s expecting, but instead: Mydei, browsing through the library books, talking to a small, grey-haired young woman, who, Phainon notes, has her eyes on every exit and entrance point. Like a trained soldier, he thinks. Firefly, isn’t it? Yeah, Firefly. She spots him first, and taps Mydei on the shoulder, steering him gently around so that—

—so that if Mydei’s attacked, she’ll intercept the blow.

Mydei says, “You don’t need to do that, Firefly.”

“I mean, I don’t blame her,” Phainon starts.

“Great,” says Firefly, pleasantly, “because right now the only thing really stopping me is that Elio still needs you for the script.”

Right. The script.

“Go find Caelus,” says Mydei, flatly. “Do you think I couldn’t handle Phainon on my own if I really needed to?”

Firefly squints up at him, and crosses her arms. “I think he’s stabbed you in the back enough times that it’s a habit now, August,” she says, and for a second Phainon doesn’t know who she’s talking about—until he remembers, and it wrenches at him all over again. “So, you know, I’m a little wary.”

“If you’re so worried, get Silver Wolf to watch,” says Mydei. “Past time she did something besides compete with Cipher. Go find Caelus—he has plenty to catch you up on.”

Firefly sighs. “If you’re sure,” she says, and leaves with a glare in Phainon’s direction. Which is a little silly, because he’d handed his sword off to Caelus, so he can’t exactly do much stabbing right now. But at the same time, well, she has a point. It’s why Phainon’s been avoiding Mydei for a while. Avoiding most people, really, but. Anyway.

“Deliverer,” says Mydei.

“August,” says Phainon, and immediately Mydei’s expression flattens. “Isn’t that…”

“I’m not March,” he says. “I go by both names. And that name is not yours to speak.”

Yeah. Because of all the backstabbing. “Mydeimos,” Phainon says, carefully. “I, uh. I wasn’t expecting to run into you, I was—”

“Looking for March,” Mydei finishes. “She’s not in the palace. She requested to be taken to Janusopolis. Apparently, she wants to take pictures of the architecture.” He shrugs. “You would know that, if you’d asked around.”

And who, exactly, would answer the Emanator of Destruction in their midst, who’d almost become a Lord Ravager, a hollow husk carrying out the will of an Aeon that wants to see the universe burn? Well, fine, besides the Astral Express and the Stellaron Hunters, but they’re all insane anyway. Yesterday he spotted Caelus flying past on a wagon pulled by Little Ica.

“I wasn’t sure if any of my questions would be received in the spirit they were meant,” Phainon says.

“On account of the general insanity,” says Mydei.

“No, I feel very sane,” says Phainon. “I mean the crimes. But, uh—if March isn’t here, then I can wait for her.”

“Or you can come and see her,” says Mydei, with a shrug. “I imagine she wouldn’t mind a visit from an old friend. So long as you don’t expect Cyrene.”

“Is that allowed?” Phainon asks.

Mydei stares at him. “Even if it wasn’t,” he says, flatly, “I doubt anyone here could stop you, of all people. Save maybe Caelus.”

“That isn’t being fair,” says Phainon, rubbing at his wrist, thinking of sparring matches, the faintest of smiles, the promise of a library by the end of this. He shouldn't ask for that promise fulfilled now, he knows. So he won’t. But still. “Caelus isn’t the only one. I—If. If you told me to stop I would.”

Mydei is still, his expression inscrutable. Phainon looks at him, takes in the details of his appearance now—he’s tied up his hair, and he wears a shirt and a vest, both opened enough that Phainon can see a good amount of his bare chest beneath. A blood-red cape is draped over his shoulder, with the crest of Castrum Kremnos embroidered onto it. He looks as if he no longer quite fits here, in Okhema, in Castrum Kremnos, in the entirety of Amphoreus.

“Now you say this,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “Now. Now you would tell me that I could have stopped all of this with but a word.”

Phainon chokes, shakes his head, says, “That’s not how I meant it—I just.”

“Was that why you had me split up that way,” Mydei continues, still wearing that inscrutable face. “Because if I were to only speak to you, even when you were raving mad, you would stop your rampage in its tracks—and you didn’t want that?”

Phainon flinches. He shouldn’t, he knows, but he does—almost a Lord Ravager, definitely an Emanator with the power thrumming under his skin, and this man still holds the power to undo him, just like that. “My—” he starts, then stops, because what right does he have now to call him Mydei?

Mydei says, “HKS.” Then he pushes past him and heads towards the door.

He stops with a hand on the doorframe, looks back at Phainon.

Says, “Meet me at the city gates. I will take you to her.”

--

“A Stellaron Hunter?!”

“March!” Caelus says, immediately and worriedly poking his head out of the alley, hoping there’s no one coming this way. August, who’s leaning against the wall, only raises an eyebrow at March, as if to wonder how he ever ended up in the same boat as Caelus and March—no memories, and a broad road ahead. Or, well, Caelus knows he and March have a broad road ahead—he’s not sure August does, with the script Kafka’s so devoted to. “Don’t say that so loudly!”

“Yes, I’d rather not be arrested by overzealous Cloud Knights who couldn’t fight their way out of a paper towel,” says August, his tone dry as dust. “Take it you liked her gift, though?”

“Well, yeah, it’s nice, I guess,” says Caelus. Truth be told, how he feels about Kafka is—well, complicated. To say the least. He cares about her, but…she left him behind, alone and amnesiac, on a space station that was under attack by the Antimatter Legion. She left him alone. It’s—hard to get over that. Still, she got him something, and that means kind of a lot. “How are she and Blade doing? You gotta tell him he needs to back off from Dan Heng.”

“They’re both fine,” says August. “Do not worry, I will sit on Blade if I have to. We’re both undying, he can try to kill me.”

“That’s awful,” March says, horrified.

August shakes his head. “I am not mara-struck, just very good at not dying,” he says. “But you can imagine why I’d rather not be arrested, personally.”

Caelus sighs. “Well, why risk it?” he asks.

“Yeah!” March pipes up. “I was telling you this whole way you could just give me the thing and I'd pass it off to him!”

“You hear the words Stellaron Hunter and believe that to be a judgment of my own morality,” says August, snappish and cranky, and March puts her hips on her hands and glares up at him. It’s a little like watching an adorable kitten meow furiously at a much bigger, much older mountain lion. “I’d rather not take the chance. Besides, I…suppose I wanted to make sure you were fine, Caelus.”

“I’m fine,” says Caelus, baffled. Why do the Stellaron Hunters act so concerned about him? What, was he one of them before, or something? “But also I really hope you don’t need to get off the Luofu too, ‘cause I don’t know if I can pull that off again.”

“Unlike the others, my bounty isn’t quite as eye-searingly high,” says August, dryly.

March harrumphs, crosses her arms. “That’s not gonna last,” she mutters.

“I’m aware it won’t,” says August. “But between us, I haven't been arrested yet.”

“Cocolia was a hag who was listening to the Stellaron that wanted to turn everything into a frozen wasteland!” March says. “Of course she arrested us, she didn't want anyone figuring that out!”

“It's been very eventful,” says Caelus. “You should probably get going. You know, before the Cloud Knights figure you out.”

“Fine,” says August, pushing himself off the wall with such casual coolness that a frisson of envy runs up Caelus’s spine. “I’ll stop by Aurum Alley first, I left an order behind.”

“Oh shit, me too!” March says, eyes going wide.

“I can take you guys there,” says Caelus, brightly. Weirdly enough, he kind of doesn’t mind hanging out with August a little more. Probably because they're all three in the same boat: no memories, no real clue who they’re going to become now. “Got some business stuff I gotta do anyway.”

--

Ordinarily, it would take days to go from Okhema to Janusopolis. Certainly people going to Janusopolis have been complaining about the shortage of available dromases to get them there, which, look, that one’s really not Phainon’s fault, probably. He targeted Chrysos Heirs and Coreflames, dromases were really not on the list.

Anaxa would consider it a cold comfort, he knows, but he hasn’t really talked to Anaxa in a while. Talking to Mydei in the library might be the most interaction he’s had with anyone in a while, save maybe Caelus, who’s a friendly little weirdo anyway who apparently befriends Emanators for like. Fun.

Mydei, because he’s both the embodiment of Strife and a Stellaron Hunter with access to Space Anchors, just brings the two of them to the entrance to Janusopolis in a flash. Phainon stumbles a little, surprised by the suddenness, but a pair of strong arms catch him in time.

“Shouldn’t you be used to this by now?” Mydei grumbles. “With your teleporting and your clones.”

“I am used to it,” Phainon protests. “Just…look, I haven’t been outside in days, all right, give me a break.”

Mydei gives him an unamused look, but helps him straighten up. “You’re paler than you should be,” he says. “What have you been doing to yourself?”

“You do not want that list, trust me,” says Phainon. “Or maybe you do want to hear it, in which case, fine, I’ve just—been trying to ground myself in reality, all right. In this body. In not being in the cycle anymore.”

“How.”

Phainon pulls away, and says, “Don’t ask.”

“Deliverer—”

“Please.” If he asks—What wouldn't Phainon give him, out of guilt? Nothing, that’s what. He’d pull his golden heart out of his chest and offer it up on a platter if it meant Mydei would just…let him call him Mydei again. If it meant forgiveness. If it meant he could have that faith back. “I—Please, don’t ask me.”

Mydei clearly hesitates, before he lets out a breath. “Fine,” he says, in a way that tells Phainon this is not over yet, and he has more questions that need answers. Shit, so does everyone else. But he owes March the most. March—who used to be Cyrene, who holds the power of Remembrance, who is happy now as she is but who wants to know who she was, what sort of person could’ve agreed to Phainon’s plans. March, who is, who was his best friend.

March who is no longer Cyrene and who smiles at different people now. Trusts different people implicitly.

Real kick in the head, that.

She isn’t here, he doesn't hear the shutter of her camera going off, and he would, he’s got sharp hearing these days. Which means she’s all the way across the other side of the chasm.

They’ve rebuilt the bridge, he sees that. Or, well, they’re in the process of rebuilding it—right now it’s really just a rickety rope bridge held together with duct tape, hope, and expert rope-braiding. Phainon sets one foot on it, and immediately looks down and has to back away.

“When did you get scared of heights?” Mydei asks.

“Not heights,” says Phainon. “Just.” The chance of throwing myself off the bridge. He shrugs, a little, not certain how to explain it.

Mydei stares at him, waiting him out.

Phainon lets out a breath. Then he says, “I. There were. Cycles. Where I found out the Flame Reaver’s identity early and remembered early and. Well.” He pauses. “You think a lot, when you've got a long way to fall. I haven’t been out on the balcony for a while, incidentally.”

Mydei says nothing, but—he catches a hold of Phainon’s hand, and his grip is tight, his palm warm. “You will not fall,” he says. “I am here. I will not allow it.”

Oh. Well. All right, then. He nods, and so they end up holding on to each other the whole way across the rope bridge.

Lifetimes ago, this would’ve sent Phainon into what March refers to as “a real tizzy,” on account of Mydei of all people holding his hand. Imagine! The demigod of Strife, the hope and Prince of Castrum Kremnos, holding his hand! These days he’s…it’s a warm hand, in his. It’s someone holding him tightly. It’s a voice calling to him in the dark and dragging him out, bit by painful bit, into the light again.

For once, he doesn’t want to claw open his ribcage, offer himself up as a sacrifice if it means everyone he loves will be safe from him, from Destruction. For once, this is enough.

“So,” he says. “Why August?”

“Because the Hunters thawed me out on the 16th of August,” says Mydei. “And it was easier to remember the date that way. I didn’t have any better ideas, so.”

“No really good names in the Kremnoan language?” Phainon says.

“There are,” says Mydei. “But I didn’t suggest them because I had no memory of them.”

Ah. Right. That.

“You’re not allowed to fall, by the way,” Mydei adds, which is a good reminder, at least, that if Phainon wants to be not a sack of shit, then the best way to do that is to keep living. “I will be displeased, as will March. We’ve worked too damn hard to get you out of Destruction’s grasp to allow Thanatos to claim you.”

“Cas wouldn’t,” says Phainon.

“You assign your self-hatred so easily to Castorice,” says Mydei. “She would, to give you rest and peace. To her, it would be a kindness to whisk your soul to the Nether Realm.”

Would that be so bad? “Is it a kindness to you, too?” Phainon asks.

“No.” Mydei’s voice is curt, sharp. “Death is an end. You have a new beginning. Only a fool would waste it.” His grip on Phainon’s hand tightens, and what else can Phainon do but follow him there, follow him anywhere?

His heart beats fast in his chest. Here—Here is a different kind of fall.

--

(A pair of arms wrap around his shoulders, familiar warmth pressing against his back. She says, “I don't care what that stupid Scepter’s been telling you, what the Stellaron says. We’re friends, you dummy.”

A pair of sword-calloused hands catch porcelain-cold fingers. “Deliverer,” he says. “Phainon. Lay down your burden—the miracle of a new world will not be witnessed alone.”

Liars, the both of you. What of the prophecy?

“Not lying! I swear I’m not! And screw that prophecy, anyway, the prophecy didn’t take us Trailblazers into account!”

“It is done. Wake up. Break the chains you’ve wrapped yourself in—or if I must, I will break them for you.”)

Chapter Text

The second time March meets August, it’s on Penacony, thankfully after the Charmony concert that never was. “How did you get here?!” she asks, floored, when she sees him on the newly-renamed Trailblaze’s Stern. Caelus had wanted to name it The Tatalov but immediately everyone had voted him down. “I thought you guys were banned from Penacony!”

“Yes,” says August. “However, Firefly is determined and I cannot die.”

“That’s so encouraging,” says March, wincing. But Firefly is okay, which means—a lot, really, to March. Even if she's a Stellaron Hunter, she’s a sweet girl, and she likes hanging out with her. Caelus seems to adore her too, or at least they seem incredibly close to each other. “So how d’you like the party?”

August considers it for a moment. He’s dug up a suit from somewhere, but once again enough of the buttons are open that he might as well have just gone shirtless and spared himself the effort. March has no idea why he keeps insisting on unbuttoning his shirts that low, the weirdo. “Robin is a fine singer,” he says, eventually. “But so far the rest of it has been overrated.”

“You’re so blunt,” says March. “Isn’t there something you like about the party?”

“The girl Caelus got up here to sing about a rose is also a fine singer,” August allows. “I don’t care for the rest of it. Most people here are shamelessly false, and I’d rather not talk to them more than I have to.”

“What are you talking about, everyone here is so nice,” says March.

“Because you and the rest of the Express are stakeholders in Penacony,” says August. “Of course they’re nice to you.” And he downs his drink, then glares down at it as if it’s done him some great wrong. “Ugh. Is there anything better than this swill onboard this ship?”

“Do you want SoulGlad?” March says.

“Absolutely the fuck not,” says August, with great conviction.

“Great!” March chirps. “Follow me, I know a nice place.” And she catches hold of his arm and drags him off. It’s a good sign that he follows after her with only some grumbled cursing, because she leads him to a little corner just belowdecks where Siobhan is shaking up some drinks, chatting idly with the Dreamjolt Troupe.

August tenses on sight of them, but March nudges his side, says, “Be nice! They’re not bad, Siobhan’s rehabilitating them. Hi, Siobhan!”

“March!” Siobhan calls. “Good to see you. Where’s your friend, my spare bartender?” She eyes August with some surprise, and says, “And who’s this?”

“I go by August,” he says, nodding to her, as March goes off to pet and greet the rest of the Dreamjolt Troupe, one ear on the conversation behind her. “This is…”

“Caelus asked us up here,” says Siobhan. “Nice place he’s got. The gang’s happy to get out and about for once, and bonus points,” she smiles wryly, “with them around, the only ones dropping in for a drink from my corner of the bar are the ones I already know won’t be assholes to them. They’re not aggressive, just a little abrasive, is all.”

“Reminds me of someone,” says March.

“We have met once,” says August, “and you were more abrasive than I was.”

“Well, I was worried you’d do something to Caelus!” she huffs.

“Sounds like you guys have a history,” says Siobhan with a chuckle, mixing up March’s preferred drink already: something sweet and gentle, cool in her throat.

“Sort of,” March hedges, coming back over to take a seat at the bar. “I mean, I don’t have a history, I don’t remember a lot about my past.”

August sighs. “What did I say about you telling all and sundry about that,” he mutters. “I’ll have something strong. No SoulGlad. Just…something with a kick I’ll feel in my chest.”

“I can do that for you,” says Siobhan, getting to work. “Sounds kinda tough.”

“Eh, it is what it is, and anyway I’m still looking for clues,” says March. “I’m kind of mad Ena’s dream didn’t manage to pull it out of me! It would’ve been nice to know something, but nope, just…shopping and eating. Can’t believe that’s how Sunday sees me, jeez, it’s like I don’t have any other interests to him.”

August rests an elbow on the counter, and says, after a moment, “All I saw was a fight club.”

“You were in the dream too?!” March yelps.

“Not for long,” says August. His eyes slide towards Siobhan, and he says, carefully, “A mutual friend of ours found it easy to break me out of it. She has yet to let me live it down, but I will say—as much as I appreciate a fight, there are many more places I’d rather be than a fight club.”

“So, what, you think Sunday just…didn’t bother to search for more, with us?” March asks.

“I think,” says August, “that he couldn’t find anything. Whatever our deepest desires are, they’re locked away with the rest of our memories.” He takes the drink Siobhan puts in front of him, and knocks it back like a champ.

--

They take the secret way in, not wanting to startle anyone with the appearance of two of the Chrysos Heirs showing up out of nowhere. Phainon half-wonders what Aglaea’s said about him, then decides he’ll ask her in the future. Probably. Maybe. For now, he just stays close to Mydei and looks around the place, trying not to feel too discombobulated at the—double vision? Triple vision? Whatever you call it, when you look around a particular room and you see multiple ruined versions of it layered one on top of the other.

“You look ill,” says Mydei. He’s let go of him now, but at the moment he seems disinclined to let Phainon out of his sight.

“Little bit of disorientation,” says Phainon. “You know. The time loops.”

“Hm.” Mydei’s quiet for a while as they navigate their way through old ruins and new construction, as Phainon wrestles with what he can say and if he can even say it, right now, with all this fraught history between them. Then: “This is not half as bad as Penacony.”

“Pena-what,” says Phainon.

“They call it the Planet of Festivities,” says Mydei. “March is deeply fond of it. The Nameless saved that world, so they have been duly rewarded with a ship that sails through the sky—of which Caelus has been appointed captain. Somehow.”

Yeah, that stretches Phainon’s suspension of disbelief: Caelus is a good person with a keen intelligence, but he is also the sort of person who wanders away from the group because a shiny chest caught his eye. “If it weren’t you, I’d wonder if someone was playing a joke,” he says. “They actually put him in charge?”

“Yes,” says Mydei. “But the skyship is the most stable place in Penacony I’ve set foot in. Everywhere else?” He scoffs, disdainful. “Disorienting, to say the least. There are rooms where gravity is merely a suggestion and you can walk on walls with little more than a wish.”

“Not a huge fan of the place, huh,” Phainon says sympathetically. “Well, now I want to visit—uh. That is. If I’ll be allowed.”

“I find it hard to believe that you’d need anyone’s permission to leave,” says Mydei. “Must I make the point again, that there are very few things that can stop you if you’re determined enough?”

“You’ve made it clear,” says Phainon. “But it wasn’t Caelus who told me to wake up or else.”

Mydei’s silent once more, the fall of his hair hiding his face from sight as he looks away. After a moment, he says, “This way. Less priests to run into.”

“Less doesn’t mean none,” says Phainon, but he comes along with Mydei anyway. Mydei doesn’t want to let him out of his sight probably because he’s a dangerous element who can’t be trusted not to snap and kill everyone in the room when he’s pushed hard enough. Phainon doesn’t want to let Mydei out of his sight because after all these time loops and all the deaths he’s seen Mydei go through, almost all of it by his hand, the concept of object permanence no longer quite works right in his head.

Himeko calls it trauma, March and Caelus call it The Horrors with capital letters.

They walk side by side. Probably for the best, there’d been a lot of backstabs. The silence that falls between them is awkward at best, suffocating at worst, but Mydei seems to be doing fine in it.

At least he thinks so until Mydei says, “You’re quiet. It’s discomforting.”

“Didn’t know you’d want me to talk,” says Phainon, after a moment. “I mean, what’s there to talk about? I saw an interesting bug in my room the other day. Oh, by the way, I remember tearing up that mural there and spreading the black tide across that section, but let’s talk about that bug.”

Mydei winces.

“See,” says Phainon. “Better for both of us if I don’t talk about it. Anyway, it really was a nice bug—ladybug that showed up in my room and just hung out on my desk. I took a picture and sent it to March, she likes pictures.”

“So you’ve been texting March but not the rest of us,” says Mydei.

“Who wants to get texts from someone who killed them,” says Phainon, a touch manic. “Multiple times!”

Mydei looks at him for a long moment, and says, “I see why you’ve preferred to stay inside your room. You’ve picked up Caelus’s worst habits.”

“Oh, gods, no, not the trash collecting,” says Phainon. “Or the digressions off the path because he wanted to grab a chest. Or hitting whatever looks vaguely breakable because he wanted some—materials? He doesn’t make sense.”

“No, the chatter,” says Mydei, “the jokes, the—obfuscation by drowning everyone in noise that doesn’t make sense. It’s another form of hiding. I’ve seen Caelus do it plenty of times before, I can tell.”

Phainon grits his teeth, and says, “You said it was discomforting that I was quiet. What do you want, Mydeimos.”

“Stop hiding.”

“I’m not hiding, I’m telling you what I’m thinking.”

“You’re hiding, and you know it,” says Mydei, rounding on him now in this corridor, in front of a door that leads to some room that Phainon remembers as being in ruins. “I have no patience for your poor attempts to hide—”

“I’m not hiding from my sins,” snaps Phainon, and hey, look at that, isn’t this a familiar feeling, the rage boiling in the back of his throat, the black tide’s madness churning like the sea in a storm. “I am very, very aware of them, believe me—”

“You use your sins as a shield to hide behind!” Mydei yells at him. “Because you would prefer to shield yourself with your self-hatred than to face anyone with a bare face—”

Phainon’s fingers clench around a sword that isn’t there, on the barest periphery of his consciousness. “I am trying to give people the space they need, which is the very least I can do because I’m the one who fucking killed a lot of them—”

The door opens, and they both whip around and scream, nearly in unison, “What?!” Then Phainon chokes on his horror when he sees just who they both yelled at.

Lady Trianne, staring up at them with a deeply unimpressed eye, says, “I was having such a nice nap, and then you dummies started screaming at each other. Are you done, or do I gotta go get Tribbie and Trinnon to get you two to stop having it out while I’m trying to nap? They’re busy hanging out with Marchie, Red, and Wings, so we’re not gonna be happy.”

March, Himeko, and—what’s his name again? Right, Sunday, with the head wings. Phainon takes a breath, trying to pull himself back together—this used to be easier to do, he thinks. But then that had been…lifetimes ago, he realizes, when he’d been a dreamer and a true hero, not whatever he is now. Some monstrous mash-up of all the versions of himself through the uncountable loops.

“Apologies,” he manages. “Lady Trianne. I picked the fight, I started it.”

Mydei sighs. “Emotions ran high,” he says. “I, too, apologize for disturbing your rest. But good to see you’re all right.”

Trianne yawns. “We saw it coming, I guess,” she says. “If you wanna go see Marchie, they should be—” She stops, her eyes going wide, before she says, her hand over her mouth, “They wandered into the part of the temple that's still infested with the black tide creatures!”

A cold stone of dread drops into Phainon’s stomach. No, no, no—

“Where?” he hears himself say, his own voice sounding rough to his ears, the low growl of the Flame Reaver. He tries to ease back on it, but the desperation creeps through: “Is she all right? She’s—”

“D’you remember the puzzle?” Trianne says. “With the scales, the one that asked for the weight of something bigger than Amphoreus? She’s there right now.”

He remembers that puzzle. He’s done it countless times, but the one that stands out in his memory is the time Caelus and Dan Heng put an innocuous camera on the scale. He hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now his nightmares have a new image to present to him: pieces of a shattered camera, beside a frozen shattered body.

He’s moving before he really registers he’s doing it, running toward the room. Red colors the edges of his vision, and something sparks between his fingertips.

No one can have her, he won’t let them, he cannot—

“Snowy!”

--

Mydei picks up Trianne, the oldest demigod in the world light as a feather in his arms, and lets her clamber onto his shoulders as he runs after Phainon. Of course March in danger triggers the Flame Reaver into coming back out. Cyrene dying is always the thing that breaks him for a good long while, and he’s never quite the same afterwards.

“Snowy!” Trianne shrieks, as Mydei does his absolute best to catch up to Phainon, even though it’s not exactly easy—Strife he might be, divine he might’ve become, Stellaron Hunter he might be, but none of these are a match for someone who’s one of Destruction’s Emanators, even if Phainon was pulled back from the edge of becoming a Lord Ravager. “Snowy, slow down! She’s got her friends with her, she’s fine—”

“He's not listening,” snaps Mydei, skidding around a corner just in time to see Phainon’s cloak glitching briefly from white to tattered black. Ah, that’s bad. “Damn it, I can’t let him snap again—”

Then his memory replays something from just today: If you told me to stop I would.

If you told me to stop—

Time to see if he meant it.

“Deliverer!” he bellows as loud as he possibly can, and Phainon’s steps stutter, slow. “Phainon! You need to stop.”

Phainon—freezes, in place. Skids to a stop, cloak half-glitched to black already. Bits of a gauntlet have already appeared onto his hand, but now it starts to recede like the tides going out from the shore. It’s as if Mydei’s voice broke straight through whatever destructive fog took over his mind, and Mydei wonders if that’s really all it could’ve taken, to stop all that horror so long ago. Wonders if Phainon knew that, so he’d made sure Mydei never knew until it was too late.

Damn it all, Deliverer. You never did know how to share your burdens.

But he’s stopped now, so Mydei manages to catch right up to him, Trianne on his shoulders. “Snowy, look at yourself,” she says, gently, reaching out a hand. It occurs to Mydei, suddenly, that she met her end by the Flame Reaver’s sword, that perhaps it should terrify her to see even a glimpse of his cloak—yet here she is, reaching for Phainon. “You’re not…”

Phainon flinches away from her. “March,” he says. “She’s in danger, I—”

“March has fought worse things than some irritating creatures from beyond the sky,” says Mydei. “I should know. I’ve seen her stab some—hm. Monkey-screened sentient teleslates on legs, I'll call them.” He is not going to elaborate further on that because he refuses to even entertain the memory. “She’s fine. You’re panicking.”

“I have to see if she’s okay,” Phainon says, but his voice sounds better now, less rough. He looks…so scared. “I have to—they’re my fault, I can’t. I can’t do it again.”

Right. The Flame Reaver killed Cyrene, or at least that’s how Phainon had recounted the story to him in…huh, many of the cycles.

“We will go with you,” says Mydei. “But I swear to you that she can handle herself. I’ve seen her. So long as her friends are with her, she will be fine.”

“You’re sure?” Phainon asks.

“Certain as,” the sunrise would be the ordinary thing to say here, but considering recent events that hasn’t exactly been the case, so instead Mydei settles for, “Caelus’s inexplicable adoration of trash cans.”

Trianne says, “And Tribbie and Trinnon are with her too. It’ll be okay, Snowy. We’ll see them real soon, just don’t…”

Phainon looks down at his hands, and goes still at the sight of two fingers covered in spiky metal. “Oh. Shit.” He glances up, and says, “Trianne, I didn’t…” Then he trails off, and hunches in on himself, not quite able to finish the sentence. Well—Mydei recalls Trianne’s funeral, recalls Krateros’s words. The Reaver had meant it. Would’ve cut down Trianne if a blip of divinity had remained inside her.

They’d all thought him mad at the time. Which is true, he supposes. Time trying to save everyone you love over and over again, only to fail miserably, is bound to drive even the best of men mad. Phainon picks at the gauntleted fingers, nails drawing golden blood.

“Don't do that,” says Mydei, reaching over to pull his wrist away. Phainon flinches at the touch, but soon seems to relax. “Let it be for now. We’ll figure it out later. In the meantime, let’s go see March.”

--

March brings August to see Robin in concert, welcoming everyone to the ship. It all goes smoothly for a while, and even August actually smiles, apparently kind of enjoying himself—March is pretty sure that slight tapping sound is his foot bouncing along to the beat, though when she brings it up he says, “You’re hearing things.”

“They call that gaslighting,” she informs him.

“Who taught you about gaslighting,” August huffs.

“Mr. Yang,” says March, just as Caelus freezes up next to her. She watches as he turns on his heel and pushes hurriedly past the crowd, and says, “Uh—do you know if there was anything weird planned tonight?”

August frowns. “I know Firefly wished to see the ceremony,” he says, “but I don’t know about anything strange happening this night. Something’s wrong.”

March watches Caelus stop just outside the crowd, unfold something in his hands, and begin to shake. Then he stuffs it into his pocket and pulls out his phone and starts typing. In a second, March’s phone buzzes in her pocket, and she pulls it out and feels the blood drain from her entire body as she reads the contents of Caelus’s newly-created group chat.

Heads up, everyone. There’s an imaginary neutron bomb on the ship. Her heart crawls into her throat, lodging there as if to escape the wave of fear bubbling up from her gut.

August reads it over her shoulder, and goes horribly, terribly still as the messages begin flying. “Fuck,” he says.

“We have to move,” March says, grabbing his arm again and dragging her along with him. She knows he’s letting her do it, he’s a pretty strong guy and if he didn’t want to he’d just not move at all. “We have to find the bomb before it goes off—wait, who’s this person who’s just come in?”

“If I had to guess, the Masked Fool who planted the bomb in the first place,” says August, worriedly, as more messages start coming in.

“Who presses a hundred thousand buttons just for their stupid fireworks show,” March hisses at her phone. “I thought they rounded up and destroyed all those buttons already! How did she even get on the ship anyway—”

“She’s a Masked Fool, March, what did you expect,” says August, as they make their way back into the ship and start looking frantically around. “Oh, nine hundred ninety-nine dolls that look like a smug little fool. What an enjoyable evening.”

And she’d been having such a good time this evening, too. “I’m gonna throw her off this ship,” March fumes.

“Not if I get to her first,” August says.

“The bomb, though,” says March, as they all but fly down the stairs to the lower deck. There, sitting on the railing, is a row of Sparkle dolls, their heads all swaying eerily the same even without any wind. “Okay! Okay. Help me out here.”

“Fine,” says August, “if I find the bomb first, I get to do the honors,” and the two of them rip through the dolls together. Stuffing flies everywhere, March gets stuffing in her mouth in all the frantic chaos, but she can’t think of that—she just spits it out. Her fingers dig into the fabric of the doll and tear it open, finding nothing, nothing, nothing. No bomb, no taunting message, not a thing.

“Nothing here,” August says. He’s pulled apart most of the dolls, because he’s a stupid amount of strong. She’d envy him for it if she had any capacity for envy right now, but the fear’s crowding out every other emotion clamoring for attention in her head. “You?”

March shakes her head, just as Aventurine zips by and squints up at the two of them. “Mr. Aventurine!” she calls worriedly. “How’s the evacuation going?”

“It's going,” Aventurine says, eyeing the mess of fabric and stuffing on the ground. “Come on, you two, Ratio’s found other dolls this way. Sooner we get done with this the sooner I can kick up my feet and end the night.” He sounds as calm and collected as ever, but he runs a hand through his hair and March realizes—it’s shaking. She’s shaking too. With Order gone, there is no guarantee that they’ll survive dying in the Dreamscape.

And if the bomb goes off with so many people still onboard…

“Take us there,” says August, firmly, and Aventurine nods. Doesn’t even call him out for being a Stellaron Hunter in a vaguely poor disguise, just turns on his heel and books it. March follows on his trail, with August striding very hurriedly beside her, and the three of them find Ratio in one of the side rooms methodically shredding dolls with some of the Bloodhounds.

“Everyone all right?” Aventurine asks. “These two are with me.” And with that, March realizes, he’s cast a cloak of some protection over August, who nods tightly. “Ratio, how are we looking?”

“Not good,” Ratio says. “I’ll say this for certain now, the bomb isn’t in this room.” He casts a quick glance at March, then says, “Have you and your friend found any leads? What little anyone has been able to get has been little more than a red herring.”

“Nothing on our end either,” says August.

“Maybe it's in the engine room?” March worriedly asks, just as everyone’s phone buzzes. “Oh! Miss Himeko just checked down there, the only doll she found there sang a song before it just flopped over. No bomb.”

“Hey, let’s make a bet,” Aventurine says, with a slightly manic smile.

“I am almost considering it,” says Ratio.

“Oh, shit, we’re in deep trouble,” says Aventurine, eyes wide as he stares at Ratio, just as a very familiar voice screeches outside the door, “Dadgum shirtballing dolls!”

August pinches the bridge of his nose. “If we make it out of this alive,” he says to March, “I may never complain about parties ever again.”

“I’m never going to a party again,” March says, rattled.

--

Each piece of news that comes into the group chat grows more and more disheartening: while they’ve managed to evacuate all the civilians off the ship, none of the dolls they’ve found are the bomb they’re looking for. “We've combed exhaustively through the ship,” says Dan Heng, once they’ve gathered together in a meeting room, “and by my count we’ve managed to collect all 999 dolls Sparkle claims to have planted. Not a single one of them is the bomb she’s threatened. Knowing the Masked Fools’ modus operandi, though, and Sparkle’s apparent obsession with stories in certain genres, I think it’s safe to say she may have hidden pertinent information in her initial announcement.”

“Oh, shirtfudge,” Boothill says. “She’s got a darned secret fudging doll hidden around here somewhere, ain’t she. That girly’s pulling a fast one on us.”

“Where’s Caelus?” March worriedly asks, just as their phones all go off with another announcement—and this one from Sparkle, confirming Dan Heng’s theory and providing a set of coordinates to the swimming pool on the upper deck.

Argenti says, “I’d seen our gray-haired Trailblazer making his way to the upper deck earlier—he’d been tearing through the ship trying to find as many dolls as he could.”

“That’s right,” Himeko says. “He’d come with me to the bridge, but he’d said he was working his way back to the swimming pool. He’d been quite sure it would be near the last spot marked on the map she gave him.”

Robin presses her lips into a tight line, and says, “We should all go meet up with him. By now it’s likely he’s found it—he’s one of the sharpest people I’ve ever met, he wouldn’t miss any detail he considers important.”

Welt nods, his face the grimmest March has ever seen him. “And then we need to figure out how to safely dispose of it without endangering the Dreamscape any further. A bomb of that kind would heavily destabilize the walls keeping the wilder memoria from flooding in, not to mention the casualty count.”

August, who’s been quiet so far, loathe to draw attention to himself more than he’s already done, says with his eyes on his phone and his face paler than snow, “I’ve received a message from a friend outside your group chat. She says she’s with Caelus, and they’ve found it.”

A friend. Firefly wished to see the ceremony.

“No,” March whispers, the horror of it sinking in, and the two of them take off together for the upper deck, as fast as they possibly can. “What’s she planning?!” she asks August as they race up the stairs.

“Something unbelievably stupid and self-sacrificial,” snarls August. “She plans to fly out past the walls, trust that she can withstand the memoria pressure from the primal Memory Zone, and fling the bomb into the deepest depths of the Dreamscape, where no living souls can be caught in the explosion. Her only way of making it back alive is extending a lifeline to the ship—and she’s on her third death.”

“That can’t be right, she can’t guarantee that!” March worriedly says.

“Which is why I’m going to get her out—” August says, breaking down the doors that lead outside to the upper deck just in time to find…no one on the deck. No Firefly, no Caelus, no bomb—wait, there’s transparent red koi swimming around in the air—

“The tallest hunter and Gray Hair’s pink friend!” Sparkle’s voice cheerfully calls from absolutely nowhere. March summons her bow and fires an arrow in the voice’s direction, but catches nothing, the arrow exploding into crystals of ice as it hits the railing. “You’re just in time to see the show. Our little firefly’s flown away, and Gray Hair went after her…”

March breathes out, “No. No.”

“Show yourself, you coward!” screams August, his fist now encased in ice crystals. “I tire of your games! Face me head-on!”

“Aren’t you adorable,” Sparkle sing-songs, right in March’s ear. She screams and points at the girl in the red dress grinning at them both, and August swings his fist—into empty air, crystals smacking into the deck. “Don’t worry, big man! All will be clear in three, two, one…”

The night sky lights up in brilliant fireworks.

Then—a streak of brilliant green light bursts upward from below the ship, and March gasps in shock as she spots a familiar mop of grey hair in the arms of gleaming silver armor, awake and laughing as if drunk on joy. “Caelus!” she yells.

“SAM,” says August, relieved, slumping onto his knees on the deck. “Damn. She did it after all.” Then he pauses and growls, “Which doesn’t excuse what you have done, Masked—where is she?!”

March whips around, bow and arrow at the ready, but all she sees are her crewmates and all their friends coming out onto the upper deck, all panting from having rushed up as fast as they could. “What took you guys so long?” she asks, floored.

“That Fool,” says Ratio, resting his hands on his knees, “shut off door access. About the only person who made it out after the two of you was the Memokeeper, and even then I don't think she was able to do much.”

Dan Heng rushes up first, spear disappearing into thin air, as he says, “March, are you and your friend all right? Where’s—” He glances up, relaxes, and says, “Never mind. Caelus is all right.”

“We’re fine,” says March, letting her bow and arrow disappear into the ether, letting herself collapse into Dan Heng’s arms and be held gently by one of her dearest friends. “We’re okay. I’m okay.” She reaches out to tug in Himeko and Welt as they rush up to her, and finally, finally breathes out a sigh of relief. “Everybody’s okay.”

--

March looks up as Phainon and Mydei and Trianne burst through the doors, and says, “Hi! Everybody’s okay, promise.” She waves a slightly ichor-stained sword at them, as beside her Tribbie dusts off the hem of her dress while Sunday helps Himeko gather up some materials. Phainon notes, with no small sense of relief, that Trinnon is riding peacefully on top of Himeko’s shoulders, even snoring gently into her hair. “We’re a little beat up, but we’re fine—”

Phainon closes the gap between them in six quick strides, and despite his instincts screaming at him to stop and turn away, he wraps his arms around her in a tight hug. Momentum drives them both to their knees, and the two swords drop from March’s hands. “You’re all right,” he says. “You and everyone else—you’re okay.”

Himeko says, politely but with the edge of a threat to her tone, and he should probably heed that soon but she’s alive and she’s right here and his mistakes haven’t killed her again, “Mr. Phainon, March needs to breathe.”

“I’m okay!” March laughs, and pats his hair. He nestles into her shoulder, clutching tightly at her shirt. “Silly. Come on, let me up before Miss Himeko gets mad and the triplets have to smooth things over.”

He pulls away with some reluctance, letting go of her. “I was just worried,” he says. “You wield swords n—uh, you wield swords?”

“Yep, taught by two of the finest swordmasters of the Xianzhou Alliance!” March proudly says, picking her swords back up, and now that he’s not in the throes of utter panic, he can see the confident way she spins one of the swords, the way it’s balanced perfectly. They’re finely-made works, the sorts even Chartonus would strive hard to create—the steel is sharp, singing as it spins through the air. “I’ve been kicking lots of butt. Hey, Phainon, wanna see some pictures I took before those monsters tried to fight us? They’re pretty cool.”

“I did tell you,” says Mydei, helping Phainon get back up to his feet. Then he sets Trianne down, and she rushes towards her other two selves, laughing as they smack into each other and bounce around excitedly. For a little time, they’re just three little girls, exulting in their sisters’ new experiences.

“You did,” says Phainon, watching as March peels away to rejoin her friends, apparently to get their opinions on what the best pictures on her camera roll are. He looks down at his hand, and sees five human fingers, no metal gauntlet. The madness is—not gone, never gone, he may never be free of it, because to be chosen by Destruction is to sit on the precipice of insanity and watch the abyss for signs of stirring, but. It’s receded, for now, and he can think. His thoughts are—fractured, and in disarray, but he’s able to breathe and to think as clearly as he can. “I’m. I. You asked earlier, how I kept myself grounded.”

“I noticed how earlier,” says Mydei, which at least saves the explanation on how pain helps achieve some clarity. “Why cause yourself pain for clarity?”

“I didn't feel much pain as the Reaver,” says Phainon, finally. So much of the Flame Reaver was composed of anger and sorrow and grief that physical pain had simply been a drop in a vast ocean of hurt. “I felt nothing at all as the Ravager I almost was. I…know, all right, but. Better me hurting myself than me hurting anyone else. I saw how Trianne looked at me.”

“With pity?” Mydei asks.

“She was wary,” says Phainon. “She saw her killer starting to flicker back into existence.”

“She pitied you,” says Mydei, bluntly. “You are a mess, Deliverer.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know,” Phainon says, too exhausted to really muster up any heat. Was it really wariness? He’d thought it had been. “But I saw she was scared.”

“For you, because you’re insane,” says Mydei. “You’re paranoid and believe everyone despises you, and you are convinced you deserve it all, and you have a hero complex bigger than any Scepter left over from Rubert’s empire as well as an uncountable number of loops in your memory. Your mood swings on a dime and you don’t leave your room. Lady Tribios is worried about you, Phainon. Everyone who loves you is.”

“Cipher hates me,” Phainon says.

“Cipher is entitled to her opinion,” says Mydei. “But she cannot hate you more than you evidently totally despise yourself. I knew it was bad, but I’d thought perhaps it was an episode of your self-doubt. I didn’t quite realize…”

Phainon lets out a breath, leans into Mydei’s side. “Self-doubt means there’s any doubt, means there’s room for being better,” he dully corrects. “I know I’m not, I have no doubt about it. I…don't know if there’s any getting better for me, after everything. I’m never going to be that dreamer you knew ever again, not after the loops broke. I’m just—this, forever.” All the dreams he had are vanished into smoke and ashes, and everyone he has loved has left him behind. He’d thought he’d be fine with that, but he watches his once-closest friend laugh with two strangers and feels his chest tighten with hurt.

“So, what, you’ll just wallow in it?” Mydei asks.

“I tried doing something.” Phainon shrugs. “A lot of times. Obviously it’s led to this. Wallowing seems appealing.”

“You think I’m the same man you knew?” Mydei asks. “I have seen the universe. I have been someone else for the longest time. And here you pretend I know so little that I’d accept your insipid excuse for—”

“Mydeimos,” says Phainon. “August. Whichever. Not right now. I have to talk to March, still, and—that’s not an excuse, don’t look at me like that.” Because Mydei keeps looking at him like he can’t believe this, but like. This is what he gets, dragging Phainon out of the Ravager and pulling him out of the abyss. It doesn’t let go of someone without marking them. He thinks that perhaps it never really did let go of him at all. “You can yell at me all you like, later. I’ll even agree. But I haven’t seen her in years and she wants to show me something. How could I refuse?”

Mydei breathes out a tired sigh, then lets him go. “There you are, I suppose,” he says. “Stubborn fool.”

“I’m old,” says Phainon, stepping away. “Old people are known for being stubborn.”

--

(A voice inside his heart sings: Don’t you want revenge? Don’t you want destruction? Doesn’t the golden blood on your hands taste so sweet? One more shot, one more go—maybe this time all this death you’ve caused will mean something. Maybe this time you’ll finally save them all. Maybe this time—

A voice from beyond the sky says, “You don’t need to save everyone! We’re here to save you, now!”

A voice from the shadows huffs, “You owe me big-time for this. Wake up.”

A golden thread hums in his ear. Are you there? We’re here. We’re here. We’re here.)

Chapter Text

The third time March meets August is on the Xianzhou Luofu once more, watching her train with her masters for the upcoming battle with the IPC. He shows up on the training grounds one day and sits down, says, “I don’t have a script for the next couple of months. Long-term thing someone’s doing.” He squints at Yunli and Yanqing and says, alarmed, “Are you being taught by children?”

“Don’t be silly, August,” says March, balancing on a pole. “Yunli’s over two hundred years old and Yanqing’s just shy of two hundred fifty.”

“Who is this man,” says Yunli, glaring at August with the dark look of a prideful teacher who’s just had her teaching style insulted. March won’t be surprised if she challenges him to a duel later—honestly, she’s kind of looking forward to it. Hopefully August will accept, March wants to see how his bare-handed style would fare against Old Mettle.

“A friend of March’s,” says Yanqing, nodding to him respectfully. Wild. When they first met March is not sure anyone would’ve gotten that respect from him. “It’s good to meet you, uh, August, isn’t it?”

“It’s as good a name as any,” says August, with a reserved shrug. “What are you doing that you need training.”

March backflips onto the next pole, going into a handstand with, she hopes, lots of grace. Judging by the wincing and August’s unimpressed look, though, she mostly just looks ridiculous. “I’m going to fight Skott from the IPC!” she says, and from there explains it all: Skott bullying Luofu merchants, her challenging him to a fight, the terms of the bet.

“So you’re cramming years’ worth of swordsmanship lessons into two weeks,” says August, “all for the sake of…making some imbecile bark like a dog.”

“Yep,” March says. “Squeal like a pig, actually.”

“And also the wardance,” Yunli says.

Yanqing shrugs, and says, “Did you come here for the wardance, August? I’m certain sign-ups are still on. If you want to test your mettle against your fellow fighters, the registration desk’s on the Skysplitter.”

“Hm.” August lies down on the ground, and says, “I may.”

March lifts one hand up and away from the pole, doing her best to balance on a single hand the way she’s seen all those heroes in immersia do. By this point in their journeys, they’re typically powerful enough that they can hold up their body weight on just one hand, so surely, surely, she’s at that same point now, right? “You—You should,” she says, straining with effort.

“What are you doing,” she says.

“Demonstrating her strength!” Yunli says, at the same time Yanqing says, “Demonstrating her grace!” The two of them cut off and glare at each other, the same way they’ve been doing all week since this started.

August pinches the bridge of his nose. “So not only are you trying to teach a completely new student the art of swordsmanship in two weeks, you’re not even working together about it,” he says, and March sways dangerously on the pole. “March. Get down from that pole, let’s see how good you are.”

“Excuse me,” Yunli says, her voice a growl.

“Uhhh hang on a second,” March says, wobbling on the pole, “I’m just gonna—” She tries to lower her arm back down, but she must’ve done it too fast, because one second she’s on the pole and the next she’s crashed to the ground, blinking up at the sky with a groan. “Ouch,” she mutters.

“March!” Yanqing says, running to her side. Yunli follows a beat after him, and March gives a tired thumbs up. “Oh, good, you’re all right. You did good, you broke your previous record by thirty seconds.”

“Now we need to move on to lifting weights,” Yunli says. “You have to bring as much power as you can bear to this fight—”

“Part of the training,” says August, “is learning your opponent. Right now, the both of you have focused so much on training March that you’ve almost neglected to find out what this…” his lip curls into a sneer, as he says, “Skott is planning to do for the fight. I doubt he’ll be sitting idly. I propose I go and watch him, and see what he’s doing as preparation.”

“Ugh, he’s IPC,” says March. “Bet he’s gonna use those stupid—boss machines. Y’know, the ones Caelus hates ‘cause they call for help. Be careful.”

“I’m not the one who picked a fight with an IPC executive,” says August. “But fine. I’ll come back with information. Where’s Caelus, anyway, I thought he would be all over this.”

“He is,” says Yunli. “He’s our assistant teacher, organizes the training schedule. We sent him out for drinks a while back, but,” she frowns, thinking, “he must’ve gotten caught up in something important. I’ll text him—”

“No need, I think I know what it is,” says August, glancing down at his phone and making a face. As he leaves, March swears she catches him grumbling something about ghost-hunting squads, which does answer where Caelus must’ve gone—he might’ve gotten caught up in a mission with Guinaifen and Sushang again. It does mean he’s going to take a while to come back, so she sighs and sits up with a groan.

“Isn’t he…” Yunli begins.

“He’s fine,” says Yanqing. “For now. He hasn’t caused any trouble and March vouches for him.”

“He’s the same as me,” says March, pulling a knee up to her chest. “He…can’t remember anything, either. He’s really grumpy, but he’s not bad, promise.”

“He isn’t wrong that we’ve focused on training March to the exclusion of finding out more about our opponent,” says Yanqing, “but at the same time it wasn’t exactly fair of him. I’ve been busy with the wardance and Yunli’s busy doing—whatever it is you do besides stealing other people’s swords.”

“You weren’t taking care of it the way you should’ve,” Yunli says, snippy. “And you’re taking his side?”

“I’m saying he’s got a point,” says Yanqing.

“We aren’t just teaching March how to fight one guy, we’re teaching her how to defend herself from any threat that comes her way,” says Yunli.

“And learning how the opponent works is a part of that!” Yanqing snaps, already beginning to turn red with anger.

“Guys,” says March, thinking fast, “I’m hungry, and I can’t wait for Caelus to finish up! How about we go out and eat at Aurum Alley? I’m buying. Tall Auntie’s got a special on berrypheasant skewers.” Sure enough, at the mention of berrypheasant skewers, Yunli lights up, her eyes sparkling.

“You know, one of these days that’s gonna stop working,” Yanqing dryly says.

“I have no idea what you're talking about, Master,” says March, shamelessly.

--

They go one floor up, just the two of them. “Don’t worry about any threats, we already took care of it,” says March, cheerful, as she kicks out a chair at a new-made table. Sometimes it’s a wonder she was Cyrene before all this—then she turns and smiles at him, and all he can see is Cyrene. She flops onto the chair and says, “You’re looking—uh.”

“I mean, you can say it, I don’t look very well,” says Phainon, not taking the seat. “I haven’t left my room in a while.”

“Well, yeah,” says March. “Why’d you come looking for me?”

Phainon stares at her for a long moment, then lets out a breath. “Because I owe you something,” he says, and goes to his knees in front of her. Bows his head to the floor, breathes out slowly.

“What—What, no!” March yelps. “Phainon, you don’t have to kneel like that—”

“I can’t ask for forgiveness,” he says, shutting his eyes, trying to remember his formalities. The Hiketeia is a ritual not easily entered into, you have to be willing to give up everything, even dignity, for a chance to be heard out. “I passed that point when I split you into pieces—before that, even, when I asked you to split Mydei into pieces so maybe some part of him might survive. It doesn't—It doesn’t matter how sorry I am, and gods I am so sorry, because the harm I’ve done to you, to our world, nothing can ever make up for it—I can't ask for forgiveness. I won't. I just—I don’t even have the right to ask this of you, but.”

“What are you doing,” says March, before she gasps. “No. No! Phainon, stand up, it’s okay—”

“Whatever you ask of me, I would give,” he says, fingers touching her ankle. “What little you would have from me, it’s yours. I come to you, March 7th, representative of the Nameless, without honor, or means, or hope, and I ask for—for the means to make it right. To make it up to you. I’ll be your supplicant, your prisoner, whatever you think I deserve.” He’s probably gotten the words wrong, but whatever. Whatever. She gets the point anyway.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” March chants, angry now, and he feels her hands on his elbows trying to drag him up. “No! No, I don’t want you to do this, you can’t ask this of me, you can’t—Phainon, you don’t owe me anything. There are no debts between us. Whatever you think you owe me, I release you. Now please get up.”

“I killed you,” says Phainon, stubborn, refusing to get up. Doesn’t she see? Doesn’t she know the words? This is the only thing he has left to give anyone.

“You got me out,” says March. Then she does something he didn’t expect her to do—she gets down on her knees in front of him, pushes him up to a sitting position, presses her forehead against his. “We’re friends, silly. You don’t have to—do this, for me to help you. Okay? You owe me nothing, and I don’t want anything from you that you wouldn’t give me anyway.”

“But—” he starts.

“You don’t want my forgiveness, but I give it anyway,” she says, and presses a gentle kiss to his forehead, a benediction. “Don’t ask me to be your jailer. I’m a Nameless, we don’t do that, and anyway Dan Heng would be so mad. Okay? We’re friends. That’s all.”

“Why don’t you…” he starts. Why don’t you hate me?

“Dummy,” says March, fondly. “I don’t hate you. Anyway, Sunday tried to resurrect an Aeon and trap everybody in Penacony in a dream where he called all the shots, and now he’s my friend and he only twitches a little when I cheat at chess.” Phainon blinks at her, floored by the casual way she talks about something that practically overturns so much of his understanding of other people, but. Well. He supposes that's just a thing with the Nameless. Caelus is just like that, and Dan Heng as well. “If we give him grace, then you get grace too.”

“I don’t understand you,” he says, helplessly. “Over and over again, I’ve killed you. I cut you off from your memory and I used your Garden of Remembrance to help me. Doesn’t that change anything?”

“Well, yeah, it means I’ll kick your butt if you try that again,” says March, easily. “But you won’t. I know that. Phainon…it hurts me way more to see you like this. You say you don't have honor? You have Mydei. You say you don’t have hope? You’ve got me.”

“I notice you’ve said nothing about means,” says Phainon, trying for something lighter, because oh god, this isn’t going the way he thought it might. He had thought she’d accept, and she’d tell him to do something big, like twelve epic labors or whatever, and maybe that would. Fix something, fix him.

“Aglaea would totally give you money if you asked her,” says March. “Don’t ask me, though, Caelus and I gave our purses to Dan Heng because we spent like fifty thousand credits on Seal Slammers merch. Totally worth it.”

Of course she'd grab the Seal Slammers merchandise on sale. Phainon huffs out a laugh despite himself, and says, “Well, I know someone would be pleased. But…haven’t I let you down?”

“Haven’t I?” March says, leaning back now onto the heels of her palms. “I’m only sorta Cyrene, in that I have her memory, I’m just not her. Isn’t that letting you down, too?”

“That’s ridiculous,” says Phainon, with a scoff. “You’re March 7th. I can’t imagine you letting anyone down, at least not for long—you’re quite the determined woman.” Even if she did let him down, it’d only been for a moment, because she’s so vibrant and lively, wild and free. There'd always been some melancholy air to Cyrene, even when they were young—but March is all cheer and delight, the radiant twinkling star dancing in the moonlight.

“See,” says March. “You take your friends as they come to you, warts and all.” She bumps her forehead against his again, smiles. “So—be nicer to yourself. Mydei and I’ll be really happy, then.”

Mydei…

“I have something else to tell you, March,” he says, and watches as she lights right up and scrambles to her feet, pulling something out from her bag. “Are those snacks?”

“We’re going to have a girl talk,” she crows. “Or—whatever you call it when only one of you is a girl. Sit, sit, tell me about whatever cute boy you wanna talk about and I’ll paint your nails!”

“Aren’t there still monsters roaming about,” Phainon says.

“They're too scared of us to come near,” says March, which…yeah, okay, he’s seen Himeko’s briefcase saw. He can buy that, he notes to himself as he watches March pulling out bottles that clink together as she sets them on the table. “Tell me everything.”

--

“March got your nails too, huh,” says Sunday, sympathetically, as they leave the temple together. March has shown off some of the finest pictures she’s taken, and Phainon idly wonders if he ought to finally break the silence between him and the other Chrysos Heirs to show them March’s pictures. Probably not. He still…

“She made me the same offer,” says Mydei. “I haven’t decided if I should take it yet. The shades of red she has don’t feel right.”

“Oh, you should, she’s pretty good at it,” says Phainon, glancing down at his own nails. They’ve been painted blue, with a little golden sun on each one. Mr. Yang taught me, she’d said, blowing on his nails so they’d dry faster. He says he used to do this for his son. “If you’re looking for nail polish you can always ask Tribbie, she has a collection.”

“Hm, I might,” says Mydei. “Your pants are dirty.”

Phainon glances down, dusts off his kneecaps. Wonders how much he’s willing to talk about with Sunday here, before he says, “Can you go on ahead, Sunday? I have something private to say to my friend here.”

“Sure,” says Sunday with an easy shrug, though he makes a face at Phainon’s general dishevelment. “You should probably change your clothes at some point, you’re a little grimy. I’ll change my clothes, actually, and maybe take a bath when we’re back.”

“Chrysos Heirs bath is open to you if you’d like,” says Phainon, as Sunday goes off to join back up with the others in front.

“What is it,” says Mydei.

“She didn’t accept the Hiketeia.”

Mydei stares at him, and then says, “The Hiketeia.”

Phainon sticks his hands into his pockets, and says, “Yes.”

“You went to her and tried to put yourself in her power as her supplicant,” Mydei says. “You attempted to put the responsibility into her hands. You thought you had no other recourse but to set aside all dignity—Deliverer, you would break her heart that way. Of course she refused you! She cannot take you as her supplicant, have you met the Nameless? That’s the last thing they want.”

“Well, what other course can I take now?” Phainon snaps. “We have very thoroughly established that when I start calling the shots everything burns up!”

“Talk to your friends,” Mydei says. “No Hiketeia, no rituals. If I must I will shove you into their spaces myself and block the path so you don’t run off to harm yourself because you think you know better than everyone else around you what to do with an Emanator.”

“I’m an Emanator, I know what to do with me,” Phainon says, peeved.

“And you said you would be so agreeable,” Mydei grumbles. “No, you don’t. You labor under the assumption that an Emanator is doomed—yet you are the only one you know, and I can tell you here and now that I have met more than you. Do you know a woman named Acheron?”

“Uh, no,” says Phainon.

“Her power comes from Nihility’s domain,” says Mydei. “Yet she walks the stars to pull people out of it, and ferries lost souls back to the living realm. Feixiao is an Emanator of the Hunt—and she is a respected general with a sharp wit.” He jabs a finger into Phainon’s chest, and says, “Take responsibility for yourself, at least, and stop hiding behind your sins. If you’ve cast aside your courage, pick it back up again.”

“Why, because Amphoreus needs me so much?” Phainon asks, almost taunting. “Sure, fine, I can be the scapegoat. What else is left for me to become?”

Mydei lurches forward with a growl, grabs hold of his shirt, and all but screams in his face, “Because I need you!”

Time freezes. Phainon’s breath snags on a hook in his throat, his heart beating fast against his chest. “What…?” he says, helpless in the face of Mydei’s plea, the intensity of his expression.

“You are the one person who does not look at me as though I am a misstep, a mistake,” says Mydei. “Yes, there are the rest of the Heirs—but they know the version of me that has never stepped foot outside of Amphoreus. There are the Hunters—but they know the version of me that cannot remember his friends, his family, his home. You—You know me entire.”

“March does too,” Phainon weakly says. “And she’s never looked at you strangely.”

“March is my friend, but we have never properly sparred,” Mydei says. “She does not know me as you do. She cannot. Deliverer—Phainon—you are the only person who knows my weakness. Do you think I give that away so casually?” One hand goes up, grips Phainon’s hair and drags him in so the two of them are touching foreheads, and Phainon thinks of the Hiketeia. Of how easy it would be to kneel here and beg.

Of the simple fact that he cannot do it here, to Mydei. Cannot. Some tattered bits of pride can’t quite take ceding this final bit of ground to his long-time rival.

“Mydeimos,” he says, quietly.

“Do not hold yourself so cheaply,” says Mydei. “I beg of you. Come out of hiding. You have grievous sins, it’s true, but you are not only your sins.”

Phainon breathes slowly out. “I have stabbed you in the back so often,” he says.

“You think that’s what I’m angry about?” Mydei asks. “I expected you to do it. I told you to do it because I knew that if the Black Tide overwhelmed me, you would need to know how to cut that last tether to my body.” His fingers twitch, and Phainon winces at the sting in his scalp. “You split me in half, and then you did the same to Cyrene when she began to doubt your plans. Nikador went mad because of exactly that. You're lucky I only went mad in some cycles and not all of them.”

“The worst ones,” says Phainon with a sigh.

“Exactly my sentiment,” Mydei says. “Well?” His eyes are brilliantly golden, burning like fire.

“I guess,” Phainon says, finally, “that I have some mending to do.”

--

“The good news is, you're right, he means to bring that idiotic-looking robot,” August announces the day after he first turns up on the Luofu. This time, he’s brought snacks and Caelus, who’s snacking on some dried fruit he must’ve bought from one of those stalls near the Sky-Faring Commission. “I considered imploring Silver Wolf for help with the blueprints, but decided the cost would be too steep.”

“Literal cost,” Caelus says. “When I saw him he was yelling at her about, like. Not feeding her gacha addiction.”

“She wanted to use my phone to get past the last ban on an account she was maintaining for some game,” August says, all disdain. “I told her no. She will live without that last account. She may even live more fully.”

“So what’s the bad news?” March asks. She’s got a pretty good idea of the flow of her swordplay now! She thinks. Well. She hopes, anyway.

Caelus says, “Well, he’s a dirty fuckin’ cheater who’s got one of his guys stalking you.”

“I said news, Caelus,” March says. She sweeps her sword slowly upward, doing her best to achieve balance like Yanqing says she should. “That’s like saying the sky is blue.”

“He plans to bring his men into your duel,” says August, with a scoff. “To ambush you with their greater numbers. Not only that, but he has brought a top-of-the-line model mech from the IPC to better his chances.”

March snorts out a laugh. Top of the line her ass, Caelus beats them up all the time. “The mech’ll be easy, I’ve seen Caelus smack them around with his bat enough that I know how to beat it,” she says. “It’s the men I’m more worried about.”

“Yeah, March is Hunt path, she’s more of a single-target kind of girl,” Caelus says. “Hey, you’re Hunt path too, right, August?”

“What,” says August, squinting at him. “Speak sense.”

“What is he talking about,” Yunli says, plucking a berrypheasant skewer from August’s hand.

“Ignore him, he talks weird,” March says with a sigh. “He means my focus is on hitting one target until it goes down. I’m really good at that!”

“Mm, I noticed,” says Yunli. “It’s a good way to fight, and her particular style of dual-wielding lends itself well to it—but it does mean that you’ll have to learn how to block attacks from multiple enemies as well.” She glances around as if making sure Yanqing’s still not back from his meeting with the general, and says, “Don’t tell your other master this, but I think he’s the expert there. I stand my ground and endure the blows to deal back a more devastating strike—he doesn't let them hit him at all.”

“He’d lose his buffs if they did,” Caelus mutters, just loud enough for March to hear. It still doesn't make any sense, but then he’s been like that since they first met on Herta Space Station.

“I have a thought,” says August. “I may be able to pick off your opponents before the duel, so you will only need to deal with Skott and his armored mech. It won't be easy, still, but you won’t have to worry about someone trying to come at you from the back.”

Some gentle warmth blooms in March’s chest, and she grins at August. “Aw, that’s so sweet of you to offer,” she says. “You sure?”

“They wouldn't catch me,” says August.

“I suggest you do your worst,” says Yunli. “Anyone who besmirches the honor of a duel that they provoked via such low tactics should suffer the consequences for it.”

“Oh thank god, no more flunkies,” Caelus says.

March hums. “Then sure!” she says. “How're you gonna do it?”

“Easy,” says August, with a smile. It’s not the first time she’s ever seen him smile, but she realizes then that he very rarely ever actually smiles in front of her. In front of anyone, really. It’s like there aren't many things in the world he finds delightful enough to smile about, except: “They frequent a single bar in their free time. I’ll challenge them there.”

“Street fighting’s illegal,” Yunli says.

“They won't even have time to call the Cloud Knights,” says August.

--

The first thing Phainon does when they get back to the Marmoreal Palace is to clean up his chambers. It’s a mess, reflective of his fractured and disorganized mental state, but—he imagines Mydei might want to come over, so he grits his teeth and starts putting things back into their place. While he’s at it, he thinks back to how he and March talked, easy as breathing, back in Janus’s old temple. Lady Tribbie’s now, he supposes.

What is August like?

She’d smiled. He’s grumpy and cranky, but he’s got a good heart, she’d said. I don't understand his relationships to the Stellaron Hunters, but I think—he loves them. They found him, so he’s loyal to them, but he teases them too. He gives gifts because he feels like it. I think he likes being responsible for people—he just wants to choose them, first.

What if, he had said, into the space between them, his voice hushed, what if.

What if what? I’m not a mind reader, you have to tell me. She blew on his nails, scraped off some stray bits of paint.

I am the last person to deserve this, he had said, but. But. What if. I. I want him to choose me. August or Mydei or whoever he wants to be now—I want him to choose me.

She had paused, then, and her eyes grew shiny and wet. Oh, Phainon, sweetie, she said. You’re in love with him.

I wanted to keep him safe. I only ever wanted—March, I don’t know how my path got so twisted. I don’t know how I got so far from shore. I only wanted to be Aedes Elysiae’s little hero—I only. I only. He’d started shaking then, and she’d set the nail polish aside for a while to come around the table and pull him into a gentle hug.

It’s okay. It’s okay. We’re bringing you to shore, see? She showed him his half-done nails, a pretty blue against pale, gold-scabbed skin. You love him?

He had nodded.

Good choice, she’d said, so approving, and he felt so warm. Did I tell you about the time he helped me win a fight with some mean creep in a mech?

He smiles now at the memory, slumping against the door and breathing out a sigh of relief. His room is—it isn’t the way it used to be, but it’s at least cleaner and vaguely presentable. The curtains have been pushed aside so that the sunlight can now stream in. He still has the door to his balcony locked, and he might not unlock it any time soon, but. It feels…better, to have gotten this done. To have accomplished something that fixes things, no matter how small.

He wonders if this is where he’ll stay for the rest of his life. Least it’ll be comfortable.

Someone knocks on the door, and he lets out a breath, says, “Hold on a moment! If you’re here to arrest me can I at least get a choice where to stay?”

A husky contralto responds, “Oh, I’m not here to arrest you. I’m just here to do a favor for August.” One of the Stellaron Hunters, then, and from the amused note to her voice, he thinks it’s Kafka—with the faintly amused smile and the complete and total lack of fear. She’d grinned up at the Ravager he’d almost become and lazily said, You’re not as pretty as the last one was. Kind of a shame. “Unless you’d rather keep staying in your room? Our next script isn’t coming until a few months from now, and I’m particularly enjoying this vacation. I can go either way.”

It’s tempting, but. Phainon had promised Mydei, and he’s trying to stick to it now. So he opens the door with some trepidation, and hopes she’s seen worse than a disheveled Emanator. “Why’s he sending you?” he asks.

“Because he’s trying to cook dinner for multiple bottomless stomachs right now, so he’s busy,” she says, and—ah, yes, he’d mentioned going to help someone out in the city. “But he does believe I’d be the perfect temporary companion. I’m not very easily scared, and it sounds to me like he’s concerned you’ll think you’re scary.”

“Oh.” Shit, now he misses Mydei’s cooking. When cheese gets involved it’s heavenly. “I can come out. What did he want to do?”

“Some shopping,” says Kafka, and starts walking, only stopping to let him catch up as he hurries to her side. “Did you know that your Goldweaver’s been keeping a tight lid on what actually happened? So far as the public's concerned, the Black Tide has finally been subdued, and you’re the hero of the hour.”

Phainon’s breath catches in his throat. “She—lied to them?” he asks. “I thought…”

“Maybe she wanted to protect the investment she made in you,” Kafka says. “But congratulations. You won’t be hanged in public any time soon.”

“We don’t do hangings in Okhema,” Phainon absently says, pushing a hand through his hair. “And I don’t know if that would work on me anymore, anyway.”

“Nope,” says Kafka, leading him through a secret passageway in the baths that keeps most people out of sight. It…does lead to the garden, though, but he appreciates she’s buying him time to gather up the scattered bits and pieces of himself and play a role in public. “Feeling better?”

“I cleaned my room,” he says.

“Oh, good,” Kafka approvingly says.

“Must be a small thing compared to what you've seen,” he says.

Kafka snorts out a laugh, a corner of her mouth turning upward. “Not really, no,” she says. “Blade’s a good friend—when he has a low mood, he doesn’t bother to clean his room. So I get it, kinda—it’s too much effort for a dead man walking.”

Phainon slows a little, his hand trailing along a marble wall. Is that why Mydei has been so worried? Because he’s seen this story play out before, and doesn’t want to see Phainon a dead man walking? It’s…touching. “Am I?” he asks.

“No,” says Kafka. “That’s just how you and Blade think, and seeing as you’re both insane, I tend to assume you’re both a little biased.” She turns and leans against a pillar, crossing her arms over her chest, and says, “I’m guessing you and August had a chat? He’s determined to make sure you’re at least a functional person before we do the next script. Very sweet of him.”

“We did talk,” says Phainon. “He’s been uncommonly kind to me, lately, which is—yeah, it’s been sweet of him.” It also isn’t helping his poor heart get over him, but then he’s long ago accepted he’s never going to get over him. “I am functional, though! Kinda. Mostly.”

“Mm-hmm.” How anyone can inject that much skepticism into a hum, he will never know. It must be a talent. “Come on, this way. There’s someone who wants to talk to you, and then we’re going shopping. I saw a killer coat not too long ago in a tailor’s shop and I dearly need it.”

Someone who wants to talk to him? Phainon briefly entertains the idea of going back into his room, but—no, he said he’d at least try. So he scrounges up some courage and strides on with Kafka until they make it to the courtyard, the shadow of a great tree covering all. And over there…

There’s Castorice, sitting on a stair, talking to Caelus, who is leaning against her and doodling in a sketchbook. Firefly sits five paces away, talking to Welt Yang, who glances at him and looks to Firefly. He hears a snatch of conversation:

“...grab Caelus and go?” That’s Firefly, worried for her friend.

“My thoughts exactly.” That’s Welt, who looks at Phainon like he’s a ghost dredged up from a particularly horrific nightmare. “But. If he hasn't made a move yet…”

“Just keep watch?”

“Yes. Caelus has a signal and knows how to use it. I’ll get Castorice, I can withstand her touch for long enough.”

“Kafka can get the civilians out…”

Kafka tilts her head towards him and says, “Don’t worry. Firefly is just protective. Welt too, though I think you might remind him of someone.” She smiles. “For what it’s worth? If August cares about you, then I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

“Why’d you call him August?” Phainon asks.

“We found him floating through space in a block of ice,” says Kafka, tucking her hands into her pockets. “Thawing him out without doing him harm took some doing, but we managed it, and he woke up August 16th. No one could agree on what to call him, so eventually,” she shrugs, “we just named him after the date. Easier to remember his birthday that way.”

“That's not his birthday,” Phainon says.

“Oh?”

“You’re over a month off. His birthday’s July 20.” He remembers this—once he’d come upon Mydei drinking by himself, with five chalices set ceremonially out for the five companions he had lost. We used to drink together on this, the day of my birth. It doesn’t feel right to celebrate it without them. “He generally doesn't celebrate it, though, so it’s not really something a lot of people know.”

“Mm, he’s never liked surprise parties,” says Kafka, and steps aside. “Go on. Your friend’s right there.”

He sighs. No putting this off now, he supposes, so he walks up to Castorice and stops, five paces out, close enough to see her catch sight of him and give a small, tired smile. She nudges Caelus, who sits up and waves.

“I see he’s kept his immunity,” he says.

“I died once and now I will never die again,” Caelus cheerfully says. “It’s like getting vaccinated.”

“That isn’t how this works,” says Castorice, with a gentle chuckle. “Lord Phainon…it’s good to see you’re walking outside. Polyxia says hi.”

“The big angry dragon we rode to get to you,” Caelus helpfully informs him. “She’s a really nice girl when she’s not, y'know, a huge dragon turning enemies into scorch marks on the ground.”

“She’s also my sister,” Castorice says. “Although I think you knew that already.”

“Uh, yeah,” says Phainon. He sits down next to Caelus, who swings up his feet and settles them across Phainon’s legs. “Cas, I…I just. I. I know you hate me—”

“I understand,” says Castorice, her voice gentle. “I know what it is to wish that death would never touch those you love. Believe me, Phainon, I understand the impulse that drove you. How can I hate you, when I too would’ve broken the cycle of life and death so those I loved would never know the pain of loss?” She lets out a breath, and looks up at him now, a deep sorrow in her eyes. Does not reach for him—but she takes Caelus’s hand and squeezes it gently, and Caelus sits up to take Phainon’s hand and squeeze.

Ah.

“You broke my trust,” says Castorice, and Phainon nods, unable to defend himself in the face of her gentle reproach. It’s worse, perhaps, than Mydei’s hurt snarling. “But I don’t hate you for it, because you’re still my friend. I…I would like to trust you again.”

You shouldn’t. “I don't know if that's wise,” he says. “I’m not—I wouldn’t trust me. I don’t trust me.”

Caelus squeezes his hand again, squinting at him in annoyance. “March likes you,” he says. “Don’t make her sad.”

“Caelus was telling me that on the Astral Express, they consider it a grievous offense to make March 7th sad,” Castorice says, with a straight face.

“Oh, well, if it’s such a crime,” Phainon says, and Caelus nods with grave seriousness. “Cas, I—there isn't anything left, for you to put your trust in, I’m afraid. It’s all just smoke and ashes and Destruction all the way down.”

“Respectfully, Lord Phainon, I disagree,” says Castorice, with a little huff of breath like she’s not actually being very respectful about it. “If it truly was as you say, we wouldn't have been able to pull you back from the cliff’s edge. March told me about Belobog’s Cocolia, and I heard from Dan Heng of Phantylia’s machinations. One was deafened even to the cries of her daughter, the other reveled in the destruction she sowed—but you heard us. You came back. That matters more than you think.”

“You made the choice to come back,” says Caelus. “I mean, yeah we beat you up beforehand—”

“Please don’t say it like that,” Castorice says, wincing.

“They did beat me up, it’s true,” says Phainon. “Which one was the black hole, again, that didn’t feel very good.”

“—Welt Yang, but back on topic,” says Caelus, “you chose to take March’s hand instead of going down fighting or sacrificing yourself to stop the Stellaron from going off. You say you’re hopeless, but.” He squeezes Phainon’s hand. “If you were really hopeless you’d have gone the same way Cocolia did.”

“Would that have been so bad,” Phainon says.

“Very,” says Castorice, at the same time as Caelus severely says, “Don’t make March sad! Or August. Mydei? My…gust? We’ll workshop it.”

“Phainon,” says Castorice, now. “Both life and death are gifts to be appreciated. If you really, truly want, you can take my hand and rest in the Nether Realm—you’ll only fall asleep, and dream of flowers. All you have to do is to say so.”

Phainon’s fingers twitch toward her. It’s tempting. It’s so tempting. If he goes to sleep and dreams of flowers, he’ll see his loved ones from Aedes Elysiae again. He’ll just go to sleep and never risk falling into the abyss again, and that’s a threat removed, the shadows of Destruction finally banished, a peace fulfilled. Castorice would do it too, he knows, if he just—bypassed Caelus and took her hand. She’d guide him to sleep.

But.

But then—it would hurt March, if she lost him, who holds the stories she’s been wanting to remember her whole life. And Mydei…You know me entire. Mydei is not in the habit of sugarcoating things even for him, so if he said that, he meant it. And maybe Phainon can’t find a reason in himself to keep going anymore, but there are two people he knows, deep in the shattered core of himself, would be heartbroken if he ever took that final step.

So he lets his hand drop, and says, “Thank you for the offer, Castorice, but—I’m afraid I can’t take it.”

“Can’t make March sad,” Caelus infers.

“Or Lord Mydei,” says Castorice. “Or the others. I’m proud of you.”

Phainon looks down at their joined hands, Caelus’s warm hand patting over his, mirroring Castorice patting Caelus’s other hand. “How long have you two been working on this, anyway?” he asks.

“We came up with this idea this morning,” Castorice says. “Really, it was our gray friend here who thought of it.”

“I’m a genius,” Carlus declares. “Herta! I’m coming for your position in the Genius Society!”

Welt Yang leans over, and says, “Absolutely not.”

--

After the duel, Skott stumbles off, in defeat, to squeal like a pig and declare his beloved IPC mechs little more than junk destined for the scrapyard. March waves him off with a bright little smile, basks in the adoration of the Aurum Alley residents, then slips away as the crowd gravitates towards Yunli and Yanqing. With luck they won’t wonder where she is just yet, because there’s someone she needs to talk to.

Sure enough, August is watching her from not too far away. He leans against the wall, clothes torn and in disarray from the bar brawl he’d started just hours before the fight. She stops in her tracks when he lifts his head to look at her, and golden blood trickles from some of the wounds he bears. Golden blood…

She shakes her head, huffs out a laugh. “You okay, August?” she asks.

“Oh, these?” August says, pointing to the cuts and scrapes, the golden liquid seeping out from them. “These will heal. Do you know, for a while, I thought everyone else bled gold? It took watching Blade take a sword to the gut for me to understand that everyone else bled red.” He tilts his head, and says, “You’ve gotten out of that intact. I thought you might be in worse straits.”

“Your faith in me is very appreciated,” March huffs.

“I did have faith in you,” says August. “Or I wouldn’t have made sure to leave Skott for you. I simply thought you’d find it more of a struggle than you did, but it seems you’ve struck a balance between the two opposing styles you were taught. Good.” He absently pulls some tissue from an intact pocket and wipes at his cheek, the golden blood streaking across his face. “Don't be worried for me. I can’t actually die, and certainly not from so little.”

“Sure, yeah, but I don’t like seeing you hurt,” says March. “You know. Because that sucks pretty hard.” Then she pauses, and lets out a breath. “Can I tell you something?”

“Go ahead,” says August.

“I also cheated a little bit,” March admits. “I shielded myself before the fight got started. I never actually got any scratches. If I’m about to get into a fight I always shield myself a little, because…” She chews on her lower lip, then pulls her sleeve up her arm and holds up her exposed elbow—it’d gotten scraped up during the fight when her shield broke, and she’d hastily reapplied the shield before anyone could notice.

Golden blood seeps out from her scraped-up elbow. Not much, not even enough to cause a noticeable stain—but it’s enough for August to stop breathing for a second, his eyes widening. “You have—”

“I don't know why either,” March admits, tugging her sleeve back down, covering her elbow once more. “Miss Himeko and Mr. Yang were worried, at first, that it was some kind of symptom from a disease, but…when they realized I was otherwise healthy, they decided not to worry about it.” They’ve never really asked her about it again, and most of the time she honestly barely even thinks about it—she just uses a bow and arrow and fires from the back line, when they get into fights. “But…do you have any idea?”

August shakes his head. “Not a clue,” he says. “I’ve heard stories across the cosmos that it’s a sign of divinity, of the gods’ favor, of a special quality that sets someone apart from the crowd. But in my experience?” He snorts out a dark laugh, and shakes his head. “I am the same as anyone else. My blood just happens to be a different color. As, I think, you’ve discovered as well.”

“You'd think if I have super special blood I’d have learned way faster, huh?” March jokes. “Well—Skott’s gone now, and he won’t be back!”

“You’re too optimistic,” August chides her. “He’s a greedy idiot. He’ll lick his wounds and brood, and then he’ll come back to try and bully his way back into relevance.”

“He’s gotta be smarter than that, right?” March says, but—ugh, no, he’s not. His entire ridiculous scheme to regain his dignity bears out August’s words, because who obsesses that much over a career setback? In Aurum Alley? For no real reason besides ego? “Ugh, is he just going to haunt us forever like a bad penny? I hate him.”

“If it helps, I believe the merchants have banded together to ensure he is never allowed here again,” says August. “Which, good. He’s a petty tyrant angry that no one will accommodate his ego. You’ve done well to show the crowd that he holds no real power here.”

March beams, and says, “And you thought my sword moves were super cool, too.”

August heaves a beleaguered sigh. “Don’t push it, March.”

She cackles, and prods at his chest with a finger, grinning brightly at him. “You did! I bet you were like, rahhhh, go, March, use the Flower Blooming in Spring spin attack!” As imitations go it's a remarkably poor one, but look, she’s doing her best here.

“I do not sound like that,” August says, exasperated, but he makes no move to walk away. “You name your attacks?”

“You don’t?” March says.

“I have no need to when they can make my point for me,” says August.

“That’s silly,” says March, before she grabs hold of his arm. He doesn’t brush her off immediately, which means a lot already, and he lets her pull him towards Tall Auntie, which means even more. “We’re gonna talk attack names over Tall Auntie’s best snacks! I’m so good at coming up with them, it’ll be great.”

“Ridiculous woman,” huffs August. “...I want something with meat on it.”

“Done.” March laughs. “And it’s on me! Consider it a victory feast for the conquering heroes.”

--

(Why are you all trying to stop me?! Can’t you see I’m trying to save us all?! Just let me do this one more time and we can finally all be safe!

A voice weighed down with sorrow, but resolved to see this fight through, calls with the tone of a preacher: “Destruction cannot bring any redemption to Amphoreus! If you seek for your world's salvation, let us help you!”

An arrogant voice, from a throat that has so often claimed to be frail, shouts with a force that shakes the sky: “Let me get this one last lesson through your skull, then! Break the cycles at last, and move forward into the future!”

And three voices, both somehow ageless and child-like, cry out: “Snowy! We will bring you home—just hang in there!”)

Chapter Text

The fourth time March meets August is during the wardance ceremony in the stands, as he munches on some ringside snacks. “Hey!” she says, cheerfully.

“Why is that golden trash can claiming it’s Firefly,” is the first thing out of August’s mouth, as he glares at the trash can Luka’s fighting against as though it personally owes him money. “It looks ridiculous. I ought to come down from this seat to challenge it to a duel. I would, if Caelus weren’t coaching its opponent.”

March giggles, and sits next to him. Then she waves Dan Heng over, who says, “August, it’s good to see you.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s good to see you too,” says August, nodding to him in acknowledgment before he turns to glare intently at the arena. “This is offensive, at this point.”

“Technically, no one has ever copyrighted the name Stellaron Hunter SAM,” says Dan Heng, wryly, “so it’s well within its rights to use it as a stage name. Though I think Caelus is quite amused by it.” On the stage, Luka ducks a wild swing from “SAM” and comes up with a quick jab to its lid, his eyes laser-focused on his opponent. Damn, he’s good, March is pretty impressed. “Were you around here when the war lord…”

“No,” says August. “I’d gotten off the ship just after March sent that IPC goon packing, on account of a script that suddenly came in that needed me to play a part. I got the news from Guinaifen’s livestream—I would have come earlier to check, but we needed to finish something out.”

“Hoolay was terrifying,” March admits. “Me, Yanqing, Yunli—we just barely managed to hold him off before General Feixiao got there. We talked a big talk, but…I was redoing the shields on all three of us so often, and I can only do it one at a time, so.” And there had been a moment, during the fight, when Hoolay had zeroed in on her—the student, the Nameless. You, he’d snarled. You think to shield the other cubs from me? I will break your shield and use its shard to cut you into pieces, little cub. Then we will see if your golden blood will protect you.

Then he’d swung that massive greatsword down towards her, only for Yunli to swing Old Mettle up, metal shrieking against metal so loudly that March’s ears rang from the noise. The blow had been so strong that Yunli’s feet actually made little craters in the earth, but she’d held fast, all but growling herself even as her arms trembled. You’re not laying a single hand on my student, Hoolay!

“I’m sorry,” says August, now. “You and those two—you were not prepared for that fight.”

“Is anyone ever,” March philosophically says, but August levels a Look at her. “Okay, yes, it was way above our level, but. We made it! We’re okay. And Hoolay’s gone now, too—ah, but I don't know if the general will be okay.”

“She will be fine,” Dan Heng reassures her. “As far as anyone can tell, General Feixiao successfully suppressed Hoolay’s crimson moon. She’s still being monitored, but she’s all right.”

“Crimson what,” says August.

“Explain later, watch now,” says March, nodding as Luka in the ring feints left, then pivots to the right and delivers a knockout punch with his gauntleted fist. “Oh, yes! Go, Luka! Kick its butt and show that trash can who’s boss!”

“Oh, Firefly’s just texted me,” says August. “She wants to know how the impostor’s doing. I’m going to tell her she got knocked out in the first five minutes, she’ll be deeply annoyed about it bearing her name and still getting beaten so quickly.” From the smug smile on his face, he considers this a bonus and in fact the main feature.

“Actually it took seven minutes,” says Dan Heng, as the crowd roars Luka’s name at top volume. Luka! Luka! Luka! “Let’s go see Caelus and Luka in their dressing room. Ah…August, you may wish to keep away for now—an IPC camerawoman took to following them around, and considering your reputation—”

“Fine,” says August. “Is registration still ongoing? I hadn’t been able to sign up before I left, and I have ways of disguising myself.”

March cheerfully says, “Like buttoning up your shirt? You have very distinctive tattoos.”

Dan Heng’s face, for some reason, turns slightly red. “Mm,” he agrees. “Yes, it’s belowdecks.”

“Actually, hang on,” says March, and she opens her bag, pulls free a furry trapped hat she’d found while on Belobog. “This should hide your hair!” she says, handing it off to August. “It’s very cute, isn’t it? Say thanks, March, you have the best fashion sense in the entire universe.”

“This has lion ears on it,” says August.

“You’re very lion-like,” March says.

“Do not let her send pictures to Firefly, I will never live this down,” says August to Dan Heng, who nods with great solemnity. As though Dan Heng could stop her from sending this to Caelus, which is as good as telling everyone they know about this. August jams the hat onto his head and buttons up his shirt, and March smiles to herself, deciding to take that as the agreement she knows it to be.

She takes a picture and sends it to Caelus.

--

Five minutes in the Marmoreal Market and Phainon finds himself thoroughly regretting coming here. He’d known he might, but Kafka needed someone to show her around and it’s not like he’s got anything better to do. But it’s one thing to know the layouts so well that he could navigate it in his sleep, it’s another to actually find himself right in the middle of it, caught in the hustle and bustle of a thriving city-state.

He’s been in his room too long. It’s not easy to summon up the old version of himself with a kind word for everyone, and he’s hoping that no one finds it odd if he gets a name or two wrong. “Ah, sorry, the battle was grueling,” is his best excuse for it, and everyone he gives it to nods in understanding and lets it be because why wouldn’t they? They’ve grown up in the shadow of war with the black tide. They all know someone who forgets names and who’s on the verge of panicking all the time. No surprise, he hears a few people sympathetically whisper, that their beloved Deliverer has developed the same symptoms.

Well. They aren’t entirely far off the mark.

“You all right?” Kafka murmurs.

“Fine,” says Phainon. He glances around, eyes catching on the shadows, wondering which one is hiding a Cleaner from the Council. Or worse, the—no, but that one’s him.

“You’ve got crazy eyes,” Kafka says.

“They’re not crazy,” says Phainon. “Do they look crazy? Do I look crazy? I mean, I am, but I don’t look like it.” Does he? Are people staring at him? When they look, do they see the hero Aglaea’s made him out to be or can they see past the lie to the murderous truth beneath? He can’t just ask someone that, or—he could ask Mydei, sure, but Mydei isn't here right now, just his weird friend from beyond the sky who—

“You do,” says Kafka. She glances around briefly, her eyes scanning the area with the ease of someone used to keeping track of the shadows, then tugs him towards a flight of stairs. “Come on. Caelus showed me a way up to the rooftops when I got here, it’s as private as it’s going to get.”

“Mydeimos says you can control minds,” says Phainon. “Would I know if you did?”

“Hm, yes,” says Kafka. “Unless I put effort into it. Also, huh, he really does tell you everything.”

“I—He does not.” Does he? It’s a lightning bolt to the head, that thought: Mydei tells him things he doesn’t tell anyone else. Mydei tells him things about his friends, because he—trusts him? Wants to trust him? What the fuck, Caelus might say. “I. He. We talked. In Janusopolis. Has he ever talked to you about…being split up?” My fault, my fault, my idea, my plan.

“Once or twice,” says Kafka, watching him with a distant note of—not anxiety, exactly? Just a dispassionate eye on the situation. Like she’s aware of the danger, she just doesn't feel the need to rank it so high on her list of priorities. She pulls him up to the rooftop, and for a moment his stomach lurches when he glances down. He could step right off and—no, it wouldn't work, he'd just break a leg trying. And anyway. Anyway. He meant what he said to Castorice, it’s just that the temptation doesn’t go away.

Is it ever going away? Should he talk to Hyacine? Maybe that’s a bad idea. Maybe he should just. Just. Just.

“Hey, Phainon,” Kafka’s saying, and Phainon blinks, realizes: they’re sitting on a rooftop, and she’s got her hands on his elbows. She’s not alarmed, exactly, but her eyebrows are creased with concern. She steers him and puts his back against a chimney, and he slumps gratefully against it. Tries to catch his breath.

It snags in his throat.

“Huh, we’re learning things about you today,” says Kafka, and Phainon wants to shake her about that comment, but his breath is—trapped, in his throat, his eyes are prickling and going blurry, and the words are dissolving somewhere on the way from his brain to his mouth, like snow in summer, like a knucklebone bracelet in a pool of gold. “Can you talk to me?”

He makes a noise in the back of his throat, and then pulls his knees up to his chest and curls into a ball. Thank the gods nobody else is up here. Is he glitching? Please, no, don’t glitch.

“No glitching, at least,” Kafka muses, and at least there’s that. “All right, then.” She sighs, then pats his shoulder and says: “Phainon, listen to me: look me in the eye.”

Ah. So that’s what she does with that mind control power, when not working. He doesn’t want to, childishly wants to push against it, but her voice is soft, almost gentle, and he raises his head to meet her gaze.

“Good. All right, focus on me.”

Easy enough to do when she feels her vision. He relaxes a little, eyes fixed entirely on hers.

“Try and follow my breathing, all right? We’ll do it five times. Keep your eyes on me the whole time we’re doing this.” She breathes in through her nose, slow and deep, then out through her mouth, till all the air’s out. He follows after her, his ragged breathing evening out somewhere around the fourth time. “Good boy.”

“I don’t believe that,” he croaks. “Was that…”

“Mm, yeah,” says Kafka. “Calmer now?”

“Little bit.” He sighs. “Did you at least get your coat?”

Kafka lifts up her shopping bag, and says, “Smashing success. Thanks. I’d hoped to take you to see a bit more of the market, but that’s probably a wash.”

“No, I can do it,” Phainon starts.

“Nope,” Kafka says, her tone brooking no argument. No wonder the Stellaron Hunters seem to see her as their de facto leader, even Mydei. “I’ve done this with Blade. Best thing to do in the immediate aftermath is to get you somewhere nice and quiet—are you going to need me whispering in your ear the whole way? I don’t mind.”

“I don’t need to be coddled,” he says in a petulant huff.

“Do you want to stay out here or get somewhere quiet?” Kafka asks. “Sure, I was hoping to see this famed blacksmith Blade’s been watching, but I can get one of the others to take me there. You look like a sad, lost puppy in the rain.”

That’s…something Caelus might say, when he thinks about it. Over and over again, he finds traces of him left not only in Amphoreus, but with these people he calls his friends. Phainon’s even caught himself absently eyeing various breakable objects here and there, wondering what might spill out if he just cracked one open like an egg.

He says, “But you asked me.”

“August told me you’d be like this,” Kafka says, with some exasperation. “You know, I’m starting to see how things turned out the way they did. Is this the first time in ages you’ve put down the weight of the world?”

“Isn’t bearing it supposed to be my job?” Phainon says.

“Right, I guess that answers my question,” she says. She sighs, and says, “Well. Fine. I’d like to get somewhere nice, warm, and quiet. Does that work for you?”

It doesn’t, but. He’s tired, and he needs to lie down somewhere quiet, and right now the exhaustion is winning out as it tends to do these days. He wonders if that’s a trend with Emanators or if he’s just a special guy like that. “Sure, let me take you back to the palace,” he says, and gets to his feet, straightening up and glancing around. No one’s up here, so he doesn’t bother with sounding cheery as he says, “You’re really not slick.”

“It’s working, isn’t it,” Kafka says, letting him guide her back down from the rooftop. The moment their feet touch the ground, he breathes in, then out, and fixes a quick smile onto his face. “Don’t do that, you look a little manic.”

“This is how I usually smiled,” Phainon whispers back.

“Ah,” says Kafka. “And here I was wondering why you snapped that hard.”

--

Chrysos Heirs (and co.)
May Kephale light our eyes.

Mydei
@Phainon
Deliverer, if you’re still reading this group chat.
And I know you are. Some of the creatures you’ve tried to send to delay us have known things I know we’ve only said here.
(We’ve migrated to a new one. No, I refuse to tell you what it is.)
Deliverer: one way or another you will come to your senses and stop this madness. If we must bring the fight to you, we will.
But.
At least remember why you started out on this Flame-Chase Journey in the first place, HKS.

P̶̨̞̣͇̘̲̼̝̟̥͙̝͍̞̎͆̒h̸̨̢͇͉͚̣̦͚̥̥̖̄͋͊͘a̴̖͊į̷̨̧̢̫͕̲̜̜̫̲̤̯̺͉̀̀͊̄͆̐̓͑͠͝n̵̢̨͙̯̪͇͍̤̗̩̘̮͈̣̔͋̏̃͒̎͒̾̿̑͂̿̓̈́̒̀̚͝͠o̵̧͓̖͚̽͑̑́̅̊͊ͅn̶̡̟̺̥͎̹͚͚͈̞͙̙̏̅̒̿̅̾̅̑̿̉͘͝͝ͅ
you should be on my side mydei doesnt it pain you how cruel this flamechasing has been
the only way to fix it all is to burn it down and start over and over and over and over and over and over and over and ov

March 7th
…please come back home, Phainon.

P̶̨̞̣͇̘̲̼̝̟̥͙̝͍̞̎͆̒h̸̨̢͇͉͚̣̦͚̥̥̖̄͋͊͘a̴̖͊į̷̨̧̢̫͕̲̜̜̫̲̤̯̺͉̀̀͊̄͆̐̓͑͠͝n̵̢̨͙̯̪͇͍̤̗̩̘̮͈̣̔͋̏̃͒̎͒̾̿̑͂̿̓̈́̒̀̚͝͠o̵̧͓̖͚̽͑̑́̅̊͊ͅn̶̡̟̺̥͎̹͚͚͈̞͙̙̏̅̒̿̅̾̅̑̿̉͘͝͝ͅ
Y̗̼ͨ̿ͨ̈́̈́͗̉ͥǪ̸̧̫̖̮͍̦̭̜̗̞̎̔̂̊ͦ́͛̈́͒́ͪ̕͝_̻͈̑Ű̬͔̳̺̺̍̊ͬͫͭͨ̊͋̄ͣ̉͞͝ S̷̷̶̢̢̝͓̺̭̫̥͉̤͓͇̱̪̭̻͙͈̯̃̓͑̽ͭͨͫ̔͆̒͑ͭ̆ͫ̀̀͌̒͋ͪ͠ͅH̴̴̱͎͕̲̙͚͙̠͓̖͋̿̎ͥ̀̀̂ͤ͊̏ͩͭ͆ͨ̔ͣ̐́̕͜͞O̵̼͓̗̗͎̖̮̱̹͇ͮ͐̑ͤͨ͐͗͘_͙̫̻̫̑́̿̀̂ͦ͘Ū̲̮̟̒_̨̠̃ͮ̓͝LD̸̴̵̤̮͙͇̥͕̣͖̺̫̬͉̼͍͔̜̀͋͊̇̉ͬ́̓̄̉͛̋ͬ̍̒̏ͧ̐͋͘͜͠͡͠ B̶̘̤̝̾E̢̮̹͇̱̎ͬ H̷̴̴̵̡̬̜͙̳̠͎̅ͭ̓̏̎͂͘͜͝͡Ë̴̡̮̰̬̘̭̯̗́̀͂ͥ̃L̸̴̡̡̛̙̹͉̼̭͓͓̙̊͗ͧ̉̕̕͞P̵̵̴̵̷̢̙̬̙͓̼̯̳̜̻̬͛̓̀̏̈̏̌ͤ̎͌̂͐̚͞I̧͓̙͕̙̙̠̺͎͔͖͈̣̰̲̎̑̿ͤ̅̎͟͢_͇̟̫͕̾ͦ͑̊͡N̷͖̈̍͟G̊ M̧̥̟͉̹̻̯̞̘̬̠̬̲̻ͩ́̀̊ͣ̽̍ͭ̽̀͑̒̓̉ͩ̊̉̈͛͊̔ͯ̈́͘̕͠͞ͅE CYRENE

Caelus
What the fuck, Phainon?

Cipher
Guys
I’m sorry
He’s too far gone.

Cipher has banned ■■■■■■■ from the group chat.

--

“So I might’ve fudged up.”

“Might have.”

March stops in her tracks, a cup of mung bean soda in hand as the conversation drifts over to her—two voices, one with a certain country twang and the other abrasively deep. She backtracks to the Sleeping Earl, where, sure enough, Boothill’s got his face in his hands and August, looking deeply pissed off, is glaring at him over a steaming hot cup of tea. It’s weird seeing August with his shirt buttoned up, and his distinctive hair covered with the lion hat she gave him, and his neck covered with a scarf that keeps his tattoos hidden from sight.

“I know, all right!” Boothill huffs. “Don’t gotta drive it home when our knightly friend already did. For six hours. Shirtballs, I didn’t know he knew how to actually get angry.”

“Oh, good, I know what standard to beat,” says August, flexing his fingers. “Starting with do you understand that this is a tournament where a main rule is not killing your opponent.”

“Hi, guys!” March says, deciding to head it off at the pass now because, look, if Boothill’s realized he’s made Argenti really mad, she’s not about to let August pile onto him too. Boothill can be kind of insane, but he’s not bad, just—not great at not escalating. “Hey, what’re you talking about? Is it about the storyteller?”

“It is not, and he is a poor tale-teller,” August says. “You saw his match with Luka, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” says March, sheepish.

“Then I don’t need to explain,” says August, leaning back in his chair.

Boothill sighs, presses metal fingers to his forehead. “I wanted to test the kid’s resolve!” he says. “Look, I get it, all right, I went over the line and broke the tournament’s rules. Shouldn’t have pulled my gun like that on the kid.”

“The kid,” says August, “whose main fighting style is boxing.”

Boothill winces immediately.

“You’re lucky I don’t throw you onto a passing starskiff—”

“Hey!” March says, snappish. “Boothill, you’ve been in a tournament before?”

Boothill sighs, and shakes his head. “First time ever being in one,” he admits. “I seen a few, when I was young, but—they were the kind that played for keeps. Kid just…look, he just came right outta some quiet little iceball that’s only now come out of isolation. I got worried he might not be able to stand up to some of the bigger threats out there, ‘specially,” and his face darkens, “the fudging IPC. Dadgum babies.”

Ah. The IPC. March glances at August, who’s now frowning contemplatively, sipping thoughtfully at his tea. Then she looks at Boothill and says, “He was wearing an IPC-sponsored arm. Caelus mentioned it, he’d said there was this whole mess with some awful creep smearing Luka’s name, so Topaz arranged a few things and Luka came out on top—but he also accidentally ended up promoting their products in the process.”

“How’s somebody end up accidentally promoting IPC’s stuff?” Boothill asks.

“Get invited to an invitational match that’s really a disguise for a product launch,” says March. “And Belobog’s position is—really wobbly right now. It’s loads of politics I don’t get, but the long and short of it is, they can’t offend the IPC. So of course he took the arm, I don’t think he and Caelus thought he had a real choice.”

“Especially with an IPC camerawoman hanging around,” August says.

“Shirt and fudge, that kid’s in a really bad position, huh,” says Boothill, sounding horrified.

“And you made it worse—”

“He’s fine!” March cuts in, glaring at August. “He’s fine, I promise. He’s with Caelus. You know he’ll make sure he’s all right, and if he’s not, he’ll find a way to make it happen. An apology would be nice, but. Luka’s okay, really.”

“Never apologized to somebody I shot before, but hey, guess there’s a first time for everything,” Boothill sighs, and gets to his feet. “Where’s a good place to take a fella for an apology gift? Like a bar or something.”

“Boss Du’s place?” March says.

“That one!” Boothill smacks a metal fist into an equally-metal palm. “Thanks, March. I’ll see you ‘round again soon. And August, you can have that shout later.” He runs off, and March slides into the seat he’s left behind, sprawling her limbs out with an exhausted sigh.

“Training going well?” August asks.

“I want to lie in bed forever,” she groans. “And drink soda.”

“Hmph.” He sighs. “The other Hunters can’t come themselves—with the IPC’s people sniffing around the Luofu, it’s too much of a risk for them. Blade especially, he’s more recognizable here than anywhere else. I’ve promised to get them a video, but. I may have to ask you for a favor there.”

“What kinda favor?” March asks.

“I need you to film some of my matches,” says August. “You’ve got a better eye than most for that sort of thing, and like hell am I going to step in five paces of that Carmella. I’ll send them back for the others to watch.”

March chews on her lower lip, then nods. “Okay,” she says. “If it’s just videos? Of course I can do that.” She pauses, then smiles. “But you have to wear the hat.”

August exhales a long, exasperated sigh. “...deal.”

--

■■■■■■■

march?

i dont have time
i
go home to your express march
go and see the stars
forget about me
you were supposed to be safe.

you should listen to cipher
there is no saving me
t̶h̶e̷r̵e̷ ̴i̶s̷ ̴n̶o̶ ̸s̷a̷v̶i̷n̷g̵ ̶m̴e̷
t̵̟͉̃h̶̟̎̈́e̸̼̭̟͌̀̄̈ͅr̷̠̉͆͠ȩ̵͕̯̄ ̸͉̈́̄͑͝i̶̳̭̭͈̐̈̊̆s̴͉͎͘ ̶̢͖̣̍̾n̶̥̫̰̄o̶͈͓͍͂̋̎ ̷̧͔̫̊͛͑ṡ̷̮̥̬̽̈̀ą̸̧͍̼̈̑v̴̰́i̴̞͇̬̾̚n̸͙͖̎̐́ĝ̸͎̬ ̵͙̪͈̓́̓ḿ̸͔͋̀͒ę̵̬̍

The user you’re trying to reach go home March 7th is currently out of the service area don’t look back keep moving forward. P̵̥͓͕̽̄l̸̙̲̝͙͚̿̾ë̵̟̜̰̻͛͑̎͑ͅâ̴̝̮̙̺͜s̷̝̩͒̇ĕ̷̡̹̟ ̵̢͉͔̩̺͂̓͒ṯ̶̚r̴̡̻̘̗̈́̏͘̚ÿ̴̩͉́̌ ̷͓͚̉̈̓́ą̴̮̦̿̾̊̎̅g̷̡̩͇̥͇̈a̵̲͆i̸̠̖͍̻̾́̉ͅn̴͍̾̒̉̓͊ ̸̥̗̍́l̷͕͓̥̄͒͗̃͑a̵͕͑͛t̸̡̝̳̿̿̀͂e̵̢̠̮̤͉͂͐̍͐͊ŗ̴͚̝̮̗͂̿́.̷̠̯͖͎́̒̏͂

--

“Oh, good, you’re alive and responsive,” Anaxa says, when Phainon pulls the door open the next day after dragging himself through a morning routine. He knows he doesn’t look at his best, but right now he considers it an achievement if he can get out of bed for the day and get something done. “I was seriously considering recruiting Mydeimos’s armored friend to kick the door down if you didn’t.”

“...Firefly’s very strong, yes,” Phainon manages, looking behind him to see Mydei, as fresh as a daisy with his usual surly demeanor, and March, who’s yawning into her hand. “Why’s the professor here?”

“You’re asking me?” Mydei says. “Anaxagoras came to speak with me as I was running. He wishes to go to the Grove with the three of us.”

March all but cracks her jaw with the force of another yawn. “I’m so sleepy,” she complains. “Dan Heng likes that kind of thing, why’m I going?”

“Because all three of you have experienced a split and a reunion of your souls,” says Anaxa, and, yeah, okay, Phainon ought to have seen that coming. Of course it’s the souls. Memories. Whatever. “I need to interview you, but I’d rather not do it where Aglaea can watch us. So: the Grove.”

“But it’s early and I was having such a good dream about chocolate,” March whines.

“I am the least qualified person to ask about this,” Mydei huffs.

Phainon lets out a long, slow breath. “Professor,” he says, “isn’t the Grove unsafe, still?”

“That’s why I have all three of you, hm?” Anaxa says. “You’re all capable fighters in your own right. Phainon, I’m aware you currently lack a sword, so,” a sheathed sword shimmers into existence in his hand, and he tosses it to Phainon casually, “take this one. It was a gift I had no way to return and no desire to use—I’m sure you can put it to better use than I can.” He pauses. “Besides. Without a sword, you’d just end up summoning stars and meteors.”

“No I wouldn’t now,” says Phainon, a little offended. “Probably I’d just throw the nearest blunt object. Or Mydei—uh, Mydeimos.”

Mydei raises an eyebrow. “No,” he says, bluntly.

“What, you’re better than a projectile!”

“How about this,” says Mydei, “I will allow one attempt, if you take more kills than I do.”

“I wondered when they’d get back to it,” says Anaxa.

“Fine!” Phainon huffs, unable to resist the lure of competition. “Fine. It starts when we get to the Grove and ends when we make it inside the campus’s interior rooms.”

“Why are you guys trying to outdo each other so early in the morning,” March whines. “Why are we going anywhere. Let’s just go back to sleep. Does anyone remember sleep? It used to feel so good.”

Anaxa says, “Dan Heng informed me of this,” and pulls out a small box with—hang on now, that’s from that fancy bakery in the market, isn’t it? There’s the baker’s careful calligraphy on the top, even a little card slipped underneath the twine. Anaxa undoes the twine and March’s jaw drops when the cake comes into view: a moist, delectable slice of chocolate cake that Phainon has, in every cycle, elbowed someone out of the way in a line for. “If you come with us, this cake is yours.”

And then, cruelty of cruelties, he closes and reties the box.

“No,” March whimpers.

“That’s hurtful,” Phainon says, wounded. “She gets a cake as a bribe and I don’t?”

“If you win, and your attempt at using me as a projectile works, I will buy you that cake,” says Mydei. “The entire thing.”

Phainon’s stupid heart batters at his ribcage, trying to leap out of his chest and into Mydei’s hands. Or at least that’s what it feels like. He rubs at his forearm, certain that he shouldn’t have even this tiny kindness. But the professor’s right here, so he keeps a lid on that for now and says instead, “Sure. And if you win, I’ll—I don’t know, go talk to Aglaea.” He’d been hoping to build up to her slowly. As he is now he feels like he could get through a talk with her without his nerves getting the best of him, but also he might not.

“Hyacine,” says Mydei.

“No,” says Phainon. “She’ll be nice about it! She gets everyone to talk to her somehow!”

“You're going to want to pick a different name, I’m picking her up in a bit,” says Anaxa. “She fused her soul not only with a Titan, but with another human who assumed the Titan’s divinity. It’s of a different fashion than what you three experienced, but it aligns in a similar way to my interests, so.”

“I think I’d rather you did unethical experiments on me than bring Hyacine,” says Phainon. “Hey, if I lose the bet I’ll let the professor do unethical experiments—”

“Don’t encourage him!” March yelps. “We’re already fending off Herta and she’s all the way over on a space station, I don’t wanna have to yell at Anaxa too!”

“Anaxagoras,” says Anaxa. “And no, I’m not doing experiments on you. I don't have the equipment for that.”

“Good,” says Mydei, “because I’d rather no one tried doing unethical experiments on our beloved Deliverer. Aglaea would have your head and the high priestess of Janus would divide the rest of you into three parts.”

“I notice you didn’t mention what you’d do to me,” Anaxa says.

Mydei shrugs. “I don’t need to make threats,” he says, “because of exactly that. I’ll leave it up to your imagination.”

“If we’re done making threats,” says Phainon, “can we go? I’ll figure out the terms of the bet on the way.”

--

The walk to the Space Anchor that can take them to the Grove is…awkward, to say the least. Hyacine can tell Phainon is really only here because both Mydei and March talked him into it, because when she tries to talk to him he looks a little cornered and deflects to Mydei or March or Professor Anaxa. She’s pretty sure he’s scared of her? Which is kind of funny, he’s the one with the power to end worlds.

The thing about Space Anchors that Hyacine is honestly never getting used to is just—how instantaneous it is. She’s ridden along with Mydei before when he uses the power of Strife to get places, and even that takes a little time. She’s used Tribbie’s Century Gates, and Dan Heng’s spirit water passageways. As the demigod of Sky, she too can get to places in the blink of an eye.

Going by Space Anchor is simply this—from one heartbeat to the next, she’s already in a different place. There’s not even a lurch in her stomach. “We’re here already?” she says, stunned, as the blue skies of Okhema are replaced with the night sky blanketing the Grove in the time it takes for a hummingbird to flap its wings once.

“Oh, that’s the big tree!” March joyfully calls. “Ah, it’s looking so much better now! Quick, take my picture with it!” She hands off her camera to Mydei, who huffs out a sound that’s almost like a chuckle, and makes silly poses as Professor Anaxa irritatedly gathers up some trampled-on scrolls.

Phainon hangs back, and she sees him with his mask off—exhausted, and resigned to whatever comes next, and so, so sad. He hunches his shoulders with guilt as his eyes stray across to the bodies of black tide creatures that Caelus and Dan Heng killed not too long ago.

Aquila and Seliose are no longer so loud as they used to be, their confused voices mostly silent now that the black tide’s corruption has receded. She hears their voices now as a sullen whisper in her ear: Destruction’s c■■sen failure ■■ves when no■■ of the ■■urty■■d esc■■ed unscathed not fair not fair kill him do justice justice vengeance. She shakes her head in response, and sighs.

“Can we talk?” she says, approaching, and holds up her hands when he freezes. “It's okay, Lord Phainon! Really and truly, it’s fine. I just wanted to ask you for advice.”

“Me,” says Phainon, stunned. “That’s. Okay? Not the best person to give advice, but. Sure, I guess.”

Aquila and Seliose hiss and spit. Hyacine wrings her hands together, because—well, it’s worrying! She’s been irritated with her patients before, sure, but it’s usually a flash and then gone. Since everything went down, though, she’s had the Titan’s remnants still clinging to the inside of her skull hissing aggressively every time something goes wrong. And she’s a doctor. A lot of things tend to go wrong.

How does she explain this, she wonders, a little hysterical. How does she tell Lord Phainon that she too might be going a little insane? People depend on her! People need her and—

“Hyacine?”

She blinks. “Yes?”

“You’re twitching.” Phainon looks at her, as if wondering something, before he sits down on a nearby fallen log and says, “Come here. Do you want me to pretend to be Caelus?”

That startles a laugh out of her. “Why Caelus?” she asks.

“Because everyone he meets ends up trusting him with the darkest secrets they have in time,” says Phainon, easily. He pats the empty space beside him.

Hyacine shakes her head and sits down next to him. “I don't think this is something he can really help with,” she admits. “I…You know what Professor Anaxa said earlier, right? About how I merged with Aquila and Seliose?”

“Yes,” says Phainon. “I remember that. You’d protected everyone with your rainbow barriers.”

“Well.” Hyacine twists her fingers in the hems of her sleeves, and says, “When. When I fused myself with them. I—I knew what I was getting into, I knew that it wouldn’t be easy, but they were so corrupted, and so, so, so angry. Aquila hated so much, and Seliose was…so deeply betrayed by humanity. And. And. The thing that scares me the most. Like. Really scares me. Is—ugh, I don’t even want to say it, you might think it’s stupid.”

Phainon is silent for a while, before he reaches out, a little hesitant, and takes her hand, squeezes gently. “Hyacine,” he says. He stops for a moment, considering something, before he lets out a breath and lowers his voice. “On the best days I am barely sane enough to consider myself a person worth talking to. Yesterday I went to the market and had a panic attack—do not look at me like that, I’m fine now and I don’t want to talk about it when we’re talking about you. But I won’t think it’s stupid. I might even think it’s similar.”

Well. He would, wouldn’t he. “I catch myself thinking like they do,” she admits, so soft that he has to lean closer to hear her. “I get so mad, sometimes. I never got that angry before, even when things got really bad—or, okay, I did, it just…didn’t bother me as much. But they keep saying things like—”

“—everything will be better if this one thing just goes away,” Phainon completes.

She nods. “If this one person just stops breathing,” she says.

“Wipe the slate clean, start over,” Phainon says, his voice heavy. “And over and over. Yeah. Not stupid, Hyacine. Not at all.”

“I don't want to!” she hastily says. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, not really, I just want to help. But ever since I merged with Aquila it’s, it’s just—it keeps popping up so often, and I’m scared, I. Am I going insane?”

“Anaxa shoved Cerces’ Coreflame into himself and he’s still a little weird even now,” says Phainon. “I have stories of various cycles where Mydei did get overwhelmed by the Black Tide and—okay, no, let’s not talk about that, I’m not going to upset the both of us more.” He sighs, pushes a hand through his hair. “For what it’s worth, from this side of insanity, I personally don’t think you’re nuts. I know the signs intimately. You’re not exhibiting any of them, not really, but it might be good to ease back a little on your role so the stress doesn't exacerbate your problem. You have Clementine, so that’s good.”

“People need me,” says Hyacine. “I can’t just…put this down. I have a responsibility.”

“You’ve done enough, Hyacine,” says Phainon, gently, and she wonders now if any of them had ever told him that. They’ve always known him to be Kephale’s chosen, the one meant to survive them all and bring forth the new era. She…did tell him, right? Does it excuse what he did, what horrors he brought down from—oh, nope, nope, that’s Aquila's line of thinking. “I’m not saying to abandon your responsibility, but just. Give yourself a rest, every so often. No one would blame you for doing so.”

“How do you deal with it?” she asks. “Having—Having all these thoughts? I mean, I know how, but. It flies out of my head, when they come up.”

Phainon shrugs. “I snapped,” he says. “I don’t recommend that. These days when I find myself thinking that way my first reaction is just to remove myself from the situation, but uh. That’s how I ended up staying in my room.” He drums his fingers against his kneecap. “Cuddle a plushie, I guess? I’m not an expert in self-soothing, sorry, I’m more of a cautionary tale.”

Hell of a cautionary tale, as Cipher might say. “I do like plushies,” Hyacine says. “I could ask Castorice. She’s made plenty.”

“See, there’s a start,” says Phainon, with a small smile. “And, look. If you’re worried you’ll go insane and start trying to, I don’t know, tip people into a pool of lava—”

“Oh, please, no,” Hyacine says.

“—you can always lean on the people around you,” says Phainon. “It helps to remind yourself of that. People care about you and want to help you, all you have to do is to let them in.” He sighs, a finger brushing over gold-scabbed knuckles. “I can’t tell you not to listen to Aquila and Seliose. They’re in your head, just as Destruction sits in mine, and sometimes they speak in voices just like our own. I wish I could tell you that it gets easier, but I’m not there yet, if it even exists.”

“I’ve told people that so many times,” says Hyacine, quietly. “And I believe it, I do. It’s just…harder to see.”

“You’re a lot more optimistic than I was,” says Phainon. “Be kinder to yourself than I was and am, if and when it falters. As for the voices—just remember no one else can hear them, all right? What’s in your head, that doesn’t matter. It’s what you do that counts.”

It’s all things Hyacine’s said to other people before, but…hearing it from Phainon, who she knows is still a mess, actually helps, because she can hear the weight of experience in his words. He knows what he’s talking about, he’s living with it even now. She hopes he’s not bearing it alone.

She leans forward, and wraps him into a tight hug, and for a moment, Aquila’s voice goes quiet. “Thank you, Phainon,” she murmurs. “I…really missed you.”

“...I missed you too, Hyacinthia,” Phainon warmly says, hugging her back. He does pull away fast, but at least whatever nervousness has been keeping him from talking to her has melted away for now. “Ah, hold on, let me go make sure March doesn’t fall off a cliff while she’s busy posing.”

“She wouldn’t,” Hyacine says, but uncertainly. “Would she?”

Mydei, alarmed, calls: “March, don’t pose like that so close to the edge!”

“Yeah, she would,” says Phainon, getting up and making a show of cracking his back. “You’ve got my number. Text me whenever, and we’ll make fun of the voices in our heads. Helps to laugh about it.”

“You picked that up from Caelus,” says Hyacine.

“If it works, it works!”

--

There are still Black Tide creatures roaming around the place. Lesser now than they used to be, between Caelus and his friends’ efforts to clear the place out (and Phainon’s pretty sure Caelus considers it relaxing) and Phainon’s step back from the edge, but there’s enough to keep them occupied and to build the barest of leads over Mydei.

“Where were you hiding this?” March huffs, kicking a corrupted archer off a branch. “With the crystals and the—the weird glow!”

“Here, in Amphoreus, where else did you think,” Mydei huffs. “The good news is, it works off Amphoreus. I tested it when I woke up on the Express. I don’t know how it may work for the rest of you, though.”

“Add that to the list of things to test,” Anaxa says, before he shoots an incoming creature. “Phainon, I do want to ask, why are they still trying to attack you as well now that you’ve woken up?”

“I’m alive, they’re not, that's reason enough,” says Phainon, keeping Hyacine safe. This sword is nothing like Dawnmaker, doesn’t fit half as well in his palm, and he finds himself missing it for a moment before letting it go. This is—fine. It’s fine. “Do you think I’ve still got authority over them?”

“You did have authority over them back before we fought you, didn’t you?” Anaxa asks.

“That was when I was trying to burn everything down!” Phainon swings the sword up, keeping Hyacine at his back and keeping her safe, cutting down the mob of monsters ganging up on them. “They don’t listen to me now, because I’m not a Ravager, I’m just the asshole who turned his back on their actual master, and also I’m alive, they really don’t need much more of a reason than that.” He pivots on his heel as Little Ica thunders past him, the tiny unicorn’s tornado strong enough that he actually has to jam the sword into the branch to not get thrown off himself.

He’s pretty sure the unicorn might dislike him. He’d deserve it, but. Really? Little Ica? That one actually hurts.

“I count six!” Mydei calls.

“Seven!” Phainon says, pulling his sword out and ducking a stab from a creature that up until then had been invisible. One savage downward slash, and the monster collapses to the ground. “And now eight. You’d better catch—”

Four monsters are flung off the branch by Mydei sending out a wave of red crystals at them. Spikes of red protrude from the side, glowing threateningly. “Ten,” he smugly says.

“Show off,” says Phainon, as the last monster falls to March stabbing it with one of her swords. “Hyacine, how are you and Little Ica?”

“We’re all right,” Hyacine reports. “Professor? Uh…where’s the professor?”

“...if he fell off this branch, Aglaea will kill us,” says Mydei.

“Don’t be so worried,” Anaxa lazily calls from where he’s gone on ahead, patting the passage of Janus that leads from this branch to the entrance into the inner rooms. “I’ve never fallen off a branch in this life. I can’t guarantee anything about previous cycles.”

“You don’t want that answer, Professor,” says Phainon, jogging up to him. Damn it. Mydei’s probably winning this one, which means he’ll have to come and talk to Aglaea. In the baths. Which means everything off. And Aglaea’s better than anyone else at being able to see past his masks even with his clothes on, with them off she’ll see the scars. She’ll worry.

“I do,” says Anaxa. “But later. You seem…somewhat calmer now.”

Phainon shrugs. “I can’t fix what I’ve done,” he says, quietly. “I would know, I’ve tried many, many times to do exactly that—I was…so certain.” He looks down at his feet, the dirt and the blood on his shoes, and scuffs a toe against the bark of the tree. “I was so certain.”

“Certainty’s a funny little thing,” says Anaxa. “Useful in a debate, in a fight, but too much of it and you get rid of your reason, trade it in for a zealotry that runs roughshod over everyone you care about, over the world around you.”

Cyrene’s sad eyes. The blood seeping from Mydei’s back. Phainon picks absently at the skin of his knuckles.

“From where I’m standing,” says Anaxa, catching his hands and pulling them apart with the ease of a teacher guiding his student, “it seems as if you’ve just traded one certainty for another. Only this time you turn against yourself and do harm to yourself with no real goal other than some nebulous punishment—utterly unreasonable, if you ask me. At least have a concrete goal before you cut out a piece of yourself.”

“This certainty’s based on experience,” says Phainon. “You and your fellow scholars died at the Grove because of me.”

“I haven’t forgotten that,” says Anaxa, grabbing hold of his shoulders, his fingers pressing in hard. For someone who claims to be so frail, he sure can dig those nails in. “We stand in the Grove with Black Tide creatures still roaming about, I couldn't forget it if I tried. If you were still willing to do harm to those around you, I would shoot you without hesitation. You know I’ve done it.”

Phainon winces. He remembers.

“But I have been observing you over the past few days,” says Anaxa. “All I’ve seen is it took the prospect of your closest friend heading out of the city for you to bestir yourself from bed, and then you stayed close to someone in public the whole time. My hypothesis, thus, is that you pose no true threat, despite the immense power you wield—because the entire time you and Mydeimos have been competing, not once have you tapped into it.”

“You’ve been observing me?” Phainon asks.

“Myself and Aglaea,” Anaxa admits. “Stop staring at me like that. We can work together when the situation calls for it—and an Emanator hiding in his room for days on end called for it.”

He can’t blame him or Aglaea for that caution, because he well knows what he’s done. It stings a little that they kept a watch on him, but—well, he’s known Aglaea a long time, he knows she’s willing to do everything it takes to protect Okhema. “Sorry it wasn’t very entertaining,” Phainon says. “I did see a ladybug.”

“Yes, your little dilemma over where to release it was quite riveting,” says Anaxa. “My point is. As things stand, the threat is past, and you are my student in clear need of help. So.” He lets go of Phainon then, and spreads his arms wide. “Do stop avoiding me. You are, at least, an interesting debater. Oh—here comes your Mydeimos.”

“He’s not—” Phainon starts, as Mydei walks up to them and says, “Professor. Before you interview me, you should know, there are things I am honor-bound not to speak of.”

“The Stellaron Hunter business, I'm aware,” says Anaxa. “I’ll send Kafka an invite later, though I’m sure your friend Silver Wolf is working on suborning a few golden threads for her use. If she’s willing to negotiate a deal with me I’ll even help her.”

“Right, maybe we don't give Silver Wolf access to the golden threads,” says Phainon, hastily touching the passage’s gently-glowing entrance. “Who’s solving the puzzle?”

--

“Our first contestant needs no introduction—hailing from Belobog, it’s Luka ‘Strongarm’!”

The boy who steps out into the ring with a defiant smile, Caelus hanging out next to him, looks nothing like the shaken figure in the ring before, after Boothill shot at his arm. August huffs out a breath and tugs the lion hat a little further down to better cover his hair—this won’t be an easy match. Good.

“Our second contestant, fighting like a demon in every match so far—the undefeated lionheart, Alkeides!”

Luka blinks at him, then at March, and says, “Undefeated?”

“He’s exaggerating,” says August.

“I suggested it!” March cheerfully says. “And anyway it’s true, he’s never been defeated. He’s way faster than everyone else he’s fought.”

“March,” says Caelus, mock-devastated, “why are you turning against me? I thought we were in this together. Is this because of Carmella? I promise she’s only for this event. You’re the best photographer ever.”

“Is the lionheart bit…” Luka waves at the hat, and at the very least, he doesn’t break into a laugh at the sight of it. Good kid, he takes his fights seriously. August is going to enjoy this.

He lets out a sigh, and nods. “March got the hat for practical reasons,” he says. “I would prefer not to talk about it right here, with all these eyes on us.” He glances up and around the arena, not quite used to having so many cameras trained on himself. “So. You prefer hand-to-hand?”

“Yeah, I box,” says Luka.

“Good,” says August. “So do I. We go until first blood—I can’t stay down long enough for a proper knockout.”

Luka falls into a halfway ready stance with a nod, feet moving into position. “Fine by me,” he says.

“If we beat Au—Alkeides, are you going to come and film us instead?” Caelus is saying to March. “I’d let you do it. I’ll throw Carmella out, I don’t even care, you’re the best!”

“Coach!” Luka says, scandalized. “Carmella’s nice.”

“I’ll accept your flattery if it comes with boba tea,” says March. “Go back to the coach’s box! I have a video to film and some really dramatic angles to catch.”

“I see how it is,” Caelus sadly says. “Bribery.” He shuffles off to the coach’s box with a hangdog look, but March chuckles at the sight of him and sneaks a quick picture. Then she returns to her position, not quite completely off the field but not in the fighters' way. August looks back at Luka, nods, and falls into a ready stance.

The bell rings, and August launches himself forward with a cry, his fist meeting the barrier Luka quickly puts up. The boy shifts back on his feet, taking the recoil with a determined look, then weaves out of the way of the next punch and throws a few testing jabs August’s way, as if feeling him out. August pivots on his heel and drives an elbow toward the boy’s face, but like a hummingbird, Luka just isn’t there before the momentum gives out.

“You’re quick,” August says.

“You hit hard,” Luka approvingly responds, before he drives an iron fist towards August, who catches it in his hand before it can hit. “Oh, nice!” Then he jabs at August with his other fist, clearly aiming to drive him back towards a corner.

August lets go of the metal arm, turns on his heel, and drops to his feet to try and sweep Luka’s feet out from under him. Luka drops to the floor with a groan, but rolls out of the way before August can slam into him and is up on his feet again. His eyes are bright with some inner fire, and the next punch he throws has flames pouring from the arm’s exhaust vents.

August just barely avoids it, adrenaline coursing through his veins. He laughs, aiming a strike at Luka’s head, but the boy leans his head to the side and draws his fist back, weaving low and raining quick angry blows on his body. No blood yet, August’s tougher than that, but these are certainly going to bruise in time. Kid’s got power behind his blows.

He hasn’t felt like this in…he actually can’t remember the last time he felt like this, trading blow for blow and testing his skill against another for no real reason than the sheer joy of it. It’s not quite right, no, he’s holding back his true strength to make it an even match, but that too is a challenge in itself. And Luka has skill and power in spades, the kind of power that takes an unrelenting amount of training and discipline to achieve.

Ice encases his fist, and the next punch he throws is at Luka’s face. Luka pivots on his heel, bouncing on his feet, never still and never quite where he was from the first second of August’s movement. “That’s so cool,” he says with a whistle.

“Thanks,” August grunts, and delivers a low jab that’s stopped by Luka’s quick block. “Impressive.”

“Learned from the best,” Luka pants, grinning brightly behind his raised fists. Then he goes on the offense, dancing around August on light feet and pouring on the punches, never letting up a single time. August is keeping up with him, but the boy’s quicker on his feet and knows how to use his shorter size and lighter frame to his advantage. He weaves with the blows like someone who’s done it all his life.

August feints left, strikes from the right, and Luka takes the blow to the side with a grunt and a laugh. Around them, the crowd’s shouting Luka’s name: Luka! Luka! Luka!

Then Luka steps back, and the sunlight glints in his bright blue eyes, the grin on his face one of pure delight. Just like—

(why don't we have a match and fight to our heart’s content? just you and—)

—he leans away, but the fist catches him on the cheek. The flash of sharp pain from along his cheekbone tells him who’s won the match, and he steps back as Luka pulls back.

Makes a show of wiping away the golden blood on his cheek, so Luka and the crowds can see it. “Well-fought,” he says, breathing hard.

Luka, his hands now on his knees as he breathes, smiles brightly at him. “You too,” he says, as the crowd explodes into joyful screaming. “Kept me on my toes the whole time. If it wasn’t to the first blood I don’t doubt you’d have won.”

“Me neither,” August admits. “But you’re fast, and you have skill. Nurture it—and one day we’ll fight again.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” says Luka, striding forward and holding out his hand. “Alkeides, wasn’t it?”

“August,” he says, low enough for only Luka to hear. “I’ll be cheering for you in your next match. Now—I need to go and bribe March into not sending that video to Caelus.”

--

March finds August in the aftermath applying some disinfectant to the cut on his cheek, and says, “What was that? Before Luka punched you. I played it back in the video, and for a second you looked…weird.” He’d looked at Luka with some flash of—not recognition, but something close to it. Like something about Luka in that moment had tugged on some long-buried memory.

August sighs, and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees and just staring out the window. “He won that fight fairly,” he says. “But—before he landed that punch, I saw his face…and heard someone else’s voice.”

“Seriously?” March says. “Like in an immersia? You had a moment where you resonated with a memory?”

“No,” says August. “That requires being able to recall it in any more detail.” He takes the hat off for a moment, pushes a hand through his hair, before hastily replacing it just as a Cloud Knight turns the corner. “It was—something in his eyes. They reminded me of someone, but whoever it was, I can’t recall. Only that we’d fought.”

“Must’ve been a good fight,” says March, sitting on the bench next to him. “You seemed pretty happy afterward.”

August picks at the fabric of his pants, eyes cast downward. “I came to accept, a long time ago, that I would never remember a thing,” he says. “We tried. But no one knew how to restore my memory, and the only person who might know—well, he won’t do anything that goes against his script. So I have long resigned myself to continuing on as I am, and making something of what I have now.”

“Don't look back,” says March, “keep moving forward?”

“Something like that, but without the Luofu’s Matrix,” says August. “...do you want to remember?”

“Yeah,” March says, without hesitation.

“So do I,” August says. “So when Luka looked like that for a moment—could you blame me, for being unable to resist its pull?” He leans back against the wall, head thunking dully against the metal. “I cannot remember them. I might never know anything else. But for a moment—I thought perhaps I could hear their voice.”

Nothing like that’s ever happened to March. Perhaps the Garden of Remembrance’s work on her is a lot better than whatever they did to August. She places her hand on his, and he goes still for a moment before he relaxes and leans into her side, shoulders slumping with exhaustion.

“Is it possible,” he says, “to miss someone you’ve never truly met?”

“Yeah,” March says. “Yeah, of course. I do it all the time.”

“I’d never guessed,” August says. “Who’s Luka due to fight next?”

“Some guy named the Iron Arm,” says March, pulling up the lists and taking note of who Luka’s matched up against. “Caelus says it’s Svarog. I’d buy it.”

“The eight-foot robot from Belobog?” August asks. “Not a bad match. That’ll be fun to watch.” He pulls his hand away then, crossing his arms across his chest, and March understands the signal then. If August doesn’t feel like talking about it much more than that here and now, well—she won’t say a word more on their lost memories, for now.

“He kicked our butts once,” she says instead. “We just barely made it out by the skin of our teeth. And as far as I know he once defeated Luka, so I bet Luka’s looking forward to this rematch more than anyone else! Except maybe Caelus.”

“Then he’ll appreciate all the cheering he can get, I’m sure.” August pauses, and says, “How’s Caelus?”

“He made the saddest lil’ face at me but promised to get me lots of boba tea,” says March. “So he’s fine, really. What, did you really think he was that sad? He’s a resilient guy! I betcha he already made friends with that Carmella, he was just teasing you. He does that.”

“I know,” says August. “He’s always been like that. Suppose it was just a surprise.”

March glances at him sideways, and thinks of how Caelus sometimes gets…weird, when they talk about Kafka. Like he misses her, but doesn’t quite know how to talk to her. He’s only said a little bit about what he knows about their past, but it’s enough that she thinks, well, of course he hit it off with Firefly so fast. They must’ve been friends too once, and Caelus is easy around his friends.

“Were you two ever…” she starts.

“Not half as close as he was to Kafka and Firefly,” says August. “But he was there when I got thawed out. The first meal I clearly remember, he made me pancakes and apple juice.”

“That’s his signature dish on the Express too!” March says. “Did he put bacon in it?”

“He put bacon in it,” August confirms.

“I knew it,” she laughs. “The first meal I remember is Pom-Pom’s breakfast omelette—I thought it was maybe the most delicious thing I ever tasted! Which was great, because Miss Himeko’s coffee was the worst.”

“The famed navigator of the Express has a flaw,” says August, dryly. “I’m sure it’ll be a shock to Kafka to hear.”

“What’s Kafka want with Miss Himeko?” March asks, squinting suspiciously at him. “August. August, is she going to be weird at Miss Himeko? You have to warn me if she’s going to be weird at Miss Himeko! August, stop laughing, I have to know these things—”

--

Mydei
30% Training, 70% Diet

Message failed to send.

Message failed to send.

--

“Strale for your thoughts, Deliverer?”

Phainon glances up from the scroll he’s reading through, and says, “You’re done! I thought you’d have more to talk about. What’s a strale?”

“Currency on the Xianzhou Luofu,” says Mydei, coming over to pull up a chair. “I don’t know why you’re on the floor when a chair is right he—” It disintegrates under his hand, and Phainon just barely manages to contain a laugh at the deeply betrayed look on Mydei’s face. “Hm. I see.”

“For once, I can safely say that’s not my fault and it was like that when I got here,” says Phainon. “I think whoever hung out in this part of the Grove might have wrecked the furniture and then did a shoddy job at patching it back together.” Much of the Grove is in disrepair, because of course it is, the scholars are still trying to figure out how many of them are even still left to raise funds for. There are new scholars now, studying in Okhema, but…if they can clean up the Grove, the facilities here will be miles beyond what’s in Okhema, and they’ll have far more space and far less oversight.

“You may be right,” Mydei says, shooting the remnants of the chair a dirty look before he sits down on the ground next to Phainon. “There wasn’t much I could offer him, from my perspective. March gave him Black Swan’s number, eventually, so I imagine he’ll be pestering the Memokeeper soon.” His eyes slide towards Phainon. “Recounting that didn’t seem easy.”

“It wasn’t,” says Phainon, setting the scroll aside. “I’m. I hurt you. I split you in half and sent half your soul away, and then I did it to my best friend. Talking about how I did it—I knew why Professor Anaxa wanted that research, and I wanted to get it done as soon as possible, it just.” He lets out a breath, worries at his sleeve with his thumb. “Recounting it, remembering it, with everything I know and feel now…it’s. Hard, to be sympathetic towards that person I was.”

“It is,” says Mydei. “But you are here now, with a clarity you didn’t have before. So.”

“It only took an infinite torture loop,” says Phainon.

“And the Trailblazers,” says Mydei.

“Them too.” Phainon sighs. “So, how was talking about it?”

“Like pulling teeth,” says Mydei. “Worse, actually. It was…distressing to recall both the split and the reunion.”

“Sorry,” Phainon quietly says. It isn’t much, it is so little. He’s done so much harm and he wants to throw himself at Mydei’s feet and beg for a scrap of something to ensure he can finally make up for it all, but. Well. If March had been upset, he knows Mydei would be even moreso, and anyway Phainon has some tattered bits of pride, still. “I—I. I did want to keep you safe. I know that. At the time I thought that was the only thing, but…you know, now I’m not so sure?”

“It felt like that, at the time,” says Mydei. “Like you decided to take out the biggest threat to your plans. Was it?”

Was it? Phainon thinks about it, then says, “If you’d told me, back then, that I had to stop everything I was doing—I would’ve, because it was you doing the asking. Because…” He breathes in, then out, and wonders if somewhere, whatever’s left of Cerces in the world is watching them fondly. “Because if you thought something was wrong,” he says now, “then. Then. I would’ve listened to you. And I couldn't afford doubt. So I guess you're right you were the biggest threat to my plans, but—what kind of threat did you think you posed?”

Mydei sighs. “I assumed, at the time, that you and Cyrene had somehow realized I was planning to bring my doubts to the other Heirs, and so therefore you’d moved to eliminate a political threat,” he says. “But now—politics is the last thing that comes to your mind. You are a fine debater, but you’re no politician like Aglaea. No, now I think…I was the voice of doubt, trying to turn you back. You did not want to hear it.”

“Of such things tragedies are made,” Phainon says. “I’m. Sorry. It wasn’t—I can say I just wanted you safe all day but I’m the one who hurt you the most, and. The action is what matters and not the intent, and I’ve been so well-intentioned the whole way I was letting the abyss take me.” He wonders if that's what Caenis started with: if she really had always been that spiteful, bitter madwoman, or if she’d been like him once—bright-eyed, striving towards bringing in a beautiful future.

“You’ve been thinking about this,” says Mydei.

“Organized my thoughts a little bit when I talked to Hyacine,” says Phainon. “She wanted advice and I gave it. I don’t know if it’s any good, but it seems to have helped her, and…hey. I can be a cautionary tale if I can’t be anything else.”

“Still giving yourself too little credit,” says Mydei. “She seems more settled in herself. Whatever you told her, it’s helped her more than you think.”

From anyone else he’d doubt it, but this is Mydei, who’s about as soft as a hammer to the head when he talks about hard things. He’s a straightforward guy, he truly thinks this.

Phainon goes to pick at his thumb, absently, and Mydei’s hand catches his wrist to stop him. Just holds him there, loosely, but the heat of his palm makes Phainon’s heart speed up.

“You have done wrong in the past,” says Mydei. “But cycle upon cycle of your endless torment is more than enough punishment. Give yourself some grace.”

Honestly Phainon thinks the torment hasn’t exactly stopped, because Mydei’s still holding his wrist like he’s—like he’s someone to be gently held, like he deserves this small kindness, like he isn’t the monster who cut down his own friends and burned down his own village cycle after cycle. “I don't know that I’m capable of that now,” he says.

“The ladybug,” says Mydei.

“I was just—rambling, off the top of my head,” says Phainon, a little weak.

“You saw a pest—”

“—not a pest—”

“—and instead of squashing it flat you thought to see the beauty in it,” says Mydei. “You’re capable of it. Learn how to extend yourself that same grace from me and March, if you must.” He holds out an arm, and Phainon slowly slumps into his side, letting himself bask in the warmth of the living body next to him.

If he’s allowed this. If there are people who still love him despite everything. If even those he wronged the worst can still look at him in the eye. Then—

Then maybe he can earn some small amount of grace, a tiny kindness for himself.

--

(Arrows of ice crash from the sky, a thousand little pinpricks against the power an Emanator on the cusp of accepting Destruction can bring to bear. But the pinpricks are enough.

If my destiny is to bring light to this broken world, and to burn away the chaos that brought it to ruin, then why are you trying to stop me from seizing it?!

A determined voice, deceptively youthful but weighed down with the experience of lifetimes, calls, “If the light you bring burns everything that lives away for another cycle, then this destiny is a chain that drags you down! Break the shackles, and live for something new!”

A mechanized voice bellows: “The steps you take on the way to meet your fate matters! Don’t choose the path you'll regret when you get there!”

A gentle but firm voice shouts, “Lord Phainon! We will bring you to your senses, no matter what. Remember the will of humanity, and its strength in the face of gods!”)

Chapter Text

The fifth time March meets August is on Penacony once more, a month or so after the wardance. She recognizes him fast enough even with his shirt actually buttoned all the way up and a scarf covering his neck, because he’s still wearing the hat she got him for the wardance—it looks a little more beaten up than before, but she would recognize those fluffy ears anywhere. And paired with that sullen look—yep, that’s August!

…what is August, of all people, doing in Paperfold University, browsing through student stalls?

“Hey, August!” she calls, and August glances up and groans. A moment later, she sees it: the tiny toy monkey, and one of the guys from the campus group chat trying to offer it to him. “Aw, are you trying to buy something?”

“I am trying to not buy something,” August hisses.

“Six-month warranty,” the vendor says in an authoritative tone. “It’s a steal of a deal, come on! Once I get the shipment in, it’ll sell out in minutes, so it’s a sensible idea to get in an order now, right?”

“I don’t want a toy of a monkey,” August says. “Do you want a simpler refusal? No.”

“I do,” says March, cheerfully, as her friends come up behind her. Caelus waves hello at August, who at least smiles tightly back at him. “Show me Slumbernana Monkey.”

“Oh!” the vendor says, straightening up, a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. “Oh, it’s you guys, I recognize you from the group chat! I’m Peelin’ Richie, but you can call me Richie.”

“You know us?” Dan Heng asks.

“Of course, anyone would know you guys,” says Richie, with the bright grin of someone who sees an Opportunity to schmooze right in front of him. August makes an aggravated noise, but steps away and out of the man’s immediate field of view with obvious relief. “The Festive Superstar, the Nameless, and Penacony’s shareholders! The Paperfold forums were abuzz about you guys before you even walked through the school gates.”

“You hear that, we’re celebrities,” says Caelus. “Do you think I could get a discount on stuff at the Dreamscape Sales Store now?”

“I’d rather not test that right now,” says Dan Heng, wincing.

“Your friend here doesn’t have much of an eye for innovation, but I sense that you three have a far keener eye than he does,” says Richie, leaning forward on the table, trying so, so hard to make eye contact with all three of them that March kinda pities him. He’s doing his best, she can see that, but he’s…not very good at it, is the thing. “Meet the Toys and Models Club’s bestselling figure: the Slumbernana Monkey Figurine!”

March glances down at the sole figurine on the table, as Richie chatters on about how close it is to the original in all the respects that count. Honestly, she doesn’t really think so. It looks like a bootleg action figure she’d find in Belobog’s underground market stalls, being sold by Sampo. But it’s…if she tilts her head a little, it’s oddly compelling? Like, yeah, a little grotesque, but in a cute way.

Then: “Bananana!”

She jumps back in shock. “What—”

“The toy talks?” Dan Heng asks, catching her and straightening her back up onto her feet.

“This is the Dreamscape,” says Richie. “A regular toy would never draw the average consumer’s eyes here, so Fortune BananAdvisor allowed me to add a little memoria to it. Look, isn’t it so realistic?”

“It’s disturbing is what it is,” says August.

“It’s 8,800 Alfalfa credits,” says Richie, and March chokes in shock. Caelus’s gaze sharpens, the way it does when he thinks something’s fishy and he’s in a Mood about it.

“It’s disturbing and a scam,” says August. “We’re wasting our time here. I have something I need to speak to you three about—”

“I want a discount,” says Caelus, suddenly, pushing past March with that funny little smile that spells nothing but trouble. “I’m a Penacony shareholder, I get discounts. It’s in the contract and everything.”

“This is already the lowest price!” Richie says. “You couldn’t even buy a meal in Golden Hour with this amount of credits.”

“I bought Oak Cake rolls for my friend for six thousand credits in Golden Hour,” says Caelus, flatly. “Two of them, in fact, so either sell me the toy for four thousand credits or you have to tell March here, my best and closest friend who doesn’t remember anything like a childhood or love or the way the wind smelled on her home planet, destroyed when she was too young to even know its name, that she can’t have the cute, tiny monkey figure. Go on. Say it to her face.”

March juts out her bottom lip, widens her eyes, and very theatrically sniffles. “It’s true,” she whimpers. “All I remember is the sound of my mother’s voice, singing gently to me…”

Behind her, she can hear Dan Heng whisper to August, “Backstory number twenty-nine: mysteriously destroyed home planet. They’ve been working on this for ages.”

“This is the most ridiculous haggling I’ve ever seen,” says Mydei, “and I’ve carried Kafka’s bags of jackets around for her.”

“7,550 credits,” says Richie.

“Are you trying to insult us both?” Caelus asks. “4,200 credits.”

“6,410 credits,” Richie desperately says.

Caelus folds his arms across his chest, a signal for March to let a tear slip past her eyes. “You’re making her cry,” Caelus dangerously says. “4,600 credits. And you give us the figurine you have on display right now.”

“Are you going to do anything about that?” August murmurs to Dan Heng.

“...not really,” says Dan Heng, which heartens her, really. “As long as it’s not random property damage and breaking open chests with the Lance of Preservation, I suppose it’s fine. They’re both having a good time. You?”

“I won’t,” says August. “Too entertaining. He was trying to force me to buy his terrible figurine before you three came along, did you know? I was sorely tempted to buy it just to throw it at his face.”

“5,700 and not a credit lower,” says Richie, and March lets the most despairing sob come out of her chest. “Oh, fuck, oh, no—”

“5,000,” says Caelus. “And the display figurine.”

“Okay,” Richie timidly says. “Okay.”

March brightens up immediately as Richie hands Caelus the figurine, swiping it from Caelus’s hands and chirping, “Thanks!” right at him. Then she bounces closer to Dan Heng and says, “So how was it? Was it really good? Do you think we could use this as a plan on a different world? I think it’s a great plan.”

“Yeah, went off without a hitch,” Caelus confirms, proudly putting his hands on his hips. “You’re looking at Fortune Academy’s number one student, guys.”

“You’re in Charmony Academy,” says Dan Heng.

“...I can’t be contained,” says Caelus, his smile now frozen solid. “I have multitudes inside me.”

March snorts out a laugh, and says, “So what are you doing here, August? Are you on vacation? Paperfold University’s kind of a strange place to go for a vacation.”

“I’m not,” says August, tugging his hat downward. “I’m here by the script’s design. Have any of you seen Boothill? I have a pressing need to find him sooner rather than later, whatever’s wrong with Penacony this time has sights trained on the Galaxy Rangers, and him in particular.”

“Wait, can you talk about this?” Caelus asks. Which, yeah, it’s a different modus operandi from what March is used to seeing out of the Stellaron Hunters—they’re usually way more secretive than this. “Kafka’s usually pretty mysterious, and even Firefly said she was never able to really go against her own script despite everything.”

August shrugs. “The script only says I should employ any means necessary to find the Ranger before it’s too late,” he says. “What those means are doesn’t matter so long as that’s done. Firefly’s script back then was stricter—things needed to play out exactly as was on the page. And I will admit, I know very few Galaxy Rangers compared to the three of you.”

“You’re quite honest,” says Dan Heng.

“Kafka has despaired of me before,” says August. “Look, it’s simple: have you seen him around?”

March chews on her lower lip, and shakes her head. “Not recently, unless you count a few wanted notices on the IPC network,” she says. “I guess he’s been lying low since that mess back at the wardance. Also, seriously, something’s wrong with Penacony again?” She sighs—it hasn’t been that long, surely, since they fought Sunday. It seems like every time the Astral Express takes a break in the Dreamscape, something almost always goes to shit.

“So far as I can tell, something isn’t right,” says August. “But whatever it is, I don’t know for certain, and the script won’t say.”

March thinks that perhaps the scriptwriter knew August might do something like this. But she’s not going to say that out loud. “Well, everything seems fine here,” she says.

“I wouldn’t say it’s all fine,” says Dan Heng. “There’s…an uncomfortably massive number of Slumbernana monkeys. I’m not surprised that a meme such as this has caught on, but it’s unusual to see it surpass even Clockie.”

“That’s the power of social media for you,” March says.

“Something weird did happen, actually, when I came in,” says Caelus. “There was this dream bubble, and this girl who talked really weird—”

“Hey, what’s this crowd doing here?!” someone snaps out, some young woman with her hair done up in a spectacular updo. March glances past Caelus, leaning back, and sees a small crowd of students gathered at the end of the carpeted path. “Someone move! Ugh, I’m never gonna be able to grab those Slumbernana monkey mugs at this rate…”

March glances at Caelus. “Weird?” she says.

“Weird,” Caelus agrees. “Guys, let’s go see what’s up.”

--

Phainon does not go see Aglaea immediately on returning to Okhema. He’s had enough excursions and interviews and honest talks for the day, he’s full up, he needs to burrow into his bed for a while to recover what little energy he can manage. He thinks Caelus calls it “mole time,” which is a truly apt phrase he will be using henceforth.

Perhaps his friends are right that hanging out with Caelus may be doing irreparable damage to his psyche, but. Well. His psyche is currently a shattered wreck. Some raccoon scratches here and there might actually be an improvement.

He changes into soft sleepwear and lifts the covers, burying himself in them for a while. He’d handed the sword back to Anaxa, but he mourns the loss of it all the same. It’s no Dawnmaker, but for a little while he’d fallen back into the old rhythms of battle, and his concerns and worries and terrors had melted away like snow in the coming of spring.

He’s an Emanator of Destruction, still. The power remains in him, and so does the taste for battle. The old whispers rise up inside him, here in the dark and the quiet: Do you think you can pretend to be this for long? You who destroyed this world, delivered it to its ruin—what makes you, of all people, think you can turn your hands to growing things, repairing the damage you’ve done?

“I can be better,” he says. “Mydei says I can. March says I can.”

Destruction’s voice laughs at him. You are more than they believe you to be, THEY say, in his voice. You think those two will still hold on to you? The moment you let go of your control they will drop you like trash. You still hope for her care, for his love?

“Go away, go away, go away.” Phainon grabs for a pillow to put over his ears, then pauses. Stares at the wall. Thinks of what Anaxa said, and breathes out. “Caelus,” he says, “I—is he still here?”

On the bedside drawer, his teleslate buzzes with an answer from Aglaea: Yes. And Caelus is good at memorizing directions, so it’s only a few minutes until the Nameless hero is shoving the door open with ambrosia and honeycakes in spades.

“Come with me, we’re leaving Amphoreus for a hot second,” he says, and Phainon chokes on his shock.

“Leaving—”

“I already told Aglaea!” Caelus says. “I promise this’ll be a nice place to hang out in. We’ll be there and back in a few hours tops, thank you Space Anchors, you won’t even have to change out of your clothes.” He puts the boxes of honeycakes in Phainon’s hands and shifts the ambrosia around to text someone one-handed, an impressive feat for one so young.

“Where are we going?” Phainon asks, as he follows after Caelus. He’s long since learned that it’s best to follow after Caelus when he gets an idea between his teeth, like a dog with a bone.

“Xianzhou Luofu,” says Caelus. “Jing Yuan knows I’m coming and I’ve got you with me, it’s fine. You might have to put up with Yanqing since it’s part of their protocol with Emanators who aren’t of the Hunt, but like, Yanqing’s a cool kid.”

“Isn’t that the worldship that nearly got destroyed because of a Lord Ravager,” Phainon says, alarmed.

“I’m vouching for you,” says Caelus, stubborn as always. “Just stick close to me and things should be fine.”

It’s…odd, he realizes, but of everyone around him save March and Mydei, it’s Caelus whose judgment and morals he perhaps trusts the most. Hilarious, knowing Caelus thinks absolutely nothing of cracking chests open with his lance (and hopefully not Dawnmaker), but he remembers the fight. Of everyone, Caelus was the fiercest fighter, the one whistling attention towards himself, angry but determined to bring Phainon back from the abyss.

“I think I know how you make so many friends in high places,” he says, as Caelus tugs him along towards a nearby Space Anchor, glowing a soft blue in the fading afternoon light. “You’re like a breath of fresh air. A very charming breath of fresh air.”

“I am incredibly charming,” Caelus agrees, and touches the Space Anchor. From one breath to another, they’re standing in the midst of what looks like a port late at night, only instead of ships coming in by sea, it’s small, cargo-laden boats coming in by sky. Phainon gasps in awe.

Caelus says, “This isn’t where I wanna show you, but I have a couple things to check on here, and Yanqing’s patrol route terminates here. On purpose, I bet, so he eats more.” He tugs Phainon along with him, humming a snatch of a song before he stops in front of a chair that bears…uh.

“Good evening, Caelus,” rumbles a robotic voice, issuing out of a. Boxy? Head? He thinks it might be a head. “Ah, and who is this?”

“Phainon, this is the President of the Aurum Alley Merchants’ Association,” says Caelus. “President, this is Phainon, he’s a good friend of mine. I’m planning to take him to relax somewhere, but I was hoping to check on the finances first. Has the IPC been giving anyone trouble?”

“No, they’ve been shockingly well-behaved this month…”

Phainon sits down next to the head, as Caelus picks up a tablet on the side and starts going down a checklist. “So,” he says, after a while. “Business consultancy?”

“If not for Caelus, Aurum Alley would be little more than an IPC warehouse now,” says the Association President. Who is a robotic head on a chair.

“And the Luofu would be even more overrun with Sanctus Medicus disciples,” says Caelus. “You’re welcome for that too. Oh, I should go to the furniture shop and see what’s up there, they ran short on this order…”

“All right, that too,” says the Association President, with the robotic equivalent of a chuckle. “Also, one of their workers was injured in the wardance, they’ve been training a new one.”

“I’ll drop by when I’ve got time to help out, I’ve been learning how to repair furniture on the job,” says Caelus, before he pauses. “Well. Sorta, kinda.”

“I’m just surprised,” says Phainon. “You seem a natural at it. Where did you pick this up?”

“Places,” says Caelus, vaguely, and finishes off the checklist with a signature. “All right, everything’s in order. You’ve got my number, Prez, call me if you need help, but you guys should be fine for the month. Want me to drop you off at yours, we’re going to meet Yanqing later.”

“No, I will call someone later,” says the Association President. “For now, I think I shall watch the starskiffs coming in. It's quite peaceful.”

Caelus bows respectfully to him, in a strange manner that Phainon realizes is probably the Luofu’s way of acknowledging someone’s seniority. “Thanks,” he says, sincerely, and lifts Phainon to his feet. “Come on, Yanqing should be finishing his patrol in a few minutes.”

“Kind of wish Mydei was here for this,” Phainon says.

“Eh, he’s been here,” says Caelus. “Or…well, to these guys he’s August. I’ll text him and let him know where to find us when he and Krateros are done bullying the new council.” He greets the vendors on the street, who laugh and wave back at him, a few of them even teasingly yelling at him to buy some of their wares. A couple even call, “Caelus, where's your tall muscled friend? This one’s a poor replacement, he needs more meat on his bones!”

“I absolutely am not!” Phainon calls back, some scraps of pride reawakening enough to be offended at the comparison. “I’ve got just as many muscles as August does!”

“August’s doing a thing!” Caelus responds. He slows his walk to buy a hot meal—something vividly red that burns Phainon’s nose even in two feet of Caelus. “Dan Heng’ll like this, it’s a taste of home,” he says. He gets a skewer of meats with sauce just dripping right off them, and hands Phainon a box of dumplings with skins so thin he can almost see the meat right through them. “Not spicy,” he promises.

Phainon experimentally pops a dumpling into his mouth and chews thoughtfully. “Huh, this is good,” he says, and strolls along beside Caelus, munching the whole way. “This could be all the craze back home.”

“It could be,” Caelus agrees. “I bet some of the Aurum Alley merchants would love a chance to try their hand at fusion cuisine.”

“Fusion what?”

“Nothing,” Caelus hastily says, as he spots a young boy with a sword on his back strolling into the alleyway. That kid is…short, to say the least, and Phainon briefly stares at him in some worry because should he be wielding that sword? He looks like a baby. “Oh, here he is now! Lieutenant Yanqing!”

“Lieutenant?” Phainon squawks.

“Caelus!” Yanqing calls, lighting right up like the teenager he is and rushing over. “Is that for me?”

“Yep,” Caelus confirms, and hands him the meat skewer. Phainon’s still trying to wrap his head around the thought that this Yanqing is this young and already a lieutenant, so he startles when Caelus says, “Also, this is Phainon, he’s the guy Jing Yuan probably told you about?”

“The General did mention you were vouching for an Emanator,” says Yanqing, and Phainon squirms in place. “Not that we don’t trust you, Caelus, but—you know, I still have to escort you and your friend, even for this brief a visit.”

“Yeah, it’s why I brought an extra honeycake just for you,” says Caelus. “Because you need all the height you can get.”

“Those short jokes aren’t going to last forever, you know,” Yanqing dryly says, but he grabs the honeycake offered him as well.

“How much did you tell this Jing Yuan?” Phainon asks, as Yanqing falls in step beside him, casual as anything. “Also, how old is this kid? He looks younger than Hyacine.”

“I’m two hundred fifty,” says Yanqing.

“All right, I stand corrected,” says Phainon.

“I told Jing Yuan about you being an Emanator,” says Caelus, “and that you’re not a Lord Ravager, you’re with me. He doesn’t know a whole lot else, but he might ask around the Express about you as a background check.”

“He did,” says Yanqing. “Dan Heng’s mentioned a lot more detail—”

Phainon winces immediately. “I’m—yes. I…was close to becoming a Lord Ravager, but I’m. I don’t want to be.”

“He also said that, which is why I haven’t attempted to arrest you,” says Yanqing, with an amused sort of dryness that has Caelus squinting at him strangely. “I doubt it would work, true, but I do have a job. Essentially, the General’s fine with letting you roam around with Caelus, as long as you behave and,” he fixes a gimlet eye on Caelus, who quickly seems to find a passing bird (is it a bird, Phainon can’t tell) very interesting, “don’t break anything. Caelus. Sir.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Caelus baldly lies.

“He’s broken shields for credits,” Phainon informs Yanqing.

“That scans, I’ve seen him pry open chests with his lance,” says Yanqing. “If it helps, Mr. Phainon? This is mostly just security protocol, put into place after Phantylia’s schemes with the Disciples of Sanctus Medicus were exposed. From what I know, your planet's been isolated a while, and your name popped up literally just today when Caelus told the General about you. So I don’t think I’m gonna have to do much more than like, keep Caelus back from trying to dig into mailboxes.”

“He wouldn’t,” says Phainon, scandalized. Surely even Caelus has a line? “You wouldn’t!”

Caelus stares harder at the birds passing them by. “Maybe people should stop putting mailboxes in public spaces with an open slit on top,” he says.

“The slit is for letters to go in, we’ve already been over this!” Yanqing huffs, with the tone of someone who’s given up trying to convince Caelus otherwise. Is this what happens when you become friends with the guy? Phainon’s a little terrified. “Those are private letters!”

“It’s a public space,” says Caelus.

“Do you see what we’re dealing with, here,” says Yanqing to Phainon. “You’re not the one that worries me, shockingly enough. You can behave.”

“I see,” says Phainon, weakly. “Partner, your plans don’t include breaking into someone’s mail, do they?”

“Well, not today, no,” says Caelus, looking to Phainon now. “And it’s actually a good thing Yanqing’s here, ‘cause where I wanna go’s currently locked up at night. Can you let us into the training garden?”

“What, just that?” Yanqing says. “Sure! No idea why you like that place so much, but I’ve got the key.”

--

Rappa’s a sweet girl, and a highly capable Galaxy Ranger going off what Caelus says about her rescuing him, but she’s also a—what’s Mr. Yang usually say about people like her? A chuunibyou? Yeah, that, kinda. “I’m March 7th, that’s Dan Heng, and this is—uh, he’s not a Nameless, but he’s my friend August,” she says.

Rappa, smiling brightly, says, “What strong names! Greetings, Ninja Ruri, Ninja Hiryu, Barechested Ninja Mamorishishi!”

It takes March a minute to parse what she’s just said, and then she turns slowly to August, whose generally unimpressed demeanor has gained a whole new dimension of sheer embarrassment. “Guardian lion?” she says, unable to quite suppress the glee in her voice. This is the best day.

“It’s Dan Heng,” Dan Heng corrects Rappa, in the meantime.

“Understood, Ninja Hiryu Aoi Dan Heng!”

“I don’t know why you’re complaining,” Caelus mutters. “I got Baseball Bat Ninja. I’m totally Galactic Baseballer Ninja, I don’t know what kinda vibes I’m putting out there that they’re missing the Galactic part.”

Rappa consolingly pats Caelus on the back.

They don’t stick around her for very long, just long enough to find out she is a Galaxy Ranger and that she knows Boothill (or Silvergun Shura). She’s acting weird enough that she could be a Galaxy Ranger, based off March’s admittedly limited experience with them, but when she asks August on their way to a Dreamweaving class, he nods.

“They’re reliable enough,” he says. “You don’t become a Galaxy Ranger unless there’s something you’re truly willing to pursue to the very depths of the universe. That said, they’re an eccentric lot, and the majority default to working alone. If there are two Galaxy Rangers investigating Penacony, then they’re in hot pursuit of something that’s embedded itself deeply into the Dreamscape.”

“Mm,” Dan Heng says, with a nod. “And it’s worth looking at the teaching staff’s behavior. This Slumbernana Monkey’s rise in popularity strikes me as troubling.”

Troubling is putting it lightly, in March’s opinion. Now that she knows it’s strange enough to pull in two Galaxy Rangers and a Stellaron Hunter, she can’t help but wonder how it is that it hasn’t come across the radar of literally any of their Penacony contacts. Robin would know, she’s certain, or Micah—unless it popped up faster than either could notice, and that’s a little too fast even for a memetic virus.

One that’s apparently infected the teachers and making them batshit insane, as March comes to find out quickly enough. It’s one thing to belittle Caelus’s trash can obsession, but Caelus barely even registers the insult, nodding with a smile to some entity she can’t see. Probably Clockie again.

But if she’s a natural at Dreamweaving, and she’s gotta be, because it feels just like condensing her Six-Phased Ice into whatever shape she needs it to be, then—“What do you mean, zero?!”

“I mean zero!” the Dreamweaving BananAdvisor yells at her, trying its best to loom over her. She glares right back at its giant monkey face on its screen, unwilling to back down. “I gave you a theme and that’s Slumbernana Monkey! Not this giant, useless block of ice! Or,” and it glances to August’s work, a throne made of spiky red crystals that he’s staring at with some confusion, “this…ridiculous excuse for a chair! Even pro Dreamweaver monkeys are expected to follow what’s requested of them!”

Freedom, her ass. “The Profnana was encouraging freedom in our classes, and you’re not even making the slightest effort!” she snaps back at it. “Isn’t this your class?”

“March,” says August, as the BananAdvisor continues to yell at the both of them, “come on. Not worth it.” He tugs her away and she follows after him. “That throne…does it feel like your ice to you?”

March frowns, then turns back to August’s blood-red throne. It does seem like a pretty uncomfortable chair, but it’s very impressive. Has a pretty intimidating energy around it, and…she reaches out a hand, probing with her own finely-tuned sense towards her Six-Phased Ice, and sucks in a breath as the edges of her vision tinge a faint red.

She swears she can hear screaming, in the distance, the sounds of metal shrieking against metal, boots stomping through mud. In the name of—

She shakes her head, and the red creeps back. Now she can see Caelus yelling at the BananAdvisor as well, a terrified young woman at his back, and Rappa stepping up to back them up with a can of paint spray in her hand. She looks back at August and says, “That doesn’t…it doesn’t feel like how I make it. It feels angrier, but…distant, like an echo from the past.”

“Like strife and chaos,” says August.

“Does it scare you?” March asks.

“Less than it should,” says August, “more than I can say.” He breathes out. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” says March. “It just felt a little weird, touching it. Who knows? Maybe it’s just a different flavor of Six-Phased Ice, and it’s a little too spicy for me.”

“Can’t tolerate a little spice?” August dryly says.

“Bighead Fiendling, educators impart knowledge, cultivate skills, and clarify doubts,” Rappa’s saying, getting up in the TV-headed BananAdvisor’s face with her teeth bared in a snarl. “But they must never deny any ninja initiate their way of the ninja!”

Caelus, right behind her with his arm keeping the young student the BananAdvisor had been picking on away from the scene, says, “If you’ve got the freedom to flunk my friend for expressing her creativity, that means I have the freedom to kick your screen in if you keep this up.”

“Yeah!” March snaps, stepping forward. “You were being way too mean to the poor girl, and both my Six-Phased Ice and August’s red crystal throne were pretty good too!”

August says nothing, but ice coalesces around his fist as he stares down the BananAdvisor with thunderously dark eyes. Even with the fluffy lion ears and the scarf, March can feel the barely-leashed rage radiating off him in waves. She’s pretty sure everyone else can too, because Dan Heng’s the only one standing near him. Every other student in the class has taken a few steps back.

“You unruly monkey!” the BananAdvisor growls at them, in the tone that March knows means danger, danger. Caelus pushes the student further back, his hat shimmering into existence in his hand, and Dan Heng’s already brought out his spear. “You barged in here disrupting my class, and now you’ve infected my students with your ruinous ideas!”

Something about its word choice…March frowns. “Infected?” she says.

“Now get out!” the BananAdvisor screams. “Or my iron fists will show you some Bananenlightenment—”

March isn’t sure who goes first—Caelus swinging the hat up, Rappa’s giant shuriken slashing down at the BananAdvisor, or August slamming a fist into its side. She turns on her heel and yells at the other students: “Everyone get out of the classroom! We’ll deal with this!” Then she whips back around and brings out her bow. “You’re not supposed to use violence in the classroom!”

“We’re a bit far past that,” says Dan Heng, as more of the TV-headed monkey-screened teachers come streaming in.

“Ugh,” March mutters. “It said infected...”

“Like a memetic virus?” Dan Heng says.

“Is that really it?” March asks.

“It’s the best explanation I can think of,” says Dan Heng. “These are all of the Dreamjolt Troupe, so why…” His face sets into a grim expression, eyes sharpening. “I’ll try and slow them.”

“I’m on shields,” says March, sparkles already weaving around her fingers. “Let’s go!”

--

The longer August is on Penacony, the more suspicious he is of the monkeys.

Infected with ruinous ideas—that’s quite the specific way to put it. He mulls this over the whole way to Dreamflux Reef after he and March split off from her friends, the two of them banding together out of silent agreement not to allow each other out of their sight. The last time something strange happened on Penacony, they’d all nearly been forced into a sweet dream meant to keep them from breaking free of Sunday’s accursed plot.

He’d rather not leave March alone after that mess. She’s capable as a fighter, but she’s used to fighting alongside people like her friends. He may as well look after her in their stead while following the script, and anyway they’re of the same goal in this: they need to find Boothill.

“Rappa said Boothill was down here investigating Slumbernana Monkey,” says March, once they’ve made it into Dreamflux Reef, “and the address Montana gave us leads down here too. You don’t think…”

“You’ll have to join the club,” says August.

“Well, yeah,” says March. “No offense, August, but I don’t think they’d believe you if you said you were a fan. Just, you know, based off your general face and misery.”

“This script is a farce,” August says, “and not even a good one. And besides that…” The throne flickers in his mind, blood-red and empty, waiting for him. And it is a throne, he knows that in his bones, there’s a regality to its intimidating look that puts August in mind of grand halls and grander feasts. He can imagine himself sitting on it, raising a chalice, and—

And then what? There’s nothing else to accompany the throne’s image, no halls, no feasts, nothing and no one. If he looks back, all he sees is mist covering his footsteps.

March says, “Is this about the throne? You looked at it really weird.”

“Hm.” He kicks a pebble along the path.

“I’ve never been able to color my ice like that,” March says. “How'd you do it?”

“If I knew, I'd tell you,” says August. “I—don’t know. I wasn’t certain what I was making, only that it would be anything but that imbecilic monkey.” And even then he thinks he just barely made it. The monkey had been trying damned hard to break into the picture he’d thought up in his head.

“It’s weird, right?” March says. “I heard Dan Heng slip into Banagibberish, and he never does something like that unless he thinks it’s a really funny time. So it’s spreading.”

“Like a virus,” says August, as the two of them turn out of a narrow alleyway and into Dreamflux Reef’s plaza. The Watchmaker’s grave stands in the distance, and March falls quiet as they come to the memorials of her fellow Nameless: Razalina, Tiernan, and Legwork.

“Hi,” she greets them, her voice soft. She brings out a small bouquet of flowers for each grave marker, and sits down for a while, silent as she pats Legwork’s stone. August steps back and looks away, to let her have this moment to herself. Mourning your fallen fellow pathstriders is…never an easy task, and the Nameless of the Astral Express seem close, knitted tightly together by fate and bonds of trust and care.

He wonders what he’d do, if it were Kafka, Firefly, and Silver Wolf’s names on those memorial stones.

…it wouldn't be pretty, at any rate.

“I’m done,” March says, and August turns back to see her standing up and dusting off her skirt. She glances back at the Watchmaker’s grave in the distance. “I wish I could make time to go see the Watchmaker and Gallagher, but. Well. I’m sure they’ll understand if I miss a visit.”

“It is their home we’re trying to save,” says August. “They’ll understand.”

March nods, then turns on her heel. “Okay, so! Montana said the meeting spot’s this way. Come on.” She walks off at a brisk pace, August following behind her as his eyes flick around their surroundings. He can’t see any monkeys around here, and no one more suspicious than the occasional person cleaning up their corner. No sign of Boothill anywhere, which is really worrying to him—usually he’s found the man by now, raising a ruckus and starting a fight. Has whatever this is ensnared him already?

Not good, if it has. August came here to make sure to avoid exactly that scenario.

They come to a stop near the balcony that grants a view of the Grand Theater above them. “Should be around here somewhere,” March murmurs, taking out her phone. “Where did she mark it on the map…?”

August holds his arm out, stopping her in her tracks, as his eyes catch sight of a familiar black hat and black-and-white hair. “She’s right,” he says. “Boothill's here.”

“Oh!” March says, and goes under his arm to walk up to the man. “Boothill, hey—”

Boothill, quick as a viper, yanks his gun free of its holster and aims right at her. August rushes to her side, pushing her behind him and encasing his fist in ice.

“Put the gun down,” he growls.

“August!” Boothill says, shock in his eyes, and thank the Aeons, the gun slides back into its holster. “And the Nameless girl—March, ain’t it? Aren’t you a couple of twin bananas in the same peel?”

“I just skipped one class!” March whines from behind him. “Are the consequences really that serious?!”

“What class,” says Boothill. “Wait, you kids working with Rappa? She okay up there in that fancy little dream school?”

“She’s fine, Caelus and Dan Heng are with her,” August says. “Now. What. Are you doing here.”

“Oh, you two are gonna hate this,” says Boothill with a sigh. “Let’s take a seat.”

--

March sits at a chair near where the Slumbernana Association member going by Ape 11 has been declaiming for…uh, way too long, already. If she’s being honest she sort of tuned him out halfway through and thought about Rappa’s smile for a while, the sound of Robin’s voice, the way that if she looks at Lingsha at just the right angle, she can see the shape of her—

“I’m checking somewhere else,” Boothill announces, snapping March out of her thoughts.

“Wait, wait!” March says, grabbing hold of Boothill's arm before he can get up and leave. “Where are you going? It wasn’t easy to get in, so don't do anything that’ll draw unnecessary attention! Or just…at the very least, stop pointing your gun at people.”

“I can text Argenti right now,” August says.

“Well, 'preciate it, Nameless gal,” says Boothill. He’s still standing, but at least he’s not moving away from them. “Auggie, don't you dare text Argenti. I ain’t sitting through another lecture about where to point my weapons.” He sighs, and says, “March. You have quite the authority around here, hm? Has the Astral Express started taking on monkeys?”

“Point the gun at someone else out of impulse again and I can summon him in three words,” August says, his tone threatening.

“Let’s not bring Argenti in,” March hastily cuts in, because she really doesn’t want to see him caught up in this mess either. “Look, I wasn’t expecting it, either, but the Assistananas said I’m a great talent! They even gave me a membership card with a high level of clearance—”

“That,” says August, “is not actually a compliment.”

March stares at him for a moment, and then it dawns on her. “Talented for a club that advocates the abandonment of all thought?!” she yelps. “August! August, why didn’t you stop them?!”

“We needed a way in,” says August. “And like you’ve said, they have little desire to let in someone like me.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re crazy stubborn and you always look like you’re about to bite someone’s head off,” Boothill says. “Anyway, ain’t wrong, am I? You looked so darned mesmerized by their little speech back there.”

“I wasn’t even listening to them at all, actually,” March grumbles. She can’t remember much of the speech, because she’d been too busy thinking about the one time Feixiao came in to save the three of them and grinned cockily. That had been really cool. “They didn't exactly convince me of anything, and if they don’t talk in rhyme, eh, it’s probably nonsense.”

“I can tell you weren’t,” says August. “You were staring at a nearby poster of Robin the entire time.”

“Aw, girl, ought to have been here earlier, then,” says Boothill. “Robin was here too.”

“What!” March explodes, and Boothill laughs. “Ugh, you’re so—ugh. What brought you here? You don’t look like a big fan of those monkeys.”

“Why not?” Boothill drawls. “Us Galaxy Rangers are forkin’ monkey fans. We go bananas at the sight of them.”

“If it were just that, there’s an entire planet dedicated to a zoo in the Lewisian system,” says August. “An unconscionable amount of monkeys there, and none of them a memetic virus.”

“Ah,” says Boothill. “Knew that little ‘I don't know shirt’ act would drop sooner or later. All right, ‘fess up, how long have the Astral Express and the Stellaron Hunters got their sights trained on Dr. Primitive?”

March freezes, because she knows that name. She’s never had any dealings with Dr. Primitive, herself, but—she’s heard of his experiments. Himeko and Welt had once wondered if her amnesia might’ve been caused by one of those experiments. She knows for a fact that tangling with a genius who has no morals to speak of and an obsession with devolution does not lead to good things.

August says, hand tightening into a fist, “Dr. Primitive. You’re saying a genius is behind this.”

“...oh, fudge, you both really didn’t know?” Boothill asks.

March had been prepared to try and bluff her way through this, but welp, looks like August’s blown that plan. She shakes her head, and says, “Caelus, Dan Heng and I legitimately enrolled in the university! We’ve just been seeing some really weird things involving Slumbernana Monkey, so we decided to investigate.”

“I came here looking for you,” says August. “I didn't suspect Dr. Primitive’s involvement.”

“Dagnabbit,” says Boothill. “You fellas have all the luck, huh? Well—there ain’t a thing here in Dreamflux Reef, so there’s only one solution.”

March brightens. Finally! They’re all on the same page. “Yep,” she says. “I need you guys to—”

“Prepare to tear this place apart.” “Help me become a high-ranking member!” “Find whoever’s in charge of this project and rip their head off.”

Silence falls over the table as March stares at her two friends, a Galaxy Ranger and a Stellaron Hunter, and thinks about how much she really, really, really wishes Caelus and Dan Heng came with her. Caelus’s brand of chaos, she understands. This is a bit farther than that. “What is wrong with you guys?” she asks. “I was trying to make a joke, but you took it even further!”

“I could help you with the high-ranking membership,” says August, contemplatively, “if it means we get to find out who started this. I claim dibs on their head.”

“No heads!”

Boothill says, “Not a bad idea there, August, but you’re forgetting: they only planted kids in this place. My ways won’t work and neither will yours—it ain’t the first time Dr. Primitive’s used scapegoats, and I’m not stepping on the same rake twice.” He drums his metal fingers against the table, a rhythm of solid thunks.

“But you’re still falling for the trap,” says March. She likes Boothill, despite it all. Dan Heng likes him, and Dan Heng’s a pretty good judge of character.

“Ever seen a squib load?” Boothill says, and March takes a moment before she remembers: yeah, she’s seen one, on Belobog. A few times when they were being shot at, someone’s gun had jammed, and they hadn’t noticed until their gun blew up. Bronya’d called it a squib load, when she’d asked. “Time it right, and it’s more effective than unloading a full clip.” He leans back in his chair, says, “I got no clue what kinda monkey business this club’s up to, but I know from the static noise at Dreamflux Reef that they’re sure as heck interested in Penacony.”

“And without the protection of Order,” says August, “what can stop them from getting their hooks into Penacony?”

“Yeah, so,” says Boothill, “they’ll definitely step in if we raise the roof right off of this place. Unless either of you have any better ideas than I can think of?”

“Yeah, duh,” says March, a little peeved as she crosses her arms. “Let me text Montana, all right? I have—the start of an idea.”

--

The training garden that Caelus apparently likes so much is a tiny thing, tucked away beside the building that Yanqing says is the headquarters for the Sky-Faring Commission, but a peaceful place. Water streams gently from manmade fountains, with lotus flowers floating in the ponds, and Phainon lies down on the grass in the shade of a great tree, staring up at the Luofu’s simulated night sky.

Yanqing takes up a spot near the back entrance, unsheathing his sword to sit on it and enjoy his honeycake. “Hey, by the way, the General might drop by just to say hi,” he says.

“He’s not getting any honeycakes,” says Caelus, on the bench. “He should’ve asked me for them first if he wanted any. I did get him ambrosia, though.”

“Don’t give him honeycakes, he’ll feed them to his cat and Snowball’s already so fat and spoiled,” Yanqing complains, and now he sounds like the teenager he looks like, peeved about something so tiny. “That cat rolls when he moves!”

“Oh, shit, really?” Caelus says. “Show me!”

Phainon lets them talk, just watches the starskiffs overhead. The grass tickles his cheeks, feels soft and wet with dew against his fingers. He can imagine March training here, clumsy strokes gaining finesse with every swing of her sword. He remembers, with a pang in his heart, Cyrene reaching for flowers and weaving them into a little crown. She would’ve liked these lotus flowers.

He misses her. He misses Aedes Elysiae. Gods, he honestly even misses the person he used to be, the hopeful boy who’d believed the world could be kind.

He shuts his eyes and breathes out. He…can’t go back to his little village, anymore. He cannot be that person again, that sweet, kind boy had died so long ago that Phainon doesn’t feel like the same person anymore, looking back. Cyrene—Cyrene is gone, now, but her memory lingers in March, who is…more her legacy than her.

Grief’s a funny thing. For so long he’s tried so hard to turn back the clock, keep everyone alive, save everyone, and what use was grief then?

It hurts now. He shuts his eyes against the tears, and breathes out, sinks into the grass. The voice of Destruction still sings in his ears, sometimes, but now he turns away and gathers up the hurt, the grief, and holds it in his hands like an injured bird. Holds half of his golden heart in his hands, and for once just…breathes.

He only has half his heart, because the other is in Mydei’s hands.

He floats, for a little while, on a half-doze. Then a warm, familiar hand slips into his, and Mydei says, “I was wondering where Caelus had taken you. Of course it’s here.”

Phainon opens his eyes, blinks at Mydei’s face in his field of view. A beaten-up lion hat covers his hair from view, and Phainon gapes at him for a while in shock. “What are you wearing,” he says.

“A disguise,” says Mydei. “Remember, I’m a wanted criminal.”

“Should you be here?” Phainon worriedly asks.

Yanqing says, deadpan, “I could take August. I’ve seen him in the ring. But no, don’t worry, I already know he can be trusted to not break things.”

“I invite you to try,” says Mydei. “You all right? You look as if you’re grieving.”

“Huh.” Phainon touches his cheek, and it comes away wet with tears. “...d’you know,” he says, “I think maybe I want to live.”

Mydei is silent for a long moment, before he leans back on his palms and says to Caelus and Yanqing, “The two of you get out. Stay in the vicinity if you must, but the Deliverer and I shall have our privacy.”

“I’ll be right outside,” Yanqing says.

“Suit yourself, I’m buying mung bean soda,” says Caelus, and the two of them step outside, leaving Phainon alone in the garden with Mydei. Who is—Who is holding his hand, still.

“I want to live,” says Phainon. “Actually live. I’ve…I forgot the trick to it. I’ve been trying to avert disaster and I was so resigned to maybe sacrificing myself if it meant I could bring the dawn, and. And. I thought maybe I’d go home. If I did. And then I thought I’d just rot in bed forever and I’d deserve it. But now I—I want to live.” He laughs a little as he finally sits up, and it sounds a touch hysterical even to himself. “I don’t think I know how.”

Mydei says nothing, but he tugs Phainon forward, wraps his arms around his torso. Phainon melts into the embrace, arms coming up to hold on to him tightly.

“Mydei,” he says, the old name slipping out of him. He feels Mydei’s arms tighten around him in response. “Isn’t it funny? I’ve been resigned to dying at the end of this, but I—I’m not, anymore. Every plan I made is burned to ashes and I’m little more than whatever’s left after all these loops and I probably shouldn’t want to after all that time but I want to live. Really, truly live.”

“Not funny,” Mydei croaks, pushing away a little only to cup Phainon’s face. “You’re crying.”

So he is. “I’m never going to see Aedes Elysiae again,” he says, and feels the full force of those words hit him in the chest so hard he doubles over, gasping for air as the grief kicks in. “Every time I burned it down I always thought I’d see it again, but I’m—I’m really never going to—never.” His voice cracks, and what little control he’d been trying to maintain finally, finally crumbles as he breaks down crying, great ugly heaving sobs that wrack his chest as he tries so damn hard to breathe. “Fuck, I—I didn’t want to cry like this—”

Mydei’s arms wrap around him, stroking down his back. “Weep however much you wish, Phainon,” he says. “I will not tell a soul, if that’s what you want.”

Caelus and Yanqing are right outside, but Phainon figures that Yanqing’s averted his ears. Kid seems nice like that.

Besides. It turns out all he needed was permission.

It hurts to grieve. He’s always known that. He’s been a creature of grief for years, and he used to call it an old friend, but that’s not true, is it? All these loops, all this time—he’s always relied on the cycles. He’s always told himself: next time, you’ll get it right. Next time, it will finally work. Next time. He’s let the pain of it fester until it infected him, and it hurts, it hurts to lance it. Hurts to let it out.

Hurts to accept, finally, that he has to start walking forward again.

Mydei is warm against him, his hand skimming over Phainon’s spine, stroking downward.

“...am I glitching,” Phainon mumbles. If he starts looking like the Flame Reaver again that’ll be a lot to explain to Yanqing.

“Not really,” says Mydei. “That seems tied to some other emotion entirely.” His fingers tangle in Phainon’s hair. “Your hair is getting longer.”

It’s a stupid thing to cry over, realizing that time is moving forward and his hair is getting longer. He does it anyway, hitching sobs escaping him. Mydei doesn’t say a word, just holds him there and begins to hum something, some old lullaby. Phainon recalls the tune—a melody that some sweet old woman, in the Sea of Souls, had once sung to a young Mydei. So now the poet’s page am I, his courier through the pathless sky.

Cyrene is gone, and Aedes Elysiae is gone, and that’s his fault and his unforgivable crime, and still he has to live. Still he wants to live. He wants to lie down in the summer grass and find dolls in the marketplace and hold his friends and breathe in the fresh air of new worlds, of his old one. He just…misses them.

He misses them. He always will. But now he thinks—maybe they would be happy, to see him alive.

Destruction slinks away, unsatisfied. THEY won’t remain away for long, because he’s an Emanator, because once something like that marks you it’s for the rest of your life. But for a little while he can breathe.

After some time, his breathing finally evens out, his throat a little raw. He holds tightly onto Mydei, still, and says, “How did you know that…”

“That Caelus would take you here?” Mydei says. “He mentioned he’d be taking you to the Luofu. I knew he’d drop by Aurum Alley to pick up more food, so from there it was easy to figure out where you both went.”

“The merchants like you,” says Phainon. “They kept asking where you were.”

“They like me because I won in a fight against some IPC idiots with a grudge,” says Mydei. “...I’m glad.”

“Hm?”

“I prefer you alive.” Mydei’s thumb strokes over his cheekbone, a little tender, a little rough. Like he hasn’t got the trick of being this gentle. “I have died many times. I know its appeal well, how can I not? But there are things only the living can have.”

Only the living…Phainon’s eyes flick down to Mydei’s lips, absently, before he looks back up and meets a gaze with heat in it. He reaches up, thumbs across Mydei’s jawline, and says tentatively, “Stop me whenever, and I’ll never—”

“Just do it or I will,” Mydei says, and Phainon’s not sure who moves first between them. All he knows is that one moment they’re staring into each other’s eyes, and the next Mydei’s mouth has smashed gracelessly onto his, and even in this there’s a touch of competition—Mydei trying to lay claim on his mouth and Phainon biting back, teeth scraping over Mydei’s lip.

Mydei pulls away and says, “Of fucking course you bite.”

“What, don’t like a little spice?” Phainon taunts him.

Just outside, Yanqing says pleasantly, “I’m sure I don’t know just what those weird sounds were just now, but I’ll remind you that there’s a firm curfew in place on the Luofu. Any disturbance of the peace after nightfall is punishable with a week’s confinement.”

Phainon groans, and says, “We have to go. He’s like, fourteen.”

“Two hundred fifty, they’re particularly long-lived around here,” says Mydei. “But yes, he’s the equivalent of fourteen.” He gets to his feet and helps Phainon up, and says, “I won that.”

“You won—You don't win kissing.”

“You do,” says Mydei, “and you wrest a victory by drawing first blood.”

“I bit you!”

“A fair effort, but a poor one.” The two of them meander out of the garden, holding hands, and Yanqing waves a hand at them.

“Caelus got held up by a haunting and blew up my texts five minutes ago,” he says, cheerfully. “If you want, you can come help me get him and the girls out of it.”

“You ought to contain your heliobi leak better,” Mydei says, but readjusts the lion hat he’s wearing to better cover his hair, which means he’s going to rescue Caelus anyway. Phainon sighs—looks like he’s not going back to bed any time soon. But hey, he supposes he’ll take any excuse to figure out how he’s going to talk to Aglaea tomorrow.

--

Things, of course, go catastrophically wrong. At this point August supposes he ought to have expected it to, considering the Penacony track record so far, but Boothill takes up March’s identity in the association to achieve this so-called “theophany” and then…goes still. March waves a hand in front of his face, and says, “Huh. Who's talented in giving up thinking, I guess.”

Something’s building in the back of August’s head. The throne’s image lingers, drowning out the sound of the monkeys trying to worm their way into his ears. “March,” he says, “what you said earlier—about how manipulating memoria feels like condensing your ice.”

“Uh, yeah?” March says. “Why?”

“This theophany,” and he spits the word with disdain, “is simply memoria manipulation, isn’t it? If you can—open a channel, I can break inside and drag Boothill out of there.” His eyes cut quickly to the other association members around them, entranced by the TV-headed Assistananas, and he notes with unease that a couple of them are beginning to grow a little…furrier, than before.

He has no idea how that’s going to look on Boothill, and absolutely no desire to find out.

“I can try,” says March, doubtfully, “but I don’t know for certain. Like I told Boothill, if you don’t know Slumbernana Monkey, you won’t be able to establish a connection.”

“You’re a Nameless,” says August. “This part of the Dreamscape is yours, down to its bones—the steps of the Trailblaze are in its very concrete, the bones of your fellow Pathstriders not far from here. This intruder,” and he glares at the Assistanana, “is little more than a pest. Do it—I’m not leaving Boothill in there alone.”

March lifts her chin up, then nods once. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. Let me try something.” She lifts a hand and murmurs, “Come on, if Caelus can do this, so can I. It’s just like my shields, my ice.” Snowflakes swirl around her fingers as she concentrates, then her eyes fly wide open and she says, “August! Take my hand, I’ll keep the connection open out here.”

He grabs hold of her hand, and feels something in his chest getting yanked forward—

—as he crash-lands into a twisted reflection of Dreamflux Reef. Red ice crystals explode out from his landing spot, and he staggers to his feet with a curse. Right. This looked much easier when Silver Wolf was hacking her way into Penacony’s Dreamscape. He ought to have summoned the others, he supposes, but…he’d rather keep them out of Dr. Primitive’s hands.

“Where are you, cowboy,” August mutters, scanning the area. Distant words hang in the air: traces of Boothill, he realizes, when he steps closer and spots a bottle lying discarded to the side. “What the hell…?”

He picks it up, and it bursts into bubbles of memoria in his hand. The bubbles line up, pointing in a specific direction, and August takes off running. Dreamflux Reef is weird even on its best days, but this twisted nightmare within a dream is worse, the alleyways bending into roads that weren’t there in the true Dreamflux Reef. And everywhere he goes, those damn monkeys dog his footsteps.

Ice encases his fist, and he slams it into the first monkey that might pose a real threat, throwing it aside with ease. He skids to a stop near shattered remnants of IPC agents, and grabs a spear off one of the corpses. “Come and try me,” he snarls at them, and sweeps aside the wave of monkeys that fling themselves at him, clearing a path forward.

This feels—oddly familiar. Like he’s faced tough odds like this before, on his own. He sidesteps a blow and sweeps the spear to the side to knock a little furry bastard away from himself, then swings upward to keep the others off him.

And—there! There's Boothill, standing next to that very Assistanana from the outside, a dreamy look on his face. Shit, he’s too late, isn’t he? August grits his teeth—whatever, whatever. He needs to get Boothill out of here before the damage gets any worse.

Ice grows along the spear in his hand, and he throws it with all his might, letting muscle memory guide his hand. It explodes into red ice that creeps up the Assistanana’s feet and freezes it in place, and it swings its TV head at him and laughs. “A Stellaron Hunter!” it says. “It seems we have not finished our lessons after all. I welcome you to class, Mr. August 16th—”

August chucks a monkey at it as he rushes up to grab a very confused Boothill. The monkey shrieks in shock. “You talk too much,” he hisses at it, before yanking Boothill away. “We’re getting out of here.”

“Now why’d you hit him like that,” Boothill complains. “He seemed mighty fascinating!”

“Ah, Hunter,” says the Assistanana, “calm yourself.”

August screws his eyes shut against the spike of hurt that lances through his head. Calm, the thing in front of him says, the voice so sweet, but there’s something roiling in his blood that’s older than him, a power that sings of a fury that has dug deep, deep down into his heart. There’s something—

(thought you might come down from the sky)

—that rages against the unnatural calm.

“Hey, mister?” Boothill says behind him. “Why’re you glowing like that?”

“Avert your eyes,” says August, tranquil in the sheer fucking wrath that’s wrapped around him, before he strides forward, ice crackling into existence around his fingers. It’s nothing so gentle as March’s snowflakes, but instead a violent explosion of crystalline shards on his skin. “You. Memetic monkey. I will grant you a single privilege: first, I’ll know your name. And then…”

He smiles, baring teeth. “I will fucking rip your wires out through your screen.”

--

March yanks her two friends out of the connection, and August blinks awake and swears. “I know his name,” he says. “Primon—Profnana Primon, as he calls himself. He’s done something to Boothill, I’m not sure what—”

“Oh shit,” March says, worriedly, and drags a slightly catatonic-looking Boothill up to his feet. Everyone else around her is asleep right now—still dreaming, she thinks. Still trapped. “Oh no. Boothill? Can you hear me? It’s March 7th!”

“He can’t remember you right now,” says August, every syllable clipped, as if he’s shaking off some outside influence of his own. “We need to move and get back to Caelus and Dan Heng.”

Boothill blinks at her, blearily surprised. “What happened…?” he says. “Jeez, my head’s spinning.”

“No time to explain!” March says. “Come on, we’ll go wake Montana!” She quickly glances around and spots Montana’s brownish-blonde hair, the girl lying prone on the ground, fast asleep. She grabs hold of both August’s and Boothill's hands and yanks them with her, trying not to think of what August said—he can’t remember you.

But that can’t be right. Right?

“Where’re we going, Miss?” Boothill says. “Mister? You look pretty angry.”

“It’s—fine,” says August, sounding strangled. “I’m fine.”

March nods, then shakes Montana awake, breaking her connection. The girl's eyes blink once, twice as March tries to pull her up to her feet, and she stares at March in shock and hurt. “March?” she says. “Why are you—”

“We have to go, we’re in danger!” March says. “I can’t break every connection here,” that’s more power than she can bring to bear even with August’s encouragement, “but we have to get to Caelus and Dan Heng—Slumbernana Monkey’s not your friend, it’s trying to wipe out your brain!”

Montana yanks her hand away from March, betrayal clear in her dark eyes. “Why would you say that?” she asks. “March, I thought you were a fan…”

“Please, Montana, I’m not the bad guy here,” March desperately begs, “that’s—get behind me!” She seizes a hold of Montana’s sleeve, trying to pull her back as the Assistanana (Primon, August had called it) materializes into existence, almost glitching into reality, or whatever passes for reality in the Dreamscape.

But Montana steps away from her, shaking her head. “You said you were such a huge fan,” she says, “I got you down here, I thought we were friends.”

“We need to move,” August says, “right now. Montana can wait.”

“Montana?” March says, her heart cracking in half.

“...nana?” Montana responds, and March swallows the pain and guilt down, a bitter draught that leaves the taste of bile in the back of her throat.

“Miss Nameless, Mr. Hunter,” says Primon. “I will grant you both some grace—but as for your Ranger friend, you have both destroyed his path to happiness.”

“You would rend his heart into pieces,” August snarls, almost lunging forward, only stopped by March blocking his way with her arm, “and call what’s left happiness?” If March didn’t know any better, she’d think it was personal.

“Don't come any closer to us,” March says, summoning her bow into her hand. “Just—Just stay where you are!”

“Naturally, resorting to violence is not my intention,” says Primon, circling the three of them like a wolf sizing up its terrified prey. Boothill watches it with some confusion on his face, frowning a little, but August puts a hand on his arm and tugs him back, as if to keep him safe. “I’m only here to prove something, not to subjugate.”

“Prove…what?” March asks.

“To prove that my viewpoint,” says Primon, “is in line with the desires of humans.”

“Your viewpoint,” says August, “is based on a deeply flawed premise. I don’t care to hear any arguments for it. March, Boothill, we’re going.”

“Yeah,” says March, rattled, the guilt heavy in her stomach. “You’re a sicko, Profnana.” She grabs Boothill’s other arm, and the three of them turn and take two steps forward—

—only for two of the Association members, now upright and dead-eyed, to block their way. March yelps in shock and sends her bow into the ether, then grabs August and pulls him back before he can rush them with a furious punch. “Don’t!” she says. “Why are you stopping us?”

“Oh, I’m not stopping either of you, though I’d like for you both to stay a while to see the last link in my proof,” says Primon, as dead-eyed Association members begin to surround them, chanting nana, nana. “But I’m afraid you can’t leave with my subject. He’s still under observation.”

“He’s not your subject,” March snaps. “Why are you so interested in him anyway?”

“Absolutely not,” says August, looking around the crowd, clearly looking for a way out past them.

“Because unlike ordinary humans,” says Primon, as though Boothill isn’t standing right there and can’t hear it dismissively talking about him like this, “his modified body is impervious to physical deterioration. With steely grit and unwavering determination, he can easily resist any forms of corruption.” It sighs with clear delight. “Ah, a Galaxy Ranger like him…it’ll be worthwhile to see what I can turn him into.”

“March, get Boothill and run,” says August. “I’ll hold them off while you find the others.”

“I won’t leave either of you,” says March. “I can't, don’t ask me to!”

“You need to—”

“—come and get help?” Primon completes. “Ah, you believe that these poor little monkeys are simply under my command, do you? But if that’s the case—what makes you think you woke up the Ranger?”

Silence.

Then March swings her bow around to aim an arrow at Primon as August shifts into place behind her, his back pressed against hers.

“You let them all go right now—”

“Mr. Galaxy Ranger, would you please fire a shot at this young lady and her friend?” Primon asks. That’s the thing that gets her—that it’s so polite when asking a man to kill someone. She fires the arrow, but it skids off the TV head’s side, and Primon tilts its head at her like it thinks she’s been so rude.

“But sir,” comes a young voice, and it takes March a moment to understand it’s Boothill, only…only he’s never sounded so soft, so young. When she turns, his eyes are bright, and behind him—she thinks she sees rolling fields, feels the wind in her face. “Killing folks is against the law, especially when it’s a lovely young lady and a nice young man like them.”

March gapes at him in shock. August says, his voice a little strangled, “This man has never called me nice in the years we’ve known each other.”

“I’m the star of the show now?” Boothill asks, and March gets the distinct sense that he should be looking up at her instead of down. “All ‘cause of this here gun?” He’s…He sounds so sweet, so gentle, nothing like the Boothill she’s come to know. She thinks, suddenly, of herself—confused and scared, still shivering from the cold, surrounded by strangers. How vulnerable she must’ve been. How vulnerable Boothill looks now. “It’s a nice gun, all right,” says Boothill, “but using it to take a life? I have no such intention. How ‘bout the three of you settle your own scores, and I’ll be on my way?”

“Boy, stay behind me,” August urgently says, and March realizes with a shock: he’s thinking the same way she is. He woke up the exact same way she did, after all. “It isn’t safe here.”

March turns to Primon, and says, “Is this what you wanted us to see? He’s acting like—” like me, when I hadn’t been named yet, she doesn’t say, “—like a kid.”

“For most humans, even if they became monkeys in form here, out in reality, they would suffer no biological disintegration whatsoever,” says Primon, and it takes March a second to realize that he means the real world, the reality outside the Dreamscape. “The Ranger, though—his extraordinarily staunch and unyielding mind makes him an even more valuable specimen to be studied. His mind hasn’t been entirely wiped out—instead, he has merely had a partial regression.”

“He’s not a specimen,” March says. “He’s—He’s hurting, he’s far from home, he’s scared, probably!”

“Not that scared,” Boothill huffs, sounding a little touched.

“I will be fine,” August says, “even if you leave me. I can’t die, do you think these puppets can do the trick when nothing else could? Go, take him with you.”

“Hm, that really can’t be allowed,” says Primon, gesturing, and more Association members, accompanied by various Dreamjolt Troupe members, come out of the shadows, crowding them in. “He could end it all in just one shot, be it myself or the Dreamjolt Troupe, but…as it happens, the decision to pull the trigger has to be made by the soul and not the body. The version of him right now, little more than a child as you say, is currently completely incapable of firing his own gun.”

“You leave him alone!” March yells, and tries to grab for Boothill’s sleeve only for one of the members to grab hold of her wrist in an iron grip. “Hey—hey, let me go!”

Boothill steps forward, and says, “Mister, c’mon, put the fist down. I’m sure he’s just as nice as you and the pretty lady.”

“That’s right, come over, Mr. Cowboy,” coos Primon, “and we’ll finish your final lesson now…”

--

Boothill
Pier Point Standard Heist (LFG 3/4)

Well, dadgum! Look who’s finally talkin’ again. Everyone’s been blowing up your phone for ages, Auggie, where’ve you been? Shirt, I was beginning to worry!
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Ohhhh, fudge-shirt-heckfry-fudge, August. You finally remembered something? Like, actually really remembered something? Heck. That’s a real head-spinner of a situation you’re in. All right, all right. Uh—well, first, nothing I did, which was to drink like a fish ‘till I got all the gears gummed up and the mechanics started yelling at me ‘bout it. Hm, what else? Hold on, gotta take care of something—yellow-bellied varmint you get back here!
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No trouble! Fixed it all on my lonesome, but I ‘preciate your concern. Anyway, second, what I did was to mourn a second time. Felt like…things had gone wrong all over again, and it hurt just as bad this time as it did the first go round. I dunno how that looks for you, I’ll tell you that right now, but however you do it, be good to yourself, y’know? And…if you can. If there’s people left behind. I guess let ‘em know you’re all right.
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Fudge, you’re really in the middle of it, huh? Good luck. See you on the other side.
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--

“You know, it’s funny,” says Phainon.

“What,” says Mydei. Not too far back, Phainon had slipped a sword-calloused hand into his, and Mydei’s heart has been trying to burst from his ribcage and jump into Phainon’s hands ever since then. They do need to talk about this, he thinks—the kiss, the touches, the fraught history between them and whatever this is, whatever they want to call it. Love?

“Cyrene used to tease me,” Phainon says. “Back before—well, before. She’d pull the Lovers card and she’d just look at me with this little smile on her face, ask if there was anything at all I wanted to tell her.”

“What did you tell her?” Mydei asks, interested. He remembers Cyrene, sort of, in a distant manner. They were friendly, but he’d always thought of her as Phainon’s friend first and foremost. March is different.

“I’d yell and try to pull the card away from her while she laughed at me,” says Phainon. “So. I mean, I think she knew even before I did. I only realized I was in love with you just a few days before…” He gets quiet then, and Mydei understands what that means—that when he’d split him up, and sent away a part of him to be discovered floating in space, he had just barely scraped the surface of how much he loved him. “Probably that makes it worse.”

“It does,” says Mydei, who’s already looked in his heart and come to the realization that whatever Phainon’s done, he still loves him. “And yet here we still are. If it helps, I might’ve realized some time during the loops.”

“What, over and over, you picked me?” Phainon says.

“Don’t sound so incredulous,” says Mydei. “You were the only man able to match me, after…”

“Hephaestion?” Phainon asks.

“Mn. Just so.” He breathes out. “It was—the easiest and the hardest thing in the world, at the same time. The epics speak of love as though it’s a force of nature in itself, and to some degree they’re not wrong. But they’re not right, either, because you always choose, in the end. You always make a choice.”

Phainon lets out a breath, kicking at the ground. He’s gotten better now, a few days after he’s left the room—Mydei thinks perhaps being around people has actually done him quite a lot of good. Certainly it’s helped Mydei, shockingly enough, though like hell will he say a word to March about it because she’ll smile smugly at him. I told you so! You should make more friends. He can even hear it in her voice.

Still, Mydei’s not surprised when Phainon says, in a frustratingly self-deprecating tone, “Weren’t there any better choices, though? I mean, maybe not then, but…”

“Before you continue that sentence, you need to know that should you insult the honor and character of my beloved, I’ll have to duel you right here and now,” says Mydei, flatly. He turns to jab a finger into Phainon’s chest for emphasis. “And then we’ll both be stuck here for a week. Do you want that?”

“Oh, god, no, Aglaea will kill us and Caelus,” says Phainon. “I—Okay! Okay. Point taken. Duel later when we’re not on another world.”

“Should be right up ahead,” says Yanqing, and guides them towards an elevator going downwards. “The Alchemy Commission’s still infested with mara-struck here and there, so be careful. Phainon?”

Phainon blinks at him, and says, “Uh, yeah?”

“I notice you’re not carrying a sword,” says Yanqing, as a sword materializes from thin air beside him. He tosses it toward Phainon hilt-first, and says, “Caelus says you’re a master-class swordsman, so you’re going to need this. I’ve seen, uh, Mydeimos—”

“August,” says Mydei. “This isn’t a formal occasion, and you met me while I was going by August. I’d prefer that name for the day, coming from you.”

“I’ve seen August beat down fighters twice his size with his fists,” Yanqing says, “so I know he’s fine. But the mara-struck are…difficult to take on, for someone not used to them, so I’d feel better if you were armed.” He smiles wryly. “Emanator or not.”

“I’ll take good care of it,” Phainon promises, and tests its heft in his hand as they walk, letting go of Mydei’s hand to do so. “Huh. Fine work. The balance is good, the steel looks sharp, and I do like the detailing here. Whose mark is this?”

“The famed bladesmith Yingxing,” says Yanqing, cheerfully, and Mydei swallows a surprised squawk at the name. He knows Yingxing, or—all right, he knows whatever’s left of Yingxing in Blade, and the man’s not forged a sword in years, unless you count his entire body as one. “He used to be one of the finest smiths on the Luofu, perhaps across the Xianzhou Alliance, which is incredible considering he was a short-lived species!”

“Impressive,” Mydei manages.

“Right!” Yanqing cheerfully says, stepping on the elevator.

Phainon, with what is clearly a great deal of effort for him, keeps his mouth shut until they get off the elevator and Yanqing scouts ahead. Then he turns to Mydei and says, “You know the guy.”

“Yes,” Mydei admits. “It’s Blade.”

Phainon stares at him. “The…The swordsman who got flattened with a meteor and then got back up?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“How.”

“I didn’t ask,” says Mydei. “All he would tell me is he was cursed with immortality long ago. I have a feeling he’s forgotten a great many details besides the ones that have to do with…someone he loved once.” He pauses. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t breathe a word to the boy about that. Or if you didn’t call Blade that name.”

“Yeah, best not to knock down the pedestal,” says Phainon, giving the sword a few experimental swings. “This is fine craftsmanship, though, truly. Can’t hold a candle to Dawnmaker, but few really can.”

“So why not take up Dawnmaker again?” Mydei asks. “You know that Caelus would give it back to you if you asked.”

Phainon smiles, a little sad, and shrugs. “I’ve coated its blade in my loved ones’ blood a few too many times,” he says. “I’m probably disappointing Chartonus walking around without it, but…I can’t look at it anymore without seeing that. So. I’m down to borrowing swords off people.” He pauses, then adds, “You can’t duel me, I didn’t put myself down. I’m just saying.”

So he didn’t. Annoying. Mydei huffs out a breath. “You should know he’s been using it to pry open chests with,” he says.

“Oh, for the love of the fucking Titans, Caelus,” Phainon mutters. “I don't know—maybe I’ll just take a spare sword from the armory, instead.”

“Or,” says Mydei, some wild thought possessing him, “I can get you a new one. It’s Okheman tradition to announce a courtship with a grand gift, is it not?”

“It what,” says Phainon, then, alarmed: “They usually mean jewelry! Clothes! Chickens, to prove you have a stable livelihood—”

“I am not getting you chickens,” says Mydei. “You would name the eggs and grow attached to them, and then where would we be, Deliverer.”

“The chickens are an example!” Phainon throws his free hand up in the air, careful to keep the sword pointed downward and away from Mydei. “It's just—I just. I don’t…I don’t have anything to give you right back, I tried the Hiketeia before with March and only people who don't have even a scrap of hope to their name are willing to do that. You already have my heart, too.”

“Do you think I don’t know you’ve been giving me jewelry since the day we met?” Mydei says. “Consider it a gesture toward making it even if you’re so opposed to just getting a gift for the sake of it.”

“That’s…” Phainon manages weakly, before he sighs. “You’re going to get me a sword anyway, aren’t you.”

Yes. “Did you want a baseball bat like Caelus has,” Mydei waspishly says.

“Tremble in fear before me for I have a weapon that causes concussions,” says Phainon, dryly. “Hm, no, he’d throw a fit, I took it off him once and he looked like I’d just kicked his puppy in front of him. Fine, I’ll have the sword.”

Mydei will take that victory, and keep his own plans for a different, more private gift to himself for now. “Good, you can come and make suggestions once I’ve commandeered a forge in the city,” he says, just as Yanqing comes back.

“Most of the mara-struck and their fellows were struck down,” Yanqing says, “but there’s a few still wandering around—must’ve been missed when Caelus and the ghost hunters went past. I can take care of it—”

Mydei turns to Phainon, and says, “One more round?”

“Loser buys winner dinner on the first date,” says Phainon. “I’ll win, of course.”

“I have a comfortable lead over you and you still think you’ll win?” Mydei scoffs. “If you can manage to get them all down without any of them coming back, I’ll even buy you a drink.”

“Wait, they come back?” Phainon says, alarmed once more as he glances toward Yanqing. “What happens to people on your worldship?”

“Disease that strikes long-life species,” says Yanqing. “You live long enough, the risk of becoming mara-struck increases. Think of it like…an infection in the blood that can turn someone into an undying monster.”

“Right,” says Phainon, weakly, and Mydei lets his own pride go for a moment to companionably bump a shoulder against his. Feels him relax a moment later. “Well. I have ways of making sure people stay down even without tapping into,” and he pauses and wiggles his hand in the air, some golden sparks dancing around his fingers—the power of an Emanator of Destruction.

“So he says,” Mydei says. “Come on, then, Deliverer—let’s see if you can catch up to me.”

“Don’t break anything important,” says Yanqing, pinching the bridge of his nose.

--

A shot rings out, the noise shattering the screams of the Association members and Dreamjolt Troupe monsters swarming them. August swings around, to see Boothill’s gun smoking as it’s aimed right at the possessed TV-head Primon is in control of. “I’ll let you in on a secret,” Boothill snarls, sounding much more like himself now than he has in an hour, “for tampering with my synesthesia beacon, lil' fudgehead: I’m gonna put a bullet in you.”

“Boothill, you little shit,” August says, with no small amount of sheer fucking relief at the sight of him. “I worried about you!”

“Aw, Auggie, thanks plenty,” Boothill says with a laugh, then snaps his head back towards Primon. “And if you think this is the beacon talking, no shirtball, I actually fudging mean it.”

“He’s back!” March cheers, before she fires a frantic arrow at the ground and freezes the Association members in place. “Sorry, guys! You’ll be fine in a bit, but this is gonna get really dangerous.”

August wipes the golden blood off his cheek as Primon’s current body jerks away from Boothill, the monster fleeing into a different body away from the scene as more reinforcements come crashing in. “He thinks he can get away if he just throws enough of his forces at us,” he says. “How many of them do you think you can shoot down before I can kill them?”

“More than you, I’ll bet,” says Boothill.

“You guys are insane,” says March, and August feels the touch of her shield wash over him, like a shower at just the right temperature. “I’ll keep you both safe. Just don’t get hurt too bad!”

He glances to his side, and for a moment, instead of Boothill’s steel-grey eyes and black-and-white hair, he sees light blue eyes and snow-white hair.

Then he blinks, and not even the faintest trace of a face remains in his memory.

What the hell…?

--

Rescuing Caelus proves easy enough. By the time they get there, a very young judge and her ghostly tail have mostly solved the problem, with Caelus making embarrassed noises about accidentally siccing something named Sleepie on his friends. “I swear I didn't mean to!” he says. “And I’m not—I’m fine, really—Huohuo, don’t look at me like that, come on, you can tell Tail I’m fine—”

“That thing's really left a mark on you, kid,” comes a deep voice from the girl’s tail, and Phainon experiences a moment of deep fucking confusion before he exhales, resigned to the fact that apparently, this is his lot in life now. Mydei seems used to this, barely even treats the girl as any weirder than anything else around him, so Phainon swallows his questions (of which he has many) and follows his lead. “Seriously, what the heck even happened there?”

“It happened in a dream, you know what those are like,” says Caelus, waving a dismissive hand in the air. His tone is light and joking—only Phainon hears the edge of desperation in it. He should know. He’s worn it himself. Mydei’s right in this: both Phainon and Caelus hide the jagged edges of themselves behind a mask of laughter and charm. “This one had magical girls in it. Too much anime. Everyone all right?”

“Fine!” chirp a duo of young women, one dressed in bright reds and the other dressed in a white and yellow uniform, not quite in unison.

“Yo, Auggie!” the girl in red suddenly calls, pulling away from her friend with a bright grin on her face. “You’re back!”

Phainon stares at her, then turns, smiling, to Mydei. “Auggie?” he says.

“Not a word to anyone,” Mydei hisses at him. “I barely kept March and Firefly from telling someone. You are not telling a single soul on Amphoreus.”

“Hey, August!” the girl's uniformed friend says, waving a hand and holding an ice pack to her temple. “And. Friend? Who’s your friend?”

“The man I love,” says Mydei, loudly. “Who is going to refrain from telling everyone about Auggie if he values the chocolate cake I’ll buy him for winning our race.”

“All right, all right, I know when I’m beaten,” says Phainon with a laugh, and stands back a bit as Mydei talks to the girls, clearly catching up with a few old friends. He seems at ease with them, even sighing good-naturedly as the girl in red (who’s apparently named Guinaifen) teases him over not having changed his hat since he was last on the Luofu. With all of them thus occupied, he sidles over to Caelus, who’s scooted back a bit himself, and says, “Sleepie, huh.”

“Penacony,” says Caelus. “We thought it killed people. Really it was a terrifying ferry service, but…” He gets quiet for a moment, and then shrugs. “It’s roaming free in the primal memoria now,” he says. “As it should.”

“But you still remember it,” says Phainon.

Caelus isn’t looking at him. Instead he says, soft and matter-of-fact, “You remember what it felt like to watch your friends die? Even though now they’re alive and well and arguing over how to deal with the elders?”

Phainon swallows. He thinks of golden blood staining his hands, dripping off his blade. “Yes,” he says.

“What happened—was just like that,” Caelus says. “She’s alive and well. But I really thought…” He winds the yellow ribbon dangling off one sleeve around his fingers, thumb rubbing over the edge. “It doesn’t matter. She’s fine now, so it doesn’t matter.” It'd be more convincing if it didn't sound like he’s trying to convince himself, too.

“Caelus—” Phainon starts.

“We’re not talking about it,” Caelus cuts him off, a touch harsher than usual, before he visibly forces himself to relax. “I just…can’t talk about it. That’s all. And anyway—congratulations on bagging that, now Silver Wolf owes me thirty credits.”

It’s not the most subtle segue, but Phainon can tell Caelus has been pushed far enough and will simply shut down any more attempts from him. Maybe not from Dan Heng or March, but…well, as kind and friendly and deeply trustworthy as Caelus has been, Phainon’s not fooling himself here. Caelus, much like himself, would rather pull out his own heart than talk about his troubles in a serious manner, especially to someone who he isn’t so, so close to.

He wants to fix that. He wants to help. But he sees the steel in Caelus’s eyes, and lets out a breath. “Were you all betting on me and Mydei?” he asks instead, and just like that Caelus relaxes, huffs out an easy laugh.

“Everyone was betting on you guys,” Caelus says. “It was actually a city-wide betting pool, but uh, y’know. Everything went down.”

An understatement. Phainon imagines there’s not much point to a city-wide betting pool when you’re running for your life from the monsters all over the city. “So you won?” he asks, instead.

“Cipher wins,” says Caelus, “but she’s still mad at you, so.”

Phainon winces, because—yeah, he and Cipher haven’t talked in a while, but he can't forget the way she looked at him on their way back to Okhema, the chill in her eyes and the way she shifted closer to Tribbie, protective. They’d been friends, the two of them. He’d looked up to her and she’d trusted him, and now…well, he can't blame her. He’d never blame her. But it still hurts, more than he can really say. “I get it,” he says.

“She’ll come around,” Caelus reassures him, which is a pipe dream if he ever heard one. “She’s just…processing, that’s all, everyone is. We’ve been through a lot.”

“I did kill her,” says Phainon. “Multiple times.” Often after stealing the coin from around her neck. “I killed everyone at least once. I—I get it, I understand.” She can’t hate him more than he despises himself, the self-loathing always present in the back of his head, even now that he's trying to be less of a sack of shit who does nothing but hurt everyone he loves. It’ll probably always be there. “I miss her, but it might be for the best if we don’t talk.”

“I mean, you will, she’s hanging around Aglaea a lot when she’s not out having a good time,” says Caelus. “But if it helps, she’s more suspicious of the elders than she is of you.”

Phainon sighs. “Are they still at it?” he asks. “I’ve been kind of out of it, lately.”

“They’re still at it,” Caelus confirms. “No assassination attempts yet, thank god, but they’re definitely paying way more attention to us and the Stellaron Hunters now that we’re the saviors from beyond the sky instead of the outlander warriors.” He unwinds the ribbon from around his fingers, leans back on his palms. “A couple personally tried to talk to Himeko, but she just made interested noises at them before they gave up and left.”

“None of them have come to you?” Phainon asks.

“Oh, they tried,” says Caelus. “They got the hint when I pulled out my bat.”

“You are the despair of politicians everywhere,” Phainon says. “Cipher’s…not going to bite if I come talk to Aglaea tomorrow, right?”

“She’ll keep an eye,” says Caelus. “But she’s not going to hurt you.” He pauses, then says, “I should probably let her know she wins the bet, but. Eh, she can wait.”

“Deliverer,” calls Mydei, and Phainon’s eyes flick to him immediately. “The ghost hunters insist on meeting you.”

“He’s so cute,” Guinaifen whispers to her friend, and Phainon preens a little under the praise. Then Mydei catches his hand in his, and the abyss retreats, just for a little time.

--

March finds Montana again, and by the time she’s convinced her to calm down and trust her, things have already been put into full swing. She spots Robin and Boothill setting up some equipment to the side, Boothill fiddling about with some settings while Robin prods at a few buttons experimentally, and stands stock-still for a moment while she tries to remember how to like. Breathe.

Then she shakes her head and turns back to helping set up for what Boothill proclaims as “the biggest party Dreamflux Reef’s ever seen!”

Mr. Reca, watching her and August haul some tables away to the side, says, “Quite an extraordinary pair of actors.”

“Hi, Mr. Reca,” says March.

“Memokeeper,” says August, flatly.

“He’s what.”

Mr. Reca laughs, and says, “Yes, I’m a Memokeeper! But I am also a film director—that’s why I’m here, to capture this moment on film. This script,” and he glances meaningfully at August, “is coming to its explosive climax, so of course I wouldn’t dare miss it for the world. I’d guess that’s exactly why you’ve stuck around.”

“I have to see this through,” says August.

“A wonderful work ethic to hear from an actor,” says Mr. Reca, cheerfully, and March sees August roll his eyes heavenward. “All right, put those down there…”

They set the tables away, and Robin takes the stage. March presses further into the crowd as Robin flings her microphone away and brings forward the DJ equipment, and music—dazzling and bright, the joy in it infectious—bursts forth. The crowd goes wild around her, singing along to the tune, making up their own words and dancing along.

Perhaps this is what Harmony is: basking in the joy and freedom of your friends around you. And speaking of friends—

August, she realizes, is sitting on the outskirts, drinking pomegranate juice. She pushes her way out of the crowd for a moment, grabs him by the wrists, and says, “Come on, get up! You remember how to dance, right?”

“Of course I remember how to dance,” huffs August, sounding offended, but he gets up and goes along with her anyway. “I just prefer a different kind of dancing to this.”

“Like fighting?” March teases.

“No,” says August. “Just…Kafka taught me how to waltz. I have a preference for that kind of dancing, instead.”

“Then show me how to waltz,” says March, and August huffs out a breath. “What! I’ve seen people waltz, I bet it’s easy.”

“I can try,” says August, and leads her steps into a waltz, a hand on her shoulder and another holding her hand. It’s easier said than done, because March soon realizes this: a waltz is a terrible choice of dance for a venue like this, because they keep getting bumped into by the other dancers and they have to speed up the steps, but she laughs anyway and lets August spin her out, her skirt flaring out.

“This is great!” she cackles. “Oh, what are you looking at?”

“An embarrassment,” says August with a sigh, and March glances up to see Boothill line-dancing on a skeletal billboard frame. “Well. It’s good to see he’s doing fine after that trial, I suppose—”

Then Boothill tosses his hat into the air, and an explosion of monkeys pours out. Before their eyes, the monkeys transform back into flustered human beings, and out of the cloud comes Dan Heng, landing on his feet on the ground, before Caelus collides into his back with a shriek and sends them both toppling over in a pile of awkward limbs. The Watchmaker’s hat skitters across the pavement, and if a hat could somehow look embarrassed, March imagines poor Legwork’s hat would right now.

Caelus sticks his hand up in the air and calls, “Hi, March, August! Oh, shit, Boothill, where have you been?”

“Miss Robin,” Dan Heng says, strangled. Then Rappa lands in front of them, one leg splayed gracefully out, a knee bent, before she unfolds with a grin.

“Mission accomplished!” she proclaims, just before a paint can smacks into her head.

“Firefly,” says August, “is going to be pissed she missed this.”

--

After the party, after Primon’s run away from getting arrested (and tortured, what the hell, Boothill), March finds August back in Paperfold University once more, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. “Hey,” she says, “you’re not sticking around for the rest of the anniversary?”

“I’ve stayed long enough,” says August, turning when he hears her. “The longer I’m here, the likelier it is the Bloodhounds might come after me. I’ll be back with the other Hunters by this time tomorrow—the script’s done, and I have a new one.”

“Aw,” says March. “You’ll miss all the cool stuff. Rappa’s sticking around, she says there’s something she’s gotta do first, but I think she’s just hanging around because Caelus showed her more ninja anime.”

“Of course he did,” says August, with a note of exasperated fondness. He hoists the bag up further, and says, “I’ll be relying on your pictures to tell me what I’ve missed.”

“What, seriously?” March says.

“You’re one of the best photographers I’ve met,” he says, “of course I’d ask you. Well?”

“Give me your phone and we’ll swap numbers,” says March, and August hands his phone over with some bemusement. She dials her phone number in, then calls herself and programs his number into her phone. “There! Now I can text you any time. It’ll be fun!”

She swears she sees the tiniest upward twitch to August’s mouth, at that. “I’ll look forward to it,” he says, and gives her a nod. “I’ll text Caelus later and tell him not to get involved in something insane again.”

March snorts out a laugh. “It's Caelus,” she says. “Good luck with that. Betcha he’ll start a band to save a building full of orphaned trotters.”

“The worst part is,” August says, “I can’t discount that as a possibility. He's a soft touch.” He breathes out, and pats her on the shoulder before he steps away, almost hesitant. “I’ll see you around, March,” he says.

“You too, August!” she calls after him, and stays on the carpet to see him off, until his figure fades into the crowds of Penacony. She smiles, then turns back to Paperfold University and goes to rejoin her friends once more.

--

(The beginning of the end—the broken world, the barren desert, the destroyer at the center of it ready to burn it all down to ashes again, and again, and again. If rage can’t burn this twisted fate to ashes…then let me burn with it. One more try. Wipe the slate clean, and—

He will never know who calls him first, but he hears a name on the wind—his true name, over the cacophony of voices calling out to him. He turns, and sees her, behind a familiar immortal body.

“Please,” she says. “Come on, just…step back. Come talk to me. Please.”

I have to reset the world. All of you need to go, or I will burn you all to dust.

Unbeknownst to him—the snow, a sign of reality leaking back in, begins to fall.)

Chapter Text

The sixth time March meets August is—

Is—

--

The ghost of Cyrene smiles at Mydei, as the memories of Aedes Elysiae begin to fade from existence around them. Her eyes are wet with tears, and she presses a hand to his cheek. “You may never forgive me for what I helped him do to you,” she says. “But she is your friend, and she didn’t remember a thing before this. Please, Mydei, for this unworthy one—don’t blame her.”

Mydei catches Cyrene in his arms, watches with growing horror as she begins to fade. “Cyrene—”

“Tell him,” she says, “that I forgave him a long time ago.”

--

The sixth time March meets August and the first time she meets Mydeimos, Lance of Fury and God of Strife, he’s sitting at her bedside when she wakes. Her head spins with new memories jostling against her old ones, and she groans with pain as she doubles over, pressing her fingers against her temples. “Ugh, did somebody get the license plate of the car that hit me?” she grumbles. “It’s like those guys on Penacony all over again.”

“March,” he says, relieved, and wraps her up into a tight hug.

“Whoa, August!” she says, surprised. “Mydei, c’mon, lemme go, you hug way too tightly—”

He pulls away from her just as fast, shock in his eyes. “I’m getting the Memokeeper,” he says. “And your friends. They’ve missed you. I—You remember?”

“Little bit more and more,” March admits. “But it’s like…it’s like I’m watching a movie about someone else’s life. I was Cyrene, but I’m me now: March 7th.” She blinks at him, and says, quietly, “It’s…not the same with you?”

He shakes his head. “I am the same person, no matter which name I go by,” he says. “August or Mydeimos, Stellaron Hunter or god of Strife—I am myself.” He pats her shoulder gently, and says, “But call me whichever you wish, March, and I will answer either way.”

“What do your friends call you?” she asks.

He hesitates a moment. Then: “Mydei, if not August.”

--

Epics tend to end with a grand finale: the villain defeated, the hero triumphant. And as Aglaea said, there is such a thin, thin line between a presumptuous hero and a tyrant. It really depends on the flip of a coin, or perhaps the weight of a thousand bodies in your hands.

He’s so tired. He’s so, so tired. He let go of the power and now everything hurts so much, and he watches the sky grow light and thinks of home—the swaying stalks of wheat, the laughter of his friends, the warmth of his parents’ arms, Cyrene’s clever fingers flipping through her cards. Maybe it won’t be so bad. Maybe Cas will let him sleep in that dream forever.

Then a familiar scream cuts through the air: “Phainon!”

It’s not Cyrene who wraps her arms around him as he falls, but March, and a gentle chill falls over him as her shield wraps around him, like a cool breeze after a hot day.

Then another pair of arms, well-muscled and strong, encircle the both of them, and Mydei—god, Mydei—shifts them both around. Phainon understands almost too late: he means to take the brunt of the impact into himself. The thought of it, of Mydei getting hurt once more because of him, snaps Phainon back into a single horrible moment of clarity.

He cannot let that happen. If he can even mitigate the damage, just a little bit—

Wings spread out, to cover the both of them protectively. He closes his eyes, and breathes, “I’m so sorry.”

The ground rushes up to meet them.

--

Hyacine squints at Phainon the next day, when he comes down to the kitchens to eat a late breakfast. “Isn’t that Lord Mydei’s shirt?” she asks. “And scarf? And…uh, what is that on your head?”

“Aw, he found August’s disguise,” says Silver Wolf.

“I wasn’t aware that was meant to be a disguise,” says Blade, who has an entire armored woman just calmly sitting on him. Phainon blinks at him for a moment, then spots Dan Heng at the table, showing Sunday the data bank and clearly drooping a little. Occasionally Sunday raises his hand and does something that gets Dan Heng to straighten back up.

“Yeah, that’s because he stinks at them,” says Silver Wolf.

“What,” says Phainon, “is happening here?”

“I’m keeping Blade from trying to stab a Nameless,” says Firefly, and it’s odd hearing her voice sound so deep when she’s armored up like this.

“I was just trying to get breakfast,” says Hyacine. “They were like this when I got here. Also—ah! Lord Phainon, your neck!”

Sunday glances over, turns deeply red, and immediately looks away. Dan Heng pats his shoulder and murmurs something to him that Phainon can’t quite make heads or tails of. Something about it’s fine, no one will judge? “What’s on my neck,” says Phainon, although he’s got a good idea what it looks like—a bruise from last night, when Mydei invited him inside his rooms and then pressed him to the wall and kissed him.

“Holy shit, did August actually—”

“Oh, that,” says Phainon. “He did kiss me, if that’s what you’re asking. So you owe Caelus.”

“We owe Caelus,” Blade corrects. “I had money riding on this.”

Dan Heng, who’s been ignoring him for the entire time they’ve been here, looks up from his food in shock and says, “You were betting on them?”

Blade squints at Dan Heng, his fingers flexing, but with the full weight of Firefly in armor in his lap, he clearly isn’t able to pull himself up. Or maybe he’s not really interested in getting up and dislodging her—something Phainon’s found about the Stellaron Hunters is that a lot of them act like cats, in subtle ways. Blade might be operating on cat rules here. “They were very obvious,” he says.

“No we weren't,” says Phainon.

“When we met Mydeimos in Castrum Kremnos, he barely talked to us,” says Dan Heng. “I think he was a little surprised we were there at all.”

Hyacine butters her bread, and says, “You’re both being careful, right?”

“Yes, we didn't break anything important,” says Phainon, deciding not to mention that the door to Mydei’s room may be slightly dented now. “Oh, uh, who cooked?”

“Caelus talked people he called the Aunties and someone from a planet called Belobog into coming here to cook for us,” says Hyacine. “Have you tried these dumplings? They’re really good.”

“I have, they’re great,” says Phainon, grabbing a delicate-looking dumpling with his fingers and popping it into his mouth. It is, in fact, as criminally delicious as they were yesterday, and he bites back a moan at the taste in his mouth. “Oh, that’s good.”

“He’s going to expand Aurum Alley’s operations here, I just know it,” Dan Heng says.

“...he fucking would,” says Blade, earning an incredulous look from Dan Heng. Which. Well, there’s clearly some sort of fraught history there, but Phainon can barely handle his own history most of the time, so he makes his excuses and leaves the kitchens for somewhere more secluded. To his surprise, Hyacine picks up her plate and follows after him, Little Ica trailing dutifully along behind her.

Together, they make their way out into the courtyard, under the great tree’s shadow. Out here, Himeko’s directing the little chimera squads around, like a conductor coaxing a beautiful symphony out of the orchestra. The morning sun shines gently down on them.

Hyacine says, “I actually do want to check up on you. I’d hoped to do it right after, um.”

“Right after everyone beat me up so I’d stop trying to destroy the world,” Phainon says. “It’s okay, you can say it here. The only one in earshot is a Garmentmaker.” He waves a little hello at the mannequin, who waves back. “Why’d you want to do a check-up?”

Hyacine stares at him, and then says, “You’d just hit the ground at far too high a velocity for a normal human being to survive, while shielding two other people, and after a grueling battle that we all struggled through. You included. I got worried.”

“Ah,” says Phainon. “That.”

“Can I see your—”

“No,” Phainon says, a little too quickly.

“But if your wings—”

Wings. He didn't ask for them. He never asked for any of it. He had just wanted to live quietly and be his little village’s hero. “They’re fine,” he says. “They really are, Hyacine. I’m. I just. Don’t ask me that. Please.” He picks, absently, at his knuckles, scarred with gold.

Hyacine catches him by the wrist, her grip briefly tight before she loosens it, and he leaves off for now. “Okay,” she says. “Okay. You…don’t really like that form, huh?”

He doesn’t like himself much anyway, but that version of him…that’s the part of him that had tried to raze everything and everyone he had ever loved. It’s still—It’s still there, but he doesn’t want it anymore. If he could, he’d carve it out of himself and be happy. “No,” he says.

“It’s still a part of you,” she says.

“It’s a part of me I never asked for or wanted,” says Phainon. “The wings are fine, Hyacine. I heal faster than most, these days.” Except maybe Mydei.

Hyacine worries at her sleeves, still, and Phainon lets out a breath, puts an arm around her shoulders and pulls her into his side. “I was the one who had to treat all three of you,” she says. “Well, me and Mr. Yang and Dannie. You and Mydei needed to get your limbs set, but…I don’t know if you remember this? But Mydei swore at us when we set his arm, but you’d broken both your legs and you didn’t make a sound. And, yeah, you healed fast. But. You didn’t make a sound, didn’t even—suck in a breath, when it started working. It was only when March and Lord Mydei had to be taken away that you made this, this awful noise, and I thought—oh no, the weight of them on your wings.”

“I remember it in flashes,” says Phainon. “I don't feel pain, when I’m like that.” He pauses, watching as one of the chimeras gently headbutts Himeko’s ankle, asking her to help his friend who’s hiding under a bench. “What I remember is—I was so scared to let them go.”

Hyacine is silent in response, but her hand rests over his and squeezes gently.

“He would’ve taken the brunt of it,” says Phainon. “Trusted his body of steel to take the impact. But I didn’t want…” He lets out a breath. “I remember that I could think clearly, in that moment. And I realized I—couldn't stand for them to get hurt because of me again. So.” He shrugs. “The rest of it’s fragmented. The next clear memory I have is of my room, but I must’ve shifted back, at some point.”

“You did, while we were riding on top of Pollux,” says Hyacine. “I think you were just too exhausted after everything. Lord Mydei—he sat near you and held your hand the whole time. He only let go when we were back in Okhema.”

“He did?” Phainon asks, surprised.

Hyacine nods. “Even when you hadn’t changed back yet,” she says.

“Ah, Mydei,” Phainon murmurs. “I’m sorry you fell in love with someone so dense.”

“To be honest with you,” says a familiarly deep voice behind him, “it took a while for me to realize that was what had happened as well. A pleasure, Hyacine. I'd like my lover back now.”

“Tell him to be kinder to himself,” Hyacine urges, before she goes off to help Himeko coax out the chimera hiding under the bench.

Phainon lets himself slump against Mydei’s side as Mydei sits next to him, resting his head upon his shoulder. “So how much of that did you hear?” he asks.

“I came in as Hyacine was telling you about your being too exhausted to stay on Pollux,” says Mydei. “So I held you. I didn't hear much else before that.”

“Nothing I want to talk about right now,” says Phainon. “I’m going to talk to Aglaea, and that’s…not going to be an easy conversation to have. I’d rather not hit my limit this early in the day.”

Mydei gives him a look, the one that says he’s full of shit, but he doesn’t push any further. Instead he puts his hand on Phainon’s knee, and for a little while the two of them just…stay like that. Phainon lets the silence go on for a little while, just basking in the warmth beside him, and just watches the tiny chimera wriggling bashfully out of its hiding place. It’s a little grey thing with, aw, a cowlick.

Its friend nudges closer to it, nuzzling into its neck. Huh, funny, that one’s red and yellow. Then the two of them make more worried noises at Himeko, who scratches at her chin and says something to Hyacine.

“Did another chimera go missing?” Mydei wonders, just as Phainon feels something brushing against his feet. “What was that.”

Phainon looks down, then plucks a tiny pink, blue and white chimera from under their bench. “Found it,” he says, as the little chimera wriggles in his hands.

“I win hide and seek forever!” the chimera proclaims. “I’m the champion now! Wait, hold on—you’re not chimeras, you’re tall.”

“Thanks, we drank a lot of milk,” says Phainon, quite seriously. “What’re you doing away from your friends, little one?”

“We’re playing hide and seek,” the chimera informs him. “I’m a champion hider now. It doesn’t count that you two found me because you’re not playing anyway.” It kicks at the air, and adds, “Oof, my legs are sleepy. Been hiding for two hours, that's a new record.”

“Ah,” says Mydei. “No wonder your friends are worried. Come on now, little one, we’ll take you back to them.”

“Aw, but then the game’ll end,” the chimera says, pouting, but it doesn’t resist as Phainon gets up and cradles it in his arms. “Hm, you’re nice. Like the gray-haired manager. He’s very kind.”

“What has Caelus been doing while I was gone,” says Mydei.

“Made himself very invaluable to the chimeras and won the Seal Slammers tournament,” says Phainon, very gingerly stepping over a sleeping chimera. “Among other things. Hyacine, Miss Himeko, we’ve found your wayward chimera!”

A cacophony of chimera noises descend upon the two of them, and the two chimeras all but tackle their friend once Phainon sets it down, scolding it gently and then nuzzling into its side with great worry. “Hm,” Mydei says, fishing out his phone and taking a picture of it to send to March.

“August,” says Himeko, warmly. “Or is it Mydeimos?”

“Either’s fine,” says Mydei.

“And,” she pauses, looks at Phainon with a little more wariness, “Lord Phainon. It's good to see you out and about this early.” She actually sounds sincere about it, which Phainon figures must mean March and Caelus have talked to the rest of the Nameless. “Thank you for bringing back this little chimera to its friends. They were really very worried.”

“Ages! It took ages to find you!” one of the chimeras scolds. “I was scared!”

“You were scared? Aww…”

“It just happened to be hiding underneath our bench,” says Phainon. “It says it’s a champion hider? We brought it over when we noticed you were looking for it.”

“Well, this one in particular does like hiding a lot,” says Hyacine.

“How are they, anyway?” Mydei asks. He’s already bent down to pet some of the chimeras, and is playing keepaway with one. Phainon squints. Is that a chimera toy? Does he just keep chimera toys in his pockets in case he sees one? He sneaks a hand into the pocket of his stolen shirt and—yep, there it is, here’s a toy just hiding in there.

“They seem to be doing well enough, overall,” says Himeko, with a smile. “They’re quite enthusiastic little creatures! One of them even told me about Caelus having managed their squad for some time—that sounds like it has quite the story behind it, hm?”

“Yeah, I can tell you right now!” Hyacine says.

“Why do you keep chimera toys in your shirts,” Phainon says to Mydei.

“I keep a lot of things in my shirts,” says Mydei. “Just in case. You learn to keep plenty of things on hand just in case, in my line of work.”

Phainon’s about to ask what he means before he remembers: right. The Stellaron Hunters. Who…won’t be staying around forever. He wonders what that means for Mydei, if he’ll be staying here or going with them—he’s never said either way, but Phainon thinks of how Mydei fits into that group like he’s always been there, how casual he seems around them.

They’ll. They’ll have to talk about that, too. But later. Later.

Instead he fishes out the chimera toy and wiggles it in front of their faces, and immediately they swarm him, chanting for it. It’s sort of nice, that the chimeras don’t seem to mind if he feels off to them.

“Don't crowd him too much,” Mydei says, and the small swarm of chimeras quickly retreats with an air of embarrassment. “Good. All right, hold still, I’m sending this picture to March.”

Phainon hastily tugs the scarf upward to obscure the hickey on his neck. The last thing he needs is March blowing up his phone to tease him mercilessly.

--

Aglaea takes her usual bath in the Chrysos Heirs’ private baths around this time, so Phainon strips out of the clothes he’d stolen off Mydei’s floor and into a robe meant to soak in. Even this makes him feel itchy—it’s one thing for Mydei to see the scars. It’s another for Aglaea to see them, and maybe Phainon just…doesn't want to disappoint her more than he’s already done.

“She’s worried for you, HKS,” Mydei says.

“She’s worried I’ll snap and break everything again,” says Phainon. “Which is fair.”

“You can’t read her mind,” Mydei says. “Don’t assign your self-loathing to her. It’s an insult to her nature and your relationship with her.”

Phainon winces, because Mydei’s as straightforward as ever. He can’t quite refute that either, because if she really was trying to keep an Emanator of Destruction under control, would she have sent Caelus to come and help him? She must’ve at least suspected Caelus might decide to take him off-world. “Good luck with your meeting,” he says.

“...thanks,” says Mydei. “Yours will go fine.” He pushes himself off the wall and heads in the opposite direction from the baths—apparently he and the mysterious head of the Stellaron Hunters, who no one has ever seen, have a long-overdue talk. Phainon won’t get his hopes up over what it might be. He just…can’t.

So he makes his way to the Chrysos Heirs’ bath, in time to see Cipher and Aglaea in the water, conferring with each other. “—made some moves already that makes me wonder if Caenis is back,” Aglaea’s saying, and Phainon freezes, eyes quickly darting around for any sign of a Cleaner in the shadows. “It certainly has her stamp all over it.”

“Ugh, here I thought she’d done us all a favor by dying, but I should’ve known,” Cipher grumbles. “Hm. I could break into the more private parts of Dawncloud, see if there’s anything incriminating among their papers.”

“Bring Mydei’s hacker friend with you,” Aglaea says. “I noticed she’s managed to catch a hold of a few of my own golden threads. Someone who can do that, even with the help of,” and she makes a sour face, “that man? Would be a great asset in an investigation like this.”

“Oh? Really?” Cipher says, with a giggle. “All right, I don’t mind her tagging along. She’s an adorable kid.” She tilts her head to the side, and smiles dangerously at Phainon, the edges of her mouth not quite reaching her eyes. “Don’t you think so, Deliverer boy?” she says.

“Cifera,” says Aglaea.

“Fine, fine, I’ll be nice,” says Cipher, getting up out of the water and stretching out with a yawn. Phainon steps closer as she makes her way out, but she catches him by the arm and says quietly, “Don’t hurt her.”

“I won’t,” Phainon says.

“Forgive me,” says Cipher, and for a moment she looks as old and tired as anyone who’s a thousand years old would look, “if I don’t take you at your word.” Then she slips past him, disappearing from view quickly, though he doesn’t doubt she’s probably found a vantage point to watch them. That’s fine. Weirdly enough, it makes him feel oddly better to know Cipher’s watching.

Aglaea sighs. “I do apologize,” she says, as Phainon lowers himself down into the water, “for her distrust. It’s only…well. After the Cleaners, Cifera gets tetchy when I take a bath out here.”

“No apologies needed, I get it,” says Phainon. “And I more than earned that distrust, anyway. I don’t—I mean, I do mind, but. She’s not wrong.”

Aglaea tilts her head toward him, clouded eyes not quite focused on him. “What did you come to me for?” she asks. “A bet with Mydei?”

“Partly,” he admits. “But I’d have come to you, sooner or later. Even just to—apologize, or submit myself to whatever punishment you might believe is right, or—”

“Phainon,” says Aglaea, “after everything you’ve been through, any punishment I could dream up is a paltry thing compared to what has already happened.” She wades closer to him and takes his hands in hers, fingers brushing over scarred knuckles. She frowns down at his hands. “And to what you’ve been doing to yourself, too. Sweet child, we have both done monstrous things for what we believed was right—I cannot condemn you for doing what I have done, in a position like yours.”

“I’ve killed all of you,” he says, wretchedly. “I tried—the Flamechase Journey, I tried so hard to do it all by myself, I thought—if I could, if I could gather up the Coreflames, before anyone else could—I broke the world, Aglaea. So many times. And then kept resetting because I couldn’t—I couldn't bear its shattered pieces. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“We have asked so much of you,” says Aglaea, “in the prophecy's name. I knew how much it would hurt you, and how the burden might break you, but…ah, Phainon. I feel as if I had a part to play in all this.”

“No, Aglaea, you put your faith in me and I broke it,” says Phainon. “I tried, I kept trying, it didn't matter.”

“Even if you did, I don't regret it,” says Aglaea. “It did matter. Do you understand? It matters that you kept trying, it matters that you held up such an unfathomable burden for such a long time. I’m sorry, too,” and she touches his cheek the way his own mother once did, to brush off the dirt smudged on his face, “for my part in shattering you. But the faith that I had, the faith I still have…I would never regret it.”

“You had me watched,” Phainon says.

“I did,” says Aglaea. “A precaution, yes, right after the battle, but…afterward I just needed to make sure you were all right.” Her hand drifts down again to his hands, and she sighs sadly. “What horrors the both of us have wrought on ourselves,” she says, “for the sake of the golden future. I cannot blame you for the trying—I’d never blame you, because I understand the heartfelt desire that drove it. Because that same passion ignited in my heart all those years ago.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” says Phainon.

“Have I not?” Aglaea asks. “I have soaked the golden threads in blood many times to achieve the goals of the Flamechase. For the sake of the future, I have spent lives like coins at a marketplace, bartering for anything that could buy time. Some of those lives belonged to those I loved. In some respects, I may be just as guilty as you.” She reaches up a hand to the back of his neck, tugs him downward so they can press their foreheads together. “If you are here to apologize to me for your sins, then I must also apologize to you.”

“But you never—” Phainon starts, then stops. Crumples further into her arms and hugs her, like a child clinging to his mother, and mumbles into her shoulder, “You don't have to apologize. You shouldn't have to. Not to me, of all people.”

“The weight of the world,” Aglaea says, stroking over his hair, “cannot be borne by one person alone. And so I’m sorry, Phainon, if I ever gave you cause to believe that.”

“I’m sorry I killed you,” Phainon says, burying his face in her shoulder so he doesn't have to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I’ve been—such a disappointment. I only ever…I don’t know how I got so far away from where I started.”

“We are, all of us, far from where we started,” says Aglaea. “Hush now. It’s all right. I’m here, alive, and so are you. Weep if you must—the only other person here is Cifera, and she will not tease you for the tears.” He thinks perhaps Aglaea is crying too, he can feel something wet landing in his hair, and he hasn’t even gotten around to washing that part yet. “You did all you could. You did more than you could. Rest now, in warm waters—you have been punished more than enough.”

He doesn’t exactly believe her, but. Well. She’s not the first person to say that, and he’s learning to at least not protest when people are kind to him. He might not deserve it, but he’ll take it anyway and let it warm him at his core.

“Wasn’t your fault,” he mumbles.

“I’ll try to believe that,” she says, and pats his head in gentle understanding.

--

Chrysos Heirs, Astral Express, Stellaron Hunters
better name TBA, no one ask Caelus

Dan Heng
Can anyone clear something up for me? @ Mydei especially, I’m looking at Castrum Kremnos documents right now for the data bank.
I’m running into a great number of inconsistencies regarding your father’s reign and your presence in the city.
Well, a great number of inconsistencies in general, really.

Silver Wolf
yeah we’re digging up lots of really contradictory shit around here
hit up krateros for funny childhood stories and in the same breath as “oh idk i only met the crown prince when he was like twenty-five” he also said “his mom used to spoil him lots and he’d sneak up tree branches to get away from tutors”
don’t think he even noticed the inconsistency

Mydei
Mm, he wouldn’t.
My own personal theory is I have memories of at least two very different loops. Cyrene’s powers might’ve played some havoc, so now I have very distinct memories of my mother’s voice as well as the certainty we never met.
I know for a fact we didn’t, not in the most recent loop, but
I knew her, before the split.
As for the rest of it, best explanation I have is the time loop.

Caelus
The infinite torture washing machine strikes again!!

Tribbie
No one is renaming the chat to infinite torture washing machine!!

Dan Heng
I’ll just make a note of it in the data bank, then.

Caelus
SEE I’M RIGHT.

March 7th
You’re back in the group chat! Yay!
Don’t encourage him.

--

“I thought I’d find you in here,” says Phainon, back in his own clothes and not Mydei’s shirt, stepping into the library to find Mydei there once more, reading a poetry book intently. “How’d your meeting go?”

Mydei shrugs. “Well enough. Did you and Aglaea have a good talk?”

“She cried on me, I cried on her,” says Phainon, coming over to sit next to him. His body instinctively slumps into Mydei’s side, and Phainon doesn’t even try to fight it much. “Cipher watched us the whole time and was nice enough not to say anything, but I got the feeling that threat-wise to her, I’m a step below the Cleaners.”

“You are,” says Mydei, putting an arm around his waist. “At least when it concerns Aglaea. You’re not actively plotting against her.”

“Been too busy trying to figure out if it’s possible to decompose in bed,” Phainon says, and yelps when he feels a pinch at his hip. “Hey! All right, I get it. I told you, I want to live.”

“Hm, good.” Mydei puts his book off to the side, and says, “Also, the Cleaners?”

“Yeah, I think Cipher’s stuck around to deal with them and Caenis,” says Phainon. “She’s back, by the way. Not sure how, but I’m guessing either she had a backup body or she came back the same way everyone else did.”

Mydei drops his face into the palm of his hand. “Why do we still have to deal with that obstinate council,” he says.

“We?” Phainon asks. “Aren’t you going back with the Stellaron Hunters, once you get another script?”

“Ah.” A corner of Mydei’s mouth turns upward. “Not for the next script. Elio and I discussed it—when I joined the Hunters, I made a deal with him. I wanted to find out who I was, where I'd come from, why I’d ended up floating through space in ice, and he agreed to help me so long as I joined up. Now,” he waves a hand at the library, at Okhema, at the entirety of Amphoreus outside the library window, “we’ve held up both ends of the bargain. I told him that I wanted to stay—but I wouldn’t abandon the others, either.”

Phainon blinks at him, parsing out what he’s said. “So…you’re here until a script that really needs you,” he says.

“Yes.”

“March, though.” March had said, more than once, that she couldn’t stick around forever. Amphoreus isn’t really her home—that’s the Astral Express. Phainon’s accepted that, and at least he’s got her number in his phone and a promise of a weekly video call, so he’s. He’s adjusting. “I thought you might…”

“I’m not March,” says Mydei. “This is my home, as much as the Hunters are. So I’m staying, but should they call for me, I’ll come.” He brushes a few stray strands of hair out of Phainon’s eyes, and says, “Did you believe that I would leave, this whole time?”

“I wanted to ask you to stay,” says Phainon. “Or to take me along with you, but…that one would’ve hurt.” Because he wants to stay here, on Amphoreus, with the people he loves and the life he’s rebuilding. The rest of the universe is nice and all, but—well, it’s like with Aedes Elysiae. He’d rather just live quietly in Amphoreus, and support the real movers and shakers while they step into the universal stage.

“My people are here,” says Mydei. “You’re here. The others can drop by whenever they wish, the Trailblazers set up Space Anchors for that very purpose—but this is where I’ve put down my roots. I’m not going anywhere for a while yet.” He scratches blunt fingernails over Phainon’s scalp, and the sensation’s…nice. Phainon hums in contentment. “I have had my fill of wandering already.”

Right, with the detachment and his friends, the ones he’d grieved. Put that way, it makes sense Mydei would choose to stay here—just as it makes sense as well that he’s left the door open to come back to the Hunters, if ever they need him. “You know I’d go with you anywhere, though, right?” he says.

“Do you want to go anywhere else, Deliverer?” Mydei asks.

“Not really,” Phainon admits. “Kinda sad, right? The universe finally opens up again and the skies are free and clear, and I’d rather just stay on familiar ground.”

“It isn’t sad, to want to stay and rebuild somewhere familiar,” says Mydei. “So long as you’re willing to acknowledge that the past isn’t coming back, no matter how tightly you hold onto it.”

Phainon thinks of Castrum Kremnos’s ruins. Some of it can be saved and rebuilt, but so much of it now is little more than the crumbling remains of its glory days. “I guess you’d know better than me,” he says. “I should be sick of it, right? What with all the loops. But I can’t really imagine myself going to live anywhere else even now, and anyway—I have a responsibility, right? To help fix what I broke.”

“Mm.” Another approving scritch over his scalp, paired with a kiss to his temple. “All you have to do is ask me for help, when you need it.”

“You’re sure?” Phainon asks. “I don’t want to impose, if I can handle things on my own.”

“Of course I’m sure,” says Mydei, sounding a bit offended it has to be asked. “The state you’re in, you shouldn’t have to handle things on your own.”

What else am I good for, Phainon would’ve said just a few days ago. He still thinks it, but now he remembers Aglaea’s arms around him as well, Castorice’s warm smile and gentle offer, Anaxa taking a hold of his hands, Hyacine leaning against him, Trianne reaching for him despite the glitching, Caelus bringing him to a quiet place to watch the stars and the passing starskiffs, and March’s tight embrace as she dragged him up from supplication. And Mydei—god, who loves him, despite everything.

“I can’t promise I won’t try anyway,” Phainon says. “But. If. If I feel like I can’t handle it. All right, then, I’ll come to you, or someone else.”

Mydei’s hand drops down to his, squeezes gently. “Let me bear some of your burden with you,” he says. “This is all I ask.”

“It’s a lot to ask,” says Phainon.

“I’m certain,” says Mydei.

Well. He’s known Mydei a long time. There’s no dissuading him from a course, when he’s made his mind up like this. “All right,” he says. “Okay.” He lies down then, rests his head in Mydei’s lap. “What were you reading?”

“The poetry of Alcman,” says Mydei. “Kremnoan poet, long before I was born. He tended toward nature and rituals, liked to describe things in great detail.”

“You guys have enough words to describe things?” Phainon asks, and for that keen observation, he gets a pinch to his arm. “Ow! You’re the one who keeps saying there’s no word in the Kremnoan language for whatever I talk about! Which, by the way, in at least one cycle I found out there were words for some of them, I looked.”

“Imprecise words,” says Mydei. “We had to find ways to improvise and describe.” He pinches the edge of Phainon’s ear this time, drawing a grumbled huff out of him. “If you lie still I’ll read you a fragment.”

“Fragments?” Phainon asks, doing as asked and lying still.

“All that survives of his work,” says Mydei. “He wrote many of his poems under a more tolerant king. The next one…wasn’t half as kind to poets uninterested in the glory of war.”

From what Mydei’s told him about the kings of Castrum Kremnos, Phainon’s not that surprised. He thinks of Nikador the Titan, divine soul fractured into pieces by a scared king’s hand, all because of the fear that had gripped this kingdom at the thought of losing Strife’s guidance. “Did he make it out alive?” Phainon asks.

“That’s the thing, I’m not certain,” says Mydei. “I’d have to go back to Castrum Kremnos and find the royal library. My guess is that he survived—not even my scoundrel of a father would harm someone with such talent without a plausible cause—but he couldn’t write what he wished to write anymore.”

“Find the library…?” Phainon asks.

“The place is still infected with the Black Tide,” says Mydei, and Phainon does his best not to feel absurdly guilty for it. “And besides that, it’s been in ruins for long enough that I’m concerned the structure itself is too dangerous to live in for long, for anyone but myself. And you, should you want to.”

“I told you, anywhere you go, I’m going,” says Phainon. “And y’know what, I liked Castrum Kremnos when we came there. We can go camping. It’ll be fun.”

“We don't have to go camping, I can talk the other Hunters into helping me set up an actual bedroom,” says Mydei. “Neither of us are taking each other on the ground. My back would kill me.”

Frankly, Phainon’s back would also attempt to murder him. They’ve been through enough battles and injuries that it’s a real concern Phainon has. “No offense meant to your friends, but they’re not exactly the first people I’d think of when I want help with interior decoration,” he says.

“None taken,” says Mydei. “You’ll be surprised, Blade has a good eye for these things and Kafka adores sales. We’ll get something furnished out.” His fingers scratch idly over Phainon’s scalp, light touches that nevertheless send a warm buzz down Phainon’s spine. “Oh, here’s a good fragment: I sing the light of Aquila. I see her like the sun, which Aquila summons to shine in witness for us…”

Phainon closes his eyes, and dozes off with Mydei’s fingers in his hair, and Mydei’s voice in his ears reading out Kremnoan poetry.

He breathes in, then out, and the grief recedes like the tide for a time.

--

March finds them both in the library, fast asleep. Phainon’s lying in Mydei’s lap, drooling into his pants, cheek smooshed against his thigh. Mydei is snoring fitfully, a thumb in a book while his other hand is buried in Phainon’s hair. With their backs against the window, the sunlight streaming in bathes them both in gentle gold, and for a moment March stands still, just watching them sleep for a little while.

She smiles, takes out her phone, and snaps a quick picture. Then she steps closer, sits down, and knocks on the nearest table’s surface, watches them both come awake—Mydei fast, his eyes snapping open with the instinctive speed of a trained soldier, and Phainon much slower, as if reluctant to leave behind the land of sleep once more.

Phainon blinks at her, and lights right up. “March!” he says, sitting up.

“Hi,” says March, with a grin. This place may not be her home anymore, but these people will always have a home in her heart. “Wanna watch the new Seal Slammers tournament with me? They're putting on a celebratory round and Caelus is defending his title.”

“Of course,” says Phainon. “Mydei?”

“Of course I’m going with you two,” says Mydei. “Even if it’s just to make sure neither of you sign up to get trounced by Caelus trying his hardest to win a fake trophy.”

“I knew Cipher’d swapped it out for a fake the last time,” Phainon says, and he gravitates close to Mydei. For the first time in days, he looks like he slept through the night, looks really, truly happy. March rifles through Cyrene’s memories, and realizes: the last time she ever saw him this happy, he had last been in Aedes Elysiae.

Mydei catches his hand, and the shadows hanging over Phainon’s face dissipate for a little while. Not forever, March knows better than to expect him to be okay forever, but—he’s okay now. She smiles, then falls in step beside them both.

And together, the three of them step out into the afternoon light.

--

(Caelus spots the falling snow, the red crystals on the edge of the crater. He launches himself forward, rushing to see what’s fallen to the earth.

Dark wings unfold. Gold seeps out of a man’s eyes, leaving behind a light blue. His eyes catch on the two in his arms—the girl, snowflakes swirling around her hand, and Strife’s own chosen, his arms holding tightly onto both of them. He smiles, softly. Closes his eyes.

They have seen you at your worst. When they wake and see you like this, do you think they’ll stay? The voice of Destruction laughs in his ears, but there is something else now: warm arms wrapped around him, and the snow, cushioning their fall.

If this is where it all ends, he thinks, then maybe…maybe I can live with it. I’m so tired. I miss home. If this is where I lay down the weight of the world and fall asleep at last, then. Then maybe it isn’t so bad.

What of the prophecy? What of your destiny? What of the bloodlust that burns inside you?

What am I now, but the ashes of who I used to be? Let me rest. Let me go. I only ever wanted to go home. He breathes out, curls closer to the two in his arms. I just want to go home.

He hears a distant call, then: “Phainon! Are you all right? Oh, shit—Hyacine! Mr. Yang, Dan Heng! We need healing over here…” Gray hair fills his vision, and before his eyes close, he reaches out, and whispers, in a small voice that he hasn’t heard since he was younger than he can remember: “Take me home?”

A hand catches hold of his. Squeezes gently. “We’ll get you home. Promise.”)