#flawed genius

Soot choked the skies where once constellations shimmered. The sigils engraved on its marble archways flickered one last time before crumbling. Between the tremble of the stars and the shriek of alchemical steel being ripped asunder, you found him—bent over the shattered remains of a Coreflame crucible.

"Anaxa!"

He didn’t look back.

Your fingers, cracked from defending your ward only hours before, now trembled for a different reason. The man before you — one eye veiled behind a soul-warped eyepatch, the other a hollow ocean of light and torment — moved like a marionette without strings.

"You shouldn’t be here," he murmured.

You stepped forward. "Neither should you."

He laughed. Low. Unstable. The kind of sound that made your bones ache. "And yet, here we are. Two symptoms of something wrong."

You didn't have time to argue before the structure behind him groaned like a dying god. You lunged. Pulled him back. Rubble collapsed where he stood.

For a moment, his forehead leaned against yours. Eyes closed. Breath shallow.

"Did you see it?" he whispered.

"What?"

"The truth. Burning through the veil."

You stared at him. Ash clung to his lashes. Gold blood still oozed from his knuckles.

You wanted to say: I only saw you breaking.

But instead, you replied, "I saw the stars fall."

Days later, you sat in the hollowed remains of the observatory. The dome had shattered long ago, and yet the night sky still spilled overhead in fractured beauty.

He sat beside you. For once, silent.

In your lap, the child you protected slept, fevered from the lingering poison gas of the Titans' failed countermeasures.

"You once called me a liar of light," he said, finally.

You hummed. "And you called me an obedient machine of starlight."

He tilted his head. "You weren’t wrong."

"Neither were you."

You looked to him. His eyepatch shimmered, and you wondered if he could see through your silence, your guilt, your clenching heart.

"They said this world is a Vanitas," you whispered. "But I never imagined it would take everything I cared for and leave behind... this."

His gaze didn’t waver. "Then paint something new. You have the stars still."

You scoffed. "You don't get to say that. Not when you almost let yourself die back there."

He reached over. His gloved hand brushed your temple, then down to your jaw. A careful caress. You flinched at first. Then leaned.

"If I die, remember this," he said softly. "Even when the truth is a blasphemy, it's still worth dying for."

"And what if I think you are worth living for?"

He paused. That mask of arrogance slipped.

His voice cracked. "Then perhaps... I have one truth left worth defending."

The child now slept safely in a hidden sanctuary, your blade set aside.

You and Anaxa stood beneath a dying star, its light pulsing slow and broken. It was the same star you charted when you first met him. The one he called the "chained god."

"It’s beautiful," you murmured.

"It’s dying."

"So are we all."

His eyes met yours. "Would you still follow me, if I declared war on the divine?"

"Yes."

"Even if I turned into a god myself?"

You stepped closer. Pressed your palm to the mark (idk what it's called?) on his chest.

"Only if you let me be the one to remind you what it means to be human."

He laughed. This time, it was soft. Real.

He took your hand. And in a rare gesture of fragility, he pressed his lips to your knuckles.

"Then promise me," he whispered. "That if I become a monster, you'll be the one to kill me."

You shook your head.

"No, Anaxagorus. I'll do worse. I'll love you."

And in the silence that followed, the dying star pulsed one final time.