#forbidden knowledge.............................................

Every morning, without fail, you knock twice on the metal door at the back of the Grove’s abandoned wing. The sound echoes down the stone hall, sharp and hollow. There is usually a crash or a curse on the other side before he answers.

“Come in,” Anaxagoras calls, voice strained, like he’s halfway between discovery and disaster.

You push the door open and step inside his laboratory.

The room smells like metal, oil, and something faintly burnt. Papers are scattered across every surface—diagrams of soul lattices, Titan remnants preserved in glass, golden blood samples glowing softly in vials. A chalk circle is etched into the floor, cracked from use. Anaxagoras stands at the center, coat discarded, sleeves rolled up, crimson tattoo on his right hand still faintly glowing.

“Good morning,” you say, quietly.

He glances over his shoulder, his one eye sharp even through exhaustion. “You’re early.”

You shrug and set your bag down near the wall. “You didn’t sleep again.”

“That’s not a question,” he replies.

You smile a little and move to your usual spot near the observation table. You don’t touch anything unless he asks. You never interrupt. You just watch.

At first, that alone unsettled him.

Most people either stared with fear or spoke too much—questions meant to test him, accusations disguised as curiosity. You did neither. You simply existed in the space with him, calm and steady, like a constant variable in an unstable equation.

Anaxagoras hated variables he couldn’t explain.

Yet here you were. Every day.

Sometimes he worked for hours without speaking, and you stayed. Sometimes his experiments failed—spectacularly.

This time, it’s the latter.

The chalk circle flares too bright. The soul fragment destabilizes, crackling like glass under pressure. Anaxagoras swears and reaches in too fast, trying to force the binding to hold.

It doesn’t.

The backlash throws him backward. The light collapses in on itself, and the room goes still.

You’re on your feet immediately.

“Anaxa—” you say, moving toward him.

“I’m fine,” he snaps automatically, even as he struggles to sit up.

There’s blood running down his temple, dark against pale skin. His glove is scorched, fingers shaking faintly.

You kneel in front of him anyway.

“You’re bleeding.”

“I said I’m—”

You meet his gaze. You don’t glare. You don’t argue. You just look at him, steady and quiet.

He exhales sharply and turns his head away. “…Get the kit.”

You already have it.

You clean the wound carefully, hands gentle but sure. He winces once but doesn’t pull away. You’ve patched him up like this more times than he’ll admit.

“You should have waited for the stabilizer to cool,” you murmur.

He scoffs. “And miss the reaction window? No.”

“Still.”

He watches your hands as you work. “You’re learning.”

“From watching you mess up,” you reply.

That earns a short laugh. Surprised. Almost real.

When you finish, you sit back on your heels. “There. Try not to die today.”

“No promises.”

You stand and dust yourself off. From your bag, you pull out a small carved charm—a droma figurine made of stone, smooth and heavy. Its long neck curves gracefully, legs etched with care.

“I saw this in the market,” you say, holding it out. “Thought you might like it.”

Anaxagoras blinks. “You bought me… a droma figurine?”

“It reminded me of you.”

He frowns. “Explain.”

“Stubborn. Carries too much. Keeps going even when it shouldn’t.”

“…That’s insulting.”

“But accurate.”

He takes the figurine anyway, turning it in his hand. His thumb brushes over the carved scales.

“…You’re strange,” he mutters.

You smile. “You noticed.”

You weren’t always like this.

Back home, you learned early how to be quiet. How to take up as little space as possible. People talked about you when they thought you couldn’t hear—whispers about how you were odd, distant, wrong somehow. No one ever said it to your face. That would’ve required courage.

Instead, they just stopped inviting you places. Stopped sitting next to you. Stopped seeing you.

Loneliness became routine.

So you watched instead. You listened. You learned how to read rooms, how to tell when someone wanted to be left alone—or when they pretended they did.

That’s how you noticed Anaxagoras.

Even before you met him, you heard the rumors.

“Heretic.”

“Monster.”

“He plays god with corpses.”

They said his name like a warning.

One day, you overheard a group of scholars laughing about him. About how he’d end up alone, locked away, forgotten. About how no one would mourn him when his experiments finally killed him.

You remembered how that felt.

That night, you went looking for his lab.

Anaxagoras notices patterns. It’s what makes him dangerous—and brilliant.

He notices that you never flinch when something goes wrong. That you don’t ask him to stop. That you don’t look at him with pity when he bleeds.

He notices that you bring him things he never asked for: books on ancient earth rites, better bandages, droma-related trinkets. A saddle charm. A fossilized scale. Once, even a small painting of a dromas standing beneath a fractured sky.

“You don’t do this for anyone else,” he says one evening, watching you set the painting down.

You pause. “What?”

“Talk. Smile. Stay.” He gestures vaguely. “This.”

You hesitate, fingers tightening around your bag strap. “Is it a problem?”

“It’s confusing.”

You look at him then. Really look.

He’s tired. Not just physically. There’s a weight in his posture, a tension that never fully leaves. Someone who expects to be abandoned eventually.

“No,” you say softly. “It’s not a problem.”

“Then why?”

You don’t answer right away.

The lab is quiet. The soul cores hum gently in their containers. Outside, the wind brushes against the stone.

“You get lonely,” you say finally.

His jaw tightens. “I don’t.”

“You do,” you insist, not unkindly. “You just don’t call it that.”

He turns away, pretending to rearrange his notes. “You’re projecting.”

“Maybe.”

You step closer. “But I know what it looks like when people decide you’re not worth knowing.”

He stills.

You swallow. “Back home… people talked about me like I wasn’t there. Like I was already gone. I didn’t want that to happen to you.”

Silence stretches between you.

“…You heard them,” he says quietly. “Didn’t you.”

You nod. “They were wrong.”

A bitter laugh escapes him. “They usually aren’t.”

“They were,” you repeat. “About you.”

He faces you then. His expression isn’t sharp or mocking. It’s raw. Unarmored.

“…You don’t owe me this,” he says.

“I know.”

“Then why stay?”

You think of all the days you sat alone, wishing someone would choose you.

“Because I want to,” you say simply.

Something in his gaze breaks. Not loudly. Just enough.

“…Don’t call me Anaxa,” he murmurs.

You smile, gentle. “Alright, Anaxagoras.”

He exhales, a sound caught somewhere between relief and grief.

“Stay,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

You were never planning to leave.