#tender interactions

Yet here he was in Okhema’s Marmoreal Market, pausing amid stalls glittering with trinkets, books, and broken philosophies, freshly displaced from the wreckage of the train attack, feeling like a derailed thought in a half-written theory.

He should’ve noticed the child sooner.

They weren’t loud. Weren’t crying. Just staring.

At him.

From behind a stack of secondhand tomes, their gaze locked on his—eyes wide with that raw, inquisitive intensity only possessed by the terribly young and the terrifyingly perceptive.

“…You’re not supposed to be alone,” he said, kneeling.

The child blinked. Then smiled.

“You still smell like old books and fire,” they said softly, tugging his hand with unearned familiarity. “Did you finish your big truth-thing yet?”

He froze.

“…What?”

But they only giggled and twirled the crimson ends of his jacket between their fingers. “Renny says you never sleep because you’re afraid you’ll miss the right question. But you don’t need to find it now. It’s okay. You’ll get there. I remember.”

I remember.

Anaxa's tongue turned to ash. He stood, but the child had already scampered off, tugged by the hand of an unfamiliar guardian. His breath faltered.

Later that night, after the temple’s first healing circle, you found him sitting alone, half-drunk on clarity and silence.

“I saw something strange,” he murmured without looking at you.

You sat beside him. “The market child?”

He gave a tight, humorless smile.

“They quoted my unfinished thesis... one I haven’t even written yet.” A pause. “They looked like you. The eyes were mine. The defiance? That was all you.”

You squeezed his hand. No more words needed.

Truth always arrived late in Anaxagoras’s world—but for once, it came wearing small shoes and boundless affection.

The market was noisy—of course it was—but Mydei moved through it like the war-forged ghost he was, unnoticed unless he wished otherwise.

He only stopped when a familiar stall caught his eye—pomegranates and goat cheese. His favorite (but he'll never admit it anyone out loud).

He was about to walk past when a voice piped up:

“You’re going to buy two, right? Renny says you always buy two.”

A small hand tugged on the hem of his cape.

He turned.

A child, barely to his thigh in height, stared up at him with unnerving certainty. Their eyes sparkled. The markings on their arm mimicked the style of the Kremnoan dynasty, though subtly softened. Almost playful.

“What did you say?”

“You always buy two. One for you. One for Renny. And you always pretend not to like the cheese part infront of Renny.”

The weight in his chest threatened to collapse him. “I… do I know you?”

The child tilted their head, thoughtful. “Not yet.”

A soft laugh. Not mocking. Just honest.

They pointed toward the temple ruins, to where you waited among the crowd, oblivious.

“I’m not s’posed to talk long. You told me that. Said it would mess stuff up.” Then, more quietly: “But you looked tired. I wanted you to smile today.”

And like a memory from a battle he couldn’t place, they vanished into the market crowd.

Later, after Nikador’s second assault was narrowly held back (or finished, I don't remember, sorry), he returned to you, bloodied but alive. He told you nothing.

Just held you a little longer that night. Just listened to you a little more.

And when the next market run came, he bought two.

He even ate the cheese, without pretending to not liking it.

Phainon loved markets. Not for the goods, but for the laughter. The noise. The people who still believed in something.

He had just finished helping a merchant unload broken refugee crates when a small voice called out.

“Khaslana.”

The name hit like a spear through dream-fog.

He turned.

A child waved at him from atop a barrel, legs swinging. “That’s your secret name, right? You used it in the sad world. But you’re not sad here. Not yet.”

Phainon blinked. His first instinct was to dismiss it—children say strange things.

But this one had your smile. Your exact smile.

He approached slowly.

“You know that name?”

They nodded. “You let me borrow your coat sometimes when it storms. It smells like sun and fighting. And Renny says you still snore when you nap, even if you try to deny it.”

A pause.

“I wanted to see you again… before the world wakes up. Before you go.”

He crouched to meet their eyes. “I’m… going somewhere?”

They looked guilty. “Oops. You always say spoilers are bad.”

Their little hands patted his armored gauntlet as if it were a bandage.

“Don’t worry. You come back. You always come back.”

Then, just like a blink in a failing simulation, they were gone.

Phainon stood frozen until your voice brought him back. You'd found a trinket—and were beaming as you showed it to him.

Later, after your group reached the Marmoreal Palace and Phainon stood beneath a sky trembling with prophecy, he touched the gauntlet on his arm and whispered:

“Even if I fall a million times…”

He smiled.

“…They’ll still remember my snore.”