strings of fate

he's never been fond of the stuffy and overly crowded spaces.

needless noise can only attribute to so much uselessness before it begins to cloy the scholar's every thought-much like certain variables that remain ever so irritating and seemingly forever unsolvable as they flitted in pristine flowing white garb adorned in only the finest gold. forever out of his sacrilegious reach, eh? perhaps such unspoken insinuations would be insulting if he weren't known for his prolonged insanity.

hah, if anything, it plays into his act perfectly.

of course, the ballroom is nothing less than extraordinary. the choice of adornments, even utilizing the observatory for such lavish activities to the very last. punctual, perfection. if he were none the wiser anaxagoras would have said the lady goldweaver planned all of this accordingly. his love for the stars, the eternal ache to always know what truths remained ever so thinly veiled just beyond a world shrouded within the wretchedness of lies...

yes, he must give credit where it was due. even if sorely. she knew him well. even if he does not favor the loud and cramped, it proves no hindrance to his capability. he may favor his solitude over all else, but being thrust into the unknown has never stopped him. he pauses beneath the twinkle of grand chandeliers, taking her hand as he begins to guide them within the softness of calculated steps without a sense of shame.

Aglaea let him take her hand without protest, though allow was perhaps the more accurate word. Her fingers settled against his with the kind of poised inevitability that suggested she had already known the precise moment he would reach for her, the exact angle of his palm, the quiet certainty in the gesture. She followed his lead into the first soft sweep of their steps, the distant music from the ballroom unfurling around them like silk caught on a passing breeze.

She looked up at him then, truly looked, as he spoke his challenge wrapped in honesty. It drew something warm and almost startled through her, like hearing a familiar song played on an unfamiliar instrument. ❝ Survived the unfathomable, have you? ❞ she echoed, voice low with a knowing lilt. ❝ Unveiled the truth of the world, endured its cruelty, held its chaos by the throat? ❞

The stars overhead cast shifting patterns across her face, fracturing gold over the smooth lines of her cheekbones, the elegant tilt of her jaw. And still, her eyes were steady on him, a dark radiance threaded with dangerous amusement. ❝ Then perhaps, Anaxagoras, you’re finally ready to attempt a truth that doesn’t lie in the stars. ❞

She stepped closer, only an inch, but somehow it redefined the space between them. Her free hand rose to adjust the fall of his lapel, a gesture gentle yet deliberate, as though aligning him with some unseen geometry.  ❝ Honesty is far more volatile than avoidance, you know. ❞ A faint smile ghosted over her lips. ❝ And infinitely more revealing. ❞

She tilted her head, a soft ringlet brushing her temple as the music swelled, beckoning. ❝ So tell me…❞ she murmured, guiding them into the first true turn of the dance, her skirts whispering like comet tails around them, ❝…are you being honest now? Or merely brave? ❞

He remembers each yesterday as if they were still the same echoing drumbeat of war, of bloodied feet being being forcibly dragged raw over the splintered ground again and again beneath the still scalding sun of today. How he took up Strife's mantle from one life to the fleeting blink of something that felt like the next. ... how eventually, even though the dynasty was left with just one, the last festival of Kremnos became crowned in his own blood.

Even though death was always his outcome, The Mydeimos of now and the Mydeimos of then always died honorably. Worthy of the name of "Strife." In a world where their souls have been granted passage, she asks the impossible: to lay down his arms. To cast away everything he has ever known and honed since birth for a singular chance at peace that may yet end up snuffed out just like the Flamechase Journey they each became a sacrifice for to protect.

Hmph. The feeling is almost pitiful. Then again, he has never run from his destiny. Maybe, just maybe... being asked to lay down his spear now builds the foundations of that precious peace they've fought so hard for later. As his weight shifts heavily into the softness of her hands, his golden gaze shifts skyward. Merciless, yet warm. Like the strawberry that bursts sweetly against his senses. A taste of their tomorrow yet to come. He squints. Those last words, always the damn same.

For a long, quiet breath, she does not answer him with words. The weight of what he’s spoken settles over her like a soft mantle. Heavy, yes, but warm with truth rather than dread. Her fingers still their gentle weaving through his hair, resting lightly against his temple, as if memorizing the shape of the god he has become and the man he refuses to surrender.

When she finally speaks, her voice comes low, warm, threaded with something reverent. “Then let the ashes be our soil, Mydei. Let them be the ground where something fierce and living grows.” Her thumb traces a slow line along his cheek, not to comfort him. He is beyond such mortal needs, but to acknowledge him, wholly and without fear.  “You speak of gods,” she murmurs, leaning forward until her forehead rests lightly against his. “But even divinity bleeds. Even gods long for something gentle.”

The faintest laugh leaves her, quiet, breathy, and real. “Besides, I have no intention of letting any prophecy steal you away with a blade in your back. If fate insists on rearing its ugly head again, it will have to face me.”  A golden pulse ripples through the air, her own power daring to stir like sunlit dust motes as she lifts her hand, letting it hover above his sternum, over the steady thrum of a god’s heart.

“You’ve lived lifetimes carrying Strife,” she whispers. “Let me carry you for a while.” Her smile softens, but there’s steel beneath it. Not fragile hope, but chosen defiance. “Walk with me, Mydei. Not as a weapon sharpened by war… but as the man who tasted sweetness and still chose to stay.” Her fingers curl lightly into his hair again, grounding them both. “Wherever I go,” she echoes, voice quiet but certain, “you won’t be following. You’ll be walking beside me.”

fruit of knowledge 🍎

　—　sun & moon divider from @steviebbboi

　—　silver chain divider is from @anitalenia

the nerve of this woman, up to her usual tricks no doubt. he must admit somewhere woven betwixt the many disagreements that bind them together almost as if lovers infuriatingly forbidden-they too hold their similarities as precious as said differences. perhaps in a way it unnerves him, the great blasphemer, he who defied any and all sense of godhood to bring the very sense of everything sworn sacred to their knees if only to prove the pinnacle of his research itself a vile, cowardly truth.

... but here, they exist. here, they are no longer the plaything of the titans of false prophecies, of golden odes and every sacrifice written in songs of golden blood. they are, from what his initial observations have gathered, a rendition of 'themselves' as the isles have chosen. he grunts, gaze burning through her sidelong with the faintest displeased tug of his lips.

With a tender lilt she tilted her head at his words, that ever-so-delicate smile of hers returning. Not mockery, not quite sympathy, but something else. Something older, deeper. Recognition, perhaps. Of pain, of sacrifice. Of the way their shadows always seemed to fall in step with one another, even when their paths split.

She stepped in close, close enough that her shoulder brushed his for the briefest moment before she pivoted past him, perfume trailing in her wake like memory. “So dramatic, Anaxagoras,” she purred over her shoulder, voice velvet-wrapped steel. “You bare your scars like trophies, but I wonder… is that defiance I hear, or simply longing dressed up in grand philosophy?”

Her pace was unhurried as she led him down the narrow, winding street, cobblestones slick from recent rain and glinting like jewels. The world was quieter here, the chaotic pulse of the isles momentarily held at bay. Somewhere ahead, the soft glow of lanterns spilled from the windows of a crooked little bookshop, as if waiting for them.

“Come,” she said, without looking back, yet fully aware he would follow. He always did, didn’t he? “I found a place where words still matter. A rarity these days. Old volumes, ancient lies, truths buried so deep they forgot they were ever meant to hurt.” A pause, then she slowed, just enough for him to walk beside her again. Her voice softened, and this time, it was not teasing, not entirely.

“You speak of sacrifice like I wouldn’t understand, Anaxagoras, but I do. I’ve lived lifetimes loving things I wasn’t meant to touch. So perhaps... we aren’t so different. Just two people ruined in parallel, orbiting the same ruinous idea of what could be.” She smiled, gaze flicking to him, daring and tender all at once

Someone who knew that there was something not quite right about him, but also someone who perhaps couldn't quite put their finger on what that was. - He could also tell that this woman was perhaps not quite human herself. She actually reminded him a bit of how he'd been as a child. Himself and Knives mimicking humans to the best of their abilities.

Something that he was still doing now. Trying to be something he wasn't.

Vash didn't glance away though until a bird flitted overhead. He shuffled one boot against the ground, hands returning to his pockets.

"Well... I wouldn't say that getting things back makes it easier, but depending upon what you lost... it does kinda help... makes you feel a little bit more like yerself." - He glazed over the comment about carrying things with them. He knew that he had. The visions wouldn't go away. Moving from one place to another had never actually solved any of his problems. It just postponed them.

Then blue eyes flickered back to her when she said that he wore it well. Vash understood the recognition. The silent greeting-of-sorts.

He smiled.

Of course she didn’t challenge him. Not directly. She let the words settle, let them hang in the space between them like dust in that fractured, golden light. “Mm,” she exhaled, almost like agreement. Or maybe memory. Her hands paused their tracing, fingers curling slightly against the moss before relaxing again. “Sometimes the worst things we leave behind are the things we can’t name.”

Another quiet beat passed. “And the worst things we carry… aren’t always visible.”

She wasn’t looking at him now. Maybe a kindness, maybe just habit, but her voice was steady. Soft, but steady. The kind of softness honed like silk worn thin over blade edges. “Still, it counts for something, doesn’t it? That you're still trying to be yourself. Even if you don’t know exactly what that is.”

Then she glanced over, side-long and unreadable, lashes catching the sunlight. “Or maybe that’s not the point.” A wind brushed through the trees, pulling strands of her hair loose from their place behind her ear, and she made no move to fix them. “You can walk with me,” she said suddenly, like an afterthought. Like it didn’t matter, but also like it might. “If you’re not too set on wandering alone.”