Down together, Bound together
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Phainon saw the handcuffs. Mydei finally met his gaze directly, fists clenched, arms lifted slightly, offering them to him, calm and open.“Part of me wants you to keep me forever.”
Phainon did not respond right away. He looked at Mydei, his gaze quiet and deep. Then he shook his head, yet reached out and took the handcuffs.
“Mydei, you’re free. I’d never try to cage you—not even me.”
As the words fell, he grasped one end and snapped it neatly onto Mydei’s left wrist. Click.
Then, under Mydei’s gaze, he slipped his own right wrist into the other cuff without hesitation.
Another soft sound. They were connected.
Series
- Part 1 of Down together, Bound together
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“Step forward.”
His voice echoed in the empty space, resonant and powerful, like a lion claiming its territory. Phainon walked down the path paved with crushed stone and stood firmly before him.
“Are we to face me in a final battle?” he asked, half-joking and half-serious.
“If we had been born in the era when this structure was built,” Mydei said, “we likely would have had no choice in the matter.”
He paused, his gaze landing on Phainon, and added another line: “But assuming it truly came to that, I would likely fight you with everything I have. And then… I wish you eternal victory.”
Over a dozen towering Fire Altars burned unceasingly around them, and above their heads still hung that massive blade symbolizing Calamity. This was never a place to sing of love and romance; the meaning of its existence had always been tightly bound to death and violence.
Yet in this very place, for the first time, Phainon felt a powerful urge to drop to one knee.
Because in Mydei’s words, there was already a partiality that even Mydei himself had not noticed.
Amid all possible outcomes of victory and defeat, life and death, he had chosen to bless Phainon’s future.Series
- Part 2 of Down together, Bound together