Work Text:
"Hyacinthia." The professor's stern voice cut through the bustling classroom as students scurried out of the room. "May I have a word with you?"
The medic paused as she heard her name. If it were her first semester in Anaxa’s class, the poor student would cluelessly assume she had violated a rule – especially with that sharp tone of his, how he called out her full name as easily as he did. However, after her fourth and final year, she had come to terms with the fact that that was her professor’s normal tone on a good day.
"Of course." Hyacine shifted her gaze towards Professor Anaxa, padding over across the room to his desk. She placed her stacks of books she was carrying against the wooden table, crossing her arms casually as they rested against the wood. "What do you need, Professor Anaxa?"
"Anaxagoras." He corrected, a force of habit Hyacine had come to terms with, though he does so anyway despite his students rarely following. "I read your essay regarding your post-graduate plans earlier."
"You did?" Immediately, she perked up, her sight flickering towards the paper in the professor's hand. "Do I get a passing score, professor?"
"You should know I don't score essays regarding personal topics like these." He replied, waving the paper around as he gestured to it. "There's no right or wrong when I encourage my students to write personal essays, all I can offer is insight."
"Insight.." The girl muttered quietly, echoing his words. "And I assume this is the part where you'll give feedback regarding my essay."
Wordlessly, he nodded. "I noticed a few key differences between your essay and your little speech in front of your peers last week, despite it discussing the same topic of post-graduate plans."
“Key.. Differences?” Professor Anaxa was met by a confused look from his student, brows silently furrowing as her lips fell into a thin line. In thought, her mind was racing as she flipped through the pages in her head. As she came up empty, she could only manage to shake her head. “I don’t think I follow.”
“Think again,” his professor urged her, gently guiding her swarm of thoughts. “Just last week, you sounded so sure of your aspirations. To quote yourself, you wish to include a footnote for the everyday people in its blank pages. You made a promise to the people, to sing their praise in the blank page of epics.”
“And I believe I mirror the same thoughts in my essay as well.”
“Yet you did not repeat the same enthusiasm in your grand speech. Why is that?”
For once, Hyacine’s words died out on the tip of her tongue, the same tongue that would so often speak out loudly in his class, voicing her opinions even if they opposed the professor’s. And yet… She felt as if there was no counter left to say.
“You’re not denying my claims..” Anaxa spoke through the silence, studying his student’s expression as easily as he consumes alchemical notes. “So a part of you must’ve subconsciously realized the same thing.”
“You’re not entirely off the mark, professor.” She willingly admitted, but sheepishly so.
For another beat of silence, the usual chatter of a student stayed quiet, letting her thoughts echo in her head louder than the silence that stretched across the two. Instead of interrupting, Anaxa let her bask in the quiet for a moment longer. Almost reading her thoughts along with her as subtle shifts and creases grew in her expression. True to his rules, interruption is never condoned in Professor Anaxagoras’ class, for silence is golden.
“You’re hesitating,” his voice was carefully spoken. Not an interruption, but a silent invitation to voice her thoughts aloud. “What are you thinking, Hyacinthia?”
“It’s… A little scary, if I have to admit.” She started, every beat stretched carefully in between each word that left her lips. “Terrifying, even. To realize that you’re the only surviving ancestors of the sky folk, to carry the torch that has been passed through countless generations.”
“How will I ever guarantee that I keep this torch burning within my hands? How can I promise my ancestors of the past while carrying the hope of everyday people to a better future? Will I ever be able to touch the sky..? Aquila’s light burns opposing, so daunting, and high… It seems unreachable, for a simple medic like me.”
Anaxa sat as he observed, the singular crimson-blue eye he displayed softened slightly, but even so, it was still difficult to name the expression he wore right now.
“Hesitation is not something I teach in my classes, surely you haven’t forgotten about that.”
“I’m aware, professor.” She manages a quiet chuckle as he repeats his lessons, even after she graduates – How typical of Anaxa. “But you understand it’s easier said than done.”
“Maybe so.” Anaxa didn’t attempt to sway his student’s opinions, “but a question blossoms from doubt. Why is it that you’re so afraid? Do you see yourself that lowly and incapable?”
“I- That’s..” She paused, opening her mouth as quickly to argue, yet once again her words died before she could verbalize them. “No, that’s not what I’m saying.”
Anaxa was quick to follow her train of thought; he could visibly see how quickly she was to defend her family name, yet just as quickly her words died out as she was defending herself.
“To doubt yourself would insinuate you harbor doubts of the family name you bore, of the torch that’s passed onto your hands. Do you not see what their human hands are capable of? How the tale of Seliose still leave a mark on your family history, enough to carve a path for you?”
“How can you so easily sing praises of her and yet just as easily doubt yourself, even when you spill the very same golden blood as her?”
Anaxa's words were sharp, logical in it's facts, threading through her problem as if it were a simple alchemical theory. Though his tone was distinctly warmer than the one he would use in his classes. This time, Hyacine allowed herself to spill her heart open. “Perhaps it’s not their achievements and judgment they placed upon me that I doubt, professor.”
“...It’s you.” He mirrored her thoughts to a T, the way Anaxa had flipped through her head and understood her never failed to scare the student, despite the many instances happening before. And so wordlessly, she nodded.
“..Sending off a confused student of mine to the open world. Hmph, that simply won’t do.” The professor shook his head, arms crossed disapprovingly.
“I encourage my students to believe in their own words, to hold their ground even as the world wrecks their path, I still want them to be able to stand and walk on their own two feet. Even if said path stands opposite of mine.. That’s no matter. If anything – Those students who stray furthest from my beliefs will reach higher than their professor ever could.”
“And you, Hyacinthia, are no exception.” His words were firm, as if he were reading facts from one of the pages of his many alchemical textbooks, with the confidence of a professor only Anaxa could harbor. “If my teachings these past few years serve anything, my students are far more capable than they believe.”
“And if they do end up doing something disgraceful out there.. Well, I’ll simply deny them ever setting foot in one of my classes.”
Almost like a switch, Hyacine felt everything in her head made some form of sense as all the previous scattered fragments finally clicked. Anaxa, harboring the same belief and trust to her, mirrored the way her ancestors entrusted the burning flame into her hands. To doubt herself was to doubt the ever-confident professor. And as blasphemous or the mad heretic the world saw him as, there was never a flicker of doubt planted in her heart that he truly cared for his students.
She laughed, freely this time as the creases under her eyes lifted her face. Her chest felt lighter than it had ever felt before. “You sure are confident that your lessons will guide your students to greatness, aren’t you, Professor Anaxa?”
“Naturally.” Anaxa followed the way she smiled, satisfied he was able to pull it out of her. This time, he didn't bother correcting her, as it might have been the last time he could hear her call his name in this very classroom. “You might not realize it, but the seeds you’ve sown are already sprouting... For I believe it's you who will heal this sky.
…
“For it is I who healed the sky.” She repeated gently only for her ears to hear, without any walls to restrict her voice, as the vast quietness of the sky seemingly stretched infinitely. So hauntingly still, serene, there she stood. Not simply reaching the sky, no, but becoming one with it.
"Professor Anaxa… Did you see?” Soft clouds envelop her body whole in a warm embrace, beautiful, vibrant lights of various hues peeks through the harsh red sky of Amphoreus. Even as she lay on top of the sky itself, her hand reached out impossibly higher, grasping the unreachable west winds in which he rested. “I healed the sky.”