Work Text:
"his voice sounds like Phainon" Aglaea's voice trembled on the last word. She had ignored the signs as long as she could. Her apprentice, for titans sake her *son* would never do this. He'd never do any of this and yet....
"looks like him too. Fights like him. Knew how to kill Mydei. Not even we knew that." Anaxa replied, his voice solemn. There was no room to try to negotiate with reality. Not anymore.
"He'd never..."
"I know. Aglaea, I know." Anaxa hadn't held her like this for centuries. Her hair was as soft as ever between his fingers, and if she wasn't trying not to cry she'd probably say he was even skinnier than when they were young.
He laughed, softly, bitterly. "I knew the flame reaver was someone who knew the layout of the grove the moment he set foot in it. I had my suspicions, but until the moment I saw his face I tried to find some other explanation." He admitted to her, sitting down with her on the rooftop. He looked up at the sky. The real sky, as far as he could tell. It was beautiful.
Aglaea exhaled shakily, relaxing into Anaxas hold. Her head resting on his shoulder as she closed her eyes for a moment. She cut the remaining connections of her threads to the ruins of Okhema around them. It was more of a relief than she expected.
"Do you think.."
she began in a whisper, sounding less to Anaxa like a fearless, ruthless leader. And more like his Aglaea. He turned his attention to her, his hand finding hers under the starlight. He couldn't quite tell who was trembling between them. But he held her hand tightly.
"Did I do this? First Cifera left and now this... where did I go wrong Anaxa?" She asked him, not sure what she expected him to say. Clearly she'd failed in numerous ways to end up in this position. She'd given everything for the flamechase journey. Wore her very soul paper thin over hundreds of years, fought countless battles witnessed countless deaths, only to end up here.
Sitting on a rooftop in a burning city, with her people slaughtered by an orphan she took in and raised to be the hero who would save them.
"you didn't do this, Aglaea." Anaxa murmured in response, bringing her hand up and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. He hated seeing her like this. Wished he could do something to fix it but what could one say when the world was ending. There was no fixing this, not really. They'd lost. And if that... that thing that couldn't be their phainon was to be believed, they'd already lost almost a million times before.
"You did everything you possibly could have. If the flame reaver is to be believed, this has happened hundreds of thousands of times already." He pointed out gently.
"Will it go on forever then? This endless cycle of suffering? Why? What could possibly be worth that?" She wasn't angry at Anaxa, not really. She wasn't sure what to be angry at. The flame reaver? Phainon? Herself? Fate for the fact she was born into this hellish cycle to begin with? It wasn't like it mattered anyway.
"I don't know. Maybe eventually some version of us will figure it out." He replied, looking back up at the stars overhead.
"He also told me there were a few constants through the cycles. The incarnations of Romance and Reason are always in love"
"so we're soulmates huh?"
"the worst kind I'd say. Doomed in every life."