Work Text:
Reason had taken root in the soil of the land, and after grasping the truth of its perishable world, it resonated with the brittle humankind, blessing them with an irreplaceable gift of wisdom and an immense curse of own thought.
Land inhabited, cities began to rise afresh. Mortals have found themselves basked in security and saw civilizations be born anew. Word became written, a common language developed, morals and ethics became law.
Like once prophesied, one man decided to question the wistfulness of their lives and gave the push needed for countless others to come and raise their wits in the common goal of understanding. An inquiry of the matter of existence–for what is and what makes a soul?
And said question, carried by the wind, graced the ever-listening God that gave mortals his favor–allowing Reason to be part of mankind. A simpering smile, witnessed by none but one, played on his lips as masses knelt and with utmost prayers and reverence, aroused sharp questions and begged answers from him, the all-knowing titan.
In his name, placed on the tree of vast knowledge where his bare heart lay, a place for those seeking enlightenment was built. He has seen philosophies rise and fall, has incited scholars devout to discovering and understanding the world and its makers, and over the passing time observed the coming and going sages that debated on their inner truths.
Those of similar to his inexplicit origin–first Death, then Ocean, followed close by Sky, Trickery, and Strife–fallen or gone mad, ravaging chaos on the children of humanity’s bearer and overseer of this prone to destruction world.
Children blessed with golden blood emerged in the last centuries, in one goal united. He had seen them, heard of relinquished divine authorities, and graced those heirs with amusement and mild curiosity once their presence reached the Grove. An interesting sight, a laid-back woman with lengthy locks of gold and lowered eyes that spoke amidst the rows of students and most well-reversed scholars, her person demanding attention as she declared her pursuit of the undisclosed truth of their world–what are we? If the answer is no more than creations of titans ruling above, then what makes divine?
And Anaxa, the Reason himself, wondered the same as the fearless mortal woman from the crowd, laughing in tandem with the insults that befallen her person for their foolish ignorance amused him so.
If the road to enlightenment makes one a heretic, what is he then? A worshipped God of knowledge that questions his own origins, a deity that does not fall in blind agreement to the prophesied future. As he questions, blasphemy sprouts in the roots of undiluted wisdom, the seed of suspicion taking root–after all, sinless beings do not exist.
And is the concealment of the truth Anaxa was meant to have grasped from the moment of his ascending not a sin too?
Future hymns will proclaim, a warcry of lyrics posing as the demand for truth;
Oh, the creator of life itself, the selfless hero of humankind.
You, who bear witness to countless prayers. You, who grants miracles to the perturbed mankind that you left in this world.
You, to whom this question is directed upon. Is the truth of this world buried deep inside your forsaken mortal heart?
*
Grass crumples beneath his steps, a gust of wind tousles his freed hair. Gentle thrumming of great power encompasses the open-spaced altar on the outskirts of an unmemorable village.
Despite the quite unreasonable choice, Anaxa does not find himself wavering in his pursuit.
As a divine presence himself, Anaxa often occupies the Great Tree of Knowledge and lingers in its branches or hears out worship placed beneath the Luminary Throne–if one were to seek out an audience with him, they would undoubtedly choose either of those inexplicit places. That effort would be quite wasteful–how prideful a mortal could be to expect an answer from Reason themselves without thinking twice about where to truly find them?
When it came to finding the creator of life itself, the matter could not be so feeble either. Waltzing into Okhema to follow devotees throughout the Council’s grounds and demand answers beneath the sacred figure of the creator would be an attempt of laughable desperation. Which God of their era answers callings with such ease?
And so, Anaxa began to think–wandering the lands of Amphoreus and letting unguarded instinct lead him through ruins, war-consumed cities, and places devoid of divine intervention.
The common person could not see him, certain faith-driven priests could sense unsettlement in the air whenever he passed, and he avoided places that hosted fate’s chosens that would undoubtedly become alerted of the unusual movement of a titan.
Knowledge guided him to places of known miracles–a beauty-endowed city whose corrupt nobles forsaken their authority after visions of their fall haunted them in dreams. He observed the common people garbed in the finest silk adored with golden threads, artists who sang praises to the God of Beauty, offered mystifying prose as prayers, hoping to be given a blessing. He felt the overseeing presence of said deity, her endless romance weaving across her beloved cities, but she had not answered his call.
That pointed ignorance, beauty shrouded in cold. Momentarily, her presence felt so familiar but no less tiresome, and Anaxa wondered if she, too, questioned the subtle connection weaving across her threads.
Calm whispers akin to a song, and gentle tugging of his sleeves lead him elsewhere–the ocean-surrounded Styxia that miraculously survived the mirth of a disturbed dragon. He observed its festivals and alchemists, watching them subdue the rising River of Souls.
Murmurs of Death encompassed the brittle city, and shushing of weaves welcomed him inside. He received no answers from the governing titans, but a wistful farewell of Death’s flowers falling upon the river that held no reflection for him when he peered into its translucent surface.
That gentleness, soft but decided resolve. Aimless butterflies made a pathway for him like for a long-lost friend, and Anaxa wondered if the God of Death still wishes to embrace another with her loneliness-addled hands. He leaves, but not without a blessing left behind–he is no teacher, and he knows not why he decides to do so, but perhaps it lies in his nature to share wisdom like a benevolent teacher would.
A thread coiled around his being asserted him, advancing his journey ahead. A town famous for its dromas colonies stretched its visage before him, the place known for the miracle that saved it from the sudden waves of black tide.
Unexplainable nostalgia washed upon him, throwing his non-beating heart into motion. Whispers of a past long since forgotten hummed a lulling melody and the sight embraced him like a due reminder of something important–and Anaxa does not know the answer to it, but being able to discern truth from falsity makes him wiser than the one who concealed it from him in the first place.
Just as Anaxa brings himself to part from the alluring whisper of the past, he stills as in the corner of his eye, a young woman with mint-colored hair and floral-pink gleaming eyes stares at him with wonder, her lips parted in incompressible surprise.
She–a mortal, should not be able to see him, neither witness even a fleeting caress of his presence. Yet, she remains unmoving, struck with the weight of crushing feelings, her robes fluttering in the unruly wind as she clutches them, pinpricks of tears like needles in her eyes.
Anaxa stares at her, feels a fraction of hurt, remembers a smile that he never witnessed in his endless and beginless lifetime, and then like a wail ripped straight from his soul–an unknown name stumbles from his lips. Unrecognizable, even as a humanly ridiculous wave of longing encompassed his soul.
She smiles in kind, binds him a farewell using a name he does not wear. And perhaps, through this off-chance meeting, Anaxa gained the answer he had been seeking all along.
What he follows now is his soul, which transcended the eras it witnessed across lifetimes, and once he finds himself on the outskirts of Amphoreus, in a fabled village that no texts record, Anaxa stands before an altar built for the God of their origin–the deliverance of a new dawn that blessed their tomorrow that once would not come.
A man with snow-white hair and eyes that shimmer like droplets of life-bearing rain approaches him in subtle, unheard steps. No shadow of his lingering befalls Anaxa’s lithe frame once the man towers over him, his presence thrumming with great power that threatens to burst into flames, and sadness that no sacred texts could begin to cover.
“I see the Great Performer still does not kneel before any Gods.”
And once upon a past life, Anaxa is sure he would have laughed with ridicule at such a simple observation of his character, but now he merely sighs as if burdened and simultaneously freed from unconquerable fate, an indulging smile tilting his lips.
“Some things are better left unchanging,” Anaxa voices the faintly remembered words while crossing the threshold between their diminishing distance, at once being the first to approach. “...have I not told you? As long as I have you, I will find my way back to retrieve my past.”
Phainon’s expression crumbles into miserable happiness, his hands grasping Anaxa’s wrist and refusing to part. He places a fear-addled kiss upon near-translucent skin, trembling as if afraid that even in the blessed Era Nova, this short-lived dawn that burns the brightest–it will not last and ashes will not remain of them.
“And as I have sworn to you, I have led us to a reunion in the new world.” Frail grass crumbles beneath as Phainon sinks to his knee, lowers himself, and allows Anaxa’s hand to disentangle from his own, to weave into his hair instead. “Have we been right to follow through it even as destruction plagues us once more? Please tell me, Professor.”
“There was no wrong outcome,” Soft strands graze Anaxa’s hand as he runs it through Phainon’s hair, weaving comfort both unspoken and whispered like one final reassurance after countless tragedies. “You have completed your duty, Phainon. Rest, and let them witness the future that we gave life for.”
“Are we going to part ways once more?”
“No.” There is no reassuring lie in his words, for truth led his life, and now, Anaxa allows doubts and rejections but no half-meant promises. “Let us stay here longer. I remember there was not much I have came to learn of your hometown, have I?”
Even as their forsaken world races into the same disaster, the newly lit dawn, at last, can be witnessed by two–no longer a solitary rendezvous of the Past Era’s savior.
Phainon smiles at him, and the sight transcends divine Reason of Anaxa’s unmoving heart, the pained visage of it also the brightest sadness, and still the most naïveté form of love that Anaxa is given each endlessly repeating life.