Chapter Text
The reunion was… odd.
The image of a very poised blonde woman running towards a cat who seemed both terrified and relieved to see her.
The cat jumped into her arms.
Aglaea kissed the cat on the forehead.
Then the weird shit started.
Like, really weird shit.
The Heirs, such as they are, witnessed something that was straight out of a cartoon.
- The cat became enveloped in a shroud of green and gold light.
- Things that looked like branches and leaves curled around Aglaea and the cat.
- The spectacle was joined by the sonorous noises of the spirits within the walls of the store.
- The clear sound of the Titan of Reason, Ceres, could be heard dispelling the curses that chained down the cat.
- The bundle of light and leaves opened up.
- Aglaea was holding a human in her arms, bridal style.
Anaxa had transmogrified into a human.
If you were to ask any of the people (and ghosts) who were there at that moment, none of them would have a proper description for what they had just witnessed.
But they would all agree on one thing:
There was a grown-ass man in Aglaea’s arms, struggling to remove himself like a very frustrated cat.
There was a titan-damned grown-ass man, being carried like a blushing bride by the apparently much-stronger-than-she-looks Aglaea.
And he was scrambling like a cat who had determined that ‘no, it is no longer snuggle time, fuck you’ that would have been rounded out well with biting, hissing, and scratching… all of which the man attempted. All of which made him look like an absurd fool, completely stripping him of any dignity that he may have wanted to retain.
He was stopped by Aglaea’s face burying itself in his neck. What she whispered to him, no one but Mnestia, the man, and Aglaea would know, but he stopped his squirming at the touch of her breath on his no-longer-furry-and-very-human neck and her words.
“Ag-laea?” He asked tentatively. He looked like he had just been shot, if you were to ask the Heirs in the room with them.
“My threads couldn’t reach here.” Her voice was low and soft.
“CAN YOU LET ME DOWN, WOMAN?” The man barked the request loud enough to jump scare everyone in the room (including the ghosts who still lingered).
And so, taking his request to heart, Aglaea simply dropped him, much to his excruciating dismay.
He was further humiliated by the fact that now, without the aid of his cat form, he landed flat on his back. “FUCK!”
Hyacine was the first to respond, by failing to restrain a laugh, sputtering bitten-back laughter at the sight of the teal-haired man falling on his ass and swearing like he didn’t expect it.
Aglaea’s response to Anaxa’s cry was incredibly calm. “What’s the matter? I thought cats landed on their feet,” not a hint of humor or remorse in her tone.
“WHAT THE FUCK, GOLDWEAVER!?”
Castorice stared blankly at the sight. “Well, this is happening.”
“GREAT ZAGREUS’ GHOST!” Cipher screamed, making an exaggerated motion of surprise, shock, and awe at the scene.
Mydei moved to help the man to his feet, but he responded with more yelling and cursing like a stubborn old man, refusing Mydei’s gesture of kindness.
The man half-struggled at stand, as if he wasn’t used to this form, swearing and cursing Ceres the entire time. When he stood straight, he dusted off his coat and straightened his collar- much in the same way that a cat preens themselves after failing a very simple task. He glared at everyone with a single eye as if to say ‘You will NEVER speak of this again.’ He cleared his throat. “Hello.” His voice was much, much deeper than what the cat had been able to produce. Only the people who had been at Aglaea’s store had heard his voice before this sudden and unexpected turn of event.
“You know,” Hyacine whispered to Phainon, “I wasn’t expecting such a goddamn twi-”
“STOP THAT NONSENSE RIGHT NOW.” The man barked the words as if he had one of three settings for his voice: Calm, calm rage, and psychotic screaming that dares condemn the world in which he lives through trial and error and a great number of (accidental) explosions. “YOU have NO ROOM to judge ME, Hyacine,” the daggers he shot her with his stare were palpable.
Before she could respond, the man spoke again while pacing back and forth, stretching his newly corporeal legs..
“We may have met before, and I introduced myself then, but I believe this to be a time to reintroduce myself.” He stopped pacing. “I am Professor Anaxagoras. Sole survivor of the Amber Era’s Flame Chase. Burdened with the absolute bullshit knowledge that I have gathered over time and the Coreflame of Reason which I STILL DON’T WANT.” He shouted at a person who none of the others could see. “Ceres! Fuck you, fuck your whole fucking deal, and fuck that fucking curse.” He continued shouting at empty air that apparently contained the Titan of Reason. “NO. NO, I’M NOT THANKING YOU FOR KEEPING ME LOCKED IN THE GROVE THIS WHOLE TIME.” He seemed engrossed in his screaming match with the air.
Cipher turned to look at the rest of the Heirs and asked, “Anyone hungry? I can drive us all to this great gyro place I found. It looks like Prof Anaxa will be occupied for…” she looked at the man who was still having a screaming match with thin air, “a while.”
“MY NAME IS ANAXAGORAS, TRICKSTER.” Anaxa seemed to derail his conversation for that, and that alone before returning to his violent feud with the air.
“I could eat,” Castorice responded.
The rest of the group murmured in agreement while they left the grumpy old (young?) man to argue with himself.