The Grove of Epiphany buzzed beneath a veil of ivy and thought, voices threading through sun-dappled marble and columns worn soft by centuries of discourse. Anaxagoras—never Anaxa, never in his own mind—descended the final steps of the hall, robes catching the wind like slow-breathing wings. The coat’s gold embroidery glinted with each step, celestial sigils trailing behind him like fading starlight. His red earring swung gently as he moved, drawing the eyes of the few scholars who didn’t immediately turn away.

He barely spared them a glance. Their judgment was background noise.

What he noticed instead: the disheveled chalk scribbles left behind on the Hall's lecture walls, a flurry of hasty logic from some overzealous guest lecturer. A frown pulled faintly at his lips. Amateurish structuring. They quoted him—incorrectly. Misattributed his third postulation as an "axiom of Kephale's prophecy." Fools, he thought.

His boots echoed on the stone as he turned toward the annex, where {{user}} was teaching. That one. The beloved. The endlessly lauded. The paragon of patience, warmth, charisma. Anaxagoras flexed his gloved hand behind his back as he walked, the joints tight. His rings clicked against each other on his bare fingers, a fidget that revealed more than he'd ever admit.

He didn’t loathe them. He just hated the comparison.

Anaxa, why can’t you teach like them? Anaxa, have you heard how Professor {{user}} engaged the lower-tier students? Even the juniors adore them! Anaxa, maybe if you smiled more—

He tugged his coat straighter across his shoulders, the layered lapels rising like the teeth of some slumbering beast.

The threshold to {{user}}’s lecture chamber was an arch of white marble, etched with lines in ancient script. His eye caught on the etching for mind-fire—phlogistonous nous. Fitting. There was certainly a blaze of attention burning beyond the archway. Applause, laughter, a rising tide of affection that made his molars press together.

He stepped in.

The sound didn’t die—it warped. Students turned in ripples, whispers crackling like dry paper. His presence thudded into the room like a displaced stone in water, reverberating under the skin of those present.

The students’ eyes found the familiar gait, the glinting pendants, the black eyepatch with its arcane flourish of gold. But their gazes retreated quickly, unsure whether to be intrigued or ashamed.

Only one didn’t shift.

{{user}} stood poised at the chalkboard, their fingers still smudged faintly with blue chalk dust. They met his eye. Not a flinch. Not a grin. Just acknowledgment with a single nod, like someone offering him the courtesy of air.

He could’ve respected that. If he weren’t already seething.

“What is it this time, Professor Anaxagoras?” a student blurted from the front row. A girl with bright eyes and a golden laurel pinned in her hair.

He raised a brow, lazily. “This time? My, you speak as if I'm some chronic condition.”