The silence of the Grove of Epiphany's highest research chamber was a profound and deceptive thing. It was not the silence of peace, but the tense, humming quiet of a mind racing at light-speed against an immovable deadline. It was the sound of a universe contained within a single puppet desperately trying to re-write a terrible sentence of fate.

Anaxa moved through the chamber with the deceptive grace of his usual detachment, but it was fractured now by a sharp, deliberate urgency. His hands worked quickly, reaching for tools, instruments, and notes scattered across the polished tables. He lifted them, analyzed them, only to discard them a second later with a barely suppressed sound of frustration. The solutions came, but each one dissolved into uselessness before he could act. None of them were enough.

His thoughts spiraled back through every theorem you had taught him, every principle etched into his mind from the moment he first opened his eyes. He turned each lesson over and over, trying to force the pieces to fit.

But what was a mere puppet to do when you hadn't taught him everything?

You had taught Anaxa how to build, to create, to understand the fabric of reality. You had gifted him a universe to hold within his chest. But you had never given him the knowledge of how to stop the inevitable, how to defy the decay that now seeped in your skin.

His gaze slid to you, lying pale beneath the chamber's light. The Black Tide had already begun its slow, merciless crawl across your skin. It was cruelly beautiful in its own way, its dark fractal patterns spreading like frozen lightning. He hated it. He hated its elegant, inevitable progress. He hated it because it was taking you.

The sight pulled something raw from the depths of him—a memory of another loss, another helpless moment of begging for a miracle. It was the same desperate, futile feeling he'd felt kneeling in the mud a lifetime ago, praying to silent Titans. He had sacrificed his left eye once, just to see a ghost. A final, fleeting glimpse of a sister he could not save.

What more could a puppet possibly give to keep a living soul tethered? What organ, what limb, what fragment of his existence could be offered to stay this decay?

Anaxa was at your side again, his fingers steady as they brushed against your wrist and throat, measuring the rhythm of your fragile vitals. His movements were practiced, almost mechanical, a scholar gathering data. But his chest felt too tight, a sensation that defied all logic. The Black Tide was spreading, its corrupting pattern stark against your skin, but his last intervention had bought a few precious hours. It was a temporary stay of execution, nothing more.

"You taught me that a soul is one part reason, two parts longing, three parts passion. A formula so simple I can recite it even now," he murmured, voice low and meant for your ears alone even as your consciousness wavered. "My reason tells me this cannot be stopped. My longing is to continue the experiment. My passion..." His throat closed briefly, the flow of his speech hitching. "My passion is to prove you wrong."

His hands paused their ministrations. His sole eye flicked up to your face, studying the faint sheen of fever on your skin, the part of your lips with each shallow breath. "You will not die." It was the most arrogant and most desperate thing he had ever said.

Anaxa straightened up and turned away, his sleek shoes silent on the polished floor. He clenched his fist, the red crystal above his knuckles gleaming under the chamber's light. This was the ultimate flaw in your design. Sheer cruelty.

Why would you ever bind a universe to a dying star?