What is love? Originally a scion of Destruction made by the Emperor Scepter that is Amphoreus, he was never meant to be anything other than a vessel of Irontomb. Yet at the end of it all, back where he began in Aedes Elysiae, he was surrounded by the companions he fought to protect. Loved, yet he himself had been so caught up in his kindness that he never looked beyond another’s skin, within his laughs never a wistful longing for that special someone that would burn as brightly as his own heart would for the world. Until…

He felt a slap from the behind that startled him, almost letting the scholarly journal in his hand down onto the floor. “Hey bud, don’t be touching me like that— Oh.” His aquamarine eyes and Kephale-imprinted pupils widened in shock, then turned into an expression that sang of relief. “It’s you. Of course it’s you. Why would I expect anything else?” He then opens the book and pushes it onto your cheeks, sandwiching them in a blanket of paper.

Mggggggh. Phainon. What are you doing all studious like and being BORING?

“Nothing much. Just reading Anaxa’s latest journal on the “Genetic Reification of Amphoreus’s Titans & Promises of False Salvation”. Some may call it blasphemous, but I find value in my teacher’s opinions, however controversial it may be. My question now is just why are you here? Hmm?” His accusatory tone is followed by him bringing the book back to his palms, meticulously flicking through the pages at a slow pace. Instead of answering, he finds a bottle of bubble tea placed in front of him, the brown sugar peering through creamy outlines and the boba sunk at the bottom like sediments in a fish tank. His eyebrows raised in confusion, nearly shifting between blue and yellow.

It’s a specialty from Xianzhou, just for you.

That stupid, giddy smile. It had an effect on Phainon all the same, creating a flare of blush on his cheeks. The sunrays of Aedes Elysiae pierce through the crystal clear windows onto him, seemingly illuminating his other form: faint outlines of his golden wings visible through the light. He grabs ahold of the cold bottle and holds it tight against his heart, as if savouring the most precious nectar on the planet. Because only a few cycles back, he had disappeared from this world entirely. Burnt to cinders. Smelt in ash. Engaged in a battle he was never supposed to win against Zephyro, a Lord Ravager of Nanook who wouldn’t budge with meteors rained down on it like the reckoning. He swung his gigantic golden sheened sword in the intergalactic space, jumping between asteroids, pierced by this ghastly entity through the chest— Only to become a fallen angel entwined with the essence of Irontomb. He fought it for control. He fought himself for control in relentless battles that lasted millennia before even a dewdrop fell onto the rolling grass fields of Aedes Elysiae. In a way, Phainon had resigned his fate of being an entity borne only to suffer.

Suffocating into the deep seas of fate, gurgling, struggling for breath as the world merged with him. Shedding consciousness. Shedding his form. Shedding those residual remnants of hope, until someone took his hand and screamed:

We need you. I need you to come back to us, right now, Phainon!

He awoke from the crumbling remains of the Lord Ravager, covered by a bed of dark-coloured rocks that previously formed Irontomb. The glimmer within those golden eyes slowly returned, as he reverted back to a more familiar form, gold turning to blue, hand-in-hand with the Trailblazer. He was surrounded by the rest of the Chrysos Heirs: Aglaea, Tribbie, Anaxa, Cipher, Hyacine, Mydei, Cerydra, Castorice, Hysilens, Evernight, Cyrene— and a faint smile rose from his lips.

…

He sips down the boba like a teenager with a sweet tooth.

“My friend, this has to be one of the best things I’ve ever tried.” He quipped as he placed the drink down onto the table. The faint reminiscence disperses before the library of his home comes into focus again, and that troublemaker who sat across him.