Chapter Text
The wheat was tall that reaping season—so tall it brushed Phainon’s cheeks as he ran through the fields, and sometimes it even clung to Snowy’s thick white fur. The dog looked like a cloud crashing through gold, tail waving high like a banner. Phainon laughed, arms out wide as he spun in place, the sky turning in circles above him, sunlight dripping through the trees like warm ambrosia.
This was his favorite time of day—when the wind was soft, the cicadas sang lazily, and the world felt like it belonged to no one but him and Snowy.
“Go, Snowy!” he called, throwing a stick high into the air.
Snowy barked and bounded after the stick, barreling through the stalks like a small storm. Phainon flopped back into the wheat field, breathing in the scent of earth and grain, watching the clouds drift lazily overhead.
When Snowy returned, though, he wasn’t carrying the stick. Instead, clutched gently in his mouth, was something small, blue, and soft.
Phainon sat up, blinking. “What’s that?”
Snowy dropped it in front of him with a proud huff. It was a plush toy—worn at the seams but still bright. Blue, with tiny horns, and glossy black eyes. A dromas?
Phainon picked it up gently. It smelled like dust and summer rain, and something else, something quiet and warm and unfamiliar. He didn’t recognize it. Not from any of the village kids.
And Phainon knew everyone in the village.
He looked at Snowy, curiosity burning behind his bright blue eyes. “Where did you get this?”
Snowy just wagged his tail harder.
Clutching the toy in one hand, his small sickle in the other, and a little bundle of freshly picked wheat tucked beneath his arm, Phainon turned and ran back toward the village, his dog at his heels.
Their home sat on the edge of the village, a little stone house with wooden shutters, a crooked chimney, and flowerpots that spilled ivy and thyme onto the windowsills. As soon as Phainon burst through the back door, the smells of fresh bread and olives hit him like a warm hug.
“Mama! Papa! Look what I got!”
His mother, Audata, was shelling peas at the table, her braid pinned like a crown against her head. His father, Hieronymus, was bent over a stool by the hearth, smoothing its leg with a worn carving knife. Both looked up and smiled as their son bounded inside, cheeks pink and snowy curls full of wheat.
“There’s our little farmer,” Hieronymus said warmly, reaching out to take the sheaf of wheat. “A clean cut, too. Better than I did at your age.”
“And full of sunshine, just like the fields,” Audata added, standing to brush stray strands from his hair. “Come here, Phai. You’ve got half the harvest stuck in your curls again.”
Phainon giggled, tilting his head to let her fuss over him. Snowy flopped down on the floor beside him, panting with his tongue hanging out happily.
Then Audata noticed the toy. Her hands paused mid-motion. “And who’s this little fellow?” she asked, gently plucking the plush from his grip.
“Snowy found it in the field,” Phainon said. “But I’ve never seen a dromas toy with any of the other kids. I'm pretty sure someone dropped it.”
Audata and Hieronymus exchanged a quiet glance over their son’s head.
“I’m gonna go find who it belongs to!” Phainon declared, puffing up his chest.
“Wait—” Hieronymus straightened up.
But Phainon was already halfway to the door. “Snowy, come on!”
The white Samoyed scrambled up with an eager bark.
“Just wait a moment!” Hieronymus called again. “We wanted to tell you—!”
“I’ll be back before Parting Hour!” Phainon shouted over his shoulder as he darted out the door and down the steps, the dromas plush tucked under his arm and a mission burning in his feet.
Audata sighed, folding her arms as she watched their son vanish down the lane.
“We just wanted to tell him…”
“…about the new people who arrived today,” Hieronymus finished.
“Maybe,” Audata said, her smile soft and knowing, “he’ll find them before we even get the chance.”
Phainon ran down the lane, clutching the blue dromas like it was a map to some secret treasure. Snowy padded along beside him, ears perked, nose twitching as if he were already following a trail no one else could see. Aedes Elysia was quiet that afternoon, with only the creak of old shutters and the lazy buzz of bees dancing over clover flowers. Galba’s probably finished hunting and everyone else finished harvesting for the day.
He spotted Piso first—sitting on the low stone wall by the well, swinging his legs and pretending to sharpen a stick with a very dull knife. Livia sat nearby, weaving wildflowers into a crown that already had more thorns than petals.
“Hey!” Phainon called, skidding to a stop. “Have either of you seen this before?”
They both looked up as he held out the dromas like a rare clue. Under the bright sky, it looked even bluer, worn, yes, but clearly cared for. Still whole. Still very much loved.
Piso wrinkled his nose. “It’s a baby's toy.”
“I know it’s a toy,” Phainon huffed, bouncing slightly on his feet. “But have you seen anyone in the village with it before?”
Livia leaned forward, her flower crown slipping to one side. “Nope,” she said. “But I like it. Can I have it?”
Phainon hugged it close. “No! I mean—sorry, Liv. But it’s not ours. Someone lost it. Me and Snowy are gonna find them.”
Livia pouted. “But no one here has something like that. And if it’s lost, maybe it wants to be found by someone new.
“It has an owner,” Phainon said, frowning. “Look at the tail—it was stitched back on. Cyrene says only people who love their things will fix it when it's broken.”
Snowy let out a short bark, like he agreed.
Piso rolled his eyes and tossed his stick at a nearby tree. “You’re weird sometimes, Phai.”
Phainon grinned, lifting the droma like a loadstone. “Then I’m weird with a purpose.”
He turned on his heel. “Come on, Snowy! We have clues to chase!”
As he ran off again, Livia called after him, “If you don’t find them, I still want it!”
“Let’s ask Miss Pythias next, Snowy,” Phainon panted, his curls bouncing as he dashed past the Livia's, the smell of aunty's honeybread making his stomach growl. “She knows everything. Maybe she saw something from the school window!”
Snowy gave a short woof as if he agreed, paws tapping alongside Phainon’s bare feet as they turned toward the schoolhouse.
Miss Pythias was sitting in the shade beneath the old olive tree, fanning herself with a folded letter and squinting at a book with very tiny writing. Her spectacles were half off her nose, like always.
Phainon ran right up to her, waving the blue plush like it was a royal banner. “Miss Pythias! Look!”
She blinked up at him, then smiled in that slow, warm way of hers. “Ah, Phainon. Let me guess—more important than your writing?”
“It is! Look!” He held out the droma, breathless. “Snowy found it in the fields. Have you seen anyone drop it?”
She took the toy gently and turned it over, inspecting the frayed seams and the stitched tail. “Hmm… no, I don’t believe so.”
“Oh,” Phainon said, hugging the toy back to his chest.
“But it’s very kind of you to try and return it,” she added, smiling. “Most wouldn’t even think to.”
“I have to,” Phainon said firmly. “It’s waiting to go home.”
Miss Pythias chuckled. “Well then, don’t let me keep you, deliverer. Go then.”
Phainon grinned so wide his cheeks hurt. “Come on, Snowy!” he yelled, already taking off again, his shadow bouncing next to Snowy’s tail as they disappeared down the path.
As the sound of footsteps faded, Miss Pythias shook her head fondly. “Those two, always chasing after something.”
A soft voice drifted from behind her. “Is he always like that?”
Miss Pythias looked to her side. Standing there was Thalia, brushing chalk dust from her pale skirts. She had only started helping at the schoolhouse that day, but already the younger students had warmed up to her gentle presence.
“He’s so full of spark,” Thalia said, watching the road Phainon had vanished down.
Miss Pythias smiled. “Phainon’s been like that since he could toddle. Always full of questions, always in motion—and always with Snowy right behind.”
Thalia laughed softly, though there was something pensive in her eyes. “He’s nothing like my brother. Anaxa’s… quieter. Shy. And blunt, sometimes. He doesn’t mean to be.”
Miss Pythias gave a thoughtful nod, then patted the bench beside her. “Well… maybe opposites balance each other. Perhaps your brother just needs someone like Phainon.”
Thalia sat down slowly, her gaze still trailing after the boy and his white dog. “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe he does.”
By the time Phainon reached the Sacrament Courtyard, the sun had turned soft and gold, painting the cracked stones in honey-colored light. Dust clung to his legs, the little blue dromas was still tight in his arms, and Snowy trotted dutifully beside him, ears perked like even he knew this was a special place.
The courtyard was quiet as always, but not empty.
There she was.
Cyrene.
She sat cross-legged at the center of the courtyard’s offering circle, surrounded by wind-worn stone columns that leaned like old trees. Her skirts flowed out like a blossom, and her pink hair seemed to glow a little, catching flecks of sunlight. In front of her lay a delicate fan of silver-edged divination cards, the surface of each one whispering with faint, magical movement—ink shifting like mist across paper.
Phainon didn’t even try to be quiet.
“CYRENE!” he called, running across the mossy tiles, blue plush clutched like a relic.
Without missing a beat, she looked up and spread her arms wide. “There he is! My favorite little puppy. Running headfirst into fate again, are we?”
She stood and swooped him into a hug before he could answer, ruffling his curls with her fingers.
“You’re lucky Oronyx’s priests aren’t here anymore,” she teased, voice rich with laughter. “They’d be scandalized by muddy boots in the sacred courtyard.”
Phainon just grinned. “I brought something weird.”
“Of course you did.” She plopped back down with exaggerated grace, skirts rustling. “Tell me everything.”
Phainon held out the plush. “Snowy found it in the field. No one in the village knows who it belongs to. But someone loved it. I can tell.”
Cyrene took the droma gently, her teasing smile softening into something almost reverent. “You can always tell what’s been loved.”
She turned it in her hands. “No… I haven’t seen this one before.”
Phainon slumped. “Not even a clue?”
Cyrene raised an eyebrow, then gestured grandly to the fan of cards. “Well, we could ask someone who might know.”
He lit up instantly. “Oronyx?”
She tapped the deck. “They remember all things, even the ones people forget.” She winked. “Maybe the cards will tell us something.”
Phainon flopped down beside her as she began shuffling the cards, her fingers swift and precise.
“Close your eyes and let’s open the Oracle Card Book together,” she said. “Let your thoughts flow like stars drifting on the river, carried by fireflies and gentle winds, your destinies flowing towards the same future.”
Phainon hugged the plush droma again, brows scrunched in concentration.
The cards stopped.
“Now shall we begin?”
Cyrene flipped the first. The Branch, a symbol of paths splitting—a choice ahead.
Then the second. The Mirror, showing a reflection that looked almost like the person holding it, but not quite.
And then… she paused before flipping the third.
The moment lingered, thick with silence and sunlight.
When the third card turned, it revealed a figure cloaked in soft blue-gray ink hanging upside down from a tree.
Cyrene blinked. Then… she smiled.
“The Scholar,” she said, tapping the card lightly. “Ahhh, now this is interesting.”
“What’s that mean?” Phainon asked, leaning close.
She tilted the card toward him. “It means the answer you’re looking for… belongs to someone who keeps quiet but thinks deeply. Someone who watches, who remembers. A soul lives only for truth and knowledge.”
Phainon stared, “Is it… a person?”
“It’s always a person, silly,” she said, brushing a curl from his forehead. “Oronyx doesn’t send riddles for rocks.”
He glanced at the Scholar again, then at the plush in his arms. “So… they’re close?”
“Very.” Her eyes gleamed. “He’s not far now. You’ll know him when you see him.”
Phainon stood, practically bouncing. “C’mon, Snowy! We have to find the scholar!”
As they dashed off—Snowy’s tail wagging like a flag—Cyrene watched them go, cards slowly folding back into her sleeve.
She leaned back on her palms and whispered toward the sky, “Time dances well with you. May you meet your moon soon.”
Then, softer, to the Deliverer in her hand,
“And may he keep you company on this treacherous road ahead.”
The courtyard faded behind them, Cyrene’s voice still echoing somewhere in the back of Phainon’s mind.
The Scholar.
Phainon didn’t know exactly what that meant. But the name felt warm in his chest, like the golden light spilling between the trees. He walked slowly now, Snowy padding at his side, their feet muffled by moss and fallen leaves.
The village noise was far away.
No one was calling his name. No one was waiting with questions or stories or errands. Just him, the plush droma tucked under his arm, and a little hush that stretched over the world like a soft blanket.
He wandered without thinking—through old paths worn by years, past hollow tree stumps that had once been pirate ships in his mind, past the place where he and Piso had buried a teacup filled with fireflies one summer.
Snowy would trot ahead a few steps, then pause, looking back with ears perked.
This way?
Are you sure?
Okay.
Phainon trusted him.
The grove crept up on them slowly, the trees growing closer, taller, their leaves whispering like pages turning in a giant’s lap. Here, the air was cooler. Greener. It smelled like wet bark and wild mint.
Phainon stopped for a moment, just to listen.
A bird chirped once. Then silence again.
He hugged the plush closer. “You think we’re close?” he whispered to it, like it could answer.
Snowy’s ears twitched. His nose lifted.
Then—he moved. Not fast. Not bounding or barking. Just… moved. Soft and slow, toward a patch of ferns where the sunlight bent in sideways through the trees.
Phainon followed.
And that was when he saw him.
Curled beneath the roots of an old sycamore tree, half-shadowed by the trunk, was a boy.
Not a village boy.
He looked like someone who didn’t know how to take up space yet—knees hugged to his chest, sleeves pulled over his hands. His clothes were dusty, his hair long and mint-colored, and his face was tucked low behind it. But he wasn’t asleep.
He was just… still.
Phainon stood frozen for a second, unsure if he’d stepped into someone else’s dream.
Then Snowy—of course—trotted straight up to the boy and gently pressed his nose to the boy’s arm.
The boy startled, blinking as he looked up.
And Phainon’s breath caught.
Because those eyes—blue like deep water under moonlight—were the kind of quiet that felt like it could know things. Ancient things. Secret things. But they were soft too, wide and uncertain.
Phainon suddenly forgot what he was supposed to say.
So instead, he stepped closer and held out the plush.
“…Is this yours?” he asked, gently.
The boy looked down. His fingers, hesitant, reached out and curled around the plush like it was the last warm thing in the world.
He nodded. Just once.
Phainon smiled, heart thudding weirdly.
“I found it. Or—Snowy did. Well, you dropped it, but he found it, so… we brought it back.”
The boy looked at him.
And then, barely audible, “Thank you.”
Phainon’s smile stretched wide. “You’re welcome.”
When the boy whispered thank you, something swelled in Phainon’s chest—like he’d just won a prize, even though he didn’t know what the game had been. Maybe it was the voice. Soft and a little hoarse, but kind. The kind of kind that stuck with you.
Phainon plopped down right beside him, uninvited, legs crossed in the grass so that his knee brushed the boy’s just a little. He didn’t move away.
That, somehow, felt like another small gift.
“You’re not from here, right?” Phainon asked, already grinning. “I know everyone in the village—like everyone-everyone—and I would definitely remember you.”
The boy blinked slowly, then gave the smallest shake of his head.
“I thought so!” Phainon’s grin stretched. “There are so many cool places here, though. You’ll love it. There’s a river that runs under the bakery—my friend Piso says it’s haunted, but I think he just fell in once and got scared by a frog. And there’s a fig tree where my best friend Cyrene sits and talks to cards and tells you your future—like actual future!”
His hands moved as he spoke, animated and bright, the blue plushie still safely cradled in the boy’s lap.
“And there’s the bakery that smells like cinnamon every morning, and if you wave at Hunter Galba three times, he gives you a walnut. A real one!”
The boy just watched him.
Not blankly—never blankly. But with this stillness that made Phainon feel like every word was being carefully wrapped and folded and placed somewhere quiet. That look made him want to talk even more.
“And my house is the one with the blue shutters near the wheat fields,” he added. “My mom makes the best suncakes—all golden and warm and sticky on the edges. She’s making them today!” He leaned in, a little conspiratorially. “You look like someone who’d love suncakes.”
The boy blinked again. His eyes were still wide, still storm blue. He looked surprised. Like kindness was something new. Or rare.
“Oh!” Phainon slapped a hand to his own forehead, gasping theatrically. “I forgot—I’m Phainon!” He stuck out his hand, grinning. “What’s your name?”
There was a long pause.
The boy looked down at the plush in his lap, fingers tightening around it—like it gave him courage. Then slowly, softly, he said,
“...Anaxagoras.”
Phainon’s grin brightened like someone had opened the sky a little wider. “That’s such a cool name. Sounds really wise.”
Anaxa looked away, his hair falling into his face. But Phainon could’ve sworn he saw the tips of his ears turn the faintest shade of pink.
Snowy, who had been sitting nearby, padded forward and gently laid his head in Anaxa’s lap with a soft huff. Anaxa startled at first—but then let his hand sink into the fur, slow and careful, like someone learning how to touch something without hurting it.
Phainon stood and brushed off his knees. Then he held his hand out again.
“C’mon Anaxa,” he said, gentle now. “Let’s go get you a suncake. You look like you need at least three.”
This time, after just a breath, Anaxa took it.
And just like that, Phainon decided this was his new favourite day