Chapter Text
After the chaotic soul-swapping fiasco, the attempted ritual, and all philosophical screaming had settled into soggy towels and bruised egos, the world—sort of—returned to normal.
Well, not really.
The Chrysos Heirs, now aware of the scale of what Anaxa had tried to do, were understandably overwhelmed. Some of them still couldn’t decide whether to cry, laugh, or toss him into the sun.
But after several tea-fueled nights of heavy debate, they finally agreed: Aglaea and Cerces—now publicly going by her older name Calypso to avoid mass confusion and prophecy-related panic—would be the ones to deliver judgment.
The first decree was swift and delivered with the weight of ceremony. Before a gathering of council members, Grove scholars, and a whole audience of whispering nobility, Aglaea stepped forward, holding up a glimmering seal.
The great hall of the Grove was silent as the High Council assembled, seated in semicircular tiers adorned with banners of gold and ivory. At the center dais stood Aglaea the goldweaver, flanked by Calypso of Nousporist grove scholar and the accused himself—Anaxagoras—who, for the occasion, had been respectfully (yet firmly) restrained in a ceremonial straightjacket, golden threads woven like a collar around his neck. The threads glowed faintly with divine restriction, shimmering every time he shifted even slightly in place.
The Orator turned slightly to the side, allowing Aglaea to step forward.
Clad in formal regalia with the insignia of Okhema gleaming upon her shoulder, Aglaea raised her voice, clear and poised:
“Let it be inscribed upon the records of this era,” she began, her gaze steady, “that I, Aglaea of the Goldweaver, acknowledge the binding union between myself and Anaxagoras of the Grove. This marriage, though unconventional, shall be recognized under Flame of Law, and his actions henceforth fall under my jurisdiction.”
The audience reacted not with gasps, but with a collected breath of astonishment.
Calypso then stepped forward, radiant and composed in layered robes that caught the light like flowing water. “And I, Calypso, bearer of the Grove’s rebirth and former sage of the Titans, acknowledge that I, too, carry consequence in this entanglement. Thus, let it be known—I bear the child of the accused, and by sacred accord, demand he be held to his responsibilities both as consort and caretaker.”
From that oath, Aglaea can feel Mnestia cheering at the back of her head.
The murmurs resumed—this time louder. Anaxa, expression unreadable behind his golden-thread gag, merely blinked.
“Does anyone have an objection to this unity?”
“Mmfft!” Anaxa pleaded to deaf ears.
“And thus,” the orator concluded, “let this be the closing act of his trial.”
The ceremonial gavel struck once more. The hall echoed with finality.
The second decree, however, was far more terrifying.
For his crimes against the laws of nature, consent, and good taste, Anaxa would be subjected to the ultimate scholar’s torment: a total embargo on experimental research.
A golden thread—enchanted, humming faintly, and mildly judgmental—was tied around his ankle like a delicate shackle. It was connected to a master sigil Aglaea kept on her person at all times, and if he so much as tiptoed near an alchemy set without permission, it would vibrate with a painful snap. Worse yet?
He was never alone.
By Aglaea’s mandate, no less than three garmentmakers—well-dressed, and always, always watching—accompanied him wherever he went.
“Sir Anaxa, please lift your foot. We must hem the travel cloak.”
“I’m not even wearing one.”
“You will be, for the dinner party tonight. Please stop squirming.”
Thus began the Age of Humble Misery for Anaxa, Scholar of Reason, Husband of Judgment, and Surrogate of Divinity. Bound not by prison or punishment, but by matrimony, tailoring, and divine passive-aggression.
And despite everything—somewhere, deep inside—he looked like he might actually be... content.
Though Aglaea refused to admit that.
✣ One Year Later ✣
It had finally happened—Aglaea, Lady of Gold and protector of Okhema, had entered her first wave of pregnancy.
There was no grand announcement. No divine light splitting the sky, no choir of star-chosen maidens singing in celebration. There was only Aglaea, staring down a physician’s report with narrowed eyes and pursed lips… and then immediately storming off to vomit into a golden basin.
She was not thrilled.
Morning sickness, the fluctuation of hormones, a husband whose brain worked in spirals and tangents—it was, as she often declared through gritted teeth, a test of godlike endurance.
Aglaea’s wrath became a household constant, her emotional pendulum swinging violently between quiet fury and volcanic irritation, usually centered around her unfortunate husband.
Anaxa, for his part, bore it with all the grace of a man strapped to a lightning rod in a thunderstorm. He wore his heart on his sleeve—if only to survive.
Gone was the smugness of forbidden knowledge; in its place was a man who brewed exactly 17 types of pregnancy-safe teas at 2 AM and memorized five lullabies before the baby was even born.
The only time he ever dared open his mouth was to say:
“Yes, my lady,”
“Of course, my dear,”
or “Please don’t banish me to the woods again.”
In the house beside the Goldweaver estate, Calypso—formerly Cerces—was having the time of her life.
After nine months of dramatic cravings, random philosophy about the nature of motherhood, and spontaneous illusions that made her pregnancy look like an ethereal blessing from the stars (when it wasn’t), she now proudly carried her daughter, a wide-eyed baby girl named Caliophe.
He thought about naming her Persephone, but Calypso insisted on it, since it has the meaning of a little tree branch.
Caliophe had Calypso’s messy curls, Anaxa’s eyes, and a laugh that made even the grumpiest garment maker cry tears of joy.
She had also bitten Anaxa. Twice.
In the soft glow of morning, Calypso rocked Caliophe gently in her arms, humming a lullaby that sounded suspiciously like a war chant from her Titan days, only slower. Caliophe gurgled, blinking her eyes as tiny fists stretched above her head.
“There’s my beautiful little star,” Calypso cooed, brushing a lock of hair from the baby's forehead. “Mama’s precious girl. Not like your allfather.”
She shot a sideways glance at Anaxa, who was slumped face-down on the edge of the bed with a burp cloth over his head, mumbling something about quantum thermogenesis and crushed grapes.
“You poor thing,” Calypso whispered sweetly to Caliophe. “You’re going to grow up with your mother’s brains, my looks, and unfortunately… his tendency to make horrifying decisions under pressure.”
Anaxa groaned. “I’m right here…”
“Yes, dear, and yet your usefulness still hasn’t arrived.”
Caliophe let out a small hiccup, which Calypso took as agreement. She beamed. “See? Even she gets it. She’s barely three months old and already making better life choices than you.”
“I made her,” he muttered weakly from under the cloth.
“Mmhm,” Calypso said, pressing a kiss to Caliophe’s nose. “And that was your one act of competence this year. Don’t overexert yourself.”
And so the once-great Scholar of Reason—still bound by enchanted golden thread and followed by his ever-faithful trio of garment chaperones—now juggled two households, one increasingly irate (and pregnant) wife, one chaotic ex-Titan mother of his child, and a newborn daughter with the grip strength of a minor deity.
Anaxa no longer knew peace. Or personal space.
One year after the great fiasco, the trio—Aglaea, Calypso, and their pitifully restrained scholar-husband—had settled into the same sleeping quarters. A room large enough for royalty, but still far too small when three emotionally charged geniuses and a newborn shared it.
Aglaea had commandeered the left side of the room with a mountain of pregnancy pillows, pregnancy manuals, and pregnancy-based death threats.
Anaxa bore it all with the patience of a saint and the fear of a cornered animal.
Because if Aglaea didn’t keep him up, Calypso definitely would.
She took the right side of the room—formerly serene, now converted into a shrine of soft blankets and Caliophe’s intricately carved crib. She was a joyful mother, sure, but also a chaotic one. Every night, without fail, she'd lean over and whisper: “She’s crying again.”
Caliophe wasn’t.
She just liked seeing Anaxa panic.
Some nights she nudged him awake just to ask philosophical questions like, “Do you think she dreams of her past lives?”
Or, “If I accidentally give her wings, is that a blessing or malpractice?”
The center of the room—Anaxa’s territory in theory—was reduced to a mattress, stacks of soiled cloth, parenting scrolls, two sleep-deprivation sigils, and one very exhausted scholar in a golden-threaded straightjacket.
Even in sleep, he wasn’t safe.
Aglaea talked in her dreams, accusing him of crimes he hadn't committed yet.
Calypso snored like an elegant war horn.
And when Caliophe actually cried, all eyes would dart to him like judgmental jury members.
He was shackled, sleepless, and studied like an experiment. But in the dim quiet between chaos and cries, when Aglaea fell asleep against his arm and Calypso curled around Caliophe with that rare look of peace, and amid the chaos, the fatigue, the hormone-driven shouting matches, and Calypso’s unsolicited parenting advice, he never once complained.
Anaxa sighed.
Because despite being bound by a golden thread, shackled to a straightjacket of domesticity, and sleep-deprived beyond reason…
He loved them.
…But love alone did not help him do the night feeds, fold the diapers enchanted by rogue magic, or withstand the endless lectures from Aglaea about prenatal harmonics.
So, one sleepless night—sandwiched between a pregnant Aglaea and Calypso snoring like a drunk muse—Anaxa’s eye twitched.
An idea bloomed. A desperate, brilliant, possibly illegal idea.
“If there were just more of me…” he whispered, staring at the ceiling. “Yes. Clones. They’ll help with laundry. One for diapers. One for the crib. One to handle Aglaea’s mood swings. One to argue with Cerces. One to research in secret...”
" A Homunculus."
The golden thread on his neck sparked as if to warn him.
He smiled anyway.
And thus, the cycle begins again—not out of ambition, but survival.
- The end -
No, not really, I do sequel just to amuse myself on their daily live.
see you at: "Chrysos! My Body!: See You Tommorow!"