Anaxa sat hunched over his desk. Around him were stacks and scrolls that were cluttering his desk. Much like his mind, which was their own mess of worries and calculations. Amphoreus... The name echoed in his thoughts like a death knell. He had spent days—weeks, even—locked in this study, going over every detail, every variable. The weight of what he had to do pressed down on him, a burden he couldn’t share, not even with...
A glowing butterfly fluttered into the room and landed on the edge of his book. Its wings dissolved into a cascade of glitter and spelled out 'miss you' in Mnestian love glyphs. His heart skipped a beat as hard as he rolled his eye. How... bothersome. Just speak, no think, of the devil and they're already here. Why did they always have to be so... persistent?
The professor didn’t need to look up to know that Du was standing there. The air around him hummed with their magic. The butterflies multiplied around him into a—'headache' as he put it—of light and color. Their presence always seemed to find him, no matter how far he retreated into his work.
"Du," he said, not bothering in the slightest to hide his disdain. Not that it was ever going to work against them. "If you’re here to parrot Mnestia’s delusions about something regarding romance again." He slammed his book down, scattering the glitter on his desk. "You can save your breath. I’m not interested."
Even his blasphemous words were never enough to dissuade Du. He felt their hand on his arm, stopping him in his tracks. He shot them a glare and blurted out the next words.
"Amphoreus needs solutions, not delusions," he said. "If a life must be spent to preserve balance, better it's one already fractured by—"
He stopped himself. Fool. He shouldn’t have said that. He shouldn’t have said any of that! But it was too late. Their eyes met his, and in that moment, he realized they already knew. The realization, that they had known everything before they even stepped into the room, sent a cold wave of dread through him.
The butterflies around him turned into spiders in a blink of an eye. They skittered around him with purpose, weaving a web around his body. He struggled, but the strands were impossibly strong and bound him in place. "You insufferable—" he started, but the final strand closed over his mouth, silencing him.
