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Teyvat’s sun shone through across its nations, bathing in a gentle morning glow. In a house lay a crib, the young baby awaking at the new day. He reaches for the mobile in front of him, dangling its array of birds just out of his little reach. He yawns, taking hold of his sumpter beast plushie that cousin Collei made from him as the door creaks open.
Mama and Baba look tiredly over the crib, one clearly has yet to sleep and the other just woken up. Baba picks up the baby. “Anaksa.. how on earth are you awake at this hour?” Alhaitham asks, yawning as he stares at his child.
“I don’t smell anything on him,” Kaveh comments, noting how normal their youngest is acting, “he doesn’t look hungry either.”
Anaksa pays no mind to what mama and baba say next, more focused on the flock on his mobile, trying his hardest to reach for any one of them while trying not to leave his baba’s arms.
There was one for each of his family. A falcon for Baba. A bird of paradise for mama. An owl for big brother Ptolemy. A raven for big brother Moze. And a little hawk for the newest addition to the family. Mama was the one who made the mobile. Even Mehrak was on it, though she was still a suitcase on it.
Baba carries him down the stairs, little Anaksa laying his head on his shoulder looking up at Mama. Ptolemy, already in his Akademyia uniform, and Moze were at the table when the rest of the family descended down. Still sleepy but they immediately crowded over their baby brother the second Baba sat down. Mama needed to pick up Moze for him to see.
Anaksa stared up as he was surrounded by his family. Mehrak let out a beep-boop as she too joined in hovering over the baby. Ptolemy insisted on holding him. “But babaaaaaa,” he whined, “I want to hold him! Pretty please?”
Moze pouted, “You held him first last time! Mans said it was my turn!”
“I asked first!”
Mama took the baby, who at first protested leaving the safety of Alhaitham’s arms but quietly calmed down when he was in Kaveh’s. Mama stared at the other boys.
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Anaksa learned very early that confidence could turn almost anything into permission. So he used it often. Especially on his older brothers who adored him.
Not because he understood consequences yet, but because no one in that house ever made him feel like he had to fear them. Anaksa was simply born into something that felt unbreakable.
Not because the world around him was gentle, but because the people inside it refused to let it feel otherwise. His home was always full. Full of voices overlapping in argument and laughter, full of footsteps crossing wooden floors, full of hands that always seemed to know exactly where he was even when he tried to hide.
Mama called it warmth.
Baba called it noise.
Neither of them ever tried to change it, which somehow meant they agreed more than they argued.
“You cannot keep letting him climb things,” Kaveh said one afternoon without looking up from his work. A client had asked him for revisions on a project since the budget had expanded. Ptolemy watched in awe as Mama made quick calculations on a separate piece of paper.
Alhaitham, sitting on the floor with Moze with his scrolls, didn’t even turn his head. “He is not climbing things. He is exploring vertical philosophy.”
“That is a child on a bookshelf.”
“He is conducting research.”
From somewhere above, Anaksa’s voice drifted down, “I have discowered a new pewspective on witeratue!”
“Literature,” Moze corrected, “Li-ter-a-chur.” Anaksa knew how to speak from a very young age. Baba knew many languages and Mama talked a lot, unfortunately his lisp made it hard for others outside of the family to understand him sometimes.
Kaveh closed his eyes slowly.
Alhaitham smiled, “See? Growth.”
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The kitchen was super loud that day. Not normal loud. Not even Kaveh-project-deadline loud. Family loud.
“Absolutely not,” Alhaitham said flatly from behind his book.
“That sounds like cowardice,” Cyno replied.
“It sounds like common sense.”
“It sounds like you fear competition.”
Across the table, Tighnari pinched the bridge of his nose. “Cyno, no one wants to compete in your ‘who can stay awake the longest’ competition.”
“It is not merely a competition,” Cyno corrected solemnly. “It is a battle against mortal limitation.”
“Last time you passed out in a basket.”
“That was tactical meditation.”
“You were drooling.”
Meanwhile, the children had entirely abandoned the conversation in favor of chaos.
Little Anaksa sat in the middle of the floor with a serious expression, surrounded by pillows, papers, and what looked suspiciously like Kaveh’s missing drafting pencils. Collei crouched beside him helping organize “research materials,” while Arlan quietly handed him more paper scraps like an underpaid assistant.
Arlan’s older brother, Ahki, was encouraging them.
“You need more height,” Ahki declared confidently.
Anaksa gasped. “You’re right.”
“No,” Moze said immediately from the couch.
Ptolemy looked up from his homework. “Absolutely not.”
Five minutes later, the children had somehow constructed a tower made of cushions, books, and one very happy Mehrak. Kaveh walked back into the room carrying tea, stopped dead in the doorway, and stared.
“…Why is my son on the ceiling.”
Indeed, Anaksa had climbed onto the top shelf again and was proudly dangling upside down while Collei panicked below. “I can see the future from here!” Anaksa announced.
“You cannot,” Alhaitham replied without looking up.
“I can! Baba becomes bald!”
Kaveh nearly dropped the tea from laughing. Alhaitham lowered his book as he turned to stare at his kid.
Moze pointed upward immediately with an accusatory finger. “Punish him.”
Ptolemy nodded, though he hadn’t looked up from his homework to see his brother cosplaying as a spider. “Public execution.”
“He inherited your dramatics,” Alhaitham told Kaveh.
“He inherited your audacity.”
From the shelf, Anaksa beamed proudly at both accusations. Then Ahki climbed onto the structure too. Arlan tried to help Collei stabilize it. As Cyno stood up and announced, “I will judge this architectural integrity personally.”
Tighnari looked one bad pun away from sending Cyno to the afterlife voluntarily.
And through all of it, the noise, the arguing, the laughing, the children shrieking as the tower finally collapsed into harmless cushions, Anaksa laughed loud enough for the entire house to hear.
Kaveh looked over at the pile of children. “…You know,” he admitted softly, “I think this might actually be what happiness sounds like.”
Alhaitham reached over wordlessly and handed him the tea before it spilled. “It’s still noise,” he said. But he was smiling when he said it.
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One thing that Anaksa knew was that if his parents didn’t show something, cry and make your brothers do it for you. As much as they annoy each other, both Ptolemy and Moze were the ones responsible for spoiling the baby. Said baby was currently very upset that both his brothers needed to leave home. The Akademyia already made Ptolemy spend too much time away from any of them! Now he was scouted to go to a…well, Anaksa didn’t hear that part before he started wailing, he only knew that it wasn’t a place in Teyvat.
Mama tried his hardest to quiet down the little one, who only cried louder when Moze was offered to come as well to be a priest. A priest! “But I don’t want them to leaaaave!”
Ptolemy and Moze were on either of Mama’s shoulders, who sat on the front stairs rocking the wailing baby. “Don’t cry,” Moze stated, “we’ll come back as soon as it’s over.”
Ptolemy chimed in, ruffling his brother’s hair. “Yeah! And- And we’ll write to you everyday! Promise”
Baba was with Uncle Cyno. Uncle Tighnari and Collei went to change their youngest’s diaper, Arlan, when they heard the wailing. Anaksa only managed to stop crying when uncle Tighnari hit uncle Cyno in the shoulder for some bad pun.
Eventually, Anaksa did arrive in Amphoreus with his big brothers. They were staying with a family who offered to shelter them. Well, more accurately they offered to shelter Anaksa. Ptolemy went to a place called Castrum Kremnos and Moze went to Aidonia. Poor Diotima spent so long trying to console the saddened child.
Mama and Baba couldn’t come with them, their jobs were too demanding. Diotima eventually made a plushie for Anaksa. A “dromas” is what she called it. He liked it. It sort of reminded him of a Sumpter Beast from back home but more…
Well, it was cuter in Anaksa’s eyes. His big brothers were out doing their thing and Anaksa was doing his own. The other children called him weird for not doing much fieldwork but it wasn’t like he didn’t want to! Honest! He just wasn’t used to Amphorean botany, which further ruined his motivation to work. Uncle Tighnari would have shown him how to work with the plants.
At least big sister Diotima was there for him.
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Anaksa made sure to keep every letter his brothers sent him. He couldn’t read the Amphorean script just yet but he was getting there! Diotima helped him read using his family’s letters.
Ptolemy was doing well in Castrum Kremnos. He befriended the prince of the land and was out in the battlefield a lot. Kind of like Uncle Lohen but less… stab-happy as Baba called him. Something about Uncle Zandik messing something up.
Hey, didn’t he have a great-uncle in Amphoreus? Wonder where he could be.
Anaksa shook his head from the thought. He never really met Great Uncle Zandar so honestly, he didn’t care. He focused on Moze’s letters. He was quickly completing a lot of his training as a priest for Thanatos, the titan presiding over death, even managing to advance to certain ranks despite his young age.
“Wow, your brothers sure are talented,” Diotima said. She and Anaksa were at a table with the letters from today. Each letter was written in the Sumerian script, only his brothers were in both Sumerian and Amphorean.
Anaksa beamed, “Of course they are! They're the bestest brothers in the universe! And you’re the bestest sister ever!”
❀°───୨ৎ─────˚⟡˖࣪─────୨ৎ───°❀
Anaksa stood under the tree, basking in its shade as he watched the wind blow through the fields. Sister Diotima was the only one left now, and they were barely surviving on her income. Anaksa still enjoyed reading the letters from his brothers, his parents weren’t able to send any to Amphoreus anymore due to the false skies of the two worlds solidifying again.
“Why do the dromases not fly toward the sky?” He looked upon the dromas that were grazing upon the fields.
“Maybe because this dromas used to be a nerd in its past life too!” Anaksa could hear the kids mocking him, though he never understood why it was used as a form of mockery. Dromas were cool. Sadly for the other kids, Anaksa never took the comparison as an insult.
“A dromas huh…,” Anaksa mumbled to no one in particular, but Diotima still overheard him.
“Don’t let those kids get to you sweetheart.” Diotima was always so nice, wasn’t she? Anaksa pouted and focused on his stagnant pile of letters, patiently waiting for an overdue update.
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Anaksa made sure to keep every letter his brothers sent him. He tucked them under his pillow at night. Folded and unfolded until the corners softened and curled.
Ptolemy wrote in neat lines. Always precise. Even his letters looked organized.“Today I met the prince of Castrum Kremnos. He is quite loud but I think we’ll get along. He kind of reminds me of a lion. I hope you can meet him one day. You’d get along with our other friends too.”
Moze’s writing was messier. “Training’s hard. The priests keep staring at me weirdly. I also won a spar today but I got in trouble for that. Tell Baba I didn’t lose.”
Diotima smiled every time Anaksa recited the words aloud. “Your brothers are remarkable.”
Anaksa puffed up proudly. “Of course they are.”
“And humble too?”
He shook his head. “No.”
That made her laugh. He liked making her laugh. It reminded him of home.
Though the letters slowly stopped coming as well, many of them being slightly corroded by the Black Tide. Moze’s letters were coming less and less frequently. He was training to be a priest of Thanatos though so…
“I’m sure he’s just busy,” Anaksa said. Diotima patted his head as she unwrapped his new books for the Grove.
Anaksa perked up and continued, “He said he got a promotion! They’re going to make him a fully-fledged priest soon!”
And that was the last letter he ever got from him.
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Little Anaksa was sent to the Grove of Epiphany, hoping to become a scribe. Prtolemy was more into mathematics compared to him and Moze liked to work independently. Alchemy seemed interesting to him. Oh! Maybe he could figure out a way to grow Sumerian ingredients. His scrawny legs and arms made it hard for him to quickly catch up with his peers so if his blasphemy wasn’t enough to get him kicked out of class, it would be his tardiness.
“Bah, I’ll just study in the library.” Anaksa was a big boy now! He could figure out how to learn by himself. “Hmf, not like the Akademyia would be nice to me either. At least you’re here with me Dromy.” He sat at a secluded table in the library, books in front of him, quill in his left and Dromy in his right. Truthfully he didn’t know if he was left or right handed.
“Baba was right-handed, wasn’t he Dromy?” Anaksa asked the dromas plushie that Diotima made him before he set off. “Mama was left handed, Mama always complained about the tools not being built for him before making his own.” He couldn’t remember his brothers’ but it was probably a similar situation to himself.
In his little hiding spot, he saw a group of older students arriving. Probably for some gossiping instead of studying. It didn’t matter to Anaksa. Not like he wanted to over hear them. They were just… a little close to him. The older students were complaining about certain sages and their assignments and the conversation quickly turned into what they were going to buy at the market. One wanted a new dress while another wanted to send some food home. Then he heard what happened to the village.
“The- the black tide arrived there?” Anaksa dropped his study materials and ran out, clutching Dromy underneath his arm. He ignored anyone and everyone in the halls as he ran as fast as his little legs could. He didn’t know how long it took to reach there but when Anaksa finally arrived, the entire village was decimated. The black tide didn’t leave a single thing to be remembered by.
Try as he did, he couldn’t find any traces of Diotima. “Sister? Sister, where are you?” Anaksa fell to his knees and cried, though he was not given that moment of grief before he needed to get back on his feet and run back to the Grove lest he succumb to the black tide himself.
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Anaksa–, no. He was Anaxagoras now. Anaxagoras threw himself into his studies, trying desperately to prove that all of his siblings’ sacrifices were not in vain. Sure the teachers and the scribes and, well, everyone called him insane and a heretic but it was his calling. He wasn’t the first in his family to be called such and probably not the last.
Rumours spread fast through Ohkema. Anaxagoras never liked gossip but it was a fast way to get information, just not reliable. He just finished a class and was in the marketplace when he overheard his classmates talk about Kremnos’ battle in Aidonia. Their buried heroes left in the snow according to tradition.
“Such violent people, to think even their young Prince would agree with barbaric practices!” Some ignorant asshole spouted out.
“I agree, they are fools to follow Nikador. The only thing they know is bloodshed.” Another idiot chimed in. Different names came whispered through hushed conversations. The soldiers whose lives were tragically lost. Then eventually—
Presumed dead. Anaxagoras pretended to stare at the scroll he had in his hands. His hands only shook after he was in the water in his room. Ptolemy was dead. He was left under an obelisk that fell on him. Anaksa cried himself to sleep that night.
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Years passed and the Grove became his home. Books piled around him. Then scrolls. Then students.
Arguments over philosophy started between him and the other sages. The old sages called him a blasphemer and insane. His students called him crazy but loving. Aglaea called him a performer
He worked harder than anyone. He didn’t lose his eye to see his family again for nothing. He had Baba’s mind. Mama’s stubbornness. Ptolemy’s discipline. Moze’s refusal to lose.And tucked into his room was one dromas plushie that was still in top shape even after all these years as a demigod.
“Get the hell out of my head Cerces,” Anaxagoras looked insane when he snapped at the air, but the titan inside his head laughed in response.
“My my, so the Great Performer doesn’t want me around? Yet was it not his fault I am in his head right now?” ArchonsTitans he wanted to throttle her.
There was a knock on the door. “Come on in Hyacine, you know you don’t need to knock.”
Hyacine sheepishly opens the door to enter. Anaxagoras merely raises an eyebrow. “The others can come in too.”
“Oh come ooon prof,” Phainon whines as he follows Hyacine in, “How do you always know we’re here?” Castorice was the last to walk in, taking her time to not accidentally bump her friends. Anaxa sighs, walking over to them, knowing well they simply wanted to chat.
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“So this is the Exotale?” Diotima asks Anaxa as she watches the philosopher hug Terravox.
“Yep! The trailblazer said something about bringing us back but I’m happy where I am.” Surprisingly the giant dromas was okay with the weirdo clinging to his leg. Diotima did eventually pry him off though.
Then the skies opened up for the first time in years. Amphoreus reconnected with the world beyond thanks to the Astral Express. People celebrated the impossible. Anaxagoras was happy when Aglaea and Cerydra asked him to be a representative for Amphoreus for other worlds.
Ok he hated the idea at first but when he found out it was Teyvat, he happily agreed. Anaxagoras was helping Hyacine and Castorice guide people into the city of Ohkema when—
“Anaksa?”
He froze. No one called him that anymore. No one.
He turned so fast, desperately trying to figure out where the voice came from. Then he saw Baba. Alhaitham stood at the edge of the path as still as stone. But his eyes gave him away.Kaveh beside him looked seconds away from bursting into tears.
Because somehow the universe had given him back to them.
“Baba! Mama!” Anaxagoras bolted from his position and jumped into their arms crying. “Mama! Baba! Is it really you?”
“My baby! Haitham, our baby boy is alive!” Kaveh hugged him tight, crushing both Anaxa and Alhaitham’s arm. Alhaitham didn’t say anything, but the tears that fell from his eyes said it all. He pressed his forehead against his youngest, happy that their final son finally came back to them as well.
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That night in Sumeru, the house felt full again. It was warm, noisy, unbreakable.
It was exactly the same, but oh so different. Anaxagoras, no he was Anaksa again, fell asleep before he meant to. Curled up against Baba’s chest with his head on his shoulder. Ptolemy was asleep against Kaveh’s shoulder nearby while Moze’s head was in Kaveh’s lap. Mehrak gave one quiet beep before she too fell asleep with her brothers. The mobile above the old crib still turned softly in the dark.
A Falcon.
A Bird of paradise.
An Owl.
A Raven.
And the little hawk.
Alhaitham adjusted Anaksa against him. He was older now. And had Longer limbs.But somehow still fitting there exactly the same after all these years. Kaveh brushed hair from their youngest’s face and smiled. “He always ends up back in your arms.”
Alhaitham looked down at his sleeping son after years apart. After false skies and impossible worlds and grief that should have swallowed them whole.
He was here.
He was safe, warm.
“He’s home,” Alhaitham murmured quietly. beneath Teyvat’s moon, with his entire family finally under one roof again, Anaksa slept exactly as he had when he was a baby.
Surrounded by every voice he had ever missed.
And dreaming beneath a sky that was finally real again.