#i LOVE prophecies so much asodkgjsogj they're such a fun trope imo

[azen13]

CW: Yandere Themes, Arranged Marriage, Stalking, Forced Kiss

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You had thought for years that the prophecy wouldn't be true. It hung over your head like a crimson moon, equal parts beautiful and haunting, words lingering on your lips like a young lover.

As decreed by the Mnestia long ago, Kephale would one day take up a lover who would wield witticisms and words as weapons forged in an ever-burning mind. At the time, it had seemed preposterous that a Titan, much less Kephale, would take up a lover. If not for a servant scribbling those utterances down and telling his children, who told their own children, who told their children, so on and so forth, the prophecy would have been lost to time.

If it had, would you still be in this predicament?

The first time you had heard of the prophecy when studying poets of old, you had brushed it aside as a simple legend. Kephale had already laid down a prophecy of his own by this time of how new heroes would soon conquer Coreflames to inherit the Titans' divinities, but you knew none of the Chrysos Heirs.

After a period of study, you soon began to craft your own verses. You much preferred the solitude of your home to the bustling crowds of the city, so you didn't hear how quickly your works began to gain popularity. Bards had a new repertoire to learn, and schemes and conceits never once imagined flowed through the air.

When one of the Chrysos Heirs himself began knocking on your door every day, demanding your attention, you realized your popularity had shattered any preconceived zeniths. Phainon was his name, he said, and from what he had heard of you, he was enchanted. The look in his eyes was such a hazy, skylit blue, it seemed like he truly had been the victim of some bizarre spell.

Every day he came and encroached more and more upon you and your home. At first, he stayed outside of your door, but eventually, he began to barge in, sitting at your table or searching amongst your shelves for any subjects he could strike a conversation with you on.

Despite his idiosyncrasies and his forthright behavior, despite the occasional memory igniting in your mind, reminding you of the prophecy, you didn't worry about it. Phainon had told you many times how he longed to take the Coreflame of Nikador, not Kephale. When word spread through Okhema over Nikador's defeat, whatever lingering doubts seemed to be extinguished. You were fine. The prophecy wasn't true, or perhaps it was meant for another Chrysos Heir, another poet.

Weeks later, you found yourself regretting your assuredness. It started, as many no-good things did, with a knock on your door. As you begrudgingly walked to open it, expecting to see perhaps a bard or a fool, you instead were greeted by Phainon. Despite the weariness in his eyes, his hands shot out and clenched your shoulders with such speed and strength, you nearly leapt out of your skin. His nose nuzzled into your neck, taking a deep breath. For what seemed like hours, he mumbled and babbled and blathered and prattled about Coreflames, Nikador, Kephale, and the prophecy. After his tirade, his grip tightened.

"But, at least you're mine now." The words seemed to shackle themselves around your wrists, binding you and your attention.

For a moment, you were so dumbfounded you couldn't find the words to express what you wanted to say. Had your situation been any less confounding, you would've found your speechlessness a wonderful little paradox. "Phainon, wha-what do you m-?"

Before you could finish your sentence, Phainon sealed away any remaining restraint he had with a brutally tender kiss. He seemed to push against your lips with the goal of wearing them down until they molded perfectly against his. The kiss itself seemed to metamorphosize with how long it lived; at first it was tender, like new shoots of life growing in spring, but as it grew in age, so did its greed. Phainon seemed intent on savoring every second as an eternity in its own right.

When he did break the kiss, he gazed at you with an otherworldly devotion. It was a look of such sweet softness that it could kill. "I might not have Kephale's Coreflame yet, but I will. I'll do it. Just for you." Though he said he didn't have a Coreflame, his eyes burned with passion brighter than the sun. It scorched your tender skin, branding you with illusory markings of possession. A declaration, almost, that you were, in fact, the subject of Mnestia's dreadful prophecy.