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His life, as he’d lived it, was a process of restraint.
As Valuka Shuna living near the roots of the Divine Tree, near the beating heart of Knowledge Herself, symbiosis was the standard to live up to. Long after the God of the Wood cast Her gaze on his wayward kind following King Deshret’s death, customs and rituals centering on isolation and the occasional hedonism died out.
(Of course, it was hard to eke out millennia worth of isolationist behavior in one race, but they didn’t live in villages underground anymore. Habitats rose to the canopies of the oldest of trees, but a few families still maintained their lives below ground. Tighnari himself hasn’t unearthed any documentation of it, but he’s heard wild tales from distant cousins about ancient burrows near Pardis Dhyai.)
Symbiosis, in Valuka Shuna terms, meant socializing and cooperating with the droll of human society, meant getting involved in rigorous hierarchies for the sake of knowledge. Both his parents were great scholars and researchers in their respective fields, and so were his grandparents— well, apart from his grandmother on his mother’s side, who’d decided to try her hand in mercenary business before settling down as a Forest Watcher with his grandmama.
Symbiosis, in Valuka Shuna terms, meant a lot of emotional management. All of his cousins had gone and trained together, but he was younger, and larger than them, with darker fur— a trait his mother had been proud of because it meant it would be easier for humans to get used to him if his fur just looked like hair, if he wasn’t so small and frail-looking like their kin.
As a kit, Tighnari was as temperamental as all other kits. He was an open book. His body expressed his emotions before he could even think to hide them. Bared fangs, ears drawn back. The barest twitch of an ear, the flick of a tail. Even just the way he walked was a passage on emotions he had no other means of expressing. Displeasure, anger, excitement, fear.
“It is no weakness to have emotion, Tighnari,” his father had said one evening. “But when you enroll at the city, it is better to find ways to mask them. There are lesser men than us who will use our nature against us if it is to their benefit.”
Tighnari was an intelligent person. He prided himself of being able to learn fast. But he considered it both a blessing and a curse to have been born too early down the line of their genetic evolution. Perhaps if he’d been born a little later, he’d be more human than fox, softer like satin petals on a padisarah rather than the dry grit of sand against sun-kissed flesh.
Perhaps that was it, he thought. Perhaps it was what was left of his ancestors in his blood that made assimilating to human society harder than his parents made it seem.
You see, knowledge was coveted by all under the shade of Her guiding gaze, but he so hoped less of them did to begin with.
Quite the unreasonable demand, really. He might have bitten off more than he thought he could chew when he heeded his parents’ expectations and enrolled in the Akademiya.
The learning material was great, don’t get him wrong. There were texts and talking points he’d never be able to have with anyone in his own home. He had access to the Pardis Dhyai to run countless experiments on plants otherwise illegal to own on Sumeran soil.
But the staring and the thinly veiled excuses to talk just to get close to him and the pictures and the stalking…
May his ancestors roll in their graves and curse his line. He has had enough.
And here was where all those years of socialized restraint came in, holding onto a thread of his patience.
Tighnari had been stalked by this particular human for longer than comfortable, within reason. The only reason he’s put up with them and their needle-sharp gaze and the soft slap of human flesh on linoleum was because their presence decreased the noise by a considerable amount. Those were amazing odds to utility for a brief bit of discomfort.
Sure, they were nice to look at as well, Tighnari wasn’t blind. Even in the Akademiya’s ridiculous drab-looking uniforms, they looked good— shock of white hair against dark brown skin and a piercing glare of sand dune red.
But Tighnari was a creature of hedonism in isolation, and this person had just been creating this bubble of blissful silence between the two of them and the rest of Akademiya.
Tighnari was contrarian in nature, but he had needs as well. So, when in doubt of conversation starters, start a debate.
“Are you going to ask, or are you just going to waste your time loaning that book without reading it?”
Cyno, the Matra that had been stalking him, was a very, very awkward man.
Perhaps if Tighnari were more contrarian and disagreeable in nature, he’d have turned out exactly the same. Sure, Cyno could carry a conversation when needed, but more often than not he just said what needed to be said and simply… stopped talking.
When prodded though, boy, could he talk.
When Tighnari asked him if he was alright with the fact that the work he did with the Matra could potentially lead to nothing he’d ever see come to fruition, Cyno had said, “A tree does not grow from a seed in a day. I do not care if, in my lifetime, I don’t see the changes I want within these grounds. It will grow tall and bear fruit eventually, given time.”
Like, who just says stuff like that?
But there was no other person Tighnari could imagine saying stuff like that with shocking sincerity. In the short time they’ve spent together, one surveilling the other, Cyno was just the type of person who would hand over the truth without a hint of regret in every fiber of his being, because that was what he thought was right, what he thought the situation owed.
Was that naïve?
According to Tighnari’s parents, yes.
Keeping unstable variables separate from each other was paramount in coming out of a situation unscathed. In order to win, he had to keep the truth under wraps until he was sure the danger had passed.
But… What danger was there? And what was he trying to win?
As Cyno packed up his things, perhaps done with his revising for the night, Tighnari put his brush down.
“You don’t like keeping the truth from people,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but he did want confirmation. Tighnari was rarely wrong when noticing these kinds of quirks in people. Then again, he’d never been the type to initiate things with people he couldn’t understand in some base level. Call it risk management.
Cyno put his things to the side, then leaned back in his seat. In the dim glow of the lights at Puspa, not dressed in his regalia, Cyno seemed both younger and older than he was. It was something in his gaze, Tighnari reasoned. It must have been, from the way Cyno seemed to stare right through him in that moment.
“I don’t see why I should,” Cyno said. Short. Simple.
“Are there ever situations when you think you ought to?” Tighnari asked. Then, added, “Not legally. I think that’s understandable. I mean when you’re talking to someone outside of work.”
Cyno’s brows furrowed for a moment. For most people, Tighnari knew that look meant that they were thinking of how to answer his question, but there was something about Cyno’s expression that made him feel like, coming from him, he just didn’t understand the question to begin with.
“There aren’t, huh,” Tighnari decided, after a too-long moment of deliberation.
Cyno shook his head. “Not really.”
Tighnari huffed. Joking, he said, “So, if I asked you if you actually liked hanging out with me, would you just say no?”
Cyno inclined his head. “But I do like hanging out with you.”
Who just says things like that?
Tighnari took a deep breath. “Thanks. That’s very nice of you to say.”
Cyno shuffled his feet under the table, bumping up against the edge of Tighnari’s boot. “Not a lot of people like it when I sit near them. They don’t find my presence very comfortable.”
“Why not?”
“I’m the General Mahamatra,” Cyno said, frankly, as if that was something Tighnari already knew. (He didn’t. He knew Cyno was a Matra, but he didn’t know he was the damn general. What did he get reported for doing to get a general hot on his heels? Did it matter? There wasn’t really anything he could do about it, and it wasn’t as if he’d actually done anything. Best to treat it all like water under the bridge, perhaps.) “I am also very awkward, so making conversation with me can be a little difficult.”
“I disagree,” Tighnari said. Except for the awkward part. That statement Tighnari agreed with wholeheartedly and was glad Cyno had enough self-awareness to recognize it. “I think, like most conversations, it’s just a matter of broaching the right topics.”
Cyno’s tone was dry. “That is because you don’t seem to be afraid of me.”
“Why would I be afraid of you?”
And it was then that Tighnari nearly bit his tongue.
In most situations, asking someone whose battle prowess precedes them, someone like the General Mahamatra himself, why you should be afraid of them would just seem like baiting for a fight. That was not what Tighnari was aiming for.
(But… Okay, it might have been?
Tighnari was no wimp in a fight. He’d gone up against a few treasure hoarders and hostile Eremites on the road to and from the city. If Cyno was half as good as the rumors say, Tighnari wouldn’t immediately fold, but he could take Cyno…)
“I’ve been told that most people are afraid of me because of my reputation,” Cyno pointed out, unaware of Tighnari’s inner monologue. “I don’t really understand it myself. Maybe it’s because of prejudice, maybe it’s because I find no use in sugarcoating one’s crimes. Regardless, I’ve done everything the generals before me have done with as little bias as possible. And I can’t deny, it is very convenient when I need to get to the bottom of something.”
Tighnari laughed. “The fear is convenient?”
Cyno shrugged, and the way his eyes squinted made it seem like he was smiling. “Sometimes. It certainly gets the job done.”
Tighnari shook his head.
And it seemed that was the end of the conversation.
He picked his brush back up and tried to go back to skimming a few more of his notes for tomorrow’s trainee seminar.
“Why aren’t you afraid of me?”
Tighnari blinked down at his notes for a moment, then met Cyno’s gaze again.
And there was nothing but blazing curiosity in it, perhaps unaware of just how that question sounded, perhaps wholly aware and just not caring. Tighnari didn’t know what he found more admirable. Didn’t know if finding that admirable was the right way to react.
He put his free hand down onto his tail, brushing idly at the fur as he turned the question over.
When considering Cyno’s status—something he hadn’t been doing seeing as he was just wholly unaware to begin with—three simple factors came into mind when it comes to actually being scared of Cyno. His severe face, his demeanor, and his status. All of which Tighnari didn’t have the pleasure of being familiar with before even initiating contact to begin with.
So, he gave Cyno the best answer he could give. “… I don’t really know how to answer that.”
Cyno nodded, accepting.
Chasing the end of his sentence, he added, “I mean… A lack of knowledge and lack of willingness to learn is the essence of fear, isn’t it? The way I see it, people only know about your status and fear what you potentially could be approaching them for. Guilty consciences and all that. But I don’t have one, and I don’t know a lot about you, Cyno, but I’m not against learning more.”
Cyno’s eyes were wide by the time he’d finished, a barely visible indication of shock. Tighnari didn’t know if he had offended somehow, and if he should apologize.
But he meant that bit about guilty consciences. Tighnari was raised to restrain many different parts of himself, but never was he taught to do something he never meant to. He added, “I think it’s only fair, since you like hanging out with me so much, no?”
That seemed to shake Cyno out of it, giving a small and almost imperceptible smile. It was a twitch to the corner of his mouth, almost a clumsy smirk. “Is that why you try to avoid people as much as you can?”
Tighnari failed to stifle the bodily cringe that just took over him the moment his behavior was pointed out, which made Cyno laugh.
He liked it when Cyno cracked up like that. He laughed loud and carelessly, but it happened in such short bursts it tended to surprise him. Like the thunder after the lightning.
“I just don’t like being obvious about it,” Tighnari admitted, glancing around them in case there were any eavesdroppers. But Puspa’s crowd had thinned out as the late night hour set in. “If it were possible, I’d just graduate and leave immediately. It can’t be helped that humans can be so curious about…” He gestured vaguely at his ears.
“About your kind. I get it.”
It was sooner rather than later that he and Cyno began working together.
Despite his general demeanor, Tighnari was not the type to turn down a call for help when offered. Though, perhaps the cards had just fallen that way.
A renegade scholar from the Ksharewar darshan had cut her way through Ashavan Realm. Usually this type of work was not difficult for the General Mahamatra, since he often found himself traipsing through the desert just to hunt down similar scholars for trial.
Of course, the difference in biomes was enough to significantly cripple Cyno’s chances at hunting her down.
“Which is why you approached me,” Tighnari said, readjusting his cape as he readied up around the center of his quarters, where Cyno stood awkwardly.
“Yes.”
“Have you asked the chief officer?” Chief Fatima wouldn’t have minded lending one of her rangers to assist the Matra, Tighnari knew, but he wanted to see if Cyno was here on official or personal capacity. He couldn’t just flat out ask, ‘Are you asking for a forest watcher or are you asking for me?’ He’d been raised better than that.
“I sent ahead telling her I was going to need your assistance with something,” Cyno answered.
“Mine specifically?”
Cyno nodded.
“There are forest watchers here with years more experience than me, you know.”
“Is this a rejection?”
Tighnari swiped his Vision off his desk and tied it to his belt, tail swishing behind him as he considered his next words. “No. I’m just wondering why the General Mahamatra would ask a forest ranger to guide him through Avidya.”
Cyno crossed his arms. “I trust you.”
And that was enough of an explanation for Cyno.
Tighnari didn’t really have any reason to object, nor did he want to find one.
If he were to be honest, he’d say he was more than a little curious.
He’d only heard of Cyno’s fearsome reputation. If not through rumors, then sometimes when Cyno deemed it alright to share anecdotes about his work. He’d learned to read between the gaps of these branches of information. Cyno, fierce with a polearm and righteous lawfulness, was not the most gentle in his policing. Least of all when lives and the Akademiya’s base principles were at stake.
Cyno had once told him that he was impressed by Tighnari’s sense of social responsibility as a forest ranger. But that was in sharp contrast to this.
There were no traces of standoffishness and vulnerable sincerity to the General Mahamatra. Dressed in regalia, he was lithe lines of regal authority. His eyes seemed to glow red under certain shadows and lights. He had sharp hearing, sharper than most humans but not as sharp as Tighnari’s own.
Though he was out of his element and had to defer to Tighnari’s senses when it came to properly tracking someone through the wood, General Mahamatra Cyno was as persistent as a hound who had caught the scent of his prey.
Tighnari would be lying if he said the sight of it didn’t thrill him.
Ambushing the scholar’s camp deep in the caves nearing Lokapala was an easy task. With Tighnari’s distractions, and a few non-lethal shots of Dendro-infused arrows, they were nothing but easy prey to the General.
All but one mercenary was kept conscious, as the General had ordered. To an outsider, it might have seemed comical to see a man twice Cyno’s size cowering before him. But Tighnari had seen what Cyno was capable of.
“State your name,” the General ordered, the sharp end of his staff poised beneath the man’s chin. Were it any other Matra, Tighnari would have stepped on his foot and yelled at him to back off.
Cyno would never hurt this man unless in self-defense. This was, after all, the fear at work.
He turned back to dressing the other mercenaries’ wounds, keeping one ear on the conversation.
“A—Aharon.”
“And where exactly is your employer, Aharon?”
Shuffling. “I have no idea.”
The General growled, low in his throat.
The lie was too obvious.
Fear of the General Mahamatra was surely not enough to carry through to Eremite mercenaries, least of all the kind who would be brave enough to size up the General while he was being held at bladepoint. Tighnari didn’t know if Cyno was aware of that.
According to Cyno’s own accounts, when he tracked down runaway scholars into the desert, it was without assistance from the Corps of Thirty or his own underlings.
They were on a time limit though, and that meant that, as fascinating as this was, they had to finish this quickly.
With a deep sigh, Tighnari said, “Strike one.”
The General’s breath hitched.
Tighnari pushed himself up off his knees and turned to them both.
Neither Aharon nor Cyno looked his way. He continued, “Lie again and you’re dead.”
Aharon asked, “Who are you?”
“The medic,” he said. And well, it wasn’t untrue. “Your company is to stand for trial when we catch your employer. But not all of you need to be there.”
That seemed to make Aharon reconsider his decision.
The General said, “Speak.”
“Top of the cliff overlooking the Dahri machine. She made us leave her there. No doubt running for the Chasm as we speak.”
The General took a moment to consider that, then pulled his staff away from Aharon’s chin. “Lead the way.”
Tighnari nodded. To Aharon, he said, “Walk towards Lord Kusanali’s statue when you exit the caves. You’ll see it in the distance. Find the first forest ranger you see, and tell them the Mahamatra sent you. They’ll make sure you get food and supplies. Until after your trial, don’t think about leaving Sumeru.”
Blood wafted in from his window before he even heard the pain-clumsy footsteps by the deck of his hut.
Tighnari pulled away from his master’s latest letter, blinking to adjust from lantern light to moonlight. Between blinks, he found a blood-spattered general leaning heavily against his staff.
He flew into action before Cyno could even open his mouth.
He pushed Cyno down on the deck, making him sit before he made his injuries worse, whatever they were. In the low light, he could see a few of them flowing freely already, no doubt broken open from the sudden movement.
He rushed off into his hut, gathering a spare blanket and the first aid kit by the corner of his bed.
Cyno was checked out when he came back out, no doubt in shock.
Tighnari grabbed the closest tincture— concentrated extracts of nilotpala lotuses he’d made himself— and nudged Cyno’s free hand. “Smell this.”
Cyno grabbed the glass after a few misses, then held it under his nose. Tighnari began sanitizing his wounds.
Curious and now a little more focused, Cyno looked down as he worked.
Tighnari knew he wasn’t going to feel any of this while he was smelling all that. “Where are you bleeding from and what made the wound.”
Cyno gave a few sluggish blinks. “Just light cuts from a few polearms. There’s a deeper one, that one, the one you’re cleaning. One of their marksmen had a bolt of Dendro. Hit right at it. Stung.”
Tighnari winced in sympathy. “I can only imagine. Where were you?”
“On assignment. Chased them up to a camp near Gandha Hill. I can track them again, I just need…”
He turned his attention to the Dendro-marked wound. Sure enough, the skin around the wound had blistered. “Most of the blood back in your body?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re lucky I know this much first aid.”
“S’why I came here.”
Tighnari grunted.
Cyno slurred, “What’s in this?” He pulled the glass away from his face, but Tighnari put up one of his hands to push it right back under his nose.
“Don’t stop smelling it. I need you awake for when I finish up. It’s lotus extract. It’s the same stuff we make Eleazar patients drink, just stronger.”
“Huh.”
“I’m still perfecting it. I haven’t used it, but since I had to clean these up and potentially stitch a few of them shut, I figured you’d be a willing test subject.”
Cyno’s brows furrowed, but it was more comical than severe in the silver light of the moon. “Human experimentation is illegal.”
Tighnari snorted. He put down the sullied cloth and grabbed the needle and thread. “Do you see me taking notes, General?”
“This could’ve knocked me out.”
“And you wouldn’t have felt when I did this,” Tighnari said just as he pushed in the needle.
Cyno didn’t even wince. He had to have felt that. Either Cyno had pain tolerance higher than most of Tighnari’s patients or the extract was a little too potent.
“What if it had side effects? What if I never feel again?”
“It’s nilotpala lotus extract, Cyno. If it was toxic to humans, I wouldn’t have even began experimenting on it.”
Cyno considered that, then nodded.
“Stop moving.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m almost done. Just keep that under your nose.”
“Y’know, that’s why I knew you weren’t a criminal.”
Tighnari really did need to concentrate on these stitches, but it was hard not to listen to Cyno when he talked of his own accord.
“No one who has ulterior motives would ever have so much respect for life that they would only think about the effects after they’ve started.”
“Ethical medical practice?”
“Mn.”
So, Cyno got chattier when he was delirious with pain. Duly noted.
“I think you have too much faith in me, General.”
“I think you have too little faith in yourself.”
Tighnari pulled the thread tight, closing the wound.
“Tighnari.”
He grunted in acknowledgement.
“I need to sneeze.”
“You’re going to reopen several wounds if you do that.”
“How do I—”
Tighnari wiped the blood off one hand, then reached up to pinch Cyno’s upper lip between two fingers.
Cyno made several noises that sounded something like ‘what’s the big idea’, until he slowed to a stop.
Tighnari let his lip go.
Cyno looked up at him, awed. “You know everything.”
“You’re delirious. Now, be quiet and let me work.”
Tighnari grabbed a roll of gauze and went back to work.
...
..
.
When Cyno woke, it was already nearing sunrise.
Tighnari had heeded Shirin’s threats to his person and called in sick for his morning shift. If only to look after Cyno, he reasoned. He knew next to nothing about Cyno’s work ethic, but he’d be damned if he’d let the general leave fresh out of surgery.
“Did you even get any sleep?” Cyno grumbled.
Tighnari sighed. “I couldn’t.”
He’d had to wipe the blood off his deck, then off Cyno’s limbs as he slept. And when sleep evaded him still, he stayed up to pen his response back to Naphis.
All the while, he couldn’t wipe Cyno’s awed look from his memory.
Laughter and amusement, he’d seen in shades and shadows hanging off the apples of Cyno’s cheeks. But nothing so pure and undeniable, nothing as apparent as awe.
For the longest time, Tighnari had found himself having to really study human expressions. Humans had no tails and looming ears like his. They expressed themselves with eyes, with hands, with mouths and voices.
Cyno had been one of the harder ones to read among the humans Tighnari cared to want to understand— with his stiff and stern expressions, his twitchy smiles and thunderclap laughs.
But that look on his face.
You know everything, Cyno had said. He’d believed. Like Tighnari had hung the stars himself.
I think you have too little faith in yourself.
With a few grunts of effort and pain, Cyno tried to push himself up from bed, but Tighnari was fast enough to lean up and push him back down with a gentle hand.
His tail hit the edge of his desk a little too hard in his agitation. “I’d like to believe you’re the type of bad patient in that you never get sick, General. If you’re the type that doesn’t heed doctor’s orders, I’m going to be very upset with you.”
“You don’t have the patients to be a doctor.”
Tighnari stared at him.
Cyno stared back.
Tighnari took a deep breath and asked the Seven what he’d done to deserve this.
“Tighnari.”
His ear twitched at the sudden solemn turn to Cyno’s tone. He had to stifle the urge to sit up straight at the sight of sincere earnestness evident in Cyno’s eyes.
“Thank you for this. I probably…”
Tighnari shook his head, a little embarrassed. “Even if we weren’t friends, I would have done the exact same. Had it been the person who had sent that bolt to your wound, I would have put everything down to dress their wounds. So really, you don’t have to thank me.”
“Would you have lost sleep over them too?”
Tighnari put his forehead by the edge of his mattress, right by Cyno’s arm. It gave him an excuse not to look at Cyno when he said, “Probably not, no.”
But not for the reasons Cyno was thinking.
“Then let me thank you for that much, at least.”
“How?”
“… Would an IOU count?”
Tighnari huffed out a laugh, digging his forehead into the mattress. “Yeah. Yeah, sure.”
As Umm sat Collei down, Cyno sidled up to him.
They had already talked about this, Tighnari had thought. He’d told him as much. Collei was important to Cyno, therefore Tighnari would care to make Collei important to himself as well.
He had seen the gaps between Cyno’s words, and had put them close to his heart. Though Tighnari found it hard to form bonds easily, he knew just from the stutter in her words that he’ll eventually fall in with Collei before the week was even up.
So, what was this? What were these brows furrowed and shoulders hunched? Dread? Despair?
“What.”
“I just fear this might be worth a lot more than just… a few dates.”
Tighnari crossed his arms, leaning down to meet Cyno’s averted gaze. “What am I losing, doing this for you? You had arguments earlier, didn’t you? Collei’s no infant, she’s capable enough. She needs a teacher, not a parent. At most, I’ll just be teaching her like I do with our trainees here already, with a few extra lessons on the side. Mondstadt’s Knights are paying for my time, and I don’t doubt that if I tell you she needs something, you’ll have it sent personally before the day ends, no matter where you are.”
He blinked, then blinked again, hoping to clear his vision.
“Are you… pouting?”
Cyno, very definitely pouting, said, “No.”
Tighnari couldn’t stifle the delight in his tone, his tail wagging. “You are. You so are. Cyno, look at me. C’mon, I’m getting a little tired of standing like this.”
Cyno met his gaze, pout more severe now that Tighnari had a front-facing view of his face. He stifled a laugh.
“Do you want me to tell you this is too much?”
Silence.
Tighnari reached out, grabbing one of Cyno’s hands. He thought perhaps that would silence his doubts instead of Tighnari’s reasons. “Nothing you ask of me will ever be too much, Cyno. I will hem and haw, and I will complain, yes. But if you ask me, because I know you will only ask me when you need me, I will accept whatever it is. Alright?”
“Um…”
He felt Cyno jolt under his hand.
Tighnari turned to face Collei, a smile on his face. “Collei. Were Granny Umm’s Akademiya stories interesting?”
Collei had that look on her face that just screamed ‘what response will make this person happy,’ as she thought about answering him.
“You can say no,” Tighnari mock-whispered. “I wish I could just ignore some of what she says, but she just has one of those voices you have to listen to.”
She let out a startled giggle, then laughed after a quick glance to Cyno.
Tighnari looked over his shoulder to see Cyno’s widened eyes—shock.
“Oh, get over it. Not everyone’s as virtuous and principled as you, General.”
Let it not be said that Tighnari was not thorough. Despite Cyno’s utmost faith in him (or perhaps in spite of it), Tighnari’s never been the type to be a teacher before.
When he’d written to Master Naphis for advice on how to manage someone as hot-blooded about learning as Collei, all he got was a, Congratulations, dear boy. And good luck.
When he’d written to his parents, they sent back, You must bring her and Cyno home in the next harvest season. We cannot wait to meet them.
Not a single word of advice.
Collei was not a difficult student, mind. She was a little slow on the uptake, but despite Tighnari’s temperament, her determination to learn was a soothing balm over his slightly inflated and bruised ego.
They’d had a system. He’d go on patrol, check and correct her lettering work, then bring her to whatever he had planned next. If she encountered an unfamiliar word, she’d write it down on her notepad, and he would check over her spelling and explain what it meant.
On bad days, they spent it indoors. Tighnari managed to begin a fictional book reading habit due to this. This far in, already several months into their acquaintance, they’ve managed to finish three separate novels, reading a chapter at a time and comparing notes and predictions between.
Cyno visited sometimes, often lasting a day at a time. Tighnari had pinned the pattern down to thrice a month. First to bring funds, the second time to bring gifts, and the third to spend his day off.
The bond between Cyno and Collei was… tentative.
Tighnari sometimes noticed Cyno’s sudden silent bouts during meal times, a faraway look as he watched Collei enthusiastically tell them about her day or the last book they’d read together. It got significantly worse when some days Cyno dropped by, Collei’s condition was bad.
“It’s something to do with the seal,” Cyno reasoned, staring out over the ravine as he moved to make room on the log he was sitting on.
Tighnari handed him one of the honeyed dates, listening carefully, noting the wistfulness in Cyno’s gaze, his face silhouetted against the sunset.
“I think, when she’s weak like this, it reminds her of what happened before. And when I show up, it gets a little worse.”
Before. That was how Cyno had addressed it in his letters as well. That was always how he addressed it, never outright naming the events.
Tighnari hadn’t even considered asking Collei. No doubt she’d rather just forget about whatever it is, if this was how Cyno was about it.
“Before,” he muttered, looking out to the Divine Tree in the distance. “What did you seal. I’ve never thought to ask.”
Cyno glanced at him, away, then back again. “You never… Oh.”
“You never told me,” Tighnari pointed out. “Though I don’t have the heart to ask Collei myself. I’d rather she leave it in the past, whatever it was.”
“She was given to a scholar to cure her Eleazar.”
Oh. One of those cases, Tighnari noted with some distaste.
“Only… they weren’t looking for a cure. They were experimenting on gods’ remains. Infusing children with negative energy. She said she was the only one who’d gotten out. Whatever it was that manifested, it had pushed back her Eleazar.”
“So… when you sealed it…”
“The Eleazar came back,” Cyno finished, frowning now. “I wonder if she regrets it, sometimes. But Minci had told me that one of the knights found that the negative energy had been controlling her, manifesting into black flames. They believed it was how she got out, and how she was the only survivor. I think… At least I hope she agrees that whatever it was is worse than living with her disease, with you taking care of her.”
“You mean us.”
“No, I mean you,” Cyno insisted. “I’m barely here for most of the month, and she gets uncomfortable around me.”
Tighnari rolled his eyes. “Agree to disagree. She takes after you more than you know.”
Collei was clean and sleeping when Cyno arrived, early enough in the morning that the sun had yet to rise. Tighnari’s duskbird had reached him a little too late.
There was no change in his usual stern demeanor, but there was a restlessness to the way his feet shuffled against the floorboards. Worry.
“She’s alright. Stable,” he said, weary, bone-tired. Just that morning he’d been presenting his case about the Withering’s quickened progression and the state of Eleazar patients in Gandharva. He hadn’t expected himself to go into a frenzy, hunting Collei down in the woods so soon after getting back.
Cyno stepped up beside him to look over Collei’s sleeping form, shoulders relaxing.
Then, he put a hand on Tighnari’s shoulder.
“How are you holding up?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re agitated.”
“I’m not.”
Cyno knelt at the foot of Collei’s bed, right in front of his seat. He stared up at Tighnari, unassuming and understanding, like he was looking straight through Tighnari.
It made everything about his day sting worse.
Tighnari looked away. “Stop that. I’m fine, you don’t have to coddle me.”
“I’ve never once coddled you since we met.”
He hated when Cyno made a point when they argued. He could tout Tighnari as a reasonable and kind scholar all he wants, Tighnari was proud to the point of pettiness. The more Cyno pushed this, the less willing Tighnari was going to be to concede to his point.
“What do you want me to say? I am upset. The girl I’ve been looking after for over a year now rushed into danger on her first day as trainee. And you know? You know what she told me before she passed out? She showed me her Vision, Cyno, told me she won’t let anyone’s efforts go to waste.”
Tighnari stood. He was about to raise his voice. He couldn’t chance Collei hearing all of this.
Cyno followed as he went to the furthest broken bridge on Collei’s hut.
“Tighnari.”
“She thinks she owes us. It feels terrible. That’s a terrible thing to know.” He turned, meeting Cyno’s eyes, feeling his vision blur, his ears pressed flat against the curve of his head. “She’s not a natural optimist. She’s not— she’s not these older people with Eleazar expecting the illness to pass like a virus. She was born with this. She doesn’t think she has long left to live, so she’s pushes. She joins the forest rangers, risks her life for a stranger’s child. She could have died, yeah, but she thinks she will die anyway. And when she apologizes to me tomorrow, she won’t mean a word of it. And I won’t accept it.”
“She will. You will.”
“We won’t. Cyno, we won’t. She’s as stubborn as you and twice as thick, and I will never believe that she actually wanted to join the rangers because she looked up to me. She joined because she wants to feel useful, and that will always weigh in the back of my mind. She won’t pull that again because it will worry me, not because it might bring her harm.”
Cyno took a deep breath, and it felt like he’d stolen Tighnari’s.
Slow and sure, he came into Tighnari’s space, and pulled him in by the nape.
Tighnari wiped his tears on the crook of Cyno’s neck, feeling himself tremble in place.
“Is it so hard to believe in your merits that you’d sooner believe the worst of Collei than the best of yourself?”
“Don’t patronize me,” he muttered, wrapping his arms around Cyno. “You humans aren’t so difficult to read.”
“Neither are you. I think we all think we’re unknowable to others. But someone once told me that the essence of fear is a lack of knowledge and lack of willingness to learn.”
Tighnari hated it when Cyno used his own words against him.
“Collei’s mortality, inevitable or not, is the wrong thing to focus on,” Cyno added.
“I know that. Which was why I didn’t want to tell you any of this. I’m not the one who kept pushing.”
“But it did make you feel better.”
He hated, most of all, when he couldn’t even disagree with Cyno’s reasoning.
Tighnari sighed. “It did make me feel better.”
They stood there, embracing, shaded under canopy under moonlight. The distant roar of waterfall was loud in his ears, as was the sound of the shroomboars sloshing around the waters beneath Gandharva’s roots, and the high trilling of crickets.
Loudest was Cyno’s relaxed breathing, next to the steady beating of his heart.
“We love you, Tighnari, both Collei and I.” The rumble of Cyno’s voice settled the trembling at his core. “We’ll try not to worry you too much. I’ll talk to her after your patrol tomorrow.”