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“Dear Forest Watcher,
It has been a while since my last letter, I know, and I apologize.
With the overhaul in management with the Akademiya, there’s been a lot of things that we’ve been handling that require my supervision. I do not doubt that there’s also plenty on your plate, what with the Sages having moved in permanently, and the scramble to clear out the remaining Withering Zones. I hope you’ve been taking care of yourself nonetheless.
With this letter, I’ve sent two packs of Candied Ajilenakh Nuts. One for you, the other for Collei. Hopefully, they’ve both reached you safely, and not crushed to bits with the handling. If it was the latter, do let me know so I can have the word with the delivery boy.
Otherwise, I’ve also attached plenty of documents for your perusal, pertaining to the Withering, as well as possible spots of where it has formed. The locations were based on Lord Kusanali’s estimates. Other than that, there is also additional information pertaining to Eleazar, now that it’s cured, and documented side effects despite the healing. From what I hear, residual fatigue will remain, but those who have had scales formed over their skin are now dealing with blisters under the scales that will need to be taken care of. The medical notes will provide you with more information than I can in just a letter.
Other than that, people have also noted that the Dusk Birds have started a new vocal pattern. If you could, do let me know if you manage to study this phenomenon further.
I will return to Gandharva Ville when things have settled, and then we can have dinner as we always do. I miss our routine.
Sincerely,
General Mahamatra Cyno.
PS: Before I forget, here’s something I thought of. A housewife was cooking some curry on the stove. She burnt her hands when she touched the pot. She wasn’t wearing any cloves. Do you get it?
There’s something between a dull ache and a sense of numbness that comes from knowing that what you want most in this life may never be yours. Tighnari sits in Gandharva Ville, reading over Cyno’s letter, relishing every scribbled word on the page, written in ink and sealed away with the elemental combination that they had discovered. He reads over each word, again and again, and like this, he forces a sense of fulfillment, the same forced contentment he had tried to fill himself with for nearly a whole decade now.
Knowing he was safe was enough. Having these letters, his friendship, the trust they shared - it was enough.
Tighnari had grown up knowing exactly what he wanted. He wanted to get into the Amurta Darshan in the Akademiya. He got it. He was going to specialize in botany and ecology - he did it. He wanted to leave the Akademiya to become a Forest Watcher - and he succeeded. Yet, those things were a given for him, in exchange for a little something called romance.
He remembered a conversation from long ago with his father as he put the letter away, reminiscent of simpler times.
”People have soulmate marks. Every person has someone out there who was made just for them, and they’ll have matching marks at the exact same spot on both their bodies. Your mother and I have them right here, on our inner arms. See? It’s a fossilized insect. We could never settle on what kind of insect it was, though.” His father laughed, rolling up his sleeve to show the little kit in his lap the beautiful markings on his skin.
The much younger Tighnari gazed in awe, tracing the pattern under his fingertips. He had plenty of questions, simple and complex, so much curiosity in this tiny body of his.
“Not all people get lucky enough to meet their soulmate though.” His father continues on, before taking both of the child’s little hands in his much bigger ones. “I don’t know if you’ll ever meet yours. But, we who descended from the Valuka Shuna will only ever fall in love once. This is something that goes even deeper than spirits, Tighnari. Do you understand?”
At that point, he didn’t. What would go deeper than spirits? Perhaps, an ancestral connection that ran so deeply in his veins that he was sure it was engraved in every inch of his bones. He understood now, he wanted to tell his father. That sometimes, his race would go above and beyond for the simple act of falling in love, even if it wasn’t to the perfect person. That sometimes, members of his race wouldn’t wait around for the perfect person to come along, and that it could also just take the right person.
For a long time, Tighnari thought that Cyno was just the ‘right’ person. The right person, and the wrong person, rolled into one.
The Forest Watcher sits at his desk, looking over the small stack of documents that was sent together with the letter. True enough, there were dozens of reports and short research results that had likely come from the Akademiya. Information he wouldn’t have been able to get his hands on, but invaluable nonetheless. While Tighnari’s specialty was in plant biology, he still filled his mind with other knowledge - human biology, medicine, animals and conservationism, all were important as a Forest Ranger.
Even then, he was distracted. He’d been reading over the same starting paragraph over and over again for the past ten or so minutes. Instead, his mind lingered on Cyno still, and how long it’s been since they’d seen each other. Months? Maybe over half a year now, with nothing but letters to tide him by.
With the way his heart ached, Tighnari felt like it could be years.
It was worse when Cyno had put himself into self-exile, Tighnari reminds himself. Then, he didn’t even have any letters. He only had himself, and his worries, anxiety building up in his stomach every night until Dehya and the Traveler had come to inform him of the General Mahamatra’s current location.
Still.
He reflects on his biology. How falling in love only once was a cursed thing, and how having a soulmate was just another burden that weighed so heavily on his chest that he was suffocating under it sometimes. How he could long for someone so deeply, so desperately, with the dedication of the Sun and the Moon that rises and falls in the sky everyday like it was his lifelong duty.
Soulmate, he thinks with disdain, finally flipping the page of the document. He belonged to Cyno in ways the Matra would never even realize. Cyno, who barely covered himself up despite spending a good majority of his time hunting and fighting, had left his soulmate mark bare for the world to see.
It wasn’t long after Cyno had declared that Tighnari was no threat to the Akademiya that a friendship had formed between them, though Tighnari was a little more than infatuated after a few weeks. Cyno would be among the few that met him on the same wavelength, able to carry a conversation about anything and everything, because the world filled them with such curiosities. And even more so, Cyno would be among an even fewer number of people that didn’t treat him like a specimen to be studied in the lab.
It didn’t take long for Tighnari to notice it - he was approaching his feelings for Cyno knowing that he was about to doom himself to a life where he couldn’t love his perfect match, wherever that person was, when all of those thoughts came to a startling halt. Cyno was helping him to reach for a book, and he caught sight of it - the familiar mark of a scarab beetle nestled in the center of a Nilotpala Lotus. Right there, on the right of his ribcage under his arm where it could stay hidden so long as Cyno didn’t lift his arm up.
It was like getting tossed smack dab into the desert heat, searing hot and making his thoughts fuzzy and disoriented as the realization burned him to the core.
After all, he’d been looking at the same mark on himself in the mirror for years now. Perhaps Tighnari could have thought of this as the best case scenario. After all, the man he was falling for and his soulmate were the same person. However, with both of them being so rational minded, and with their friendship barely beginning, Tighnari had made the decision back then to wait for a better time.
The better time never really came.
”Soulmates? I’m sure mine exists somewhere but… I’m not looking for a life partner. I doubt they’d enjoy that I’d be gone most of the time anyway. That’s why I don’t date either.” Cyno had told him once, while they were having a conversation under the stars.
That night, Cyno was in no rush to leave, instead finding himself a nice day off, and still chose to spend it with Tighnari. Tighnari watched him under the moonlight, the way a silver glow had kissed his skin, and listened to the sound of his heart thumping steadily in his chest.
They talked about many things that night, from Collei, to the Akademiya, to the seas, to the snowy mountains of Snezhnaya until Tighnari finally, carefully, broached the topic of soulmates. He was hoping that he would finally let the cat out of the bag about the matching marks on their bodies. But instead, the answer he received kept him mum.
“So, you don’t want to meet them?” Tighnari asked carefully, after a moment of silence.
“I’d rather they fall in love with someone else. It’d be easier for both of us.” Cyno hums, and turns on his side, facing Tighnari as they lay there on the blanket. Tighnari does the same, turning to watch him, drawn into him like a moth to a flame.
“You know what?”
“What?”
“Your mark is beautiful.” And perhaps Tighnari could have meant his own mark as well, when their marks match on perfectly on their skin, right down to the exact placement and angle of every line and shadow, but that wasn’t the case. Cyno walked around with barely any clothes on his body, and he wore his mark so beautifully, the dark lines on his tanned skin, the way the petals of the lotus rippled when he moved.
He was biased, he knew that for fact.
He lets the words tumble out of his mouth before he can even register saying them, “And anyone would be lucky to have you for a soulmate. No matter how busy you are.”
Tighnari doesn’t remember what happens after that. Only that they fell asleep out in the open skies, and he still reminisces on the way Cyno breathed while he slept. How he was close enough that Tighnari could feel the warmth emanating from him in the cold of the night. How he woke up and Cyno’s arm had wrapped around him, and how much he savored the moment. Tighnari was nothing more than a fox in love, and as a creature that could only ever fall in love once, he was unashamed of how many memories of Cyno he kept close to his heart.
As a top graduate from the Akademiya, the Forest Watcher could ask for anything from the Akademiya. He had a rather high amount of clearance to information on the Akasha Terminal, and there were plenty of people who would still look to hopefully get him to pursue research with them. There were always gifts, incentives, invitations, but there was nothing in this world that he wished for more than Cyno. Unfortunately, the one person that he yearned for, and him alone, was off-limits to him.
How tragic. Tighnari belittles himself for it, because he knew the facts of the matter. Cyno was right, they were both too busy for something as finicky as a relationship, and it would ultimately be easier for both of them. There was just a child somewhere in Tighnari’s mind that was still sparkly-eyed about the thought of meeting his soulmate one day, and having a bond as lovely as his parents do.
And thus, for the past handful of years, he’d never brought up the topic again. What laid there for him was only something unattainable. It wasn’t worth uprooting everything they’ve worked for.
Tighnari figures he wouldn’t have any reason to bring it up either way. Even now, as soulmates, Cyno didn’t feel any sort of pull or attraction, or at least, has never given any indication of it. He simply carried on as himself, steadfast, loyal, a dutiful friend and a prevailer of justice. There were no lingering looks, no quickened heartbeat, and not even a hint of a thought of what if.
On the other hand, Tighnari had considered so many What-If’s in his mind that there were probably enough to recreate a new world with just these iterations of them. He wondered how many moments he’d stolen away for himself, watching Cyno sleep in the candlelight glow of his hut after a long trek from wherever he came from. How many moments he gazes at the curve of his lips and wondered how it would feel to be kissed by them. How many moments his heart raced after Cyno said something particularly sweet - Cyno had a way with his words beyond his bad jokes, and he didn’t even know it.
Tighnari shakes the thoughts from his head, knowing that they would lead him nowhere but down a bitter path. This was what Cyno wanted, a life of duty, free of romantic burden. As Cyno’s closest friend, he would do anything to ensure that their relationship stayed that way.
How he managed to keep his soulmate mark a secret from Cyno this whole time remains a mystery, but Tighnari was a modestly dressed man either way. He disliked showing off his skin, baring it to mosquitos in the jungle. Even in the desert, he opted for a full cloak to at least provide some shade to himself.
In all its irony, Tighnari was Cyno’s closest friend, and yet, this made him a person who kept the most secrets from Cyno. Tighnari would simply go to his grave gripping onto the secrets of his heart.
Slowly, he leans forward, bringing his focus back on the research findings, once again burying himself in his work. It was easier to ignore this gnawing feeling in his heart in the face of work, and it’s been the same thing he’s done this whole time - he and Cyno were the same with this too, they were simply people who put their duty before anything else.
At the very least, even if he could not have what he wanted, his dreams were sweet.
That would have to be enough.
Tighnari tucks the letter away, a response to be written later when his mind wasn’t so full of all things Cyno, full of how much he yearned to see him again, to hear the sounds of his footsteps walking into Gandharva Ville, to smell the electricity on his clothes.
What a lost cause he was.
It’s another month and a half before anything happens again. Tighnari had sent two letters to Cyno in this time, one as a reply to his previous letter, and one more detailing the research he’s managed to gather based on the topics Cyno had provided.
At this point, a lot more has settled down from the initial buzz and busyness. Even in the Forest, they’d managed to clean out most of the Withering Zones, and were running patrols to find any more that they might have missed. The ex-Sages have settled into their exile, and Tighnari gets rangers to deliver food to them thrice a week. Tighnari had managed to come into contact with his mentor again and got the full story from his perspective.
And yet, there’s still no word from Cyno.
Tighnari knows that he’s alright, having not received any news that the General Mahamatra was found dead - he thinks Cyno is important enough to have that announced if that was ever the case. With the Akademiya’s changes, surely Cyno was busy with everything, being a man of his position. The fox could only let out the umpteenth sigh this week, this was getting more and more common as the days began to drag on without any news from his dearest Matra.
“Master Tighnari!” Collei comes stumbling in through his open doors, beaming from ear to ear, interrupting his train of thought. He was so deep in his own self-wallowing that he didn’t even register the thunder of her running across the wooden planks. Pull yourself together, Forest Watcher.
Tighnari turns away from the plant specimens he was studying and faces Collei, assessing what could have brought her here in such a rush. “What is it? Is there an emergency?”
“No! Master Tighnari, you have to come quickly, it’s Master Cyno! He’s back!”
That certainly got Tighnari’s attention. He fixed the pouches askew on his belts and set off, following after Collei’s ecstatic pitter patter of steps. He’d been so deep in his own thoughts of missing Cyno, he’d missed the sound of his heavy but certain footfalls through the rainforest. When they get closer, Tighnari tells Collei to prepare some cooling tea and hydrating fruits for Cyno’s journey. He keeps walking until hazel eyes finally meet white hair and dark skin, and there is an undeniable relief that he feels as he moves closer and closer to where Cyno stood.
Time slowed as their eyes met. Or maybe, that was just him.
Tighnari didn’t miss the way the General Mahamatra’s eyes softened when recognition reflected in his irises. How could he do anything but fall for him when Cyno looked at him like that? The Forest Watcher smiles, stopping a foot away from Cyno, though he only thinks about how it would feel to move closer, to step into his space and embrace him, to press their lips together and soak up the other’s warmth.
Alas, they were just friends.
“Finally found the time for a visit, General?” The tease comes out effortlessly, as if he didn’t just think about pulling Cyno into a kiss just a second ago.
“Yes. I brought you your favorites.”
“Candied Ajilenakh Nuts?”
“Yes. And also the finest Henna Berries I could find before I returned here.”
“Henna Berries?”
“Yes, I remembered you told me before that you didn’t have enough samples of them to study from the last time I brought them to you. So I brought more.”
“You remembered…” He echoed, his tail swishing a little to indicate his excitement. He loved desert specimens but loathed the desert. This made it harder to study the plants there, but Cyno did what he could to mitigate this. This was something he loved about him too - always thoughtful and generous. Instead of delving straight into the desert fruits like how he wanted, peeling into them to inspect their seeds and flesh, he instead gestured towards Gandharva Ville.
“Let’s go to my hut. I already instructed Collei to prepare something for you.”
“Ever efficient, Nari.”
“Well, I can’t rely on anyone else around here, can I?” The joke is light-hearted and manages to pull a soft chuckle from Cyno. He realized he’s missed so many things about the Matra that everything seemed like they were meeting again after years.
The sound of his laughter almost always gets him, making his heart beat erratically. He turns away, refusing to let the other see the way his lips curled upwards at the sound of him. It’s been too long, he concludes, if he was able to start smiling over something as simple as a laugh. Well, he’s always loved the sound of it, quiet but warm, always genuine - they’d spend nights laughing about the silliest things, and Tighnari missed that too.
They make their way back to his hut, and Tighnari tells Cyno to take a seat by the table outdoors instead of indoors. The weather was nice today, they could do with some sunlight too. He gets the gifts from Cyno, thanking him once more before he makes his way inside.
As he turned to place the gifts on the counter, he made a collision with Collei. The collision would displace the hot tea in the tray she carried all over Tighnari. The spill happened in slow motion, but he felt the scald in microseconds, and the feeling of boiling heat on his skin earned a loud cry from his lips.
In the fog of his adrenaline, he could hear Collei apologizing, the panicky pitch of anxiety in her tone as she put the tray aside, trying to make it better. Even with Eleazar being cured, and Collei slowly recovering in terms of energy and long-term side effects, if there was one thing she would always be, Tighnari thinks, it would be clumsy. He brushed by her, pulling his clothes off to get the hot water away from his skin, working quickly to get the clothes off.
“What’s wrong, what happened?”
“I didn’t see Master Tighnari come in, and I turned around too quickly, and I spilled the hot tea all over him. Ah, I’ll go get more water and bandages!” Her talking speed was almost twice its normal pace before she sprinted off to the main hut to get some medication.
Tighnari’s skin was pink, and everything pink felt like it was searing under his skin. He peels the tight undershirt over his head, tossing it to a corner of his hut and grabs the pitcher of water to run it over his arms for basic first aid. Outside, he can still hear Collei pitter pattering, dodging through the usual throngs of people around Gandharva VIlle.
In the next moment, he’s standing outside of the door, pouring the water over his body slowly, letting his skin cool off bit by bit. He lets out a long sigh, there goes the thought of tea and snacks. His eyes turn to look at Cyno, who had been hovering close to him since Collei had dashed off, “What a thing to return to, hm?”
Cyno kept his eyes on his torso, “Did you always have that mark?”
Shit.
Tighnari stared down at his skin, still pink, but the scarab on his rib rippled as he breathed in and out. How careless of him. Tighnari doesn’t lift his head, the answer coming out softly, “Yes.”
“Did you always know?”
The question is vague, but the meaning is there - how long have you kept this a secret? Cyno’s tone is far from accusatory but Tighnari feels guilty anyway. His stomach starts to twist in knots - anxiety is not a feeling he is familiar with. He is always certain, always sure of himself in all aspects even if he is unfamiliar - open to concepts but never insecure of his own being. He was always sure in all aspects of everything except for love. And then, when he was sure that Cyno would never be with him, that they didn’t stand a chance, he never faltered again, they were friends, and that was that.
So what was this feeling that turned and knotted his gut and squeezed at his windpipe?
“Yes, I did.”
Before he could continue, Collei returns with several jugs of water and some bandages, and their conversation is cut short. Tighnari teaches Collei how to treat burn wounds, bandaging them in such a way that would allow it to breathe, but not to let the sensitive skin get damaged even further. Cyno stays close by, watching Tighnari. He is expressionless through most of it, and for the first time in years, Tighnari doesn’t know what’s going on in his head.
It is nightfall when they’re alone again, Tighnari and Cyno have barely spoken to each other, but Collei didn’t seem to notice, filled with questions for Cyno about what he’s been up to and chattering excitedly about what she’s been up to in return. They had dinner together, and Collei barely allowed Tighnari to do anything, considering the sting he felt when his skin met any friction, even against the bandages. She talked and talked, and Tighnari sat back, listening and supplementing the conversation when there was a need. But here, and now, Collei had just left, and it was just them again.
Tighnari sits on the bed, hands folded together as Cyno walks in, closing the waxy leaf doors behind him.
He wanted privacy.
They stare at each other in momentary silence. Cyno doesn’t make a move, standing at the door as he crossed his arms. Tighnari, for once, was at a loss for words with Cyno. Where does he start? What does he say? Is there even anything that he can say? He deliberately kept it from Cyno, if only to respect his wishes of never meeting them. Still. Still, he understands the tension. Even if Cyno never wanted any romance, he still deserved to know. Even if Cyno claimed to never want a partner, it wasn’t Tighnari’s right to decide for the both of them.
“Would you have ever told me?”
His head snapped up, and he looked at Cyno for the first time that night. His brows furrowed and his ears folded back, a sign of his guilt. “No.”
“Why?” Cyno’s voice is calm, controlled. But even then, he knew, he knew this man better than anything else, better than any plant, any animal, any person in his life. There was a current under the surface, and it would rip him apart if he got pulled under.
“You said so yourself. You’re not looking for a life partner. That you’d rather they fall in love with someone else.”
“But I still deserved to know that the one that I’m supposed to be waiting for has already been here for the past decade of my life.”
“I… didn’t want to burden you with it.”
“That’s not my point, Tighnari.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I just thought… I was doing what was best for the both of us. You didn’t want anyone interfering with your work and-”
“But it was you. I would’ve wanted to know that it was you. Then I would’ve-”
“I didn’t want to get my heart broken.”
Cyno lifted his eyes, staring at him as if bewildered by the confession. Tighnari wondered if he was a good actor, or if the Matra was just that dense. He figured it was the latter - when his life was dedicated to pursuing order and justice, he supposed that really didn’t leave much room for much else. Cyno was an awkward sort, someone who emanated quiet confidence, but still worried about his appearances and preferred that people would remain comfortable. He wouldn’t suspect anything out of the ordinary so long as Tighnari didn’t do anything too strange.
Tighnari let out a soft chuckle, his eyes flit away as a smile formed on his lips - it’s wry, filled with the irony of this situation, “I didn’t… want to tell you, because I figured that there was no point to it. You’d just be burdened with this, with me. You’d think about it too often, and… when you decide to reject me, and say that that life isn’t for you, I don’t think I could handle it if you said it to my face.”
“Tighnari, I-”
“It’s no matter now, I suppose. Somehow, I didn’t think this would be worse than getting rejected.”
“Tighnari.” Callused hands grasped his smaller shoulders, and he blinked, Cyno coming back into focus before him. When did he get all the way here? “Stop thinking so much.”
Whatever he was talking about, whatever he was thinking about slips away from him, like water that seeps under the cracks, spilled and eventually forgotten about. He only watched Cyno with wide eyes, a metaphorical wall being built right now, as if trying to brace for the blow that was about to come.
“Tighnari.” He called again, and his hands came to cradle his cheeks, cupping his face in his hands. Like this, he was utterly enraptured, gazing at Cyno as if he were hypnotized. He wouldn’t doubt if he were, right now, he felt like a puppet on a string, dancing to whatever movement Cyno wished upon him. “I’ve always loved you.”
The words crashed onto him like a tidal wave, sweeping him up in its violent current. Tidal waves were dangerous, but this - this felt more like it washed away everything that he’d been building up, keeping out, and shutting down for all the years that he spent loving Cyno. It washed away all the tiny impurities, and left Tighnari on the shore, bared wide open for the other to see.
“I still love you.” He says, so certainly, enunciating every single syllable in the charming way that he does. Cyno says it as if it was the only thing that mattered in this room, and Tighnari was starting to believe that that was the truth.
“Then why-”
“Because… you know how the phrase goes? If you love something, let it go. I loved you so much, while knowing that you had a soulmate somewhere out there. Someone that probably wasn’t me. And I still remember what you said before all of that - that you were afraid of falling in love because you only had one chance to do it. I didn’t want to ruin that for you.”
Tears stung in Tighnari’s eyes, collecting along the waterline of his eyes. The fox couldn’t tear his eyes away, even when the first drop fell from his eyes, down his skin and colliding with Cyno’s thumb.
“Why do you cry, Tighnari?”
“Because I feel so stupid… but relieved. Silly and dumb and idiotic and a fool, but I love you. I’ve loved you for so long, it always felt like a lost cause knowing that you didn’t want to meet your soulmate. And then, I loved you for even longer, thinking that you never felt anything in return. There were no signs, I’ve got good hearing, you know, but you never seemed to react in any way that would indi-”
He gets cut off by something warm against his lips. Callused fingertips, and the flesh of his lips were slightly chapped. He always wondered what it would feel like to be kissed by Cyno. Now he knew.
Tighnari could do nothing but melt into it, his tail thumping excitedly against the mattress of his bed. His hands buried themselves into white locks, and he pulled Cyno ever closer, into the space that he occupied until they were close enough that the fox could bask in the other’s warmth. His skin tingled, and he didn’t know if it was the burns or because of Cyno. His own heart jackhammered in his chest, threatening to burst through his ribcage as they kissed, and they parted for breath, before they kissed again. This was the right person, the perfect person, and it all boiled down into the feelings that burst forth, exploding out of him like a Tri-Lakshana Creature having been activated by Electro. Soulmates be damned, he knew that this feeling was brought forth by Cyno and Cyno alone.
Like this, they had almost a decade worth of unspoken feelings, years worth of all the sacrifices they made, thinking they were doing what was best for each other.
“Stupid.” Tighnari mumbles against the other’s lips when they part again.
“Me?”
“Both of us.”
Cyno pulls away, gazing at him with a softness that is both familiar and entirely new. Yes, this was a look that had been reserved for only Tighnari, and now, it hid nothing. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to kiss you for.”
“Me too.”
“As long as-”
Tighnari stopped him there, shaking his head, “Don’t ruin this with a joke, just kiss me again.”
There’s a small laugh, and he leaned in again, stopping just short of his lips - “Let’s go on a date.”
“Anything you want.”
“I had suspicions sometimes, that maybe you were my match. Nobody else could ever have me as fascinated the way you do. I don’t know why I doubted myself. I’m almost glad I was here today to witness Collei spilling tea on you.”
Tighnari tipped his head up at that, stealing a peck from the other’s lips, and he knows nothing could wipe the smile off his face right now, “Wishing misfortune upon me already?”
“It’s payback for not telling me.”
“I’m yours, Cyno. If I have to spend the rest of this lifetime making it up to you, I will. But I’m yours.”
When they wake the next morning, Tighnari doesn’t have to imagine what it’s like to kiss Cyno, nor does he have to savor every single moment he gets with Cyno’s arms wrapped around his own body. Instead, his tail wraps around the other as he turns, pressing the softest of pecks against the other’s lips. Then, Tighnari watches as a smile spreads across his lips, sleepy but stirred by the subtle movements. There was one thing in the world that he had wished for - and now that he had it, he would never want for anything more.