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It’s been a bad day.
Between not being able to sleep and Tighnari’s pressing to take it easy, it started out normal-ish enough for Collei. Ever since Sumeru and its people regained their capacity to dream, nightmares have haunted her every other night and she hasn’t been able to hide it from her mentor. Today, though, his nagging was frustrating and more frustrating still was that he was right, and even with the Eleazar gone her hands shook when she held her bow, and her voice died in the middle of asking a question, and she’d blink and the trees off in the distance would be fuzzy and distorted and Tighnari would be reminding her again not to push herself.
It’s a long day. She tries to read, but her eyes slip off the page between paragraphs and no amount of focus keeps her head in the story. She tries to help Tighnari with his research—simple things like gathering books, grinding herbs with the pistil, handing him beakers—but even that fails miserably between her numb dexterity and the vicious trembling in her wrists. Tighnari doesn’t pity her—he’s never looked at her with pity— but this is as close as she’s seen him come in a very long time.
“You don’t have to strain yourself like this,” Tighnari tells her. “You have nothing to prove, Collei.”
She does, though, but won’t argue. Even if she has nothing to prove to him, there's a hell of a lot she wants to prove to herself and being able to ease his worry of her would be a wonderful byproduct. But she isn’t there yet, unfortunately, and today is a day tireless of reminding her.
She can’t remember the last time she was angry enough to cry. She flees the workshop in plenty of time that Tighnari won’t have to see her tears.
The end of the day comes the same as it began, shapes muddy in the distance and her heart stuffed with an upset that has nowhere productive to go. Tighnari is against letting her tag along with the evening patrol, and knowing that he’s made the right decision doesn’t make her feel better. If anything, the knowledge that he’s right about her not being up to it is more frustrating.
She decides to take a walk. If nothing else, she’ll round up some nearby herbs and watch the sun set on this awful day. She takes a pocketknife instead of her bow and dips down the hillside toward the edge of the stream.
Her pocketknife slits through the flower stems easily.
She’s been so okay lately, too. Things have been good. Her bowhand has gotten stronger, her aim more precise, and with her Eleazar gone there's so much more she wants to do and see and become. Everyone has bad days. The fear of backsliding and forgetting how far she’s come is irrational, but present enough that she can’t put it out of her mind.
What if she did forget it all, go back to who she used to be? Surrounded by people who would do their best to stop her, would she be able to stop herself?
“Are you alright?”
Collei’s heart jerks into her throat. She twists around, finds a hand outstretched toward her, and it’s—
That. That hand.
The orange sky bleeds red.
“No!” Collei throws her arms up in front of her face and ducks her head. She tries to get her legs underneath her but her knees knock and she can’t breathe. “St-Stay away from me!”
Cyno yanks back his hand.
Collei remembers.
It’s Cyno, but she— she knows Cyno. He would never try to hurt her.
He never wanted to hurt her.
She lowers her arms to find his face. He’s retreated several steps with a stricken look, far enough to give her space but close enough to intervene. He reigns in his expression swiftly, and if she’d been any less perceptive she would not have seen it at all. The crease between his brow stays and he slides one foot further behind him.
“I-I’m sorry,” Collei stammers, her heart still pounding against her throat. She wants to come closer and reassure him, but her hands grip fistfuls of grass and refuse to unclench. “Th-That wasn’t personal, I…” But it is personal, isn’t it? Because if it’d been Tighnari or another forest ranger or even a complete stranger she would not have reacted that way. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright,” Cyno says gently. “I was on my way to see Tighnari. There were some herbs he’d asked me to collect from the desert—I can leave them with you, if you’ll be headed back soon.”
Collei shakes her head fervently, wishes she could move, wishing she were braver. “N-No, it’s okay! I’m sure he would like to see you, and… I’m not upset that you’re here. I like to see you, too, it’s…”
In her heart she means it, but her body hasn’t caught up. She keeps her head down, shame and anger burning behind her eyes.
“I can visit Tighnari another time,” Cyno says, easy. “You don’t seem like yourself today. Don’t feel like you have to force yourself for my sake. My feelings aren’t hurt.”
But that isn’t true. She saw the kind of look on his face before he schooled himself, and she can’t think of another way to describe it if not deep hurt. But how can she argue when her heart is throbbing and the memory of the seal is burned in the tips of her fingers? She’s trembling and unable to stop trembling, no matter what she tells herself or how desperate she is to assure him.
“Here.” Cyno settles a basket on the ground between them. “It isn’t time sensitive, so feel free to return to the village at your own leisure.”
“O-Oh, okay.” She crawls forward enough to get to her feet and scoop up the basket. “Thank you, I’ll make sure he gets them.”
Cyno nods. Between the setting sun and his hood, it’s hard to read the exact expression on his face, but he clasps his hands together and rocks on his heels to mitigate the silence and Collei is too ashamed of herself to meet his eyes.
“… I’ll see you around, then,” Cyno says. He sounds calm, but a little awkward, and if today had been another day maybe she would find it comforting that he seems as unsure as she is.
But it is today with her heart a panicked hummingbird against her ribcage, and so she squeaks out, “R-Right, you too!” and watches his silhouette retreat into the brush as the sun dips beyond the mountainside. The basket in her arms becomes abruptly heavy.
She walks home with none of the roses she picked.
Tighnari has stew prepared when she arrives. She eats even though she doesn’t have an appetite, while Tighnari sorts through the basket of flora from Cyno.
“I’m surprised he came all the way himself,” Tighnari says absentmindedly. “Though perhaps I shouldn’t be, since he’s done it before.”
The guilt simmering in Collei’s gut hikes to a rolling boil. Her spoon scrapes the bottom of her bowl. Her reservations toward Cyno aren’t personal; she likes Cyno, and he’s never once given reason to doubt his care for her and Tighnari.
Cyno has done so much for her and for the people she cares about. She trusts him.
“… Tighnari?”
“Mm, what is it?”
“Can we have Cyno over for dinner sometime?”
Tighnari stops thumbing through leaflets to turn to her. His surprise is only overpowered by his contemplation. “By all means,” he says, jotting down another note, “but what brought this on?”
She fidgets. “I want to spend more time with him,” she says, “and I want for him to be able to spend more time with us, too, and for you to see him more. I know there’ve been times in the past when he hasn’t been able to see you because of me, or you’ve held him at a distance, but… it isn’t fair to either of you, especially to him, and I… I want to overcome this. I want to be able to see him as Cyno, not…”
Tighnari softens. “Taking the next step forward, then.”
She nods.
“I’ll see what he has going on tomorrow.”
She chokes a little. “T-Tomorrow?”
“Unless that’s too soon for you?”
“N-No, tomorrow’s fine!” Collei waves her hands. “I just wasn’t expecting it to be so soon. Do you think he’s still in the area?”
It’d be awful if he took the day’s journey here only to turn around and leave, only to then be invited for dinner and take another day’s journey to return. She doesn’t know what she’d do with her guilt if that were the case.
Tighnari nods, though, reassuring. “He prefers not to travel at night,” Tighnari says, setting his notebook and basket aside, “so chances are he’s found somewhere nearby to rest. I’ll ask around. If not, I’m sure we can schedule another time.”
“Right…” Her confidence is frail, but strong enough. She wants to get through this. “Tomorrow would be fine with me.”
“Alright. I’ll let you know if I hear from anyone.” Tighnari shifts the basket to the opposite end of the table and steps toward the bookshelf. “Would you like to help me press these flowers or are you heading to bed?”
It’s the first task he’s offered her all day. Of course she jumps at it.
As luck would have it, Cyno is still in the area come morning, and one of the forest rangers managed to stop him long enough to deliver Tighnari’s invite. Cyno agreed—Collei expected nothing less—and now she’s anxiously setting the table for dinner while Tighnari sets one of his fancier teas to steep. It’s her favorite kind of tea and she still has no clue how he figured that out.
She’s just arranged the last set of silverware when there's a knock at the door.
“I’ll get it,” Tighnari says, brushing past her. She nods to herself, willing her nerves to steady. It’s just Cyno, here because she wants him here. She would trust him with anything and anyone.
She wants to overcome this.
Tighnari swings the door in. “You’re late.”
Cyno leans against the doorframe, mirroring Tighnari right down to the expression. “Not unfashionably, I hope?”
“Egregiously,” says Tighnari, moving out of the doorframe. “I’m thankful we caught you. What brought you all the way out here? Don’t tell me you did it just to deliver the herbs.”
“No, there’s a Withering Zone nearby that the Academiya asked me to look into. This was more or less on the way.”
“I haven’t heard of any Withering Zones nearby.”
“That’s the more or less bit, see.” Before Tighnari can sigh, Cyno notices Collei and Collei meets his eyes. “Hello, Collei.”
“H, Hello,” she says. She twists the sole of her foot into the floorboards. “Um, I, I wanted to apologize for yesterday. I’d been feeling off all day, and…”
Cyno smiles thinly. “I didn’t think anything of it,” he says. “It’s alright. Thanks for having me.”
Her anxiety dims, just a little. “I’m glad you could make it.”
Dinner is quiet, but not unpleasant. She eats slowly while Cyno and Tighnari catch up, leaving the bulk of the conversation to them and interjecting when she has something worth adding. Cyno is nothing like Tighnari, but not to his detriment. He tells jokes that flatten Tighnari’s entire composure, and Collei hides smiles behind mouthfuls of stew.
“Well, I’m glad you’re doing well enough to be telling jokes like that,” Tighnari says at long last, when the meal is over and he’s reached whatever joke threshold he has for Cyno. “I’ll put the leftovers away.”
“Oh,” Collei makes to get up, “I can help—”
“It’s alright,” Tighnari says, stacking her bowl atop of his. “It won’t take long. She’s gotten pretty good at TCG,” he turns toward Cyno, who sits straighter. “If you don’t mind using my deck, you two could play a few rounds.”
“I happen to have my deck on me,” assures Cyno, “so there's no need to borrow yours.”
Tighnari droops. “Do you bring your deck with you everywhere?”
“You never know when you’ll need to lend someone a helping hand,” Cyno says.
Tighnari looks kind of like he wants to die. In fact, he looks a lot like he’d like to deck Cyno, but Collei doesn’t dare fan the flame.
“Do you get it?” Cyno says.
“Yes, yes, I get it.”
“Because I can explain—”
Tighnari snags Cyno’s dish with unnecessary force. “Go ahead and start. I’ll deal myself in in a bit.” He casts Collei a glance that she’s come to know well: swap out with me if you need a breather. She appreciates it.
“It was a funny joke,” Cyno tells Tighnari’s back as he walks away. Tighnari doesn’t give him a second glance, and Cyno turns back to Collei the same time she turns back to him. The eye contact is nerve wracking, so she busies herself with gathering her own deck while Cyno picks a suitable team from his.
The first half of the round is played in silence with only the sound of running water and clanking dishes from the kitchen for company.
“So,” Collei says at long last, searching her hand, “have you been busy lately…?”
“No more than usual,” Cyno answers. “I have a new subordinate undergoing training, so it’s an extra thing on my mind.”
She chooses a card and plays it, and then he takes his turn and patiently waits while she sorts again.
“What about you?” Cyno asks. “How has reading been?”
“O-Oh, it’s been good,” she says. She doesn’t know why it surprises her that he remembered; she’s been trying to read more for vocabulary’s sake. “It’s kind of overwhelming sometimes, but I found a really good autobiography about a botanist who made a ton of impactful findings on medicinal herbs, so I’ve been enjoying that.”
“That’s good.” Cyno plays a card when she’s finished with her turn. She swipes one of her fallen characters off the table, turning it facedown. “Are you still writing?”
“I’ve been trying,” Collei says, sifting through her hand. It’s easier to talk when she doesn’t have to look at him: the card game was a good idea. Her nerves are more settled now than they ever have been with Cyno. “I lost a lot of fine motor function with Eleazar, and I want to build it back, but it’s hard.”
Cyno hums.
“But it’s going well,” Collei digresses, hopeful. “I’m working at it a little every day, and Tighnari helps me not to push myself too hard. I’m already much better with my bow than I used to be.”
“That’s great to hear.”
She perks up, her head snapping to find his gaze. “Thank you!”
He’s smiling, and she realizes that she’s smiling too, and it’s nice.
Cyno isn’t scary at all when he smiles like that.
“That subordinate I mentioned,” he goes on, turning back to the game at hand, “he’s a late-stage Eleazar survivor, like you are. His physician recommended he take up an instrument to help rebuild the strength and dexterity in his hands.”
“Really?”
He swipes up his handful of dice to roll, and she collects her own. “Playing an instrument isn’t for everyone,” Cyno says, “but it might be worth considering.”
“I’ll think about it. Thank you.”
The dice hit the tabletop.
Cyno joins them for dinner and card games more frequently after that, and some days are better than others.
The common denominator in every dinner is that she really loves Cyno, and now she’s able to see more and more how deeply he cares for her.
She’s working out her handwriting when there's a knock at the front of Tighnari’s hut. Tighnari is out seeing a patient with a cold, so that leaves her to gather herself up and answer the door. She’s expecting Tighnari, but unless Tighnari left his key behind then it wouldn’t be him.
She swings the door wide to reveal Cyno.
“O-Oh, Cyno!” Collei chirps. The anxious flutter kicks up in her chest, but nowhere near as intensely as she’s used to. “Are you looking for Tighnari? He’s out right now, but you’re welcome to stay until he gets back.”
“Thank you, but it isn’t for Tighnari,” Cyno says, slinging a wide bag off of his shoulder. He presses it toward her, an arm’s length away. “This is for you.”
“For me?” She takes it gingerly. It’s heavier than the basket; heavier than any basket he’s brought Tighnari, in fact, but not so heavy that it’s awkward to hold or painful on her joints. “Do you—Should I open it now?”
“If you’d like,” Cyno says.
She snags a zipper on the side and pulls it her way, carefully opening the bag. The— The case. Opening the case.
An intricately carved wooden lyre rests in a well-insulated case.
It takes her breath away. “Cyno, I—you—?”
“I asked my subordinate where he bought his lyre,” Cyno explains while Collei gapes. “The person who carved it is an experienced craftsman who has been honing her skill for decades. It’s a bit smaller than standard, since her Eleazar patients found it easier to play. But when you’re ready to upgrade to a full-size, just let me know.”
“Cyno—” It’s starting to set in. Her name is engraved in it, adorned with a golden finish that gleams under the sun. “This—This is mine?”
“It’s yours.”
“But, I… I can’t repay you for it? I can’t repay you—this is precious, I…”
Cyno gives her that smile again, the one that reaches his eyes and softens every hard line on his face. “I’m glad you like it.”
“I’m going to work really hard to learn it,” she swears, engraving the promise on her head and her heart and wherever else it would stay. “And someday I’ll have something to play for you.”
His smile stays. His hand draws toward her head, like he’s going to ruffle her hair, but he stops just short of contact and pulls away. She might have been okay with it, but she can’t know for sure. She’s sad he pulled back; relieved he pulled back.
“I look forward to it,” Cyno says easily. “No rush.”
He isn’t just talking about the lyre.
“Yeah,” Collei echoes. “Thank you.”
Collei falls head over heels for her lyre, deeper in love with TCG, and less over her anxiety whenever Cyno is around.
She selects several melodies from one of Tighnari’s books: a bouncy melody to learn gradually and play for Amber; an easy-going but technical melody for Tighnari that reminds her of his voice; and a steady, lulling melody that reminds her of Cyno’s contrasting strength and gentleness. The callouses she developed from years of archery give her a head start, but her joints seethe with phantom Eleazar when she stretches her fingers too far or plucks a string too tensely. She practices diligently in the morning before patrol and at night just after dinner. She gets better and the pain changes from sharp and throbbing to dull and satisfying.
Time spent with Cyno gradually loses its edge, too, her anxiety slackening into a manageable presence she can forego if she tries. There are days when it isn’t manageable, just as it was with Eleazar, but those days become the exception rather than the rule, and she finds herself laughing with Cyno for the first time.
Something in Tighnari tempers, too, and by a wide enough margin that she can’t understand how she didn’t notice. The unease and uncertainty lifts from his shoulders and she counts more laughter from him, just as she does for herself. Just as she does for Cyno.
Cyno can only take so much time off. The Academiya is desperate for new recruits in the research department and security is fragile. Between that and investigations of that pesky Withering Zone “”nearby””, Cyno has his work cut out for him. As far as Sumeru is concerned, Cyno is General Mahamatra first and ‘Cyno’ second; on a practical level, she understands this, as much as she wishes it weren’t so.
In any case, she and Tighnari and Cyno take advantage of what time they do have together, filling it with card games and hearty meals and easy conversation.
“Just to be clear,” Cyno says while they wrap up round five of their game, seated together at the dining table with dishes stacked and pushed out of the way. “Tighnari’s situation is—and we’re in agreement, this is not coming from me—dicey?”
Tighnari twitches.
“Do you get it,” says Cyno.
Tighnari twitches harder. “I get it all right.”
“Maybe it was the chicken we had for dinner,” says Collei, pushing her starter card forward. Their eyes are on her, but it’s challenging enough to stamp the smile off her face without watching theirs. “Tighnari is really good at this game. I suspect fowl play.”
Silence descends.
It is as satisfying as the growing pains of her lyre.
“Collei,” Tighnari says. If the look on his face can even be called an ‘expression,’ she can’t put her finger on what it’s saying. “You didn’t.”
Cyno presses his hand over his mouth and tries not to laugh. He doesn’t try very hard. Tighnari rounds on him and Collei finally reaches her limit on holding back.
“You two,” Tighnari says as he snags up their dishes, which has become a well-traversed escape route around Cyno’s jokes.
“Frowning is bad for your heart,” Cyno calls after him.
“You’re bad for my heart,” hollers Tighnari back. “And so is TCG, apparently, if it leads you to making jokes like that.”
“Maybe,” chokes Collei, giggling behind her fist, “maybe we should talk to a c— card iologist.”
She’s never seen Cyno so impressed. “Cardiologist. Tighnari! She said c—”
“I heard.”
“But do you get it? Do y—”
“I said I heard!”
Collei gives up on hiding her laughter.
She missed out on this for so long, with Tighnari and Cyno missing by proxy. She won’t miss out on it again.
“Ah,” Tighnari says.
Collei looks up from her writing, setting her charcoal aside. “What is it?”
“Oh, nothing,” Tighnari says, studying a definite something through a small, blue-tinted bottle. His other arm is wrapped around his ribs, which she’s come to realize means he’s in pain. “I hoped using dried roses would give this tincture more of a shelf life, but it doesn’t want to homogenize.”
“Oh.” Collei gets up to check the cabinet above her desk. “Are we out of fresh roses? I can go down to the stream and pick some for you.”
Tighnari sighs, shakes his head. The movement is tight—his scars must be acting up again. “Thank you, but it’s alright. I can manage.”
“I’d like to help, though,” she insists. “I was planning to take a walk before nightfall, so I wouldn’t be going out of my way if I stopped for a few roses.”
She hates to see him push himself when he’s hurting. It’s been a slow day, giving her plenty of time to practice her lyre and her aim and her writing, but now the day is coming to an end and she’s exhausted most of her hobbies. An evening walk is the last thing on her to-do list, and it’s all the better if she can give him a chance to rest in the meantime.
“Well,” Tighnari says, “if you’re certain, but a group of kids cleared out the roses by the stream yesterday. You’ll have to walk a little further than usual.”
“That’s alright! I know a couple of places to look.” She tugs on her boots and slings her bow over her shoulder just in case. “I’ll be back before it gets dark!”
Tighnari thanks her, reminds her to be safe, and she sets out into the forest.
It’s a mild day—a good day compared to the kind she had weeks ago, when the world was distorted and fuzzy and her stomach was cold. She takes the long way, following the stream through brush away from the quiet village into the quiet deepwood. The stream gurgles along and fireflies flicker under shadows like stars. She loves the fresh air, and that it doubles as a favor for Tighnari when he isn’t feeling well.
She…
She almost walks past it, tucked at the base of a decline as she moves further in. From a distance, shaded by branches, it looks like a pile of leaves. But it’s all one color—a dark color, sort of like Cyno’s cloak, and the shape…
She comes to a standstill.
It is Cyno’s cloak.
Cyno is crumpled underneath it, tangled in the fabric and motionless as a corpse.
She can’t hear the birds anymore. Nor the hum of the forest.
TCG, sharing meals, dice and laughter and never enough time—
“Cyno!” she shrieks, scrambling down the incline. She slips and slides and trips over unruly stones, branches snatching her hair and slicing her sleeves. Her ankles twang sharply, enough to make her gasp but not enough to make her stop. “Cyno! Cyno, can you—?”
No, he can’t hear her. He would have responded if he could hear her, he would have moved, why isn’t he moving—
“Cyno!”
She leaps the last two feet, hits the level ground skidding. She tears to his side and nearly turns him over before Tighnari’s words zap through her skull. If he’s seriously injured, then moving him— but if he’s seriously injured and she doesn’t move him what then?
“Cyno?” She risks grabbing his shoulder, giving him a hard shake. Blood soaks his cloak and he won’t move and her throat seals up. “I-It’s me, it’s Collei, please wake up.”
He doesn’t move. She has no medical supplies, no bandages, not even a simple salve or gauze or something to staunch the bleeding. She doesn’t know where the blood is coming from.
But Cyno groans, the noise wrung-out and wet and Collei seizes his arm when he tries to sit up. “C-Cyno—!”
“I’m fine,” Cyno croaks. His voice is sharp, and it’s the first time she’s heard this voice from him directed at her. “I’m—I’m alright, just—”
He seizes with a choked-out kind of cry, buckling over. She presses her free hand to his opposite shoulder to steady him. His Vision is alight, his cloak wrapped tight around his body. The electricity in his eyes is seething, lightning in a fragile bottle.
Tighnari. Tighnari can fix this.
“I-I’m going to help you walk, we have to get you to Tighnari,” Collei gasps, getting one foot underneath her and pulling Cyno’s arm around her shoulders. “I know it hurts, just—just, please, Cyno, bear it. Please.”
He nods, but it turns into a hiss and a choke when Collei hauls him to his feet against her. He’s mostly limp, struggling to keep his knees straight, but he is standing and he is breathing and Collei starts to move.
She makes it. She has no idea how she makes it but she makes it, tripping over the first step leading up toward her and Tighnari’s home that has also somewhat become Cyno’s home. The sun set when she wasn’t looking, the rangers wrapping up their final patrol and settling in their homes for the night. Cyno’s breathing is ragged and he stopped trying to lift his head.
Tighnari will be listening for her, because it’s dark and she is deft at managing her time. Cyno’s breath stutters in his throat, and his next inhale is wet.
“Tighnari!” Collei screams.
He can hear her. She isn’t close but she knows he can hear her.
A door slams far above her head. She looks up. Footsteps. Tighnari swings around the corner at the top of the staircase and makes a face that burns into her soul to stay.
“Master Tighnari,” Collei whimpers.
He’s by her side in an instant, taking Cyno’s opposite arm over his shoulder. Cyno’s Vision flares like lightning in the darkness and Tighnari flinches with his entire body, but holds fast with his teeth gritted.
The realization hits her with all the muted stillness of resurfacing out from under torrential waves.
The lightning strike; Cyno’s Electro Vision.
She isn’t the only person who’s been fighting to overcome.
Between one heartbeat and the next they’ve climbed the stairs and shunted inside. With one swipe of Tighnari’s arm, everything that was on the table is now on the floor and he guides her and Cyno forward.
“On the table, hurry,” Tighnari is saying. If he’s been talking this whole time she didn’t hear him. “Just a little further, Collei—”
Collei’s burning legs carry her forward. Cyno’s head has slumped to his chest, bloody matted hair all over his face.
Tighnari hauls Cyno onto the table. Cyno yelps. His cloak shifts enough to reveal a deep gash in his side, dark blood oozing. Collei’s stomach lurches.
“Cyno? Cyno,” Tighnari snaps, panic fraying the edges of a tone he’s so practiced at schooling. “Damn it, what have you done to yourself?”
Cyno’s chest heaves for air. He doesn’t answer.
Tighnari drags a crate out from under the table, seizes an armload of towels. He swivels, meets her gaze. She doesn’t know what face she’s wearing, but whatever it is is enough for Tighnari.
“Press this to his side, hard,” Tighnari says and Collei springs forward, swiping the towel from Tighnari’s arms and putting pressure on the gash under Cyno’s ribs. Cyno sucks in a breath, either too weak or in too much shock to respond any other way.
Tighnari unbuckles Cyno’s Vision and hurls it across the room.
Cyno gasps for air.
“Idiot,” Tighnari snarls, that ringing note of panic still high in his voice. “Don’t you dare go out like this. Don’t you dare.”
Collei squeezes her eyes shut and forces her trembling hands to stay put.
“It’s okay, Cyno,” Collei says, her heart gunning in her temples. “You’ll be okay.”
The wrung-out pain in his eyes gives way to a bleeding heart, and he looks at her with such guilt and raw devastation that her throat fills with ash and her heart slams into her stomach.
“C-Collei—”
“Not a word,” Tighnari says. The anger is gone. He sounds both relieved and afraid. “Not a single word. Focus on breathing.”
“I-I tried cauterizing the worst of it,” Cyno wheezes. “B-But…”
“Focus on breathing.”
Cyno starts to say something, but it’s cut off. Tighnari pushes another towel up against his arm and Cyno snaps his teeth together, eyes screwed shut.
“Focus on breathing, Cyno,” Tighnari tells him again. “Breathe.”
Collei breathes with him, her lungs hitching on a sob.
She shuts her eyes while Tighnari works.
“Collei,” Tighnari says, “you should take a breather.”
She sits by Cyno while he rests and Tighnari crushes fresh herbs into rubbing alcohol, too shaken to do anything other than stick close and hold his hand. Cyno can’t sqeeze back, which is okay. She wishes she’d let him ruffle her hair that time.
She shakes her head and grips Cyno’s fingers even tighter. “I want to stay,” she says, her throat sore from crying. “I, I think if I were in his position and he were in mine that he would want to stay, too, and I…”
Tighnari’s ears fittle back. He must be exhausted if he’s letting them react subconsciously. He moves closer, taking a seat and resting his hand over hers and Cyno’s.
“If your roles were swapped,” he says, “then I would be telling him the same thing that I’m telling you, and you’d want him to rest.”
She bites her lip. He’s right, but, “Just a little longer,” she says. “Please.”
Tighnari is quiet while he mulls it over. The deep circles under his eyes make her feel guilty for pressing him now of all times. But then he says, “Alright,” and stands again, shifting his hand to her shoulder. “But not for much longer. It’s going to be okay, Collei.”
It will be when Cyno is okay again, when he’s telling jokes and almost-not-quite ruffling her hair and smiling that gentle smile of his.
She nods without the words to thank him, squeezing Cyno’s fingers.
Come morning, with Cyno resting soundly and Tighnari off to see another patient, Collei finally takes that breather. She doublechecks that the blankets are tucked around Cyno firmly and that none of his wounds have bled through his bandages; then she retrieves her lyre and moves into the living room to practice, closing the door to Cyno’s room behind her. The home has been consistently full of laughter and cards and clanking dishes ever since she and Tighnari started inviting Cyno over, and the abrupt silence is overwhelming.
She drops onto her stool and plays through the melody she learned for Cyno. Once, twice, then again. She stands to open the window and let the breeze in, stretches her wrists and then retakes her lyre. An instrument with her name carved in gold, fashioned specially for Eleazar survivors… fashioned specially for her. The jokes, the TCG, sharing meals together—
Cyno is stable now, but what would have happened if he didn’t make it? If she found him too late?
“Hey.”
Collei shrieks, accidentally plucking a string too hard as she springboards to her feet and twists around. Lo and behold, there stands Cyno in all his bed-headed, dead-on-feet glory, his gaze slightly glassy and a heavy blanket around his shoulders.
“What are you doing?” she stresses, setting her lyre on the desk and hurrying toward him. “You can’t be up yet!”
“That’s what Tighnari said too,” Cyno breathes, exhausted. “But he isn’t here, so—”
“So it’s my responsibility,” Collei presses. Her nerves tingle when she grabs his arm, but the blanket between their skin acts as a nice buffer. It’s nothing like before, and maybe she’d hold on even if it was. “Really, what are you doing?”
“Sorry,” he says, shrinking away from her personal space, which is hard when she refuses to let him go, “I was just— Was that you playing…?”
“Yes, but I could have come to you if you wanted to hear it so badly, you didn’t have to—”
He doubles over, though, coughing, and Collei’s heart bursts. The anger evaporates; of course he’d be like this, wanting to check on her.
“Oh, this is why you shouldn’t be up,” she says, pulling him gently toward the bench. “Here, I’ll get you some water, hold on.”
He lets her leave, and when she returns with a cup of water he downs it in one hit. She sits beside him, a breath of empty space between their shoulders.
“Thank you,” Cyno murmurs. He tries to clear his throat but ends up coughing into his elbow instead, and Collei is just brave enough to put a hand on his shoulder. Still through the blanket. The blanket helps.
“It’s nothing,” Collei says. He’s shaking, small enough that she wouldn’t notice if she weren’t touching him. “Are you in much pain?”
“Comparatively, no,” answers Cyno, tired. “It doesn’t hurt as much as it feels… tight.”
That’s familiar. “Sounds about right,” Collei says. She drops her hand; it was starting to feel awkward. “Tighnari’s painkillers are good like that. I took them whenever my Eleazar flared up. It helped the pain, but it was harder to move around afterwards.”
“Yeah.” Cyno huffs, a smaller version of that eye-reaching smile tipping his expression. “He’s good at what he does.”
“He’s very upset with you.”
“He’s good at that, too.”
“I’m also upset with you. What even happened? When Tighnari took your Vision away, it seemed like your breathing got better…”
Cyno exhales. “It’s complicated,” he says. “More than I feel like getting into. But the abridged version is that when I received my Vision, I made a pact with a divine spirit to possess me whenever our situation is particularly dire. But sometimes the aftereffects of it… linger. Or become more than I can bear. After I was wounded, there was only so much control I had over the spirit and myself. It went farther than it should have. I’m not proud of that.”
“Oh.”
It reminds her of the past in a way she doesn’t want to dwell on.
“Does it hurt you?” Collei asks. “I mean—what does the spirit get out of that kind of agreement if not something out of you?”
“It isn’t malicious. The spirit and I hold similar convictions, and it was nearing the end of its cycle in this world and wished to stay. Through this pact, the spirit gets to live and I occasionally get to not die.”
She doesn’t like that, but what can she say? “That makes sense… I mean, as long as it isn’t hurting you.”
“It isn’t,” Cyno says, leaning forward on his elbows. He sighs deeply, and she’s about to ask if he’s okay when he speaks. “I’m sorry you had to find me like that,” he says. “I’m grateful. But I’m sorry.”
“Oh,” she says. She glances sideways at her lyre, lopsided in her haste to put it down and meet him at the doorway. “I was scared,” she admits. “But I’m happy you’re okay. More than anything.”
He nods but stays put. Collei understands what he’s feeling in a different context, having stressed and worried Tighnari on multiple occasions when her Eleazar snuck up on her or she pushed herself needlessly far. The guilt is something he’ll have to work through on his own, without her help.
Still.
Collei reaches out and ruffles his hair.
Cyno’s head snaps toward her, his eyes wide. She realizes what she did.
“Ah! I’m sorry! I made that awkward. I didn’t mean to, I just, you’re upset, and…”
He pats her head once. Twice. She stills under his hand.
“It’s alright,” he says.
She blinks out into space.
He’s gentle. She knew he would be, but there is a difference between knowing and knowing, and now she knows. She stares at him and he smiles back.
“You’re a good kid, Collei,” he says. “Thank you.”
Her heart sings. “You’re a good mentor,” she answers. “And friend. But that feels…” Not formal enough? Not enough? “… I’m not sure. But I’m grateful, and I’m happy you’ve been spending more time with us.”
“I don’t expect any kind of formality from you,” he says. “Really. Spending more time with you and Tighnari has made me just as happy. I’d be honored if you considered me a friend.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
Friend. She almost says thank-you, but she thanks him so often that the words have almost lost meaning. So she says, “Then, the honor is all mine. To have you as a friend, I mean. And a mentor.”
He ruffles her hair again. She doesn’t pull away.
“Collei.” Tighnari stirs her, and she wakes in blurry pieces. Adrenaline kicks in with her memory and she hurriedly finds Tighnari’s face to see if something’s wrong, but her mentor looks unburdened in the warmth of the firelight, exhausted but fond. “It’s late. Come on.”
He offers her a hand, which she takes because it’s what makes sense, leaning away from Cyno’s warm side and into Tighnari’s. There's a blanket around her shoulders that she doesn’t remember being there. Cyno is asleep, too, wrapped in a second blanket along with the first, his features relaxed and free of pain.
“There we go,” Tighnari murmurs, as quiet as he can be without whispering. “I know you’re worried, but it’s best for you not to sleep on the floor.”
“Is he okay…?”
“He’s alright. I’ll be getting him settled as soon as you’re in bed.”
Collei nods. She’s a little more awake now that she’s walking, Tighnari’s hand a loose but guiding presence on her forearm. He reaches ahead to open her bedroom door.
“Thank you, Tighnari,” she says, stepping under his arm. The air in her room is stale, but it’s nothing that cracking the window won’t fix. “Are you going to bed, too?”
“Not quite. I want to change Cyno’s bandages first, see if I can’t get a fresh round of painkillers in his system. But I’ll be sleeping shortly, don’t worry.”
“That’s good.”
He gets the door of her room for her. She’s two steps toward her bed when she hears him say, “I’m proud of you.”
She whips back around. “What?”
“Proud,” Tighnari says. “I’m proud of you. More than I know how to say.”
“Oh.”
It’s disarming, echoes in her head until all other thoughts are silenced. As far as she’s come there's more for her to go; she isn’t ready for someone to be proud of it, leastly her mentor. But Tighnari is not someone who wastes words or gives empty compliments. He said it, so he means it.
“Thank you,” she accepts, tucking the words away for the next time she doubts herself. “And thank you, too, for being so patient with me…”
Tighnari is shaking his head before she’s finished speaking. “I appreciate it, but there’s no need for any of that. I’m glad you chose to come to Sumeru. Sleep well, alright? Cyno will no doubt feel up to his stupid puns tomorrow, so we’ll have our work cut out for us.”
She smiles. Cyno’s jokes are funny on their own, but combining that with Tighnari’s indignation makes it hard to keep a straight face. “Sleep well, then. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Her dreams that night are warm and kind.
Cyno is stirring when Tighnari returns, half-asleep but awake enough to notice Collei’s absence. “She went to bed?”
“She did,” Tighnari says, snagging his kit from the table before settling close. “You’re next just as soon as I’ve checked your wounds. Lift your arm for a moment.”
Cyno does what he’s told. Tighnari pushes the blanket away and mindfully slips the blade of his scissors between Cyno’s bandages and his skin. Cyno hisses as the gauze is pulled away.
“You’re lucky whatever attacked you wasn’t going for the kill,” Tighnari mumbles. “What were you thinking?”
“It wasn’t on purpose.”
“I gathered that. But I doubt you were intentionally playing it safe.”
“There’s only so much safe-playing I can do with a village on the line,” Cyno says blandly. “So no, I wasn’t playing it safe.”
Tighnari smooths salve over the gash. It doesn’t matter that he’s gentle; Cyno still hisses through his teeth and squeezes his eyes shut.
“Collei was scared,” Tighnari says quietly.
Cyno takes a big breath. “I know.”
“I was, too.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He could say more.
He’ll say more later.
“She loves that lyre you gave her,” Tighnari says. “She plays it every free moment she has.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“And you aren’t just stringing me along?”
Oh. Oh, it would be so easy to apply the salve roughly. “Is this really a wise position for you to be making those jokes?”
“Do you not get it? Because I can explain.”
“Explain and I’m leaving you on your lonesome tonight.”
“Oh, no, not my lonesome.”
“You’re lucky you’re injured.”
“A moment ago I was lucky to be alive.”
“Yes, well, that too.”
Tighnari could play it off more, but he isn’t in the mood for insincerity. He wraps Cyno’s side carefully, mindful of every time Cyno flinches, winces or twists his hands into the blankets.
“Collei likes your jokes,” Tighnari says eventually. It’s fuel to a fire he’s been trying to put out, but time and place and hearts on sleeves and whatnot. “I thought you knew that by now. You don’t have to tiptoe around her. She’d prefer that you didn’t.”
Cyno stares off into space. “… Has she noticed?”
“She notices when you’re awkward,” Tighnari answers, slicing the next set of bandages from Cyno’s forearm, “but I don’t think she’s placed the reason why. She’s come a long way trying to be more herself around you. The least you can do is return the favor.”
“I don’t want to backstep and lose progress.”
“By telling jokes? You’ve been doing that.”
“I don’t want to be myself in a way that she connects with a traumatic memory.”
“I doubt you would. But realistically, backstepping and losing progress is a part of making progress.”
Cyno hums. Tighnari ties off the bandage and drops his hands, masking a wince when the lightning scars tug. It’s been bad today and the adrenaline of seeing Cyno hurt and Collei upset has more than worn off.
“Tighnari?”
Of course Cyno noticed. Tighnari has no clue how he does that.
“That should hold for the rest of the night,” Tighnari derails, screwing the lid back on his jar of salve. “How does it feel?”
“It’s fine. Here.” Cyno spreads his uninjured arm wide, opening the blanket with it. “You can stop worrying for tonight.”
“You’ll be back to worrying me again tomorrow, then?”
“Bright and early,” Cyno says. His smile falls as soon as it comes. “But really, no. If possible, I’d like to never worry you or Collei again.”
Tighnari huffs, accepting Cyno’s offer and settling down against his side. “That’s unrealistic. But thank you.”
“I’ll do what I can within what’s realistic,” Cyno digresses, draping the blanket over Tighnari’s shoulders. “I mean that.”
“Do you, now?”
“You are blanketed in my sincerity.”
“Blanketed in your blanket. And actually it’s my blanket.”
“Our blanket?”
Tighnari squints. Cyno looks far too proud of himself for Tighnari to encourage it. He lets the words die in the silence, as they deserve, watching shadows dance in the firelight.
“Your Vision is staying locked away until you’ve recovered fully,” says Tighnari.
“A grand idea.” While quiet, Cyno sounds thrilled. The silence killed the joke but not his pride. “One might even call it a visionary idea.”
“Keep that up and it’ll be just your blanket again.”
“And I’ll be left on my lonesome?”
“The loneliest.”
“A shame, really.”
“Not really.”
He feels Cyno grin without seeing it. He also feels it taper. “I already apologized to Collei, but I am sorry for worrying you.”
Tighnari sighs. There are only a handful of things that genuinely shake him after everything he’s seen, and Collei stumbling in with Cyno in that state ticked one of the boxes closest to the top.
“It can’t always be helped,” Tighnari sighs, leaning closer. Cyno drapes an arm around his shoulders. “But thank you. Please bring backup next time.”
“I will.”
“Good.”
Cyno plays with his ears. Tighnari settles.
“I’m proud of her,” Tighnari says. “Collei.”
“Me, too.” Cyno tugs him closer, rests his chin on the top of Tighnari’s head. “And don’t think I didn’t notice you handling my Vision earlier. I know it’s a lot after what happened. Thank you.”
Tighnari’s nerve-endings never completely healed after the lightning, spasms of confused pain zigzagging through his scars. He’s still debating how much to tell Collei, although it’s likely she already knows.
“It’s gotten better,” Tighnari says. “I think we’ve all been better lately.”
“I think so too.”
The fireplace crackles. Tighnari leans into Cyno’s shoulder and Cyno’s arm tightens around his back. He resigned himself to a restless and sleepless night, as has been the case in the past whenever Cyno came to him injured; but his heart has settled despite the lingering nerves, contentment draped over his head like the warmth of the blanket around his shoulders.
All this time—for himself, for Cyno, for Collei—he’s hoped for ‘okay,’ careful of idealization and too-high expectations. Healing takes time and patience and it is never perfect. He knows this.
But this is more than okay. Not perfect, but more than he hoped for.
Striving forward at each other’s side, better than okay.
It’s as close to perfection as healing can come.