It happens again and again and again.

They wake up in the hospital.

Astra is looking at them from the light beige chair beside them. She asks them what their name is. The old name is on the tip of their tongue but the new name is just as unreachable.

The cycle continues.

They do not answer, rubbing their face with a shaking hand and noticing instantly that their eyebrow piercing is missing. They would have to open their eyes and see Astra’s worried face to ask about it, and so they stayed there, frozen, wishing that it would end. 

Astra asked something but it sounded like gibberish. They finally moved when they felt a soft hand on their elbow, looking up to see that same worried face that likely pitied them. Finally the words made sense, as if she were speaking underwater and came up mid-sentence. “-removed it. They were worried it would get ripped out. I can pay for it to be repierced.”

“It won’t fix it.”

The room grew hushed as a doctor politely knocked, checking their vitals though it would always say the same thing- “Your heart rate is sky high,” he said, frowning at the machine as if it would suddenly fix itself. “Your blood pressure is, too. It should resolve itself-”

Within a day. 

Sometimes it did. Sometimes it did not. 

He said the same thing as before, instructing Astra on how to help and scolding Cithrel for the same thing, and then they were alone with her again. Astra spoke as if the interruption never occurred. “You know what would fix it? I’m not talking about the piercing, either.”

They sighed so deeply their heart rate jumped a few numbers down before going right back up to 120 - never higher. They always felt like a deer in flight after waking up - terrified, hunted by something they could not perceive.

It was pathetic.

“I don’t care,” they mumbled, the words almost slurring together. 

“Well, I do!” Astra said, standing to collect her suit jacket. She hadn’t even had the time to change out of her school uniform before she was calling the nurse. Cithrel had at least worked out an agreement with her - never call the ambulance. They said it was because it was expensive. Really, they just didn’t want anyone to know. 

“You have the medication that could fix this, and yet you refuse to take it. Why?” 

Cithrel stared at the white blanket on them, paper-thin but still hot from the dryer. It felt alien on their numb hands tingling with near-death. “It makes me weak.”

They were both too tired to argue, and both of them knew how it would end. Astra sighed, defeated, waiting for the nurse to give them clearance to leave. The walk back to the dorm was always the longest - even if it was just across campus - for the tension never left until Cithrel was asleep in their own bed.

They wobbled as they stood after being freed from their room, though they did not accept Astra’s outstretched hand. She tried to not look hurt, knowing what they were like not just afterwards, but always. Even when their hands shook, trying to tie their boots before finally giving up and tucking in the laces, they did not accept help. 

–

They slept through the entire next day of classes, not waking up until Jasper was pestering them awake, offering them a box of lunch stolen from the cafeteria. “You should eat,” he pleaded, always more soft than Astra, unable to watch them be sick without almost crying. He was somehow worse than her - too motherly, too doting. 

Cithrel was used to hard wooden floors nearly cracking their skull open. They were used to a showerhead ripped off of the wall and only a bathtub left - an offer for them to go ahead and drown. There was no softness in Eastern Spotho. Softness had long ago been buried with their aunt and their mother and their grandmother in the Wynmenor plot. The newest headstone would eventually say their own name and it would be just as hard as those unyielding floors.

The words would not come to answer Jasper, but he sat down nonetheless by their desk, patiently waiting. No expectation, just Jasper, whom was trying to not eat their fries from the styrofoam container. Finally, Cithrel fought back an amused smile. “You can just eat them.”

“No!” He said in offense, pushing the box closer to them and away from him. “I’ve eaten already! You’ve not even had breakfast! Do you need any medicine? I have Fantasy Pepto.”

Cithrel blinked, unable to contain their confusion. “What?”

“Astra said you had a stomach bug,” Jasper said, tilting his head a little. “Do you have a fever? You seem a little … out of it? You get these a lot, I’ve noticed. Have you tried diets for your stomach? My mom gets ulcers and she-”

“I don’t-” Cithrel stopped, then, realizing that Astra had given them an escape from perhaps the nosiest person they knew. “I don’t have a way to fix it. It’s like ulcers.” 

It was too easy to lie to someone so kind. Cithrel wondered if they should have felt guilty. Jasper hummed in thought as if he had never been interrupted, thankfully quiet for a moment. God, he gave them a headache almost every time he was near. The hours of physical training never tired him out - the only thing that had worked was Eldrin, who knew how to handle him and had left anyways. 

Eldrin’s father had told the Headmaster that it was a family emergency. That had been a year ago. Jasper was never quite the same afterwards, for all of his calls went straight to voicemail. Everyone’s calls went to voicemail. He was convinced Eldrin had been murdered.

Cithrel was convinced he just didn’t want to be found, so they told themselves they didn’t miss him. It didn’t make it easier. They should have never gotten attached to him. 

“-anyways, just try eating! The bread on the burgers shouldn’t be too greasy.”

“You got more than one?” They asked, raising an eyebrow. 

Jasper looked at them as if they had asked a particularly stupid question, forgetting that most people couldn’t eat as much as an active, excitable teenage boy. “Obviously. If it’s enough for me, it should be enough for you, but if you get hungry I’ll always go out for you.” 

He smiled fondly and Cithrel couldn’t help but return it, even if their eyes were a little blank with exhaustion. He lingered at the door and they fought back a sigh, knowing he wouldn’t be appeased until they had at least taken a bite. 

He left when they did exactly that, almost like a worried parent making sure their child didn’t skip meals. As stupid as he was, he always made sure they ate, often stating that they were too small. 

Cithrel’s mother had been small, too. It was not related to their sickness, but it had always been a hint that they had inherited more than the sickness. That they would also inherit the death. 

–

The next time it happened, Cithrel had gone nearly two weeks without being in the hospital. Astra had been staring at them all day, seeing something that they could not, as if their sickness hung above their head like a sign. 

Cithrel hated being stared at. 

They had woken up that morning after dreaming of falling, waking up just before they hit the ground with a gasp. Astra had already been awake when they shot up, blonde hair sticking to their face as they broke out into a cold sweat. It was the bathtub. The porcelain stained red. The falling backwards into the water, into the cold, into-

“Are you alright?” Astra asked, hurrying to feel their forehead as if their temperature would matter. She furrowed her brow, taking their shaking hands in her own, pressing warmth into the skin. Unnatural heat.

“You can’t heal me,” Cithrel said. Astra dropped them, guilt heavy on their face. 

“I thought - maybe-”

“Why would it work this time?” They weren’t being fair - especially not to the one person who knew their secret, who tried so hard to keep it a secret. Cithrel did not make it easy, especially not when they once passed out in the woods and she had to drag them through a class in training, claiming that it had been heat exhaustion. 

Astra stood, the bed bouncing a little as she did so, making Cithrel’s vision swim hazily. “You act like you don’t want to be better.”

“I don’t.”

She turned to look at the still-full bottle of pills on Cithrel’s nightstand, never used except for once during last semester’s finals. It had worked almost instantly, the shaking of their hands fading like a faith healing, like God had found their body after searching for so long in the dark. Let the light come into them and let them see. 

Astra was not religious. Sometimes she wished Cithrel was. Maybe then they would be less stubborn.

She did not ask why, knowing they would never tell. Something kept Cithrel quiet, only allowing them to tell her the bare minimum. At first Astra had thought it was some sort of curse, once that kept them silent. A few discreet detection spells said otherwise. 

“Do you want to know why you were born like this?” The Wynmenor in charge of the little orphan said, his breath smelling like hot beer. “Why you never even got a chance to be normal?”

The silent child did not ask why, already knowing he would speak nevertheless. They had been seven.

“It’s because all the women in our family are broken. My mother, your mother, my sister. All of them. You’re the next one to go.”

Cithrel blinked and realized they had been in class, not listening, for a long time. They stared down at their notes to find that it was blank, a long line dragged across the paper where a dash should have been. From the front, Astra glanced at the back of the room where they sat, as if knowing that something would happen. 

The worst part was that Astra could have been staring for thirty minutes and they would not have known. 

She glanced at the door just once. Cithrel shook their head. Astra seemed to disagree, frowning a little. She turned back when the new professor looked away from the board, having been drawing long arches that looked almost like damned physics. 

“They may seem different, but an arrow and a sword both have nearly the same rates of momentum, assuming the swordsman is fast enough.” The professor drew their rapier, wriggling it and making someone snicker something about being flaccid. The look she gave that student was enough to make him nearly escort himself out.

“Swords can be better if the arrow is built badly. Too weak and it’ll veer off target. Too stiff and it won’t follow the right path.” The woman, Kylantha, looked over at the class - some of which were mages and a little hopelessly lost. “I found this arrow in a bullseye outside. I think I know who owned it. Forgive me for this.”

She procured an arrow with light blue fletchings, making Cithrel realize how stupid they were for having them be the same color as their hair, for of course the arrow was theirs. They were the only one who could steadily hit bullseyes - even splitting an arrow down the middle, once. 

“Rapiers cannot snap,” Kylantha said. “But if we test this one-”

It snapped between her fingers too easily. Cithrel could almost hear the echo of the words of her uncle in Kylantha’s own. “Weak.”

Cithrel blinked. Kylantha had left but the class stayed - some of them taking the time to chat with each other. The boy who had made the dick joke nudged them, smirking so hard the faint scratch on their cheek scrunched up.

“Kind of a milf, right?” 

Cithrel just stared at them, perplexed. The boy snorted, his rolled up sleeves protesting as he stretched. They found themselves staring at where his bicep began, the taut skin almost-

“You into men, or you a lesbian?”

They stood, not even hesitating to punch the boy in the jaw, toppling him over before he could brace himself. He did not bleed, but he still looked shocked that someone half his size could - and would dare - to do such a thing.

“You fuckin’ punched me!” He spat. Some of his idiot friends snickered, but Astra merely watched passively, having heard the boy’s words - but still clearly disapproving. 

“What’s your name?” Cithrel asked, their voice low, angry.

“V-Viscryn? Leocan? The fuck is your-”

“Viscryn? Shut up.” Just as Kylantha entered, looking at the toppled desk in shock, Cithrel walked to the door.

“Mis - Cithrel? What happened?” She asked, her voice loud with surprise, almost shrill over Viscryn’s angry muttering.

“Give me detention,” they said, their jaw set. “Suspend me. I don’t care. I’ll do it again if you don’t dismiss me.” 

Kylantha said something that sounded like nothing, and then they were practically speedwalking out, feeling someone hot on their heels. They did not stop until they were at the emergency exit of the Academy - the alarm long ago disabled by Eldrin and Jasper, looking to make out in the training yard again. 

“Was that necessary?” Astra asked, nearly grabbing them before stopping.

“Was it necessary stopping after the one?” Cithrel’s voice broke but they were unsure of what emotion they felt, just knowing that they wanted Viscryn on the floor again. 

Astra hesitated, following Cithrel outside into the fresh autumn air, crisp with the incoming chill. It never snowed in Kanalion - not until the dead center of winter, when the sky could no longer help but to freeze. The archery teacher once said that the snow was the worst weather - arrows got too heavy, footsteps were easily tracked.

A student unable to stand upright would be easily found in three inches of snow. 

A white, porcelain bathtub.

“What are you thinking of?” Astra said, forcing them to look at her with glazed eyes struggling to focus. “I know Viscryn is an asshole. He’s the one that - you know - did that to Jasper. Be glad you’ve only just now dealt with him.”

“Did Jasper fucking punch him?” Cithrel said, remembering how Jasper had been, how he wouldn’t look at Eldrin anymore, how he couldn’t touch without him thinking about the fight he never could have won. Jasper would look in the mirror and think of the slur Viscryn had shouted. 

Astra huffed. “You know he’s too - he couldn’t. I’m glad you didn’t just take his shit, but what if you had-”

The stutter was starting - Cithrel could feel it in their thoughts, how the words would jump like a broken record player. They spoke anyways. “What the hell do you - It’s not - I don’t do that just because of stupid assholes!” 

“I know it’s not a trigger,” she said, still following them. Cithrel wanted to tell her that they wanted to be left alone for once, but they knew that she would never - she was acting too weird to not know that something was happening, that something had been wrong the moment they had woken up. “I know it’s coffee. I know its temperature. It’s also fevers, too much alcohol, once a month when-”

“How do you know that?” They asked in horror, feeling as though their nightmares were true - that someone has been watching them, that the watching never stopped. 

Astra gave them a look. “I take you to the hospital - even when you try fighting. I’ve been watching for what makes it happen ever since I first saw it. It’s also anxiety - and you have a ton of it.”

“Then you should have known that it - it just happens.” Like now. Like in a few seconds when they’d be fainting.