Their first serus attack hit three months later when Cithrel could feel their voice returning. They had fought seruses before but never this suddenly, without preparation - like a real Guardian. It had happened when the First Light flickered - just once - because of an idiotic mage trying to be God. She had been wearing a black cloak and had been rambling about a Shadowmaker and his ‘return’ when she was shot from the tower.

It had been enough for them to come nevertheless, and with the Light back on, they were angry. 

All the while, Cithrel couldn’t help but think, as Jasper and Viscryn split up to fend off the seruses from the first years, that it would not have been a disaster if they had still had another blade. If Eldrin had stayed. It was them, Astra, and her new girlfriend, Lavinia, standing back to try to help as much as they could with magic and arrows. 

It felt like a death sentence. 

They watched Jasper in particular because he was stupid, always rushing in without warning. He normally survived, but today they could feel the tension in the air surrounding him, ready to snap. Something bad would happen. 

And it did happen - just not only to Jasper.

Viscryn had retreated to practically guard Cithrel, despite the fact that they were high up in a tree’s branches, far from most serus’ reach. 

Most. 

They had been focused on aiming when something grabbed them, and they jerked and nearly shrieked, though Viscryn had found the serus immediately. It had been fast, evading their sight until its claws were digging into their leg.

Viscryn had sounded like a beast when he took the serus’s neck and wrung it. He looked up at them with black blood on his hands, eyes wide. “Are you okay?”

Cithrel swallowed. And then they paused. Something was wrong. “I - Yeah.” 

The world was starting to turn under them, not quite spinning out of control. They tried to remember what had happened for this to fucking occur in the middle of a fight. The attack had happened early, with the Academy’s alarm waking them.

An hour before they could take their medicine.

They almost asked him to get Astra. Instead, they said, “get me down.” 

They were shakily trying to lower themselves, always dexterous until now, until their blood was steadily dripping from their leg like the seconds of a clock. Counting down. Viscryn would see. 

Strong hands grabbed their waist to steady them, but when they hopped down to face him, Viscryn looked sheepish. He pulled away like he had been burned from the touch. “Uh - sorry. You looked like you would fall and I-”

“Stop worrying.” The signing was shaky, unsteadiness creeping into their hands. He knew something was wrong almost instantly. 

The clang of metal distracted both of them as something utterly monstrous emerged from the woods, towering over all of them. Too large. It looked like it had once been a bear, though now it was something loosely-defined, all claws and teeth with arms that looked like it could tear through anything.

And Jasper was standing before it. And the arm holding his sword was shaking.

Long ago, he had refused the Academy’s advice to use a shield, stating that it ruined his look, that he didn’t look cool with a shield. Cithrel had thought he was stupid and they thought it now, for he wouldn’t run despite being afraid, despite being completely outsized. Not when a student was probably dead behind him, the grass a sea of red. 

They cursed, drawing their bow at the target, their hands shaking for the first time as they fired.

And for the first time, they missed. 

Viscryn noticed immediately, staring in disbelief as the arrow didn’t even come close to hitting it. “Cithrel - are you alright-?”

“Fine.” 

They fired again and this time Astra saw it, and the arrow embedded itself in the earth not far away. They wanted to aim again but their vision was splitting into fractals, white lines upon white lines until everything was a sketch. Black monsters split across their vision until they didn’t know which way was up.

They tossed their bow and Viscryn almost knelt to pick it up, though he forgot the bow to catch them instead. 

Cithrel wasn’t awake when the serus grabbed Jasper, one paw on his leg, the other on his waist. And they weren’t awake when it pulled him apart. They didn’t even hear the shrieks when his leg hit the ground and his body followed not long after. 

They awake not in the hospital but in the empty nurse’s office, for every room in the hospital was full of not just students, but staff and straggler citizens that had gotten too close. The nurse was away assisting them, instead, and so Cithrel was alone. They had handled this sort of thing alone, before, though there wasn’t the annoyance of doctors to distract them from the steady drip of the bathtub that couldn’t escape them.

They opened their eyes in the silent room and found that they wished they were alone, for Viscryn sat in a too-small chair, chewing on his lip in an expression of worry and terror and something haunted.

“Where is he?” Cithrel asked, ignoring what had clearly happened, only remembering the sight of the beast looming over one of their best friends.

Viscryn jumped when they spoke, then wilted. “I - he’s not - I don’t know if he’s-”

Cithrel stood despite their legs wobbling, and when he stood to help, they placed a firm hand on his chest. “Where is he?”

“Astra said you should stay in bed,” he said, and though he towered over them, muscles nearly twice their size, he did nothing to move them. “You - I didn’t know you-”

Cithrel made an agitated sound, pushing past him to scour the other rooms. It didn’t take long for them to realize that he wasn’t there at all, and if he was alive, he was in the hospital. 

Viscryn chased after them, finally stopping at the end of the medical wing to scoot in front of them. “I’ll - fuck - I’ll take you if we can just talk about this. Astra said you’d be stubborn but fuck, dude.”

“Fine,” they said quickly, trying not to panic. Jasper could be alone in that room, bleeding out or dead with no one to sit with him. He had sat with Cithrel all these months, not even knowing why they were sick until recently. And now they had failed him. “What do you want?”

“You had a-”

“No."

Viscryn gritted his teeth, pointing at the lights that they only just realized were dimmed. The entire area was dark. “The nurse left you in the dark so you could recover. You were shaking so badly you missed. You weren’t able to speak for what felt like months, and you - I saw it! When are you just gonna accept that you’re epil-”

His back hit the wall - not hard, but enough for him to freeze, a little shocked that Cithrel had managed to move him. Their hand balled in his shirt but their eyes were wet. “Shut up. Just - I need to know if he’s dead. I don’t - I know how you’ll see me.”

“Dude, I don’t-” He laughed, raking a hand through his hair. “I don’t see you as anything other than a friend and someone who’s fucking hot. I care that you’re sick, but I don’t care in the way you assume I do.”

“You’re lying.”

“Why would I lie? So I could get closer to you? Take advantage of you?” Viscryn watched as they flinched, his eyes softening. “If I wanted to do that, I would have done it while you were asleep or something. If I thought you were weak, I wouldn’t have carried you here and waited for you. Do you think I’m a monster or do you just hate what you are?”

They released him, turning to the door and trying to do something with all that he said. It was too much, too shocking for them to believe. 

But they wanted to believe him.  

“I didn’t think you would-” They stopped, pushing their palms against their eyes. “I didn’t think you’d want someone who can’t even stand light. Not when there’s everyone for you.”

Viscryn stepped closer, waiting for them to look at him. The air felt full, hot, when he signed: “I would carry you every day.” 

“Fuck,” they said, voice thick as they approached them, pulling him down by the jaw. “Stop me.” They kissed him roughly, barely waiting to see if he pulled away, if he suddenly decided he couldn’t handle someone chronically ill like them. Viscryn didn’t stop them at all, instead holding them close like they might disappear at any moment, a hysterical dream brought on from the carnage outside. 

It was the first time Cithrel felt real. 

When it finally ended, Viscryn fumbled with his words for several minutes until they laughed, finally saying, “I’ll take you to him. But I’m gonna want to know if that was a one time thing.”

“Hopefully not.”