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How can someone be so utterly altruistic and yet take the opportunity to degrade themselves in such a manner?
It's an unfortunate habit that Kyryll wishes to stomp out of Illuga, to make him all the more appetizing, if nothing else. Such exceptional feats. Such exceptional skills. The admiration of the peers around him, and yet none of them form an identity. There is no integral core that ties all of these facts together, leaving them as just that. Facts.
To find value in the weak, in the worthless, that is how Illuga sees the world. It's rather childish, in Kyryll's opinion, to hold value in every little thing but yourself. To hope, so foolishly, that no tragedy were to befall anyone ever again. To use oneself as a body shield in order to protect another, even at the cost of his own wellbeing.
The two are currently situated in a small cave, a little respite so the fae can sit and be utterly useless while Illuga hisses in pain. There's a slight drizzle of rain outside, much to Kyryll's dismay, and the thought of an infection occurring flits through the mind.
The Wild Hunt appearing was unexpected. The filthy monstrosities have gotten bolder as time has gone on, and the fae had been caught unaware. Illuga had moved faster than he had, and Kyryll's flames were just a fraction too late, wiping out the abyss with ease, but he could do nothing about the wound festering on the young man's leg. Kyryll could cauterize the wound, but he's not quite informed enough to make a choice hastily over a matter like this.
(The idea of cooking Illuga alive with his flames and the smell of searing flesh may tempt Kyryll into taking a bite pre-emptively, and he also cannot have that.)
“I'll be fine,” Illuga reassured the fae- reassures the fae!, with a smile, despite the cold sweat dripping down his face. His complexion is paler than it should be, that healthy glow reduced to an ash that rivals Kyryll himself, and the fae has always wondered why humans were granted the ability to lie like this. “I heal quickly! I'm tough, I promise, I'll be fine."
“Does it not hurt so, young master?” Kyryll presses. So much blood is going to waste, and were it not unhygienic and potentially endangering Illuga's current condition, he'd lick it up himself. Instead, mournfully, he watches it fall and soak the ground.
And yet, Illuga persists. “I should have dodged. It's my own fault. We can get to camp, and I can bandage myself up. Worse comes to worst, I tear up my own clothing to make bandages.”
“Heaven forbid, in this weather?” Kyryll makes a noise of dissatisfaction, feeling… worry, maybe, as Illuga hisses in pain and shifts uncomfortably from side to side on the ground, writhing while he attempts to put pressure on the wound.
Illuga winces.
“I'll be fine.”
Drily, the fae looks around at their surroundings, wondering if there's anything he can use to make a salve. “How convincing you are.”
The young captain is exactly that. Young. He's a prodigy for his age, excelling in combat and having a history in logistics, supposedly working behind the scenes for a couple of years in his youth both in the kitchen and in office. But it's exactly that, that makes Illuga so difficult on himself. Despite mastering such skills, he believes he should be doing more, and always will wonder how to do more. His youth makes him double back, spend more time questioning than pursuing answers, leaving endless room for spiral and self doubt. If his squadron were flowers, then Illuga must consider himself the soil beneath their feet. Providing them with the nutrients to survive and being there, but never considering himself a part of the picture.
A mandagora wobbles out from behind the underbrush, catching Kyryll's eye.
The young master has an incredible affinity, as it turns out, to ‘kuuhvakhi’ as well.
That was the source of the light, Kyryll had figured out. Most mortals couldn't tolerate kuuhvakhi in the slightest, the substance causing deep harm to those who weren't directly linked to the moon, and yet Illuga was the exception.
A small plant-based creature that’s wrapped itself around the energy the land thrums with, gaining a golden gemstone filled to the brim with kuuhvakhi glowing brilliantly on its head. In the past, when Kyryll first witnessed Illuga's unconscious decision to gleam as brightly as the sun, enough to put the most brilliantly cut diamond to shame, it was because kuuhvakhi was burning within his system to keep him alive. It had been brimming within his chest and surrounding him wholly, encasing him in a layer of the energy, similar to the elemental energy that this world commands.
There's been a significant lack of the glow, as of late, and Kyryll realizes with dismay that it's because Illuga has been cutting back on the energy.
Illuga had tentatively explained it to him once as well. “These little guys are packed full of nutrients,” he had said, pulling the body away from the gem, leaving nothing but a golden core left within his hands. “Don’t let them fool you, they look alive, but are nothing more than plants. They make a good snack in a pinch.”
A pinch.
Surely, this constitutes the same direness of a ‘pinch.’ Kyryll picks the creature up, silently using a bit of his polearm to cut the reserve off seamlessly. He rolls it around in his hands, looking for a tap, some sort of way to open it.
Amidst his pain, Illuga's eyes rapidly focusing and unfocusing, the young captain locks onto the yellow in Kyryll's palms. “Here,” the captain says softly. And what else is Kyryll to do but oblige? Kyryll reaches out, offering the delicacy in his hands up, and Illuga-
Illuga reaches out, pulling the gem to his teeth and leaving Kyryll marvelling at the way Illuga’s teeth cracks the casing open, sucking gently on the opening and consuming the kuuhvakhi. The way his lips cover any gaps, the subtle bob of his throat as he swallows, and the way he seems to gleam with satisfaction once it’s all done and over with. The way Illuga had just eaten from Kyryll's hands, despite all of the warnings to not do that from any story about the fae you read.
That soft glow returns, illuminating the particularly musty cave Kyryll had dragged Illuga into to avoid any further danger. There's a sigh of relief as Illuga's wounds seem to speed up their healing process, and Kyryll hesitates before pulling away the gem from the other man's lips and pours the fraction of remaining kuuhvakhi directly onto the cut.
“Crush the shell,” Illuga instructs weakly. “Let it drop to the ground.”
What else can Kyryll do but obey his young master, doing so dutifully? He watches the material dissolve into the ground, returning to the Earth, before humming contemplatively. Before, Kyryll had pondered what exactly it was that Illuga argued he had ‘worth’ in. If it was the Nightmare Orioles that was preventing Illuga from reaching his most selfish of desires, then could Kyryll remove them from the picture?
Oh, but that would sadden Illuga, Kyryll had denied in this meaningless debate with himself, bittering the overall meal and this once in a lifetime experience. It would remove any of the pre-existing flavor, as little as there is, leaving Kyryll at where he was before, still so undoubtedly hungry.
Glancing at the wound, a distasteful and rather ugly feeling rears its head, sharpening Kyryll's eyes as remnants of the Abyss linger and cling to Illuga's skin, trying to weave its way underneath to undoubtedly corrode and ruin Illuga. If Kyryll were to remove the Abyss from the equation, the fae reasons, surely, Illuga can start desiring for himself, and find something for him and him alone.
“It's strange,” the captain says softly, almost tenderly if Kyryll were to delude himself. “I thought you would have taken this opportunity to devour me whole knowing I'm weakened.”
Kyryll frowns. “You think of me as a brute. I haven't dared dream, young master, nor did I expect the day I devour you to be so close. You have yet to find what will make you most delicious, and so you shall live.”
“When I find worth.” Illuga mumbles, and Kyryll's heart sings with joy at the fact that he remembers their conversations. “What does that even mean?”
The rain is clearing up, Kyryll notes, gathering their meager supplies. They hadn't taken much since this was a less populated patrol route, and so the two ratnik (and Kyryll’s a ratnik now, isn’t that amusing?) had been woefully unprepared. As such, Kyryll remains silent at Illuga's probing questions.
“I have meaning in my life, I know worth. I feel it every single time I'm able to save somebody, every time I return from a successful expedition with my colleagues. Do- Do you mean my worth with the Starshyna? As a squad leader?” Illuga's voice chokes, and Kyryll glances over. “Because that's not something somebody can find easily. Not even you. How could- How could you look me in the eyes and lie like that-?”
Kyryll moves fast, and Illuga yelps at the fae suddenly being so close. Kyryll's hands are placed at the young captain's sides, and they're practically nose to nose. His temper is flaring up, he dimly realizes, and Kyryll wills himself to calm down. He's spouting blue flames, and Illuga is staring at him a bit dumbstruck and startled. Taking in a deep breath, Kyryll speaks slowly. “...my apologies, young master. It appears our definition of your worth is… different.”
A moment of just breathing between the two, and just them two, isn’t that so nice?, before Illuga finally laughs shakily. “No shit.”
The fae’s lips twitch, just slightly, in amusement. “Does the Starshyna know of such vulgar language coming from your mouth, young master?”
“Don’t bring up my dad right now. God, he’s going to kill me when he learns of this blunder.”
“I won’t allow it.” Kyryll promises, before acting serious once more. “When I say you must wisen up before I can finally devour you whole, I don’t mean finding yourself in other people.”
Greed is a fundamental core part of what makes a human ‘human’. An undeniable selfish desire to steal away and cause needless suffering, and fae nobility loved to prance around with these humans and steal them away, promising them wealth and fortune, giving them a taste of the life that they could have if they were to hand over their name. Delighting in their reactions in their last hurrah, once their names were snatched away and they were turned into a mindless doll.
What could the fae do? What could the fae do, in order to allow Illuga to feel selfish for once? To season and pepper him with the everlasting greed and want for more that all humans seem to have, all but this one. To gain control over someone so undoubtedly good—
Leaning in close, Kyryll can feel Illuga shiver with what, anticipation? Fear? It brings a thrill to him. “Young Master Illuga, you will find worth within yourself and you only. Your determination is admirable, but the problem is it’s driven by other people. If it were just you, what then? What would be left of you?”
“Then I did not try hard enough.”
Kyryll’s face darkens. “That, right there, is your problem.”
Illuga’s face twitches, his expression somewhat ugly. His eyes are narrowed in bits of disgust, lip curled downward in displeasure, and his nose scrunched up in confusion. It’s making the mole under his eye stretch oddly, and Kyryll can’t help but reach out and attempt to smooth it out with his thumb. When Illuga doesn’t recoil away from his touch as he should, Kyryll moves his other hand to cup the man’s jaw, adjusting the captain’s face and staring at Illuga’s expressions, observing.
That’s all he ever really does, Kyryll laughs humorlessly to himself.
“Have you ever tried living for yourself, for once?”
Just for a heartbeat, a heartbeat and a half perhaps, Illuga allows Kyryll’s hands to remain there. He closes his eyes, seemingly basking in the fae’s touch, inhuman as it is, and finds comfort in it. Then gloved hands find Kyryll’s, and Illuga pulls away. The lack of warmth feels evident immediately, and despite himself, Kyryll finds himself wanting to chase it. There’s this tug familiar within himself, and if he weren’t more disciplined, he would have sunk his teeth into Illuga’s wrist and consumed him whole in that very moment. To devour this very light Kyryll has found whole and to burrow it into his chest and heart.
Kyryll remains still as Illuga shuffles back and out of his grasp, taking their meager supplies out of Kyryll’s grasp and standing up unsteadily.
“I’m well enough to walk.”
“...If you say so, young master.”
The squad leader of the Nightmare Orioles nods, as wobbly as a baby fawn, and there’s a visible exhale that’s going through Illuga. Kyryll stands slowly, following his commander’s example, and says nothing as Illuga steps away from him and out into the damp wilds. It’s not cold enough for the droplets of morning dew to crystallize into snow, but it’s still plenty cold, and it would be a pain if young master Illuga were to receive hypothermia or catch any sort of illness. Kyryll has his lantern burn a little hotter.
Not brighter, because Illuga doesn’t need it.
Even now, Kyryll muses to himself, he’s still shining so brilliantly. Taking in an unneeded breath, the taller lightkeeper breaks the silence. “Master Illuga, please… consider my question?”
Fae magic is merely an influence, something you could listen too, if you felt like it and Kyryll watches carefully as Illuga thinks his words over for a moment. A habit that he learned especially for Kyryll, to dance around the words and information Illuga gives over to Kyryll, and yet nothing had felt quite as honest as that moment they shared fleetingly.
Illuga doesn’t turn around as he answers Kyryll.
“I don’t have time for that.” The captain answers so quietly, that if Kyryll weren’t supernatural, he doubts he would have picked up on. “There’s unnecessary calamities happening everywhere, Sir Flins. There are people being caught in the crossfire without deserving it, and I… they take precedence.”
“Even at the expense of your own wellbeing?”
There’s no answer to that, and again, Kyryll wonders, how can someone be so filled with love and yet take the opportunity to neglect themselves at every opportunity?
Kyryll doesn’t think he’ll ever learn why.