#glaiveblood

Cor was not intimately familiar with Nyx, until after the treaty. Until the dust settled and the corpses were pulled out and someone shocked and screamed that this man is still alive, and runs to get one of the few medics still around.

Against any possible thought, Nyx pulled through, even after so constantly denying help, wanting everyone else to get help first. There wasn’t much the Crownsguard could do. Just keeping people alive seemed to be the main priority and hope. Cor finds Nyx, wheezing and panting in one of the cots, and Cor sees his arm is nothing but charred tissue, and they have to amputate it soon enough.

“You survived.” Is the first thing Cor says.

“It sure doesn’t feel like it.”

It doesn’t look like it either. Nyx is struggling, not just with his arm gone, but they can’t really find a prosthetic, and they don’t have a treatment for whatever lightning shaped scar is going up his neck, and around his side, it seems it’s spreading.

“This damn thing is gonna kill me.”

“It should’ve already killed you.” Cor reiterates. The Lucii usually stood by their word. Yet it seemed Nyx completely ignored it.

“At this point I’d rather you just do me in and we be done with this.”

“Don’t say that.” Cor remarked.

Nyx just goes quiet, and listens to his command, and Cor is troubled by that response.

For a while things get better, Cor stops by Meldacio, where Nyx has settled down, and he’s there more than a few times. Nyx can get up on his own, usually carry something like a glass of water in his hand, but nothing too heavy, he’s still learning how to dress himself with one hand.

There is some point where Cor is sitting on the porch with Nyx, and nobody is around, because everyone is working, and Nyx has faced that reality that he cannot help, and that the most he can do is stay out of there way.

“When will you just do it?”

Cor leans forward on the railing and rests his forearms on it. He watches some of the refugee children playing around by the scientist.

“I just got here Nyx.” Cor murmured. He takes out a crumpled pack of smokes, and offers one out to Nyx, and Nyx takes it, and lights it with a flame produces from his own palm. The King’s magic still flows in him.

“How’d he deal with it?” Nyx asked, grey exhaling and immediately taken by the cold Meldacio wind.

“Who?”

“Whichever.”

Nyx meant ‘King Mors or King Regis’

“Neither of them really dealt with it.” Cor remarked. “Their affliction was not nearly as severe as yours.”

Nyx’s hair was half grey now, and it was just long, like Gladiolus’s hair, nobody knew how to do the braids he wore, so Nyx just let it grow. He’s wheezing a bit while he smokes, but it’s nothing he worries about.

“How much are you banking on this cigarette killing me right now?” Nyx asked, holding the slightly bent cigarette up.

“I’m hopeful.” Cor replied. He sees an amused smile on Nyx’s face. Cor looked out again, seeing the kids had kicked the ball away, and were out of earshot.

“You don’t wanna go home?”

“Home where?”

“Galahd.”

“Like this?” Nyx points at himself, the ashes are closing in around half of his face, and the left side of his body is spreading that burn. “Nah. I’m not the person I want to come back as.”

Cor nods. He smokes. Nyx does too. No matter what, the damn thing just wont kill Nyx on the spot. So he figures he’ll have to do it himself.

Cor Leonis leaves Meldacio three days before Nyx Ulric dies.

He packs everything up, and takes a few of Nyx’s things, although nobody knows why. Nobody knows the will that isn’t written down on paper but told to Cor by word of mouth. The kukri to return to Nyx’s father, the pictures, the uniform -- there’s not much Nyx has left, but what is left he gives to Cor. In life they knew each other so little, but in death Cor has carried on Nyx’s whole life.

Cor returns as quiet as he can. He returns at night after curfew, when all the lights are off, and Nyx has left the back door open as instructed. He never told Nyx what day he would return. So Nyx had to just trust to leave the door unlocked. Cor is quiet in his entrance. Nyx is asleep. The scars are driving deeper towards his eye. He heard someone say Nyx seemed to be going blind in his left eye.

He’s peaceful, barely snoring, his house is empty, there’s a big bowl of Duscaean oranges someone must’ve brought over, and some of Ezma’s meat pie. Cor doesn’t linger in the house long, he’s just checking the rooms for other people. If someone is here, he will postpone it. He checks the couches, the bathroom, the closet.

Nobody is here.

Cor lets out a long sigh.

“I can’t take it anymore.” Cor watches Nyx throw something to the ground, something useless, a CD, it smashes into a dozen pieces, and he’s continuing to fall apart, shuddering, he can’t even throw anything because he’s choked up. “I can’t live like this. I can’t die like this. Don’t let it take me. Marshal. Cor. It hurts so much I can’t take it anymore.”

Cor watches him fall to the floor, catching himself on his only remaining hand. Nyx is coughing, out of breath and wheezing, and he watches on, unblinking, unmoving. Nyx slowly collects himself in shuddering breath.

“Don’t. Don’t look at me. Just watching me die.” Nyx whispered, and Cor saw beads of tears forming, running down his face. “Everyone else is just watching. Just. Staring... I can feel it in here.” Nyx touches his left side. “My lung... it’s hurting to breathe. I don’t know when it’ll come but I just want it to stop.”

Cor knelt down, grasped Nyx’s hand, and squeezes it very hard. He looks the Glaive in the eye.

“What do you want me to do?”

Nyx is silent for a long long time. They both know. They just don’t want to say it.

Nyx struggled at the pillow, trying to hit, maim, fight back-- but he sees Cor, eyes wide, shock floods his features, and Cor covers his face with the pillow fully. Seeing Cor for just that one second, Nyx relaxes.

Curfew is at 10 pm. Sometimes someone comes over to help me get dressed or eat or whatever, they usually leave, but sometimes they stay the night, if you see anyone else, just leave, okay?

“It’ll be suspicious if they see me here. I should leave Meldacio before then. That way it’ll be harder to figure out.”

Right... I don’t want you to get caught -- oh, my stuff, my stuff you should take it. I’ll make some shit up, just... take it somewhere. So they can mail it or something.

“... Does it really hurt that much, Nyx? The Lucii...”

Enough that I to want to die.

No response.

Even like this, Nyx must’ve had some damn good lungs because Cor swears it takes hours to strangle him. It was really about six minutes. Nyx claws uselessly with his right arm, and Cor realizes what he is trying to do.

So Cor reaches for his hand, and grabs it, and squeezes it, and pets the back of his hand with his thumb, and with his other arm, Cor leans all his weight onto the pillow he has covering Nyx’s face. Nyx’s hand squeezes his own tightly, feeling someone there, someone anchoring him to the world, and then to never be anchored again, and Nyx is somehow able to relax.

Do it now, do it now just kill me --

“Nyx, please, someone will hear you.”

It’s happening again. The pain it, it, it’s gonna -- 

Nyx seizes up before anyone can do anything. He seizes to the pain and it stays lingering for an hour, and Cor watches, in some muted horror he watches that pain posses the man, unable to do anything, his whole body is frozen and then spasming the next moment. He can’t even breathe. They’re in the presences of other people, and the medical team rush over, help him breathe, keep him alive -- and Cor wants to fight them off and tell them to let him go. It is like this every couple of days, and it gets worse every single time.

Cor holds that weak warm hand until it starts to grow cold. He sits by Nyx’s bed, looking over him, the figure of a man who had done so much. He reaches into the nightstand, and contemplates taking those dogtags, but Cor decides against it. It’s better they stay here, in Meldacio, they can die with him. Cor holds Nyx’s hand, and speaks to him.

“Nyx. Can you hear me?”

He is not even moving. Cor reaches out, holds his hand over Nyx’s nose and mouth. Nothing. Cor turns him over face down in the bed, and folds the blankets over him.Cor feels his pulse.

Nothing.