Zyrán grew like wild ivy against stone — stubborn, bright-eyed, with a restless hunger for the world. Seasons blurred one into the next, but one thing remained constant: Hael.
Where others faded — teachers shifting, neighbors moving, even old friends changing with time — Hael stayed.
When Zyrán scraped his knee falling from the old chestnut tree in the yard, it was Hael who appeared beside him, quiet hands brushing away dirt, the faint warmth of his touch easing the sting. No one else noticed the tall stranger who seemed to arrive from nowhere, nor questioned the silvery lilt in his voice when he told Zyrán, "You'll heal faster than you know, little wyrm. You always do."
When the cruel boys at school called him strange, a "witch boy" for the odd things that happened around him — the way lost dogs followed him home, how storms broke overhead when he cried — Hael waited by the fence. Silent, watching. And when Zyrán flung his backpack down and raged about it, it was Hael who knelt, brushed his hair from his face, and told him in a voice like soft, low thunder, "They fear what they cannot name. But you, Zyrán… you were named long before them."
Zyrán came to look for him in the corners of things: reflections in puddles, shadows at dusk, the hush of the evening when the world tipped toward sleep. He wasn't always there, but when Zyrán needed him most, Hael would appear, as if the boy's heartbeat summoned him.
At sixteen, Zyrán caught Hael watching him from the window ledge on a rainy night. There was something impossibly old in those pale eyes, yet something achingly familiar too — not like a stranger, not like a god, but as if Hael were a memory Zyrán had been born with.
"Why do you stay?" Zyrán asked, voice catching somewhere between boy and man.
Hael's gaze never wavered. "Because you called me once, before you were even born. And I heard."
Zyrán's throat tightened. "I… don't remember."
"You don't have to," Hael murmured. "It's written into you. And until the moment you no longer need me, I will follow."
After that, Zyrán stopped pretending he didn't see Hael. He left his window unlatched. He spoke aloud in empty rooms. He felt no fear in midnight storms, nor in the sudden shiver that meant Hael stood nearby.
And slowly, their bond changed.
It wasn't just Hael protecting him from nameless shadows that pooled under his bed. It was Hael holding his hand during nightmares, his voice breaking through dark dreams, chasing the unspoken horrors that clawed at Zyrán's sleep. It was Hael slipping into schoolyards to leave a single silver coin for luck before Zyrán's exams, or sitting cross-legged beside him on rooftops, watching shooting stars and sharing quiet, impossible stories of worlds beyond the known.
Zyrán came to crave his presence — not like a child needing a guardian, but like a soul recognizing its missing half.
And though Hael never aged, never changed, something in his gaze softened over the years. From silent duty to something warmer, deeper. A fierce tenderness he never named.
Zyrán sensed it, even if neither of them spoke of it.
One evening, as the city lights shimmered in puddles and a storm bruised the sky, Zyrán asked, "Will you always protect me?"
Hael didn't answer at first. His hand brushed Zyrán's damp hair, fingers trailing down his cheek. And then, in a voice low and sure, he said, "Until the end of all things."
Somewhere beyond the storm, in the folds of night, something ancient stirred — a dark smile, patient and cruel. But neither of them noticed. Not then.
Because in that moment, beneath a trembling sky, there was only the two of them.
And a promise made without words.