text: The first time he saw the kid was at the Battle of N’ray. Well, he called him a kid. He was barely a decade younger and had one foot into adulthood--all gangly and tall like a newborn giraffe--but he seemed like a kid. Had that same wide-eyed look of worship when he pulled him from the burning rubble and forced the flames away with his Blessing. He raised his voice over the shouts of battle. “Kid, there’s a clear path to the aid camp. I’ll cover you, so get going.” He turned, to re-wade into the fight. A hand tugged his sleeve. “Borrow,” the kid murmured. “Can I...” He glanced at the kid again. Scruffy, dirty, a haggard look in the eyes that you didn’t get overnight. Probably an orphan. Or was one now, anyway. He pulled a silver pendant from under his armor, shoved it in the kid’s hands. “Don’t have money on me, but this should sell for a pretty penny. Get some food, get away from the war, find a job.” On a whim, he ruffled the kid’s hair. “You’ve got a good look to you. You’ll do fine.” Then he left the kid behind. What he thought was for good. The second time he saw the kid was a few years later. Another battlefield--a dead one this time, filled with deadmen and a soon-to-be-dead-man with a broken leg and broken ribs and a broken spirit, wondering if it was worth it to write a letter to his family in his final moments. Wondering if it would ever find its way back to his mother and his brother and the woman he'd loved since twelve but had always been too scared to tell. The hand of death came for him while he was wondering. He closed his eyes, wished he could say goodbye--but why was it warm? A weight dropped around his neck. A silver pendant he thought he’d never see again. “I didn’t need a whole pendant,” said a vaguely familiar voice. The voice was deeper than he remembered, but it was the same kid. The look in the eyes hadn't changed. “Just wanted a coin or two. Do you have any change, by the way? I still owe a quarter to the guy I was penny-gambling with yesterday and I’m out of coins.” “How...?” he whispered, his dry voice soft and cracking. _How did you find me?_ “Oof, you’re heavy. How, you ask? Well, the sneaky bastard said he’d teach me to play cards and proceeded to make me lose every game. I swear he’s cheating, but, well, I’ve still gotta pay up.” He chuckled. Took a slow, limping, painful step with his good leg. “Right pocket. The bag with the clover.” The kid grinned. “You’re a lifesaver.” Then he must have passed out, because the next thing he knew he was in a hospital tent and the kid was nowhere in sight. "You have some guardian angel," the medic told him. "The one who brought you in said he was only passing by when he found you. How the hell someone ended up passing by a _battlefield_ is beyond me, but the higher ups aren't complaining. He saved a fire Blessing, after all. We need all the help we can get when the enemy crawled out from a volcano." And so it went. The kid kept showing up. Always in the nick of time, always when he felt death's cold breath on his neck. Always with the thing he'd borrowed last. Always needing some other trinket, for some reason or another. "Are you following me?" he'd asked the third time it happened, handing over the requested pocket knife. The kid snorted, tying off a tourniquet. "Who the hell would want to follow you? Every time I see you, you're half dead or well on your way there. No, I like my life where it is, thank you very much." He paused. “Did you ever ask out that girl?” “What girl?” “The one who made you the handkerchief I borrowed last time. You accidentally left a letter in there. It seemed important.” Another pause, and he hurried to amend himself. “I didn’t read much of it, just enough to see whose it was. Thought it might have been one of my buddy’s.” Silence, in which the bandages wrapped thicker. “No,” he whispered. “I haven’t.” “You should. She obviously likes you enough to send you three pages of dense script and a handkerchief. The worst she can do is hand you the ‘brother’ card, right?” The number of encounters grew, grew until he needed two hands to count them, then three, and then he stopped counting. But he never learned the kid’s name. He was regretting that now. “Come on, kid, stay with me,” he begged. "You're too young to die." The kid laughed. It made the blood seep faster. "And you're not?" It had been strange this time. He hadn’t been half-dead, nor in any real danger of dying. A scouting mission, not even in the war zone: safe, easy, peaceful. So he was surprised when he came face to face with the kid. Well, not really a kid anymore. Hadn’t been for years. But his eyes never changed from what he’d seen in the rubble that day. He’d probably call him ‘kid’ till the day he died. “You know, I don’t think I’ve seen you in one piece before,” the kid joked. “Anyway, here’s the string from last time. It’s a bit worse for wear, but it did the trick.” He accepted it, already used to the strangeness of the exchange, of the kid’s weird insistence on returning even the most worthless of items. He rolled his eyes, wondering what the kid would ask for this time. As a result, he almost missed the hissing ball of fire barreling towards them. Normally, you’d move away from this kind of thing, wouldn’t you? But this kid, this idiot of a kid had moved _closer_, shifting towards the center of the projectile. He flung up a hand, pushed his Blessing against the fire and forced it back where it came. But he couldn’t do anything about the arrow hidden in its belly. Couldn’t do anything as it embedded into the kid’s back. As the kid stumbled, muttered “Well I guess that explains it, then.” As he realized that if the kid hadn’t been there, that arrow would be in his heart. The kid coughed, and a stream of red left his mouth. Improbably, he grinned. “If anyone’s too young to die, it’s you. You haven’t even asked out your crush yet. By any chance, do you have a--" "No, you need a _doctor_, not a button or needle or whatever damn thing you're trying to borrow this time. We need--" "My Blessing," the kid interrupted. "My Blessing is that I can always return what I borrow." "But--" "_Always,_" he emphasized. He coughed again in the heavy silence. "So while I'm still in this world, do you mind lending me a pen? I lost--" "Shut up, you bratty kid. Forget whatever dumb, contrived reason you've made up. I've got a charcoal, take it or leave it." "I'll take it." His hand curled around the worn out stick of charcoal. A brief silence. Suddenly the kid’s wound didn’t seem so terrible anymore. There was blood, yes, but it seemed more like someone else’s blood. The wound didn’t weep so thickly. “So uh, about that doctor. I think I may need it after all.