Kardia was a risk taker, an adrenaline junkie, and a daredevil, even before he became a saint of Athena.
The Scorpio Saint was born in a city where none cared for him. While most would pity his rough childhood, Kardia was still grateful of his less-than-pleasant childhood experience. It trained his street-smart abilities and honed his survival instinct so that he could live. In a city where the strongest survive and the weak being culled out, one could only depend on their skill alone-and no one else. Yet even growing in such brutal environment, the man harboured a sense of protectiveness towards those who were weaker than himself, though such quality was subtly masked under layers of aggressions and fire.
It was such quality that drew Aquarius Krest to take him under his wing... aside his need for another apprentice.
Thinking back, Kardia thought that his master did that only for the sake of his own benefit. After all, the Scorpio Saint was nothing more than a little scoundrel back then. The ice master could have grabbed any other unnamed child and taught them the way of sainthood, could have trained said person the uniqueness of Scarlet Needle, could have doted them like a mentor did his student, as long as he could have another apprentice to watch over his other sickly one.
Kardia asked the man once why he was chosen. Krest only turned away. Such silence in itself spoke volume of how circumstantial his predicament was-that his apprenticeship really hinged on the well-being of the boy who would later don the Aquarius gold cloth.
(He could not recall any moments where Dégel was quite with color when they were still just a boy. He was always pallid under the sun, his frail body unseemingly strong and straight as he stood. He also remembered how they practiced together, the blue-haired freezing cosmo colliding against his inexperienced own, with his defeat at the boy's mercy. While it was apparent that the boy won, him keeling over after series of rough coughing was enough for Kardia to know this: Dégel was frail. But he learned enough then that the boy's frailty did not make him weak.)
To say that he didn't mind at first was a lie. Kardia had lived alone previously, without someone to look after and to be in charge of. Suddenly, he was being groomed to look after his companion. Though Dégel's constant companionship eventually grew on him, sometimes he wondered if he had been doing his job well, if at all. After all, he failed yet again to be there when Degel needed him the most, just because said ice cube was too proud to admit his weakness-that despite his wit and knowledge, there were still some battles that needed to be contended together.
Now Dégel was on his bed, the air surrounding him stilled in frost. There were thin ice edges clinging to the edges of his bed sheets and frost decorating the walls of his bedroom. The man's frantic breathes echoed with warning, and Kardia's own curses resounded with each of them.
Thank you, Kardia. And I'm sorry.
And to think Dégel was thanking and apologising at the same time during this moment.
He said nothing at first, of course, as he was too focused on burning his cosmo to warm his companion. But Dégel's body temperature did not stabilise at his desired rate. When thin ice sheets were forming here and there, with Dégel slowly letting go of his consciousness during his treatment, Kardia knew something was wrong.
"Well you'd better, idiot," he growled under his breath, the strain of keeping his cosmo in slow burn apparent from the sweats over his brows. He was never good at trickling his cosmo like what he did for Dégel; his was supposed to be let out in a mad dash, not in precision and control. "The effort I put to care for you sometimes astounds myself."
It did. Sometimes he wondered why he would even bother to put so much effort for this man. But every time his thoughts wandered there, Kardia would stop thinking; no, he already had found his answer in their companionship: in each insecurity that Dégel secretly disclosed to him, in every frustration which he shared with Dégel, in every hardship that they overcame together.
He wanted this man to live-to share what he thoughts, to have him sharing his.
(He loved him like a brother he never had, an intimate comrade-in-arms, a knight to his peer. There was no word.)
"You cannot die yet, Dégel. You hear me? I won't fucking let you."
So Kardia poured his life to staff away the pain.
(This Fire Knight would never give up.)