They’d outrun the fires together, but time and smoke hadn’t been easy on him—he coughed and spat and he didn’t see so well recently. The veins in his wings were delicate and throbbing, the once-pink membrane turning an angry red. She was mourning him already. He hung from the branch, wrapped all into and around himself, his little claws hanging lifeless about his shoulders, like a mini vampire. She was much, much bigger than him, the size of a puppy, whereas he would fit comfortably in a child’s palm. She wanted to coat him in her wing, to drape it over him like a cloak, but she knew he wouldn’t like that, so she kept her distance, just a whisper away, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him like warm air from a heater. She’d tried to catch some insects for him to eat, but her great jaws struggled with the intricacy of the capture—her incisors shredded them mid-air and the bugs left a sour taste in her mouth. She’d offered him the fruit she ate, but he’d refused, saying the smell was repulsive. The small pile of insects she’d managed to catch had gone untouched; he hadn’t given her a reason, but she knew it was because he hadn’t caught them himself. The sun had been down for nearly an hour now, and the blackness had become complete, a total shade cast all throughout the forest from the canopy to the underbrush.

He stirred. His eyes blinked open and he hacked out a cough as he unfurled his wings.

“I missed you,” he said.

“Missed me? I was right here the whole time.”

“I missed talking to you. I wanted to dream about you.”

“Me too. I brought you some food,” she said, trying to mention it with nonchalance.

“It’s okay, you have it. I’m feeling a lot better. I’m going to get my own,” he said, dropping from the branch into a series of flaps, struggling upward through the canopy.

He lifted himself into the night, and she launched herself after him, her great wing strokes powering her in twice the time with half the effort. Once she caught up with him, she simply hovered, allowing the currents to float her gently by the underside of her wings. She flew under him, letting the moonlight turn him into a silhouette against the clouds, a black blot against a dark blue canvas. Even now, she could see the weakness infesting his body; the membrane of his wings showed the skeletal arms underneath, and she could see his strength falter every third or fourth beat. She called out to him to glide, and after a few more frantic flurries, he extended his arms as she had, and rode the thermals along with her. For a strange moment, she thought she could hear his heartbeat mid-air.

He snapped after something that zipped past his face, his little incisors scything through the air but biting nothing. His lips twitched in agitation. He dived after something, hissing against the wind as he did so. He snatched at the air a few times in quick succession, his head weaving left and right, chasing the tail of some insect that was invisible to her. She could hear the snap of the sharp ivory even through the roar of the wind in her ears, but she didn’t hear the distinctive crunch that meant he’d caught a meal. He nipped through the air for another half hour, catching nothing and spending his precious strength on powering his muscles in a display of failure. They’d flown in a circle, and when she arrived back at their branch after him, he was hunched over the small pile she’d gathered earlier, the exoskeletons both hardened and moistened by the evening’s chill. She’d tried to fly slower to give him time to calm down, but she could still hear the shudder in his chest and she could still see the tension in the muscles of his hunched back. His fur was becoming patchy, turning white in spots and falling out. She didn’t know what to say, so she hung, waiting for him to finish and talk to her. Her stomach had been filled; it was easy work to feed off the fruit at this time of year. He crunched through his food, barely breathing between mouthfuls. Her heart ached to see his spine so clearly through his fur, protruding unnaturally, the skin around it stretched tight. He coughed and went to hang upside-down, leaving only a few tattered remnants of his meal.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, “Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, gripping a thick vein on the bottom of the branch with his feet and dangling.

“Are you sure? You looked starved a second ago; did you eat while I was away?”

“Yes, of course I did,” he scoffed.

“What did you eat? Because the things I left weren’t gone until just now.”

“I told you, I caught something.”

“I don’t see how you did, because—“

“I did!” he interrupted. She waited a few beats.

“It’s okay if you didn’t; you’re sick. I just wish you’d tell me.”

“I’m not sick; I just have an infection or something,” he said slowly, wheezing with every breath. Emaciated was the only way to describe him; his skin looked as though his bones were vac-packed inside it.

“I’m worried about you. You won’t eat the food I bring, or follow me to the water. You don’t even let me keep you warm anymore,” she said, a tinge of sadness entering her voice.

“I can do those things on my own! I don’t need you to baby me.”

“It’s not babying if you’re sick,” she said.

“I’m not sick!” he tried to shout but descended into his hacking little coughs.