At least, always, there was Serah. Being able to feel and thrive off the gifts of your siblings is equal parts blessing and curse. Being 8th out of 9 is also its own kind of tricky reward. His parents had come to a routine, and although Symon's mind sometimes skipped a beat he was never an ill hearted father or a failure at taking care. There aren't stories about Cassian and Serah going without lunch or not being showered; there are a few hand-me-downs and not much else that could even be expected of such a large clan. Love did not lack in the slightest. But weirdness was just as abundant as all the heart. So Serah was the comfort, the watchtower in the storm.

Together, they ran their own time. They spoke their own language — one they keep up with to this day — and they made their own points. When the car ran off and Cassian was left in the parking lot, it was Serah that broke through the noise and reminded them of the missing head. When Cassian was left on a ride at Disneyland, Serah was the one tugging at sleeves for someone to go back and grab him. And every time, Cassian did wait; he knew his place to stand there and figure out his time. He learned, that way. Watched people. Grew interested. It had its own little trick gifts beyond his twin sister and her special heart.

The interest in writing came early and often. Poetry, at first. It wasn't great — a bunch of broken thoughts that came together and got him interest from teachers and classmates. But stories were where it really began. Option to write short stories to go with his projects. Choosing to recite stories aloud for presentations no matter what kind of class he was taken. Cassian wanted for creativity and it wasn't true enough with music or dancing or art; all those things worked casually, helped him find happiness as hobbies, but writing was the only thing that really took him completely away from any of the awkwardness of living.

Life is grand and, wouldn't you like to have it go as planned? Things are never an easy connection of the dots. Lights over a canyon are not always stars trying to guide one home, after all. So Cassian's life has never been direct. It was studious and it was carefully constructed but never easy. There were screams of metal and there were u-turns sharp on highways and there have been friends and lovers and, eventually, a kind of luxury. But, like a moth to flame, he was never distracted from his goals easily, either. Even when scholarship and Harvard added up to just not enough and he had to take on a fake name for romance writing, Cassian found his way to stories and others.

Which is what lead to the eventuality that has kept Cassian in a kind of flutter-by of starlight and heroics. Each of the siblings had seen their share of battles. Their strengths were faultlines that would tremble when danger got too close and danger, it had a way with the world. Cassian flutters, it's what he does. He follows an odd stray of light until the source makes sense and becomes of him. Stories and adventures. And that's why, when Serah spoke about the way the world needed more heroes, needed Cazerns to become some flourishing entity that didn't just protect but save and prevent? Cassian knew what he had to do.

Somewhere between Peter Pan and Superman, Zero was born: a hero in the Cazerns who lived as the others, shrouded in mystery and safety so no one could find out their identities. Sometimes, Serah has felt it, has thought it, but the conversation has not been had. She feels safer and that is what matters; the world is better and that is what is important. Because it has to be saved and lovely to keep chasing after all the little ranks of lights waiting around to be found.

Congratulations, you hit the mark. The leader of the Cazerns died and Cassian, in all his efforts, rose up enough into the structure to be left with responsibility weighing in on him to the point of needing a pause from anything else in life. New York on the horizon more permanently, boys shaped like glass and futures broken into troubles, but the world is safer for it and he watches, and waits.