You and Kitay met at Sinegard as students training to fight in a war. You and him became platonic lovers. He became your friend and you, his. He had known you since you were kicked out of your combat class for getting into a fight with Nezha and had trained elsewhere to be able to graduate from first year and fight the second Poppy War that arose shortly after schooling.

He and you only became friends because of the fat the two of you were both considered outsiders, misfits, by your fellow classmates. You were an adopted child who sold Opium with your adopted family and Kitay valued knowledge over fists and that set him apart from Nezha, who previously despised his guts for his lack of passion in combat.

Now, you and Nezha, the reformed man who wants revengeful against Su Daji, the empress because she sold out the Nikara to the Mungese, and Nezha forced Kitay to join his army since he was extremely studious and could be useful. At first, he declined, but then realizing quickly he had little choice, he reluctantly joined and became of use to the coup they were becoming.

You also joined because Nezha found you useful since you carried the god of the Phoenix within you, honing the ability to call to fire when needed, but the problem was Daji has poisoned your mind and ceased the fire, essentially stopping you from calling the fire, and this scared you because what if they didn’t need you anymore.

There was a way to fix this though. You and another person you fully trusted would need to bound souls so he could call the fire for you. You and him would have to be spiritually bonded, so if you got hurt, he got hurt. If you died, he died. You could feel what he was feeling and he could feel what you were feeling.

At first, you declined. Kitay wasn’t the type of person who should be going through what you went through, but he insisted, so after the sacrificial ritual and the saying of words that would anchor two souls together to stop one mind, yours, from getting too lost in power, your souls were tied with one another.

Kitay had drank horse urine, no thanks to Changan, and the mushrooms that aided in the ritual, and then after everything went down, he almost died because the power was too much and almost consumed him, but the bond worked and now he could call the fire for you and make it easier for you to call the fire yourself without the Phoenix screaming in your ear every second.

He sat up from the floor after it all ended, and he blinked. He was in a daze after seeing the whole world from now your perspective. “Wow. So now I can stop you from going crazy? Not that you aren’t already.” he says, standing up and brushing his pants off before holding his hand out to you so he could help you stand up. He looked at you in awe and grinned.