//cracks knuckles
Alright, you opened the info dump door!

Safir came from a large, loving and supportive family. Neither wealthy nor poor, somewhere in the comfortable middle of things. Their mother is a sorceress so that's where they inherited their magical blood and their father is a scholar, so they grew up reading a lot about everything that struck them as even mildly interesting.
As a child and young teenager they were considered a prodigy in school and so they had no real issues getting accepted into the academia.

When their neurodiversity caught up with them, though, they quickly discovered there's a rather big difference between learning and studying. They were not a fan of the latter and decided to quit after a massive burnout. Their parents welcomed them back home with open arms and that's where they spent a couple of years recharging.
Their father pulled some strings so that they could still have access to the academia because that's where they had made a bunch of good friends, he didn't want them to miss out on those connections just because they couldn't keep up with the demands from their professors.
Not to mention, the library they loved to occupy until dawn was right there and it brought him so much joy to see them happy.

They developed a particularly strong interest for potion brewing and shadow magic and would occasionally work as a tutor for children and young teenagers with similar struggles as they had, doing their best to make a difference in a system not really built for these kids.

Just for fun, they also took crossbow classes because you never know when you might need that.
This is how they eventually met Arannon, they shot him in the shoulder by accident and stuffed a healing potion in his face so he wouldn't die.
They'd seen him before, brief moments here and there when wandering the upper class area of the city, but they didn't really recognize him at the time.

Their friend Nayana (The noble tiefling lady Arannon was fake dating while trying to help her connect with her actual love interest.) did, though, and found the whole thing hilarious.

Arannon would visit the academia to hang out with Nayana and get some time away from the estate where he felt suffocated.
That's how he'd eventually recognise Safir as the "lady" who shot him and tried to discretely ask Nayana if she knew anything about them, making himself the target of merciless teasing from his friend until she agreed to help him get the key to the academia so that he could gain access to it all times of day, as long as he'd help her get some time alone with the guard she had her eyes on.
Easy enough, he made sure they could meet somewhere private and she helped him get the key.

After this, it did take him a little while to actually approach Safir because he wasn't entirely sure what to say. "Remember me? You shot me in the shoulder, how about a glass of wine somewhere?" felt like a less than ideal way to introduce himself.

Eventually, he gathered some courage and decided to just frequent the library during the hours he'd expect them to be there, casually browsing and internally rehearsing ways to strike up a conversation.

They caught him off guard by asking him if they could have the book he was holding once he was finished with it and his brain refused to cooperate.
Mildly amused by this awkward, stammering mess of a man, Safir asked him if he would like to meet up somewhere more private, to which he delivered an affirmative squeak.

Turns out that despite their upbringings being so different, they had many interests and core values in common.
Arannon was drawn in by their intellect and kind, warm demeanor. They were also rather cheeky and had a mildly shocking sense of humour. He felt seen and safe in their presence, they didn't judge him for things like his speech impediment or tendency to ramble and overshare. They would also playfully challenge him, intellectually and in other ways, which was something he wasn't used to but enjoyed immensely.
Their impression of him was practically the meme "Aw, it's adorable!...Oh, it's traumatized.".

He would go on long "walks" just to spend time with them in the library or by the ocean during the day, then the evenings would be filled with drinking and talking in dimly lit pubs downtown until the birds awakened and he would return to the estate, nobody really asking where he went or why.
His parents saw him with Nayana often enough to assume they were actually an item, not just besties plotting.

Safir's home was like a warm, comforting hug compared to what he was used to. His family may have been wealthy materialistically speaking but there was absolutely no genuine love inside those walls.
Getting a glimpse of what parents and siblings are supposed to be like was an eye opener like no other and he knew that this was exactly what he wanted, with Safir. When he asked them if they felt the same, they teasingly asked him back why it took him so long to bring it up.

Making their relationship official was not the disaster he'd anticipated, but wasn't a very joyous occasion either.
Arannon's father didn't give much of a response besides a disapproving, mildly annoyed sigh and his mother chose her usual peacekeeping silence. At least a scholar's daughter (Sircius' words, despite being told the correct pronouns and titles many times. He was just a stubborn man like that and his opinion was that you're either a man or a woman, none of this other nonsense.) was something, at least.
They had two more children, perhaps they would choose other nobles to continue the family bloodline with.
(Joke's on them, Arannon's brother couldn't keep a relationship going if his life depended on it and his sister came out as a lesbian the same day she left the estate to be with her future wife. Har har!)

After a rather modest wedding with mostly Safir's side of the family attending and a handful of trusted friends from Arannon's side, they bought a house within walking distance from Safir's childhood home and enjoyed some joyful, healing years until Sircius died and Arannon was the only one interested in taking over the winery so that's when they moved in and started making happier memories to push the dark ones away.

So to sum it up, they helped him heal. NOT at the cost of their own emotional/mental health, this I cannot stress enough. This is not another AFAB person doing a bunch of emotional labor to "fix" a depressed man story, they helped eachother out.

(Hhnnn I love them so much, thanks for letting me talk about them!)