reignfall | 𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔟𝔬𝔯𝔫𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔢𝔦𝔤𝔫.

𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔟𝔬𝔯𝔫𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔢𝔦𝔤𝔫.

In spite of all her terrible fears, it really does seem as though it was naught but the common fever, which had struck her young son. Joffrey Zarek had never known a day's suffering, however, not a lack of rest nor a hint of true hunger, and though he is but few turns away from his third nameday, encroaching upon them in the second month of the year, the disease passed by him quickly. It is the fourth day now, and his appetite was ferocious when she had broken her fast with him on honeyed bread and fruit, he was eagerly chasing a cat he had spotted right thereafter, and only during their walk in the open air did any sort of fatigue catch him. Awake he remained for the waterfalls and his spotting of a large bird of prey, though he was solidly asleep in her arms soon enough on their way back. Before she set him down in his bed, she felt his forehead for the umpteenth time, but it is as the healer had assured her: he is well once more, even the cough is gone.

Relieved, she leaves the boy to his afternoon nap, and goes again to find her husband. Gone had he been in the earliest hours of morning, as was his usual way, though it is strange that he not even been present to ignore her request to join her and their son for their morning meal, nor has she seen hide nor hair of him since.

She finds him in his study, in the end, and it does not take more than a look for her to know what has befallen him. There is a glaze to his otherwise so sharp eyes, a pallor to his skin, dark rings beneath his eyes. The lips dry and cracked, his breath the lightest rasp. "My emperor." She inclines her head, though she is trying fast to suppress a hint of mirth. "If you would excuse me for another moment?"

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Her emperor is in a bad mood. He has had a headache since he awoke, throbbing behind his temples and under his eyes; and the cold keeps catching him, despite the fire blazing in the grate and the fur coat draped around his shoulders. He would build the fire up again, but there is already too much smoke in the air, itching at his eyes and scratching in his throat, making him cough. It is that, perhaps, that is making it so hard to focus: he has been sitting at this desk for a solid three hours already, poring over the same letter from his steward in Asan, unable to unpick the solution to the problems of rebellion it outlines. His headache keeps getting worse as a result, and the words swim before him, and he curses and balls up another drafted reply, throwing the birch-bark parchment into the fire as he turns to meet the intrusion of his wife.

"I am working," he snaps at her, impatient, and reaches for his teapot, only to find it empty. The spices have not been doing their work today; he feels neither strengthened nor invigorated by his tea. "What is it? Is the boy worse?"

The room is not merely heated, it is boiling, and as cold as she has found Vasilion to be, now she sheds her cloak of fur almost at once to avoid breaking into an undignified sweat. It has caught him bad, there is a hoarseness in his voice that speaks of the cough his son had suffered all the same, and she has never before see him in a state she would even for a moment consider as obviously unwell as it is now.

Which is not good.

His snapping does not deter her – it rarely does, these days – and she walks in while he pours his vanished tea. She will need to see more brought to him; no, that may not do. The fewer servants know his state, the better, if only for his spirits.

And yet, in spite the obvious concern, there's a flicker of warmth in her eyes when he inquires about Joffrey first. "Much better, in fact. The fever is gone, and his throat no longer pains him so. He ate his fill this morning, though I mean to let him sleep most of the afternoon, to make sure the shivers does not return." If Joff will have that. No matter how much she acts untouched by all, it is obvious in her tone that her relief is most genuine, and she seems, for the first time since the onset of the boy's sickness, to be somewhat at ease. Only somewhat, of course. "You ought to see him when you feel better. He has picked up a number of fresh Vasi words."

It is, in fact, near frightening how fast her son is learning this new language, taking to it as any child might to his mother's tongue, and though he has a toddler's small vocabulary, he is quickly approaching the level at which she herself speaks the language.

"My husband." A more tender thing to call him than her emperor, though one appears in their bedchamber more often than the other. "You need to rest." She always touches him in the same fashion when it comes unbidden, always at an angle his eyes can follow, for she did not like much the way he twisted her arm before she had learned the way of it. Even if he will only suffer the touch of her fingers for a moment, she will not need much more for it. "You are burning, Casimir."

He will not admit it aloud, but he is relieved, too. Children can be sickly, and while he is resigned to the fact that there will come a time where only one of he and Joffrey may live, he is not in undue haste to see that time arrive. Besides, his son will not die of something so ignominious. It would be embarrassing for all of them, and unsettle what stability an heir does offer.

Any of that relief he might show, however, is quickly wiped away by his irritation as she continues. When you feel better? He is, perhaps, a little under the weather; he is tired, and his body aches, but he is not some wretched invalid. He will not allow it any purchase, will not moan and shirk his work because of a sore throat. Nor will he accept her fussing over him, as though he is her child, and must be coddled and chided. She is too soft with Joffrey, as it is, and Joffrey is still a child: he will not accept any part of that aimed towards himself.

When she reaches out, then, he grabs her wrist - slower, perhaps, than is usual for him, but that means nothing; it only means that he is tired, which he already knew - and knocks her hand aside, his lip curling. "If I feel warm, it is because this room is more heated than the others." Even if it feels cold. He is aware of the contradiction, but he will not acknowledge it. He does not have a fever, because he will not allow himself to; and if he did have a fever, he would not proclaim it out loud for anyone who wished to hear. He is tired - but not, it must be added, so tired that he cannot defend himself; not so tired that he will be made weak by it. He is having a bad day, that is all. If he lets it be anything more than that, what will it achieve, but encouraging that doubt to linger? "Do not presume to tell me what I need to do."

"And why is the room more heated than the others?" If it were to bother him, he could simply open a window and the mountain air would do its chilling work. The fire looks well-stoked, though, and he is clad in warming furs of his own, and it was his spiced tea he was seeking, not a cold splash of water. He is no more warm now than their small son had been on the first day of his sickness, when he was complaining of the cold, shivering, yet riddled with a frightening fever all the same.

Yet this is her husband, not a little boy, and she doubts he could be rooted to his bed, toy in hand, by her telling to him violent tales of his father's conquests.

Even with her hand firmly returned to her side, she will not let this go so readily. "No one would think anything by another order of sage tea to his room." Joff's room, his nursery, just a door away from the bedchamber she shares with her lord husband. She does not mention the indignity of the cold wrappings she had used around her son's legs, so that his temperature was forced to lower. To get this tea down his throat seems to be the starting point to aim for. "And no one would find it strange for a husband to spend an hour or three with his wife in the middle of the day."

He grunts, his lips pressed warningly taut in anger. She is too complacent, of late; she has the nerve to think that she can tell him what to do, shepherd him this way and that like a fussing nursemaid? No. No, she will have to be reminded who is Emperor.

Another time. When his neck is not so stiff, and his fingers feel less clumsy.

"If I spent every hour with you that you ask, the empire would slip through my fingers like water." He knows that is not what she means, but he will not acknowledge what she means. He does not need sage tea and bed rest, leeches and silver cups, quicksilver and nitre salts. He is not a sick man. He is clean, and fit, and careful; he eats well, abstains from the things that make men ill, and keeps himself active; and most of all, he is the master of his own body and mind, and he will not suffer them to betray him. "Go and find someone else to fuck, Cersei. I have work to do."

"You are the emperor. Delegate, or else let them wait." The ice she is threading on is getting thin. She knows this, and she steps on it in spite of the cracking, and while she does not doubt that he could hurt her even in this state, perhaps a sluggish attempt might return him to his senses. Besides, it is not as if he has left her entirely free of instruction, as if he means her to be an empress solely in title. Whatever letter he failed and burned might be one that comes to her more easily.

Seeing how she does not look as if she has been fished fresh from the Stranger's arms.

"The sooner you rest, the sooner you will be at your fullest strength. The longer you draw this out, the higher the odds of word spreading. Come to your senses, Casimir."

He surges to his feet at that, hand raised to slap her, his patience reaching its frayed end. Let her see whether she can say he is not at his fullest strength when her lip splits against her teeth, let her tell him to come to her senses when she is reeling herself.

Unfortunately, he has miscalculated. He knows it as soon as he stands, and all the air seems to leave his lungs, the room swimming before his eyes. The hand raised to slap her is, instead, required to grip the corner of his desk, to hold himself upright lest his suddenly weak knees be knocked out from under him. He sways, finds some semblance of balance, and squints at her, raising a finger warningly in the direction of the golden smear that she has momentarily become.

"I have a cold. That is all. It will pass on its own."

He is looking a fair breath to the left of where he stands, which is a strange detail to note when he is swaying and holding himself up by the edge of his desk. To the credit of her remaining sanity, she did take a step back when he rose – and to her endless discredit, she steps closer now, though she is mindful of any and all extremities that might be levelled against her.

"Of course. You are a healthy man," save for a sleeping habit that makes the word 'habit' border on the ironic. "And by tomorrow, you will feel better yet by far." This she hopes for, though Joffrey passing through the worst of it quickly bolsters her there. "You could take your usual tea, and some fresh air. It could be enough to invigorate you."

Or it could tire him further, until he is forced to take a midday's rest.

"Don't," he snaps, his voice sharper than the knife which, for a miracle, he has not yet tried to draw, "patronise me."

She is right. He hates, with all his heart and soul, that she is right. He blinks rapidly, trying to clear the blurring from his vision, and lets out a long, slow huff of breath. She does not believe for a moment that he will recover, and she is not a good liar, and neither of those is a particularly appealing thing to hear in her voice. But she is, unfortunately, right in the central matter: he is sick. Something has slipped past his defences, and he is sick. Last time he was this unsteady on his feet, there was an arrowhead lodged in his thigh.

Your usual tea. That sticks with him, and he glares balefully at the empty teapot, gleaming in the blazing firelight. Is it possible that...

"Fresh air." He presses his lips together, his teeth grinding at the back of his mouth, and nods. "Yes. We will go to the garden, and pick sage ourselves." Where he will know, for absolute certain, what it is he is drinking.

It is hard not to patronise him when she had a startlingly similar exchange with her son just under a handful of days ago, though that is a comment she swallows in favour of not angering him further. More shocking than any aspect of this talk is the way she wonders how much upsetting him would affect his health now. She reckons he would like that line of thought no more than she does.

Either way, she knows where his line of thought has gone the moment he eyes his teapot with such suspicion, for she remembers well the misinterpreted bout of morning sickness that had her think much the same thing. There is a special terror to the realisation, no matter how unlikely, for when has an assassination ever felt likely to the victim?

"Very well." She turns, awaiting him by the door so that he may offer her his arm, though she is not sure who requires whose hold now. "Chamomile, too, mayhaps. Joff should like it so long as there is a drop of honey in his cup."

The truth is that an assassination always feels likely to him - which is, of course, why it is as unlikely as it is. Why he supervises the trading of spices with an eagle eye, why he is so careful to keep his food and drink secure, and even why he chooses a drink which, being boiled, is that little bit harder to poison.

But it is hard, not impossible. Never impossible.

He nods again, grimly reluctant, and takes a moment more to steady himself, to resolve the smeared and unfocused room into a single image, before he moves to offer her his arm. "Honey will do him good, as well. It can help to fight infection." He himself will not take it. Honey is a good and healthful thing, but it is also far too easy to adulterate.

His unsteadiness will be noticeable when she takes his arm, as will the fever still baking from him. The dizziness has not passed as quickly as he had hoped; he still feels light-headed and out-of-sorts, and under his heavy furs, he can feel how the sweat runs more readily than ever.

Most, she reckons, would not notice how much the illness slows him down. It is only there in glimpses, momentary things, and the untrained eye (or a cheaper sellsword) might pass them by entirely. Even some who know him day in and out might not at once be struck. Good. Better than she is forced to fear.

Now he is too close for her to safely point out his unsteadiness, and the urge to comment on it subsides in the face of the heat that he radiates. The fever is high, this is no light brush with a raised temperature. Tonight, she resolves, she will sleep either in her son's room, or find a way to be almost comfortable in some chair he keeps in their bedroom here – fever dreams are naught to be laughed at in a man or woman not driven by reasonable concerns over their safety, but she does not wish to find out the knife-pointed way what his mind concocts for him to wake to.

She begins to walk in the meandering way expected of a lady, shutting the door firmly behind them and then guiding him down the dreaded stairwell. At least, he kept his furs on: he will sweat beneath them, and the sweat will drive out some of the sickness. "It helps him complain less of the sage, too. It is an awful taste, I hated it as a girl." And she is not much one for it today, either – but what is there to do but to taste even the most repulsive of medicines?

The focus, then, is on their way to the gardens, and there is no haste to be found in – she does not wish to rush him in his state, and like this, they look like they are taking any ordinary walk. The gardens, however, are another thing, and she regards him carefully out here, now that the cold might tempt him to unfurl his cloak and only grant more force to the illness. "I shall gather the sage."

She doubts he will permit her to do so without due supervision.

If he is a little unsteady on his feet, if he must put out his free hand once or twice to catch himself against the wall of the stairwell, then he trusts that his thunderous expression is hint enough to her not to mention it. He is aware. Damn him, but he is aware.

The cold air outside hits him like a hammer-blow, and it is at once refreshing and dizzying; he can feel his head spinning, his vision swimming anew as the cool mountain breeze sweeps against his sweat-sheened face. He does not cling to her arm, and there is no more of his weight on her than is proper, and if she thinks otherwise, then that must be her mistake. He pulls his coat closer about himself, grimacing.

"Good," he allows, after a moment. Yes. She will gather the sage, and he will watch her like a hawk, and there is no weakness in that; what is the point of having a wife, if she does not sometimes do the smaller tasks? And he must confess, if only in the privacy of his own mind, that if he bends down to pick herbs, he may not be able to get back up without losing his balance entirely.

A task most easily done with a knife, she knows, and she does carry a small one at all times these days, as he well knows. Yet he had leaned on her like he had never done before, not even that time she had caught him in the depth of sleep (for just a twist of a moment, before he has once again awakened, and she had pretended as though she had noticed nothing different). He is ill, and illness can make a man more paranoid than ever before, and she will not be the one to draw a knife now, no matter how innocent its purpose.

How helpful, even. This is a servant's task; she need not perform it. Yet if she sent a servant to do the same, he might not trust the green-white leaves, and by all the gods, this is the sole bit of relief to his sickness he has agreed to take. And so she kneels, as she has done plenty of times before him – only now she does so by the sage plants, careful to choose a spot that permits him his most careful watch. The sprigs can be twisted off, and she gathers them amply – she means for him to have several cups over the day, and for her son to have another one, and she will likely be forced to suffer one in turn.

At the very least, he is taking the mountain air while she works. At last, she seems satisfied, and stands. To entrust him to carry a thing safely home now seems mad, and so she produces a pocket of cloth of her own – empty it is, he can see it well, until she fills it with sage. "I will gather fresh leaves once more in the morrow." Her arms slips into his again, though she does not rush to move – he may be unsteady, after all, and he may need the moment's warning. "This is rare for you." It isn't quite a question, is it?

Despite himself, and despite his annoyance at the fact, he appreciates the care she takes to prove her innocence. He resents, of course, that she feels the need to - that she continues to patronise him this way, to act such a mummery of care - and there is an element of suspicion in just how careful she is to be unthreatening, as though she might be building her own alibi. But at the same time, she is wiser than that, he thinks. She knows, still, that her safety is contingent on his. He does not trust her, by any means - but, at the very least, she is obliged to be careful if she should try to sicken him. (It has occurred to him, of course, that for him to be sick is ideal for her; to watch him suffer, and yet not lose his protection by killing him. But she is more ambitious than that, and he wins them nothing when he is ailing.)

He does not protest, then, when she takes his arm again. He will drink her tea, and he will keep a very, very close eye on what becomes of his health after that - but he does not think, as yet, that she means to poison him.

"It is rare, and it will be brief." It must be brief. If his hands are absent from the reins more than a moment...

It is not the things that will fly out of control that he fears. It is the ones that will not. It is that the empire will continue, and after a week or two, people will begin to question whether such an empire could not be run by any other man.

He shakes his head, gritting his teeth. "It is rare," he repeats, again. "I see to it."

Vultures would descent, if the Stranger were closing in on him. First and foremost, her own lord father – the aid she would need and the man who would try to wretch the empire from her hands, from her son's hands. Now, those birds of prey are still in line, every last lord under his command, knowing what even a rebellious thought could earn them. None, she is certain, could replace his iron hold, none could squash an uprising with the same force, none could make all the rest follow, adoring and grudging as they are.

This is an easy way that she can call this need a valid one, that twisted longing for him that she cannot quite seem to shake. They share goals, ambitions, this is a contract of mutual benefit – though perhaps her own benefits outweigh his, or did, before she gave him a son and heir.

She is in no greater rush on their way back, for there is still the same unsteadiness looming about him, and his eyes are still fever-bright, and he is still warmer than he ought to be, especially in the cold. "And yet you are reluctant to let me show you any care, even in the privacy of our chambers. We are allied, are we not?"

Wed. Wed, with a son between them, and more on the way if her wishes are met, and they have been married for years now, and she should not call it an alliance anymore, now, should she?

"Alliances are fickle." It is not, perhaps, the best thing to say. It shows his hand too much, is too close to the truth of what he fears. She is right: he should not write letters now. Sky and stone only know what he might let slip, in this careless state.

Still, it is true. Alliances are only as strong as the power that holds them in place. He will not trust her, not now, not ever. And there is another fear, too: that if he lets her show him care, then she may grow too used to that vulnerability; that she may enjoy his weakness, and seek to extend it, for how it makes him depend upon her. She is an emotional creature, after all, and a jealous one: it is something she has never hidden. To give her an access to him that no others have ever enjoyed - beyond the simple fact of marriage, already something that at times makes her too bold - is a dangerous encouragement.

He sighs, and does his best to lean on her a little less, although his vision still swims and his body feels oddly distant. "I am reluctant," he says, a little more carefully, "to allow a cold to have any power over how I carry myself. I have survived worse things, and will do so again." And I will not be an invalid. I will not languish in my chambers while the empire is carved out from under me. "You may have this afternoon, if it will stop you nagging. No more than that."

She should pray that he falls sick and sicker, so that she can seize power from a frail hand. Perhaps she does relish a tad in the weakness in his step, for how many times has he left her bruised and raw and aching with each movement? Yet for however much he declares their alliance fickle, she knows of few who have lasted this long, in spite of the bouts of ill-intent they have found for one another. It is not, she would say, love. Not the way she has known it (and knows it to this day) with another.

It cannot be declared dust in the winds, either.

He offers something of a compromise, one that will not have him spill gibberish upon his parchments or declare nonsensical things in the throes of a fever, and one that will grant him a touch of rest so that his sickness will not turn into one of the heart, or win the chance to climb into his mind. He will not turn into the Mad King before her eyes. He will not risk her crown, nor her son's safety, for his pride. "Good. I have need of you." Yet. Yet? Would she still so readily claim that it is but a temporary thing?

Soon enough, they have made it to the chamber which they share, and it is into Joffrey's nursery that she slips first, to see if all is yet well with him. Fast asleep he is, tired from the walk and the remnants of illness, but his forehead feels no warmer than it should, and he is not sweating nor coughing. She has servants boil water for the tea, and she knows her husband's habits well enough to know he prefers to oversee, even prepare, his own. Who would think it strange, then, that she makes no special declaration of what should be prepared? Once back in their chambers, now it is her who prepares the tea, ignoring his preferred sorts and rather adding the sage she has gathered.

Upon the tray are things she most commonly thinks to ask for, though she neglected it today: honey, for instance, as their son prefers to take his with a spoonful (and she is just as keen on the sweetness). A little fruit on the side, an afternoon snack if she wishes to take it, and she doubts it will do him harm to eat some of it now. Colds kill an appetite, but only food and drink restore a man's strength. "I should have a cup as well. With both of you sick, it is but a matter of time for me."

He follows her to Joffrey's nursery, despite the light-headedness that cries out for good sense to take him direct to bed; he will not give it mastery over him. Instead, he lingers in the nursery doorway, leaning against the dark wood of the doorframe in a way that might be mistaken for casual at a passing glance, if one ignores the grey-white pallor and the visible slick of sweat on his brow. He watches her check on the boy, but his eyes keep drifting upwards, to the painting that hangs on the wall; to his parents, immortalised in hale good health, as though such things were ever guaranteed. It is the fever, no doubt, that makes him imagine that his father's lips curl into a smirk beneath the red of his painted moustache; that makes him think that the old king's eyes gleam with malign amusement. You are no stronger than I was, boy. You will die in your bed, too.

He blinks sharply, and shakes his head, letting out a low hiss of irritation as he pulls away from the doorframe and turns back towards his own chambers, to settle himself among the furs of his bedding and watch with fever-bright eyes as Cersei returns and begins on the tea. He is not mad. He is not dying, he is not ailing, he has a cold. Only a cold.

Sky and stone, let it be only a cold.

He props himself against the bedstead, mindful as always of appearances - it will not be obvious, even to her, how he needs to lean against the wood to resist the urge to lie down - and toes off his boots, kicking them aside. "You need not think I will fuss over you this way, if it should be so," he grumbles, and pulls a heavy sheepskin cover up around his shoulders. In truth, he is surprised to find that he does not wish her to fall ill, not even in vengeance for the satisfaction she may be taking in his weakness. There is too much sickness already.

Half of her had expected him to wish his own illness on her with a vengeance, if only to make up for being seen in this state, which she knows he must struggle to bear. It is not for him to be weakened by anything, not injury and certainly nothing so mundane as a common cold. Instead, he chooses to state something so laughably obvious that her brows dart up, and she offers him a look that is part incredulous, part struggling to contain her temper at being so obviously patronised in her expectations. "I have recovered from childbirth in your absence." Granted, there had been the diligent presence of her twin. Still, her tone is condescending. "I shall live."

She leaves the tea to steep, and steps over to the fireplace. Rarely does she bother to stoke it herself, yet if his gathering of the sheepskin is any hint at all, he must still feel cold - besides, and illness is best sweated out, and she finds Valirion to be a freezing place at the best of time, anyway. "Joff mislikes the painting, did I tell you?" She likely didn't. Much as she has her own ruling tasks to attend to, his outnumber her own, and he is dedicated to his realm from morning to night. "Not of your lady mother, but of your father. He felt watched by it while he was feverish."

There is something glassy in the look he fixes her with, something behind it that burns with more than fever. He narrows his eyes, and considers that gleam in the painting's eyes. Feverish paranoia. Nothing more. And yet...

"I will take it down." It is not a considered decision, which is unusual for him; and yet, as soon as he says it, he is aware that it is just as obvious as the last thing he said, just as sensible as anything he does. Paranoia should be listened to, when there is no cost.

And perhaps there is a part - a small part, unworthy of consideration - that dislikes the idea of his son being pinned by that painted gaze. Perhaps there is still, in his hardened heart, the smallest kernel of superstition which wonders whether, in Joffrey's dreams, there is a glint of silver in rotted flesh, and the bleeding lips drawn back from teeth blackened by mercury. Perhaps, unthinkable as is it, there may be some mercy in him after all, because the idea that his child should face that is curiously apalling.

(No. That, at least, is the fever.)

"I will take it down," he repeats, more certainly still. "Thirty years have passed, and he was a bad king. And Queen Mirella has been dead almost forty. There is no reason it should hang there."

It is not the answer she expected, though she knows it will be for the best not to make a show of her surprise. Joffrey is not the most imaginative of children of yet, though he still has most of his childhood ahead of him, and she did not think he would indulge so ridiculous a fear, not to the point of sparing him entirely. Though to listen to him now, however childish his concerns may be, could lead to him voicing doubts and requests for better protection when he is in far greater need of it – so she will hardly bring this up now. Why talk, when the argument has already been resolved in her favour?

And perhaps this means he loves him. That there is some fatherly attachment she does not doubt, yet the deeper it goes, the more pleased she is. Perhaps most of all because the birth of her son had forced her to feel a fresh depth to love, something that she could not fight nor suppress, and if he suffers a modicum of the same affliction, it only feels just.

"He is not unfond of the queen, at least. As for him... He has a living man to model himself after." She pours but a sip of the still-steeping tea into her cup, blows it cool and drinks, to see how much longer the process might take. The face she makes must no doubt speak of the brew's medical prowess.

Casimir grunts - which may be an acceptance of what she says, or even an appreciation of it - and settles himself back against the pillows, watching her closely as she drinks. Her expression of distaste is reassuring. The fact that she drinks it at all, more so. He does not suspect her, not truly - but he should.

Which is rather the point.

"If he is modelling himself after me, then it is as well to teach him early to listen to that nagging sense, when it comes." He wants, very much, to close his eyes. Perhaps it is because he is in his bed that his ever-present weariness abruptly feels so crushing, that it becomes an effort to hold himself up. "Better to act when there is no danger than fail to act when there is, after all."

She does not say that this way, her son is set up for a life of about as little sleep as her lord husband. It is, in general, something she avoids any mention of, like many of those little observations that have come through those ordinary parts of marriage they surely share with a thousand other couples wed. He is extraordinary, as is she, and neither of them likes to be reminded of what makes them akin to some of the rest –– still, even he cannot escape the notices and glimpses granted by casual, habitual intimacy. He rarely shows pain, exhaustion, or injury, and it is only because she has not seen him openly tired on any significant number of occasions can she pick up on it now that he sinks into the pillows for support.

She knows to ignore it.

His share of the tea, at last, is poured into a mug, and she pours another sip or two for herself – solidarity, rather than need, though she would rather claim a sore throat of her own than admit to so willing a moment of support. She brings the tray to bed, and seats herself on the edge of her own side, as if she needs rest of her own. It is not so far from the truth: her mother's death has rendered her sceptical of all health concerns, and she has been awake for more than her usual share of these nights, just to ensure that Joff was still fighting the illness, still winning his first tiny war. "I have honey as well, if your throat is aching." She puts it into the room like an afterthought.

There is a resentment in him, still, at even this small show of care - at the suggestion, the fact, that he might need it. Even so, he reaches for the cup, and even so, there is a certain comfort in the heat of it; it shows in the way that he wraps both his shaking hands around the mug, as though to draw the warmth into himself, although it scalds his fingers. His jaw is tight, aching as though he must fight to keep his teeth from chattering. He knows, if he is honest with himself, that he is not cold - but it is easiest to think of it as being cold, and not to acknowledge the sweat on his brow or the heat that must still bake from him. It is easier, still, to say to himself that he is not sick.

His eyes follow her mistrustfully as she sits. How many times has she sat there, or lain closer? And yet, weakened as he is (a little, only a little!), he cannot help but tense at her returned closeness.

"I will take honey." He makes it offhand, as she does, as though it is of no import. Honey is, he has been told since childhood, another cure-all; he has seen it used for wounds and infections both, and for strength and fitness. There is surely no harm in drinking it now - and not for sweetness, or because his throat is aching, but simply because it is a healthful thing to consume.

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