𝔣𝔬𝔯 𝔟𝔬𝔯𝔫𝔱𝔬𝔯𝔢𝔦𝔤𝔫.

[reignfall]

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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[borntoreign]

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?"