#noctlsargentum

A slurred response. He feels her hands sluggishly look for his arms, trying to right herself. He glances around the street, tugs one of her arms around his shoulders and pulls her side to his, eyes set on the clinic—

"No," she hisses out, tries to tug away. She's too weak to break free, but Raein has always known her to be strong; she still staggers him to a stop again. "No—"

"You're crashing," Raein insists, puts a single foot toward the clinic.

"Not Lor'thariel—"

He blinks, but he understands. (He understands a lot of things, like recoiling from your family and hiding your weakness from people you love. In Anealyn's case, they are the same thing, but they aren't for Raein, but he still understands.) He looks up the street again, toward the clinic, then bites his cheek and turns into an offshooting road.

"Raein," Anealyn croaks, her head hung and thumping against his shoulder.

"Not Lor'thariel," he reassures her.

She relaxes, or just succumbs to the weakness, and Raein all but drags her through a couple streets and into a large complex. The stairs are the worst part, what with Raein's one bad leg and Anealyn's two numb ones, but they manage before the latter's limbs give out completely. From there, Raein hauls her onto his back and makes the rest of the trip for her, smarting knee be damned.

He jams a key into one of the the doors along the hallway and forces it open with a shoulder, sucking in a breath at the rush of cold, stale air that sweeps past his face. There's the couch right there, that he carefully lowers Anealyn onto, then limp-hops back to the door, shuts it, and then across the room to the stove in the adjacent kitchen. Within a couple minutes, the crackle of a fire can be heard, and the room slowly begins to warm up.

Anealyn's eyes are open but unfocused, when Raein hurries back to her with a bag of things collected from another room. He drags up a couple chairs from the nearby dining table and sits in one, unpacking medical supplies into the other one. Anealyn blinks at a ceiling he imagines must be swimming quite a bit in her vision.

"Where are we?" she rasps.

"Home," Raein says. He leans to rest a hand against her forehead before he thinks to clarify. "My boyfriend's apartment."

"Oh," she answers lamely, eyes slipping closed as if relieved by the coolness of his hand, but he's not. She has a rampant fever.

He turns his palm down, and the faintest glow of gold brings out the fawny undertone of his skin, as he traces the spell over her in search of pains or ailments that might stand out. His magic is drawn to her shaking and bandaged hands, her burning fever, her heart—

"Anealyn..." She always seemed so strong.

The spell fades, and Raein goes about digging out a cloth to dab the sweat off her brow. The apartment is coming to a comfortable temperature now, a red firelight flickering from the kitchen, while he waits for her to come around a little more.

She almost does, a couple of times, but always slips away again. Raein frets; he sits back for a second to think, glancing over his things to the side. He sees the satchel he came back with, the herbs she gave him just earlier poking out from under the cover—

He looks back at her, fevered and shallow-breathed, and gently lays the back of a hand against her face again. A little better. "The foxflower's unusual smell comes from a protuberance at the base of the leaves, where they meet the stem," he says, his voice soft but clear. "The scent gland can be expressed to—ward creatures?" He forgets. "They can be clipped with some care and nimble shears, and—"

"They attract foxes," Anealyn murmurs, eyes closed but relaxed; her breathing has deepened a little bit. "The glands."

Her eyes flicker open, and Raein is relieved to see a little more purpose to them, as they slowly find their way to his face. Not before he watches them trace across different sights in the apartment—the red light of the stove fire, stacks upon stacks of a Sunreaver roommate's mage studies, the edge of a workbench peaking into view through a door leading out to the balcony. Then, finally, Raein.

He makes a smile, stiff with conscious effort, but sincere in its intention. "Right. I remember."

Anealyn hums. "Cute place." She sniffs, and her brow furrows a little. "I thought your boyfriend hated magic."

"He does," Raein says. It takes him a moment to realize she's commenting on the books. "He, uh. He copes."

She seems only so convinced. Raein checks her fever again, and her eyes shut against the contact. "You're as bad as Lor'thariel," she says.

"Mr. Duskweaver is a smart man and talented healer," Raein says seriously.

Anealyn still huffs out a raspy laugh like it's a joke. "You'd think so, I guess."

Raein forgets what it's like to be fond of your father, but he's heard it in Relihn's voice, and he hears the same thing in Anealyn's. "I do," he says.

She almost hums—he feels the little tension in her face as the muscles move to try and make the sound—but doesn't quite find the strength to muster it. Raein dabs away a little more sweat, then shakes some lingering cold out of himself as the stove's heat takes its place easily. He watches Anealyn's ears prick to the very beginnings of a sound before he himself even hears it—Farstriders, honestly—and looks toward the kitchen just as a kettle starts to sing.

He spares her another smile before struggling to his feet and retrieving it, Anealyn's eyes trailing after him before he moves out of their reach, and she's too achy to move her head. He spends a few minutes pouring and cooling some fragrant tea, positively herbal and probably filled with more medicinal properties than half the over-the-counter brews you can pick up at the local apothecary; Anealyn can smell it long before Raein makes his way back to her bedside (couchside?) with it. He sets the tray aside on his makeshift table, and gently whaps Anealyn's trembling hand when she tries to reach for one of the cups.

"You're not spoon-feeding me," she complains.

"You messed up my leg," he counters, heatless, but watches her ears flinch with offense and a bit of guilt. He fills one of the cups and scoots closer. "Sip."

"Fussbudget," she says, half-teasing and still half-offended, but she lets him work.

Her brow furrows, in that specific way that signals intense relief—he's seen it on a thousand patients' faces before—and he's satisfied some minutes and an empty cup later. He sits back, and watches her relax. The color's come back to her face; her breath has steadied and her eyes open and focus with much more ease. Still, if she thinks Raein is letting her up anytime soon, she's going to be sorely disappointed.

"You need to eat," he says.

"Now you sound like my brother," Anealyn says.

"I wish your brother would tell on you more so I could confirm it."

She laughs, still weak, but there's more volume and weight to it. Raein sighs from his nose, then glances at and takes one of her hands to examine it. Less shaking. He frowns, and jumps a little when Anealyn wiggles her hand free.

"I'm okay," she says, a tinge of confidence blooming back into her voice at last. "It was probably the sun."

"This isn't heatstroke," Raein says, absolutely critically; her ears pin back and she gives a nervous chuckle. "I'm making you food."

"Oh no," she says. "How long am I stuck here?"

"Until you can walk better than me."

She makes an affronted noise at him, but snaps her teeth shut as he, gently if purposefully, fits a second cup of tea into her steadier hands. Then he stands. "Raein—"

"Sip," he says. "Food will be ready in a little while."

"Fussbudget!" she calls to his back, and he can hear the petty pout in her voice.

He doesn't respond, lest the traces of amusement peek through his words; he just goes about assembling something easy that'll get her back in working condition. Which, he admits, he doesn't have a lot to work with—just what rations were on his person when she collapsed. Nobody has been living here for months, of course they don't have a pantry's worth of food just wasting away here. He's trying.

And, as promised, a little while passes and he returns with something warm and easy enough to stomach. Just to find her dozed off, a second empty cup back on the edge of the tray. Raein sits, as quietly as he can, and he spends a moment thinking like he always does. Worrying—fussbudgeting, perhaps—about the workload that Lodge puts on her all the time. They're going to run her into the ground at this rate; they already ran her into Raein.

He doesn't know a lot about Farstriders. He knows De'lana hates them, knows they're doing no favors for Anealyn's health, knows they are only a percentage of the forces that make up the Unseen Path and their roost and therefore only deserve a percentage of the blame.

But that percentage is not a kind number. He's certain the hunters and rangers and what have you up in Trueshot Lodge wouldn't like him much more than the paladins in Silvermoon do.

"Smells gross," comes Anealyn's voice, startling Raein with a visible flinch.

"It's good for you," he promises, with a hint of apology to his tone, and leans forward to offer her the dishware. "It'll make you feel better."

She hums skeptically, but puts on a brave face and starts eating. "H'nks," she muffles directly through the food.

There's a tiny cringe to Raein's smile, and it doesn't translate well, but it's more amusement than disgust. "You can thank me by getting some rest."

She swallows, and whines a little. "I'm already eating your gross medic food."

"I had to carry you up a staircase."

"Wow, okay." She sticks another forkful of food in her face. "Fh'ne."