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She couldn’t recall a time within the last century when she had ever felt so dreadful, exhaling a shaky breath that caught in her throat and drew up a soft round of coughs, she rolled over onto her side with a shiver, tugging at the blankets that covered her bed, and shuddered beneath them--
Though she could feel the sweat slick the nightgown she’d chosen the evening before to her body, she could only find it in her to shiver at the very concept of slipping out from beneath the thick covers and facing the day.
The figure on the opposite side of the bed shifted, moving to glide a hand up her back to stir her for the day-- or perhaps catching breath of the shudder of unsteady coughing that had just wracked her slim and warm to the touch form, and she pulled away… too warm… she could hardly handle these blankets and yet-- the frigid air outside of these blankets near froze her from shell through to her core at the thought alone--
The hand itself froze, jolting back and coiling its fingers in the air, surprise befuddling its owner a moment as they rolled nearer, “Hornet…? My lady, are you alright...” The voice of smooth and rasping ash hummed low with concern, something she had not heard from another in so long she almost forgot what the sound of it quite felt like.
She knit her brow taut in toward the center of her face with a tight pinch, moving to push at the blankets, “I am… fine… I must simply get over this chill that has befallen me before I can find my way from the bed’s edge.” A long and languid breath shook from her as she dug legs from beneath the covers, moving to stand from the edge of the cushy mattress-- or at least she had given her best effort to.
She’d given a roll to the edge, swung legs from beneath blankets-- both steps had been easy enough but beyond that… the moment she moved to put weight on them, the chill of everything seemed to be far too unbearable, sweat slicking her helm, and her knees buckled almost immediately.
She stayed strong a moment, but the way her breath heaved from her and she faltered, hand darted for the bed’s edge, before the fall completed itself as gravity tore her down to the floor with a mighty rend of her knees colliding to the cold tile with a hard thwack, hands barely able to support herself and, in turn, finding herself slumped to bed’s edge.
She could hear the sharp intake of a hiss, the shot of fiery red energy that rocketed forth from behind her to manifest the man that had been settled comfortably within the bed’s confines, the bug of crimson shell exhaled slow, leaning in near.
“I am fine...” She breathed, averting her gaze and dipping head down and away as Grimm’s hand slipped through the air, unabashed, and let fingertips cup beneath her jaw and gingerly press her head round to reconnect stares.
Inky black hues met with startling crimson, and he shook his head-- opposite hand turning over palm to find the crest of her brow, and a sigh as it touched for a moment longer than she would have liked.
“You’re burning up…”
She knew she was… but did she want to admit it?
Not in the faintest--
She moved to lean away with a weak groan that slipped from someplace wedged deep within her chest, but all she could find it in her to do was slump to the bed’s edge with her head found to rest on the breadth of her arm lying to dangle her hand by its wrist in the air.
There was nary a missed beat, filled only by a slow and smooth exhale, “My lady, you overwork yourself terribly… I certainly must have warned you of such--” And she expected it of him to taunt her, grasp her chin and jerk her chin round to lock her gaze with his like she were some petulant child and scold her for such ill taken care of herself, but no such roughness came.
Instead, she found the warmth of the man’s hand to instead cup to her jaw so carefully, tugging her gaze back round to connect their gazes and unveil to her the subtle tinge of concern that painted the fringes of his expression.
She leaned into his touch, subtle as she thought it was, the hum that came of it from him was almost amused, were she not in such a pitiful state, she nigh believed he may have chuckled fondly. It did little from leaning in to press his brow to hers--
“Come… you require a bath run and new linens before you are to rest for the day, my love--” She could have lied and said the words themselves did not have her on the cusp of wanting to tantrum akin to a child, or to melt into his arms in sheer relief that perhaps she could be alleviated this horrendous sweltering wave that had overtaken her being.
And to feel his arms, warm as they were, loop beneath her to scoop her from the cool floor-- she almost whined pitifully and reached back for the frigid tile, were she not so caught on the cusp of an ill set will within a feeble body-- she might have just wiggled free and hopped from his arms.
Alas, it was all she could find it in herself to lean to his chest and let a rolling but shaky breath fall from her like crumpling fabric to the floor-- weighted and short in its drop.
He was so warm…
Without the blankets, and the frigidity of the outside air meeting sweat glossed chitin, she shivered and tucked knees in closer to her chest, rolling inward toward the man’s chest and a hand finding its way pressed flush to his carapace before curling in near her own chest as brow instead met with his form.
Tremoring in the chill, she found solace in his warmth, the roiling weight of illness bearing down on her limbs and dragging each moment.
“But my rounds… I must be out to oversee the Fungal Wastes, and Kingdom’s Edge-- the grounds still need to be cleared of pests-- the people are too weak to take care of such beasts by...” And she drew in, coughing low and soft into her hand nearest her chest, subtle and wheezing, but it ached-- “…by themselves.”
She didn’t want to admit that she had let illness get a hand up on her, she should have been able to beat this, she was a child of Higher Being, born of Soul and Void and mortal bug, but royalty to her core.
Royals didn’t get sick--
She didn’t have the time to get sick--!
She hadn’t had the time to fall ill when the kingdom had been at its worst, crumbled to ruin, and the epitome of devastation and infection. There had been no room for such weakness, had she really fallen so soft in her time within these palace walls so as to let herself forget precautions taken to avoid such a fault that could land her in a situation where she very well may lose her life at the next wrong step.
By the skies, when was the last time she had even been sick--
Wracking her mind, she could recall perhaps a handful of cycles back, falling ill after too many an hour spent within the pouring rains in the midst of a battle with lance wielding sentries, there had been so many, and too many blocking her exits to simply use silk and bound away from the danger.
No, they had been clever that day, slashing through the silken thread and nearly sending her plummeting onto the spikes to wait below--
It had been everything in her to simply fight her way through the many to tear a path out of the pouring rains and dodge their blades and lances, at least of the few that remained of the culled many she had slain--
But it had been so long, with such fire burning in the downpour, it had been but hours before she had felt the sickly chill wrack her being and threaten to cripple her before the day’s end.
It had been a race then--
To dart through to Greenpath and the Queen’s Gardens and tear through the foliage of the Fog Canyons to collect the peculiar plants she had come to know like the back of her hand.
A bramble leafed plant with glowing roots--
A sour-smelling shrub’s berries that burned your very shell lest you handled them in a cloth to soak the acrid ooze from their surface and leave the valuable meat to be ground to a paste later--
Water from the Blue Lake and delicate flora with properties unmatched by any plant native to the kingdom-- and the bleached fungi that thrived at the bottoms of acid basins within the Fungal Wastes--
It tasted terrible, the waters of the Blue Lake so mineral-rich that it cut the taste of the sludgy mixture but not nearly as much as she would have liked, having ground it herself on the stony floor of the Howling Cliffs’ caverns-- scraping it into a carved bowl and watching it bloom with light from the medicinal smelling ooze of the glowing roots gathered in hours before.
She’d always huddled away into that same cavern, tucking away from danger, stoking a fire into being, barring the entrance with hefted stones to block entry from any beasts that may catch her scent-- and downing the medicine so dreadful tasting she struggled not to gag at the smell alone, let alone the palpably acrid wash of herbs and fungi that painted the back of her throat with its needed remedy.
And yet here, she found herself not curled by the fireside and shuddering through the illness wracking its path through her body, nor was she clutching her needle to her chest for fear of her life, but clutching to the chest of a man hefting himself to his full height to stride through and into the grand bathing room connected by a lengthy hall of doors that led through to passages to her study, to the library, to secret routes out of the palace so as to avoid the guards and their overtly concerned need to defend their newfound Queen.
Yet there was no grand threat that her guards could scold her for evading them for the sake of bounding through the slow to be reconstructed grounds of the kingdom, but in turn, one she had earned in her nights scouring the documents lain before her to delegate resources for the sectors as they should so be rebuilt.
Well-- that and… she would admit, spending time culling the lingering beasts that scuttled the grounds at the fringes of the kingdom, the blistering cold had bitten just a bit too hard for her to withstand, too many an hour spent carving a path for the people to travel--
Too long spent fighting for her life…
Even in a life of luxury, it seemed she could not escape it--
Though she could not complain-- it was all she knew, what was she to do should she be robbed of the life she spent millennia so deeply seated within--
It wasn’t as though they could catch her though… with the end of the infection at the little knight’s hands finally through… no one could best her… well…
She let hand uncurl against his chest once more.
No one could best her, save for the man carrying her to the bathing room just beyond the hall’s end.
“Your rounds… my lady, will have to wait… as will your schedule-- I am certain the kingdom can survive but a day without you flitting through its streets to check on its people.” There was a soft warmth to his words, patient… beyond his usual patience with her-- it was almost, no-- it was worthy of getting her heart to skip a beat despite her condition.
Dammit, how dare he be a man of gentile nature even when she was caked in sweat that clung her nightgown to her form and left her looking-- and for that matter, feeling, like a beast fresh from a bath in the acid pools.
She gave a weak bump of her brow to the man’s chest, and a halfhearted thump of her hand-- to which he simply gave a raspy hum of amusement.
“What, no protest? My, you really must be ill, my dear--”
Kneeling at the tub’s side, he gave a turn of a knob, and water thus began pouring through and into the basin of carved stone to slowly and yet rather rapidly fill the bath.
A touch of his fingertips to the waters and the rushing water gave a gush before glittering a sharp red and the once chill looking waters at the bottom of the bath began to steam before the tub could find itself a third of the way full--
Another swish of his hand and a bottle of salts manifested-- sharp reds and petals of dark flowers that glittered within the container soon finding themselves emptied within the waters, a swish of his hand through the rising waters, and the basin clouded a soft crimson hue.
The scent alone rang of something sweet and floral-- foreign in every sense of the word.
“Your travels gifted you with many strange tinctures, did it not, oh, Nightmare King--” She gave a subtle titter, own voice husked by the rasp of this illness drawing the tickle high into the back of her throat and the icy shivers that wrought her being cutting short the attempted amused glint of a smile up toward the man.
He, in turn, chuckled low and gave a single bow of his head, nodding to confirm her comment--
“Much of it has gifted me with many tricks and ways to befuddle the fates and cheat the mortal body of its own behaviors-- alas, the one thing it has denied me is anything that should cure illness but a medicine for the ailment”
Drawing his hand in a senseless but swirling pattern through the waters, they almost seemed to glow, “These waters should ease any ache this ailment has wrought down upon you--” But there was a moment missed as his hand left the water to flick its wrist with a snap of the fingers and catch a black bottle with a peeling label that fell from the very air in a plume of sharp scarlet.
“I am, however, afraid-- the medicine that should assist you is ill tasting in its kindest of forms--” Swirling the thick tincture within, she shuddered at the very thought of downing the mixture and turned her head from him.
Come on, Hornet-- don’t be so childish, even the little knight can take medicine without such complaints, what should it matter that it is not a sweet-tasting treat-- it will help.
It will help--!
Oh, come on!
She pressed back to the wall with a petulant whine, fever robbing her of the will to know the regal and stubborn nature that marked her every legend that the kingdom knew her for, by the skies, she felt pathetic to press back against the tub’s stair-side wall, back as far as she could get from the drug that would expedite her being rid of this damnable illness.
He gave a subtle chortle, leaning nearer and shaking his opposite hand of the water as the tub continued to fill, and let claws so carefully brush the side of her helm’s shell.
A soft backward draw of the claws, and then a smooth press to cup fingers beneath her chin and turn her head to face him.
She averted her gaze, and nearly drew herself to lift chin from his grasp and wiggle back into the corner akin to that of a child-- but drew herself to remain still with a squirming grumble in her chest.
It was enough to draw the man to chuckle rather… lovingly--
Her eyes shifted to meet with his, catching the sight of the adoring gleam that stained the very core of Grimm’s stare, and feeling her face flush with a flustering rush of heat over the fever’s own warmth.
“The years have not been kind to you, that much I can tell… how many times have you endured a sickness such as this with no one to aid you through it” His thumb brushed the side of her jaw, caressing the sweep of her helm and drew her to rather gently lean into his touch, eyes falling half-lidded and pressing subtly shut.
Was it his warmth in touch… or his warmth in words that drew her to be so weak for him--
She supposed, hearing him chortle a low hum, it might have been a bit of both. For this tremendous beast of a man to show kindness to her… and to her alone-- where any other that dared draw so near would get flames to scorch them from this very plane and burn away every page of memories they could have of who they had once been--
It was something that sparked a subtle pride in her…
She did this…
She had managed to be the only one worthy of his trust.
And it was almost enough, to be so lost in her thoughts, she almost didn’t notice the bottle edging nearer toward her.
Almost…
A jolt and she moved to pull back from his touch, and she spies the bottle missing its cork and drawing nearer toward her mouth. She made a noise, unladylike at best and jolted back with a grunt, the sharp and sterile stink of the acrid herbs and their nigh antiseptic qualities.
His hand never left her chin, thumb again caressing her jaw with a sigh as his brow furrowed, “You must take something to ease this fever, Hornet--”
She shuddered at the thought, eyeing the bottle and scrunching the end of her shell that would flex in a taut grimace of disgust and the lingering acknowledgment that it would eventually have to be done.
A whine left her, drug down by the almost gamy weight on her breath with each shaky huff that fell free.
“If not for yourself… then for your kingdom…”
Reluctance painted her visage still, pressing to avert her head from the near bottle.
“For me…”
It was only then did she fall still, slumped to the wall, with pitch eyes shut in disdain for the contents of the dark glass phial. Expression pressed the faintest bit tauter, before slackening with a facet of acceptance that she couldn’t simply duck away from this… not when she was needed by her people…
Not when she was needed by this towering man in sweeping cloak of charcoal and crimson…
And the resistance given in tugging her helm to the side lessened, gently, before she followed the hand’s subtle guidance to bring her gaze back round to meet with his own shocking red.
It was a crooked smirk that picked its path across his face, right eye narrowing as his mouth quirked at the corner, perhaps amused that his sake was the only trade she would take before considering her own wellbeing… or was it perhaps that he felt endeared.
Ah, perhaps a bit of both--
Again he drew the bottle nearer, but this attempt was not met with an almost feeble turn of the head-- but a sigh as she opened her mouth and let him tip the contents of the phial and its precious ingredients to paint the inside of her mouth with that damnably awful taste.
Her face squeezed tight in disgust and head shook back and forth, forcing herself to swallow it and hissing inwardly at the way it clung to her throat.
Eugh--
Eyes drew half-lidded, sitting with back to the wall and chin still tenderly cupped in the Higher Being’s grasp-- at least it was over, was all she could think. Though it did trail… she had caved to his request, but only when he had drawn up his own person requesting she give in to take care of this sickness.
She took a mild pride-- ah, that was putting it lightly, she took a tremendous pride in the fact that she had managed to beckon the attention of a nigh eldritch entity, and not only hold it but capture it with affections the two would then share--
And here she had come into this as a fiery willed shrew, unyielding in her will--
Perhaps he had managed to earn status as that of the only one worthy of such devout trust.
Perhaps they were two beasts of similar nature that had simply found one another and meshed in the perfect way-- that of which no other bug could quite grasp…
Ah, heavens be, what was she thinking--
Her shell warmed as realization washed its path over her, painting a swathe of her pitch ichor to shade her helm and a hand lifted, cupping to Grimm’s own, still reeling at the taste that stained her pallet.
But curving her head with the guidance of his hand to bare the side of her helm as he leaned nearer.
It was subtle at first, pressing his shell flush to hers to draw its flexible and smooth surface in an affectionate press of his brow to hers-- before his head dipped to press a gentle kiss to the crest of the side of her mandible.
Chaste at first, but gently pressing firmer, and lifting to press a second a bit nearer to the corner of her mouth-- but never quite meeting lips. It seemed even the gods could fear getting ill as Hornet had found herself-- but it did not stop them from showing their affections when their will to show restraint failed them.
Pulling back, a humming churr nigh sang in her chest, chittering on a sigh though it drew her to want to roll a weak round of coughs-- seems such affection could draw even the warmest responses from her.
She pressed into his kiss almost greedily, leaning into his warmth and away from the chill once more, sighing an almost contented hum as the other leaned back with a murmur of “Thank you” on his breath.
Lifting her head, she followed his gaze as it turned and his opposite hand turned to the valve and shut the water off from its downpour into the tub, now sitting nigh full of crimson gleaming waters with their drifting dark petals of foreign flora drifting over the water’s surface.
His hand cupping her chin shifted, sweeping round to glide smoothly along the surface of her helm’s shell.
Perhaps if she could thus come to count on something like this, for any time she found herself falling ill-- taking a pause to peel away the sleeping gown from the dried sweat that clung it to her carapace, and allowing the tremendous strength of the other sweep her from her feet and gingerly lower her into the gleaming waters…
Perhaps finding herself ill was not quite as terrible a curse as she could recall it being…
Grimm gave a twirling curl of his wrist, calling forth a plush small towel, dipping it beneath the surface of the waters only to pull it back free and wring it near dry, settling it then in a tidy folded bundle to lie across her brow.
The rush of the warm water drew the chill to rush from her being, a sigh pouring from her, shaky, but the relief was enough to draw her eyes shut.
But as her eyes drew open, drawing knees nearer to her chest through the waters as a warm tingling rush she could only blame on the obscure salts that had dyed the waters drew to wash over her. Her back slackened of its tense ache, and gut loosening its coiling and sickly weight--
Maybe it was the waters, perhaps it was the medicine refined far beyond what she had ever been able to do--
Perhaps it was to have another tend to her for the first time in centuries passed…
lifting a hand from the water, she overturned it, asking for Grimm’s own, to which he gave no hesitation in slipping his far larger hand beneath her palm to cup it, supporting it and coiling digits about hers as he dipped head to press a kiss to the crest of her knuckles.
Whatever it was… she was feeling better already.