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The grand hallways of the Crastle yawned cold and empty ahead of Bdubs, the huge walls of stone making his footsteps echo around him as he hurried toward the source of the insistent coughing. By the time he stepped into the room at the end of the hall – very nearly breaking down the door in the process – its occupant had delved into wheezing gasps instead, the covers shaking on the bed where a figure was tucked away.
“My liege!” He rushed over to his bedside, knees hitting the floor before he could peek under the covers to see Ren curled in on himself underneath them. “Are you alright?!”
Ren looked back up at him with questioning eyes shining with unshed tears brought forward by the ceaseless coughing. His ears were pinned to his skulls as he tried to speak up, voice rasping like sandpaper in his throat before he managed to clear it and huff out, “Not quite… I–” He never got the chance to finish his sentence, having to bury his head back in his pillow to stifle the sounds of another bout of coughing. He brought one hand to clutch at his chest, the other reaching blindly toward Bdubs, who quickly clasped it between his palms. The gentle squeeze made Ren’s shoulders untense just a tiny bit, almost unnoticeable, had Bdubs not been staring intently at his shivering outline the whole time.
“Water…” he rasped, and Bdubs immediately scrambled to unhook the canister of old, stale water from his belt. He wouldn’t usually give something of such low quality to his king, but once he managed to help Ren into a sitting position, he gulped down the whole bottle greedily, uncaring for the slight metallic taste that the canister left behind, or the fact that it wasn’t one of his ornate, intricately decorated goblets that he was drinking out of. He breathed heavily once the empty bottle fell from his grip, and Bdubs made a noise of concern, reaching over to slide it back into his belt. As soon as his hands were free, he reached once more to grasp Ren’s trembling fingers in his own.
“What can I do for you, my liege?” He leaned closer as Ren’s eyes met his, very nearly slipping right off of his perch on the edge of the bed in his haste.
Ren’s eyes slipped shut and he hummed before answering, “I could kill for some hot soup right now.” His eyes snapped back open as soon as he felt Bdubs stiffen up beside him.
“My liege…” He trailed off, voice tinted with confusion.
“Yes?” It had been quite a simple request, in Ren’s mind. He couldn’t understand why Bdubs hadn’t jumped to carry it out as soon as he uttered the words, with his usual enthusiasm.
“I can’t– I–” His eyes jumped around the room, refusing to meet Ren’s questioning gaze. “You’ve outlawed soup in the entire kingdom, my liege!”
Ren deflated with a long sigh. Had he really? What a stupid decision on his part. “Oh, why did I have to do that?” he muttered to himself.
“To stop that damned Soup Group, my liege! It was a very sound plan!”
Ren scrunched his nose up, ears flicking in annoyance. He didn’t tell him it had been a rhetorical question. He also didn’t say anything about how awful of a plan that sounded like, right then. Who cared about the Soup Group and whatever coup they might’ve had planned, if he couldn’t get his soup? He was feeling absolutely miserable. But then, his eyes shifted to the piles of paperwork sitting on his desk, across the room. He remembered reading through document after document with his brain growing foggier by the second, finally giving up when he reached an ornate envelope with a formal invitation inside, the Perimeter’s crest stamped in the wax on the delicate sheaf of paper. It was still sitting right where he remembered he’d left it, dropped on the top of the pile when he’d been too out of it to continue.
“Bdubs… I need you to write a letter.”
“Hm?!”
“We’re going to the Perimeter, like he asked.”
“But my liege, you are sick! You can’t travel like this! The Perimeter is a dangerous place anyway, and now…”
“But Bdubs,” Ren looked deep into his eyes, brows set with conviction, “He has soup.”