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If Jupiter North was being honest with himself, he should’ve seen the warning signs. The League of Explorers had been calling him away for weeks and weeks, for days at a time, and that was the only excuse he had for not seeing it. Not that he wanted to excuse himself. He was the guardian and he should’ve been taking care of her as well as his other responsibilities. His ward was scarily self-sufficient but despite that she had a tendency to neglect herself in the process. To quite a dramatic detriment of her own health, more often than anyone would ever like.
Well, it would probably chuff Baz Charlton to know that Mog was out of sorts, but Jupiter hated him so he didn’t think of him unless forced to. Like if he had to make polite conversation at an inane party or he made the most nonsensical suggestion possible at a C&D meeting. Declare war on the Second Pocket? What on earth was wrong with his brain? Not the point. The point was currently asleep in her own dinner, face down in an absolutely scrumptious steak and kidney pie.
He swore loud enough to alert anyone three corridors away and lifted her gently, bracing her head while pulling back her shoulders. There was mashed carrot and potato stuck to her cheek and he could see gravy through her hair. Jupiter wrinkled his nose, that couldn’t be pleasant.
Martha and Charlie had the night off and Fenestra was away doing… stuff he legally was better off unaware of. Kedgeree was down at the concierge desk and Frank was being Frank and frankly better away from this. Dame Chanda was away with one of her suitors so it was just him left to nurse this young Wundersmith back to health.
It was just easier to pull her into his arms and run down to her room. A flight of stairs and several corridors away. It was frankly amazing that she didn’t acquire a concussion on top of general exhaustion because he came close to hitting her head off a lot of places. Slow and steady wins the race though and he successfully managed to deposit her on her bed.
It’d be a sweet image if only she wasn’t absolutely covered in food from the neck up. He could see how deep asleep she was, there was no point trying to wake her. She’d have to wash her hair later but he could clean her face here.
With more effort than he wanted to admit to, her face was cleaned and shoes removed so she could be neatly deposited into bed. It was borderline concerning how asleep she was. More passing out than REM, he couldn’t see evidence of any dreams when he looked, just exhaustion so strong it made him tired.
Still, satisfied she was somewhat clean and safe, he left her for the night, leaving a note to tell her to come to his study for breakfast in the morning. They needed to have a conversation .
Morrigan did not show up for their breakfast meeting and when Jupiter checked on her, she was asleep still, finally dreaming but completely out of it. She appeared later on, hair wet and apologetic. He waved off her, “must’ve slept in” and “so tired, I don’t even know how I got to bed.” and explained the events of the last night, not unkindly.
How many times had he overworked himself and been shouldered away by one of his own staff, unitmates, teammates and on one memorable occasion, an absolute stranger who’d found him napping on the Wunderground and dumped him outside the gates at Proudfoot house? Dr Ludwyche certainly never forgot because every time he saw that man it was brought up in conversation somehow. Even during a damn talk about weasel imports from the Seventh Pocket. If he didn’t know the man had a medical related knack he’d say it was constantly bringing that up.
Jupiter shook the thought away with his wonderful hair. “Morrigan, why are you so tired? Is this the first time this has happened?” He did his best to keep his worry out of his voice as much as he wanted to shake some decent work habits into her and make her develop a real sleep schedule, it wouldn’t be a productive course of action. At least three of the parenting books he’d picked up had said so. Most of them assumed you’d have to get the child to study and not, in fact, make them stop.
He could see the greying lines under her eyes and the sparkle in them had dulled. Even standing at her full height, her stature was small under his sight and her shadow a shrunken beast. There was latent wunder dancing around her but he had no standard on how much there was really supposed to be. A combination of a lack of witnesses, who were able to see the wunder, and a lack of wundersmiths, who were able to summon the wunder, made his balances on such a thing complicated and mostly guesswork. A few years ago she’d had so much around her it’d nearly killed her, and after the Hollowpox, when she’d passed out for days on end, it had been nearly all gone.
She was on the lesser end of that spectrum though. It was lively though, what little there was was gathered to her hands all the while.
She hesitated, her mouth sitting a little open as she thought about it. He didn’t like that. Jupiter wanted an actual answer so he pressed on. “How much extra time have you been spending on sub-nine, please .”
She looked a little guilty, both on her face and the yellowish spots appearing near her, darkening to nearly brown in places.
She was very quiet for a minute, thinking of things and choking them back before she said them, almost visible in the jolt of her throat. Eventually though she mumbled out, “You know how all the wunimals woke up properly? I- and Squall-”
And all of Jupiter’s fear crashed around him. It was harder, as a Witness, to see things on yourself, especially since you were usually aware anyway but fear was like a surging wave to him, icy blue and furious, splashing up and covering him. He couldn’t escape it, couldn’t even hope to try. It was just to be endured.
“Oh.” He said. “You’ve- with him? With Squall? Why?” His voice was broken glass and he could see Morrigan’s wince against it.
But she explained. The power. The progress she should have had. What the Kindling had told her - what the Kindling was, and wasn’t that a damn revelation to something he’d always assumed was metaphorical - and what she thought she needed to do.
“But you’re working yourself to death,” he had concerns now, many more than he’d begun with and far more questions than answers but he needed to tackle the immediate problem first.
“Wunder is a good preserver,” she tried blithely but he held up a hand.
“No, Mog! This is unhealthy. You can’t keep living double or triple lives and sacrifice sleep and rest for your studies. That is utterly unsustainable.” He was mad, he was angry. And ashamed to admit, partially angry at her. How could she not understand, how could she not care for herself? Jupiter shoved that feeling right down into the depths of his consciousness and soldiered on, artificially calm, “You can’t succeed as a wundersmith if you have a heart attack at twenty and die. Wunder is only a ‘good preserver’ if you don’t shorten your life by any other means.”
Morrigan flicked her eyes to the wall behind him, unwilling or unable to make eye contact. Jupiter steepled his fingers and unsteepled them, moving from around his desk to towards Morrigan, crouching beside her. “You need a holiday,” he said simply. “At least… away from Wundersmithing. For now-” he stopped her protests with a look. Stern, instead of fierce. It felt odd on his face. He wasn’t a stern man and he had no wish to become one. “You know this, don’t you?”
She nodded, more frail than he’d ever seen her, even on the night she’d thought she was due to die. “I’m not saying out of all classes but less time on Sub-Nine, no more going in early or coming back late. And none of your apprenticeship.”
“Now or ever?” She asked blankly. Jupiter had the feeling she was too worn out for emotion.
“I don’t know,” he said thinly. He cocked his head to the side, taking a hand of hers in his, too bony and cold to belong to a teenager. It felt like the hand of an old woman,“But it’s my job to make sure of your wellbeing. This is part of that. Do you trust me?”
He’d asked that question before. And though she was ill and tired and broken down, she still answered the same way.