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The winter breeze swirled around Willa's yard, sending a chill up Sam's spine. He was hoping to get some of that rare January warmth but it seemed that the bitter cold would not let up. Luckily the giant tree he was leaning against let him be comfortable. And at least he got to watch Willa and Robin's latest training session; If the young wizard actually turned up. Willa was standing on the training court, impatiently tapping her staff against the ground.
"Do you need me to go get him?" Sam inquired, sitting up.
The older wizard shook her head, "No no. If he doesn't come out soon then I'll get him myself."
As if summoned by her words, who would appear out the main doors but Robin himself. He had seen better days; his eyes were sunken with redness around them with the addition of pale, sticky looking skin. He slowly marched over to the court, coughing harshly along the way.
"Are you alright?" Sam questioned, leaning forward.
The blond wizard slowly nodded before clutching his head, "I… I'm… fine. It's nothing,"
"Are you sure you're alright? You're looking rather unwell," Willa inquired. Robin looked at Willa with such a glare Sam was sure it would burn through the older wizard.
"I. am. Fine. Now can we get this training over with?" the young wizard grumbled. Sam watched as the two wizard's stared at each other for an uncomfortable amount of time; Robin held a golden glare while Willa looked uncomfortable and… saddened? There was an emotion Sam couldn't quite pick up on.
"There will be no training until you are feeling better," she announced, dismissing her staff away.
"What?! This is bullshit. I demand we do this duel," Robin growled, taking his wand out from his sleeve. Willa made no move to summon back her staff and simply took a step away from the young teen.
"Robin, you need to take a break. You are not well," she replied, folding her arms.
"Shut up."
"Robin-" Sam tried to interject but Robin cut him off before he could continue.
"Just shut up both of you. I. AM FINE. I am not unwell. I can keep going. I can do this. I… can…"
Stumbling out his words, the young wizard fell forward, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Sam scrambled forward to catch him but Willa was luckily much closer. The young gargoyle made his way over to Robin's side and looked over him.
"What's going on with him?" he asked while Willa scooped the young wizard into her arms.
"He's burning up badly. We need to get him to his bed," she answered, swiftly making her way inside. Sam didn't hesitate to follow.
Quickly making it up to the young wizard's room, Robin's jacket was removed and he was tucked into bed by the older wizard.
"Is this some sort of wizard curse?" Sam questioned, hovering by the door.
"No no. It's just a fever, albeit a bad one. It's something I can help cure quite easily" Willa replied, continuing to make the bed comfortable.
"Fever? What's that?" the young gargoyle questioned.
This caused Willa to look over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow.
"You don't know what a fever is? It's a very common sickness. To put it in simple terms, a fever can happen when the body has become too warm for it to handle." Willa explained before turning her head back around. That made sense but another question quickly appeared in Sam's mind.
"What's a sickness?"
That caused Willa to stop what she was doing and turn around to fully face the young gargoyle.
"I… are you being serious?" she questioned.
"Is getting sick something I should've experienced?" Sam replied. All Willa did was shake her head and sigh, turning back around to tend to Robin.
"Can you quickly pop to my room and grab some blankets? They're in one of the compartments near my bed. They're green with yellow flowers," she requested.
With a simple hum of agreement, Sam made his way to the other side of the house and into Willa's room.
He'd never been in there before, with the older wizard all but forbidding him and Robin to enter there. It was a nice little place; with a large desk in the corner, some other appliances Sam didn't recognize, a large wardrobe built into the wall and a giant bed. Making his way over to the bed, Sam carefully opened one of the bedside tables and found the blankets Willa had requested. They were large, seemingly quite used but still well preserved. The fabric of these blankets were unlike anything else Sam had felt.
Getting himself back to reality, Sam made his way back to Robin's room but stopped in the doorway. Willa was sitting on the side of the bed, cradling Robin in one arm and helping a cup of some sort of teal liquid go into the unconscious wizard's mouth. Carefully letting Robin lie back down, Willa put down the cup and stepped away. That's when Sam took a step into the room and gently nudged Willa with the blankets.
The older wizard jumped a little in surprise before her eyes lit up in delight at the blankets. Willa carefully took the blankets, staring at them with that emotion Sam still couldn't not figure out, before placing them over the top of Robin's covers.
"What was that liquid you gave him?" Sam asked.
"It's one of my special remedies I've developed. It works with any illness really, just add a little honey and it goes down without a hitch," Willa explained, beginning to clean up the cup and other little bottles she'd brought up.
"Sounds like you've used it a lot before," Sam commented, glancing over at the older wizard.
Willa stopped cleaning up and let out a sigh, "Yeah. You know that student I mentioned a while ago? He would get sick a lot. He wasn't frail but I guess the environment had a lot of bugs in the air. It got me to practice my healing magic quite often."
The older wizard sat on the edge of the bed while Sam sat in front of her.
"I would like to think Nau would be proud of how far I got with my magic," she commented, staring out the window.
Sam put his hand on Willa's knee, giving her a warm smile. "I know he would be."
Willa smiled back at him and put a hand over his. "At the time, I didn't really have any idea on how to give him a proper gargoyle burial but I'd like to think I gave him something nice," Willa recalled before letting out a sigh.
"Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and change things, everything would we right and simple again. Nau would be alive, you would have had a normal childhood, my student would still be around, my wife…"
"While I wish things had gone simpler, I wouldn't want to change how things are," Sam admitted, looking over at Robin. "Who knows where we'd be now."
The older wizard also looked over at the young wizard, who was sleeping peacefully.
"I wish he'd talk to me more instead of always arguing," Willa stated.
"He might be willing if you try as well," Sam pointed out.
Willa opened her mouth to argue but could only let out a sigh, "You're right. When we're both ready, then maybe we can talk."
Standing up, the older wizard made her way over to the bedside table and picked up the tray of bottles.
"We should let him rest. Our yapping won't help him sleep," she stated, carefully walking out of the room. Sam gave Robin one last look, not wanting to leave but reluctantly doing so, following the older wizard out and leaving the younger wizard to rest.