Under the Weather

*Zeitgeist* · 10-28-2022, 12:23 AM

Zee remained still and quiet as the healer worked to finish her exam, gritting her teeth and bearing the small spikes in pain with as much grace as she could manage from her pillow on the floor. Occasionally her gaze would wander, breaking from Gwyn's own to focus upon a single stone brick set into the wall or upon a vial or bowl high upon a countertop. She may not be a Queen any longer, but still the ageing women knew there were shards of that strength left within her. Strength to fight through this and come out the other side.

Gwyn's concern filtered through her carefully guarded demeanor and with that shift, Zee's ears gave an uncertain flicker of their own. Even just the way she spoke Zee's name led her to be weary, having spent seven long years listening to healers as they tenderly maneuvered their way through difficult conversations. Gwyn continued, confirming Zee's worry that the size of the litter as well as the pups and their unique attributes might have contributed to her pain and might hint toward a deeper issue. While it was the very consideration Zee had made herself moments ago, hearing the words from the kind healer's maw only brought her denial and anger.

"That can't be it." She insisted, fighting to pull her head from the pillow and painstakingly shifting herself off of her side. "Infections can be cured. I've seen it done." The Armada was a fighting pack and their wolves gained wound upon wound, half of them becoming infected at some point in the healing process. Never had a medic failed to flush out the infection and cure the wolf in question. Never had one died. She lay there dumbfounded as Gwyn continued, promising her comfort and treatment and everything else aside from life. The Queen Mother's lips pulled up in the briefest and most exhausted of snarls, the breath catching in her chest. A few deep breaths returned to her focus, and as she spoke once more she worked herself to her paws. "I need Iolaire." Zee stated firmly, wrought with denial. "Io will know what to do. Please, tell Sirius to find me his sister. If anyone can, it's him."

While the nausea and dizziness returned with force while on her feet, the medicines had begun to dull the pain in her abdomen. Zee could not stay here, wasting away on the floor or in a bed beneath the roof of an unfamiliar castle that she could not call home. She had suffered a depression so deep it ate away at her bit by bit until she'd lost nearly everything she held dear. Laying in her den sulking had done nothing to cure it, it was not until she forced herself up and moving around the northern mountain that she saw any improvement or regained any lost weight. It would be willpower that kept her going - she would not lay down and die.

Closing her eyes tight, Zee drew what focus she could manage to look Gwyn in the eye and not feel like falling. "I will fight this, you'll see. But I won't do it here, in this room." She needed to get out from beneath the claustrophobic roof and away from the scent of sterility. To walk beneath the autumn trees and contemplate what the next step was to take. She could stand strong through this at least until her Iolaire was found, and then her treatment could begin. Their relationship had had their ups and their downs, but Io would not let some sickness take her, of that Zee was certain.

"Speech"

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Under the Weather

Gwen

Zeitgeist