Light and silence, shapes mingling with each other in unnatural forms, somehow dizzying despite their stillness.

A raw burn branded just above his stomach.

Humidity brought from days wrapped in blankets and the sickly sweat of a prolonged fever.

He felt sickeningly weightless, lightheaded, and yet weighted within his haze of fog and acid, as if stones were burrowed into the lining of his veins.

His body would not /move./ Why would it not /move/?

His breath only obliged him halfway, rattling out a hiss instead of a word. But it was enough to stir the mass of disheveled dark hair that had fallen asleep, pillowed by pale arms against the mattress.

“My prince! You are...” Panic flared and died, replaced by a more familiar fire, though it flickered dangerously in the back of her eyes. The simplicity of her conclusion disturbed him, though not for his own sake. “...Awake.”

“A-and... how... long...?” His own voice, dry and brittle, made him flinch. The gold of his eyes seemed a mere thin gilding, showing lightlessly from under his vein-crossed lids. Yet the set of his mouth was determined, a tightly pressed line backed by steel. He dragged in another breath, and was taken by a bout of coughing for his trouble. “H-how long... was... I asleep?”

“A week...” Her hands hovered anxiously above him, acting quickly to push him back when shock catapulted him into a curled sitting position. She sighed, “And it's plain that you're still not well. So, please...”

He prepared a response, and gasped harshly instead, grasping at the bandages over his chest as he felt the biting rage of the wound beneath. He sealed his tongue with his teeth to stop a faint groan. “So... so it seems... I am... sorry... for worrying you...” He forced a drawn smile, and pressed himself back into the blankets. “I... will... rest for a time, yes...”

Her mouth dropped open, and though she swiftly masked her surprise,  knowledge of how tired her prince must have been struck her afresh. “Of course... Here... Wait for only a moment, my prince...”

She stood hurriedly, a rare loss of grace nearly sending her tripping over the chair, and left him by himself in the room. With her, she took all possible distractions, and the Prince was forced to take proper stock of himself for the first time as his symptoms snatched his body and continued to shred it in their grip. His darkly flushed cheeks were the only disruption to his pallor as fever sought to burn the poisonous blood from him, but it seemed to be having more luck at scouring strength from his limbs. His stomach and head were shaken by acute throbbing, obeying the sickly rhythm of his heart and below that, he could all but feel the Raven's claws puncturing his chest.

The sensation of those fingers clenching against his bones, as if to reach up and pull his heart from beneath his ribs, was fixed in him like a blade. Visions twisted out from it to wreathe his mind, to tangle his feelings and drag them away into blackness; he saw Rue, pushing away her failed prince at last, he saw the Raven stealing his throne for a perch. The warm safety of the blankets melted beneath him, drowning him, forcing him to stab his lungs in attempts at finding breath. He strained against nothing, struggling vainly not for his own weakness, but for the lack of any opponent, all focus slid from his gaze to be replaced by panicked determination. His teeth gritted, sweat slid down his face in spindly streams; his skull was going to crack, burst into bloody fragments from the pressure inside, but he /was not giving up/. He could feel blood already, yes, but not on his head, it was beginning to trickle in damp patches through the bandages on his chest as his tumbling tore his stitches.

He shouted when he felt hands on his shoulders, desperation making his simple coherency a testament to strength. He cried out hoarsely, “No! Stop, don't touch me!”

He was being driven back, however, as his senses returned, and pain with them, falling into nothingness and darkness and then the mattress was beneath him and his head collided gently with the pillows. Rue rubbed his shoulders briefly, hoping to unwind some of the tension there, before she brushed his tangled hair from his eyes. Her hand hovered above his heaving chest, above his heart, guilt hovering on her face in quiet lines. His fingers twitched emptily for a moment, but somehow, despite the twinges of pain that coursed along his bones, he covered her hand with his own to press it against himself. He came as near as he could to a smile. “I... I'm s-sorry... I couldn't... see... you... you...”

His gaze faded into a blank stare for an instant, and he swallowed dryly, anxious to calm the nervousness he only just managed to catch in her eyes.

“...you... stay by... m-my side... please... stay near me...”

“Always, my prince...” She promised him serenely, but she failed at removing the worried frown from her elegant features. With a sharp gesture, she called the terrified maid who stood by the door with a bowl of soup. The young lady put down the dish, and Rue swept to her feet to whisper brusquely, “Fetch the doctor... He's torn his stitches.”

The maid hurried away, and she turned to her own dish, a basin filled with freshly chilled water. The princess picked up a damp cloth from the nightstand and soaked it before draping the folded material carefully across his forehead. He shuddered, perhaps his best stab at a chuckle, but seemed to relax as the soft coolness settled against his skin to combat the fever. “S-stitches... is it...?”

“You were wounded... Please, just quiet yourself and rest.” She grasped his hand again, squeezing it softly. To see her prince so shaken, so weak... So sickened, plagued in both mind and body, by the toxin she had first brought into his system. Perhaps she had no right to be here, but if her presence was the prince's will, then she would respect it.

“I have... little choice... o-only... g-grant...” His eyes widened, his breath seeming to halt in his throat for a dangerously long moment. He abandoned his usual grand diction, weariness threatening to pull his voice apart at the seams. “...sit beside me. Sickness... fine... b-but... no more... no more darkness... please...” He needed her close, or he would fall again, and though he would spend all his efforts, he doubted his own power could save himself, much less anyone else, for the time being. He needed her, because he loved her, his sweet princess of moonlight and rose petals who could light his path even when his limbs couldn't walk it.