Rather than Resenting: Ch. 8

Resorting to Possibly Deceptive but Necessary Methods

Notes:

Technically speaking, what happens in this chapter does happen in the books. It's just cuter now 😉

*****

The room was dark, illuminated by nothing except a single white stream of moonlight that drifted and flitted across the floor, landing one second and shifting the next to where it was impossible to keep track of where it would end up at any given moment.

Janner watched it, his eyes fastened to it as if he was in a trance, following its path back and forth and back and forth and up and down and around until it rested, casting its light on something blue.

Janner furrowed his brow for a moment, not sure what the light rested on, only knowing it was blue and nothing else. He stared at its shapeless form for several seconds as more pieces fell into place, more clues, blanket, small, weak—

“Oh, no,” he whispered in horror, his legs turning to water. He stumbled forward, then grasped the still-shapeless form known only as blue, blanket, small, weak, and held it close.

He knew what was happening; it had just happened, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again. No, not again, not ever, never in his life, no, no, no, no—

Lovely, pitiful, blessing, dead — NO, not dead, that wasn’t true — gone, beyond-help.

He ordered his hand to move so he could place his fingers on his son’s chest to bring him back, but it wasn’t working and he couldn’t move his hand, and blue was becoming stronger, weak was thriving, pitiful was singing praises, dead was cackling, then snatching the bundle away from Janner’s arms, leaving him with only scattered pieces of the word fragments that had once described his son—

And then he jolted awake, panting. His eyes flew open, only to be cruelly assaulted by the sun in a way that could only be purposeful, and he shut them as quickly as possible. In the same moment there was a hand on his shoulder. He knew who it belonged to immediately, Sara, then heard her sweet, gentle voice murmuring, “I promise, it was only a nightmare.”

His hands found his face and he buried it in them, nodding. He still felt groggy, terribly so, and remembered that staying up all night and then taking a nap afterwards never ended pleasantly. “Sorry,” he whispered, trying to breathe evenly and calm his racing heart. He swallowed, wondering why his mouth and throat were so dry.

“Don’t be,” Sara said kindly. “The only thing you could be sorry for is not sleeping enough. Here.”

Something that felt like cool glass pressed against his hand, and when he opened his eyes cautiously, he saw a glass of water almost directly in front of his eyes. He smiled gratefully and took it from her, drinking it slowly. Janner watched her as he did so, watched the way her blue eyes twinkled, watched the way her hand stroked Cerlon’s blanket lovingly.

He knew he needed to get out of bed and that it was entirely unreasonable to be there when everything else was moving forward with the day. It was even more unacceptable that Sara was “waiting on” him and he didn’t want her to and he wanted to ask her to stop, but he just couldn’t convince himself to do it at that moment.

“Is Cerlon alright?” he asked quietly, clutching the glass in his hand as he looked at his son, who appeared to be sleeping peacefully.

Sara nodded. “He’s doing just fine. He’s seemed a little more tired today but he’s alright. Do you want to hold him?”

Janner almost protested, wanting to say that he really didn’t think he should until he was fully awake so he couldn’t accidentally hurt Cerlon, but before he could, the glass had been whisked away from his hand. Then his son was in his arms, looking so perfect and so alive, even if he was sleeping, that all thoughts of refusal flitted away immediately.

He felt such perfect peace at the sight of him, even if he was still too small and too skinny, because it had become normal. And even that normal that was not perfect was absolutely beautiful, and nothing could change that.

He enjoyed it for a few moments before exhaustion crashed over him again almost from out of nowhere, and his eyes decided to refuse to stay open. It didn’t feel like normal exhaustion, but at the same time, it did. What felt like (and may very well have been) seconds later, his head was on the pillow and Cerlon, now in Sara’s arms again, was blinking out of focus. Floating on the edges of his memory were images of that disgusting thirteenth muffin or the arrow aimed for Oood years before, but they dissolved quickly, as if they had never been there.

“Wast it you?” he slurred, guessing the moment the words come out of his mouth that he was right, but knowing there was nothing he could do about it.

“Yeah,” she murmured as the edges of the room blurred even more and slipped out of sight into shadow. “But it’s only because I love you.”

*****

As much as Sara genuinely would have loved to spend her day watching Janner sleep soundly for the first time in only the Maker knew how long, she had other duties as a mother that involved giving Evnia and Elquinn some well-deserved quality time.

The past week had been the first time in months when she had really felt up to it, and while she knew there was no way for her to make up for the time she had missed, nothing stopped her from giving them time there-on-out.

Spending time with them didn’t mean going to play outside in the snow, at least not quite yet, but it did mean reading to them and listening to them take turns reading to Cerlon, who lay sleeping in her arms (the shaking event earlier that morning had exhausted him more than she had been willing to tell Janner and it concerned her greatly, but at that point there was not all that much she could do about it other than pray and take care of him as best she could), stumbling over words and phrases that she gently corrected them on. It meant coloring with them and admiring their snowmen and portraits of Cerlon that looked like colorful blobs. It meant simply being in their presence while they played with stuffed animals that wielded pretend swords, just to reassure them that she was there and that things were slowly getting back to normal.

Kalmar and Galya wandered in after a while, catching her at an optimal time when Evnia and Elquinn were preoccupied with coloring the best picture of a dragon. They would likely bring the scrawled images over to her and ask her to evaluate them for excellency, just in smaller words.

“Where’s Janner?” was the first question out of Kalmar’s mouth when he saw her.

Galya slapped him on his left hand. “Kalmar Wingfeather, just because you’re King doesn’t give you permission to ask Sara a question like that without even finding out if she or Cerlon is alright!”

Sara was struggling to keep a straight face, especially when Galya looked at her and winked. There was truth in her sister-in-law’s words, though.

Kalmar scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “Oops. Um, sorry, Sara. How are you and Cerlon?”

She smiled at him pleasantly. “We’re both fine, and thank you for asking. Or, at least I’m fine. Cerlon…” she glanced down at sleeping face and stroked his too-thin cheek softly. “He’s still here.”

Kalmar slipped his hand into his pocket and nodded. “Right, um, I’m sorry about that.” He glanced at Galya and whispered (though not very quietly): “Can I ask about Janner now?”

Giggling, Galya nodded.

“Okay, great,” Kalmar flashed a grin at his wife before looking at Sara again. “So, Sara, do you know where Janner is? The Skreean ships are due here this evening and Greston, you know, from the docks, wants to talk to him about something. Artham and I tried to take care of it, but he’s being pretty insistent.”

Sara hesitated for a moment. “He’s in our room. He’s sleeping.”

Kalmar’s mouth fell open at that. “Still? It’s been, like, four hours. He never sleeps that long, especially not with a wake up like the one this morning. Usually after he has a nightmare he just stays awake, and there’s no way he hasn’t had a nightmare.”

“Well,” Sara began. “I may have helped him…just a little bit.”

Kalmar stared at her in confusion and Galya’s hand flew to her mouth in a mixture of what appeared to be surprise, humor, and horror. A few seconds later, light dawned in Kalmar’s eyes and he looked at her. “You seriously didn’t just—”

“Uncle Kal!” Evnia squealed, spotting him, grabbing her drawing, and running over to him. Sara silently thanked her daughter for giving her a few more seconds to formulate her thoughts. “Uncle Kal, does it look like a dragon?”

Sara stifled a giggle as she saw the look of confusion on Kalmar’s face as he tried to find a dragon within the mess of color scribbles. Galya cleared her throat in an effort to remind him to say something affirming even if he couldn’t see anything that looked even mildly dragonish.

“You know what?” he finally said, crouching down to her level. “That right there,” he pointed to the center of the blob, just to be on the safe side. “Looks just like a dragon.”

Evnia twirled happily in response, planted an unexpected kiss on his cheek, and ran back over to the little table made specifically for her and Elquinn to continue “drawing.”

Kalmar smiled, then rapidly became serious again as he turned his gaze back toward Sara. “You’re saying you drugged him? Without his consent?”

“Well how else was he going to get any sleep!” Sara retorted. “Do you want to know how long he was asleep before he was jolted awake by a nightmare?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued. “Half an hour, Kalmar. He was asleep for half an hour. And he didn’t sleep at all the night before! Right now, he’s completely asleep and isn’t being plagued by nightmares.”

Kalmar facepalmed and shook his head. “I see you point, but you know, he’s going to be furious when he wakes up. And he’s probably going to have a splitting headache.”

Rolling her eyes, Sara glanced at Galya for backup. “He seemed mildly amused when he fell asleep, and besides, I drugged him, not you! There’s a huge difference there.”

“You know, she’s right, Kalmar,” Galya chimed in. “Janner won’t be angry with Sara over this. He’s far more likely to find some way to blame you.”

“ME?!” Kalmar exploded, throwing out his arm in exasperation. Cerlon woke up and began crying at the noise, Elquinn immediately jerked his head up and stared in his baby brother’s direction, concern filling his blue eyes, and Kalmar looked at Sara apologetically as she glared at him. It wasn’t really a real glare, but he didn’t need to know that. “It’s not fair that he’s going to blame me,” he hissed. “Sara, why exactly did you already have it with you?”

Galya whipped her head around and scolded him playfully (and quietly). “Kalmar, I can't believe you dare challenge Sara after you woke up Cerlon!”

“Thank you, Galya,” Sara said as she retrieved a bottle from the floor and slipped it into Cerlon’s mouth, trying to stop his wails. She preferred more natural methods of feeding him, but in places other than her room she didn’t have much of a choice.

Kalmar toed the rug awkwardly and Sara laughed lightly, not wanting to disturb Cerlon, who had settled down.

“In response to your question,” she said slowly. “I had a feeling he wouldn't sleep very successfully. I know Janner well, Kalmar. Nightmares have been a part of both of our lives for as long as we've lived in Anniera, and we’ve helped each other deal with them. It hasn’t resorted to drugging until now, but this was a special circumstance. I don’t regret it and years from now, we’ll probably laugh about it.” I hope.

Kalmar nodded. “Okay, you make a good number of fair points. I’m still not thrilled that you decided to drug my Throne Warden, but it’s not like I can do anything about it at this point. Anyway, do you think that once he’s woken up and stopped being groggy he can find me and then go talk with Greston? The cold air might keep his mind off...everything.”

Sara nodded, though she was planning on talking to him about what had happened that morning before anything. “Sure. It shouldn’t be much longer. The effects will be wearing off within the next hour, but even if he does continue sleeping, I want to wake him up beforehand so he doesn’t have to deal with any nightmares.”

Galya smiled. “That’s an amazing idea. Why don’t Kalmar and I take Evnia and Elquinn outside now so you can go?” Kalmar literally lit up at the prospect of playing in the snow and practically ran over to the twins to tell them the good news. A chorus of cheers erupted from the table a moment later. “And Laylynne can come too; she’s having her first cooking lesson now,” Galya added.

Sara laughed. “Ah, so Mama’s ensnared another one, hasn’t she?” Nia had been trying to find a cooking partner for years, ever since Asteria was old enough to hold a measuring cup, and had yet to be met with any success.

Galya’s eyes twinkled. “That she has. And for her sake, I hope she’s successful this time.”

They chatted for a few more minutes before Laylynne came charging into the room, covered in flour, a mildly frustrated Nia running after her. Sara slipped away quickly and quietly to make sure Cerlon didn't wake up, and she smiled at the sound of laughter and scolding behind her.

*****

Notes:

I'd say it was decently happy :)