Through Ages of Weary Fulfillment: Ch. 20

Rain Falling

Notes:

Because of course things can't just go breezy-smooth for our friends back in Anniera...

*****

Janner was suffocating. Partially in the same way he had been since he came back from the Maker’s World, only to remember Kalmar was gone, discover he was King, and nothing would ever be the same again. Yet it was more than that. Those troubles still weighed on his mind—constantly, horrifically, terrifyingly, agonizingly—but he now felt as though he was physically suffocating, like every breath was an effort, an effort with the potential result of a coughing fit that he would then proceed to stifle if he was around others and try not to kill himself in the process of if he was alone.

When he thought back on it, the stifling feeling in his chest had increased slowly, gradually over the weeks they had lived in Anniera. It had woken him up many times in the middle of the night, along with other dreadful thoughts, and always plagued him after times when he was supposed to have slept restfully. 

Handling it hadn’t been too dreadful when Artham was there. His uncle’s presence had served as a motivation of some sort, in the sense that he wanted to impose on him as little as possible. Janner knew how hard it was to be a Throne Warden and that he wasn’t making it particularly easy for Artham, so he had wanted to stifle the suffocating issue in some odd way of relieving him of a duty. One less thing for his uncle to worry about was always a good thing.

The day or so leading up to Artham’s departure had made masking the suffocation nearly impossible, though, because for whatever reason, his body decided he could not handle it anymore. For that matter, Artham had nearly found out as he was leaving and sounded as though he was halfway tempted just to abandon the entire search for his daughter one account of a cough or a sickly pallor or something ridiculous and true but irrelevant! Janner would have never forgiven himself if that had happened.

The pressure in his chest mounted, his head buzzed and throbbed, Artham was gone, and all Janner’s motivation for masking and hiding his physical problems had left with him. It was strange, really, to stop hiding everything and want to be found out, to want someone else to notice. Stranger, though, was that Nia, or someone else, failed to recognize it the day Artham left, the day after, and even the morning after that!

If Janner had been vocally frank, he would have told someone how frustrating it was. He dragged himself out of bed that morning with the expectation that Nia or Leeli or Sara or even Arundelle would notice something was wrong with him, really wrong, that he had almost no energy, that he could barely think, barely eat, barely speak without choking on a cough. 

No one had said anything, though, and Janner thought there was a high probability of him dissolving into tears if anyone spoke to him in a way that was tender or angered or some other “different” emotion. He was glad he didn’t have to worry about addressing everyone about everything. The regents Artham had helped him appoint had taken the Annieran citizens to various places on the isle to populate and build up there, meaning only about a hundred or so remained in what once was and would eventually be known as Rysentown. 

Since Artham was technically the regent in charge of Rysentown, Janner should have had to fulfill his responsibilities in his absence. As it was, though, Arundelle did it, perhaps because she figured it was her responsibility since Artham was gone or perhaps because she noticed something was…off at breakfast that morning. Janner really would have preferred her to say something about the “off-ness” rather than simply observing and acting upon it, but acting was something and he was grateful.

As it was, he ended up wandering over to the beach because he couldn’t really do much to physically rebuild Rysentown. The wind was strong and the waves were loud there, and though the former may have induced coughing, the latter swallowed the sound whole, and it was lost to the open sea.

During the middle of one of those coughing fits, Galya appeared from out of nowhere (she seemed to be good at doing that). Janner wanted to stand up chivalrously and greet her, he really did, but on such short notice, he was almost certain it would be impossible. 

Instead he smiled pleasantly to her somewhat concerned-sounding greeting and eventually choked out, “What brings you here?” before he had to stop.

“Nothing much more than a desire for a walk,” she began, sitting down a few feet away from him and furrowing her brow a bit. “Are you alright? You look…well, you look frightfully ill.”

Janner’s breath caught in his throat when he heard those words, and by the time he managed to subdue the coughing fit the breath had brought on, tears streamed down his cheeks. He wasn’t even certain what emotion they related to, whether they were for joy or grief or frustration or anger. They were just there and spilling out almost uncontrollably, partially deafening Galya’s repeated words of concern. 

“Do you want me to find your mother?” finally came through, and Janner felt himself nodding, his arms wrapped around his chest because coughing was starting to hurt too much, and now some of the tears were ones of pain, too.

Somewhere in the back of his mind shame pattered around, having to do with literally breaking down in front of Galya. He didn’t have the energy to feel shame for that, though, and just the thought of having to use energy for something like feeling shame was almost enough to convince him to lay down and sleep on the beach.

Some form of rationale still lingered in his throbbing head, though, because it told him that would scare Galya and Nia when they came back, and he really didn’t want to scare them.

He had control over the tears and almost managed the coughing, too, and that was the moment when Galya appeared in the distance again, Sara running behind her, not Nia. Janner did convince himself to stand up that time, because Sara and Galya should not have been the ones forced to handle whatever sort of situation was happening. Standing made his head pound, but he still raised his hand and waved and even opened his mouth to speak when both girls were in reasonable hearing distance. 

An enormous gust of wind and wave wrecked that idea, though, and before he knew it he was sprawled in freezing cold seawater, choking and coughing and gasping all at the same time. Someone grabbed him and hulled him up, then wrapped their arm around his back, leading him back to the beach, now dripping wet. 

What Janner was most aware of in those brief moments on the sand—in which ease of breath and mind failed to come back to him, and they began walking back to Castle Rysen—was that Sara was soaking herself as she supported him and her catching a cold would just be dreadful.

At some point in time Galya left, and the cellar door of Castle Rysen appeared in front of them, seeming as though it just begged them to open it and go inside. The darkness welcomed them, and Janner couldn’t help but groan when Sara lit the candle so they could find their way in the dark. 

He felt guilty when he heard her murmured apology—she sounded truly stricken—and did his best to force an assuaging response out of his mouth but was unsure if he actually succeeded. 

Changing out of his soaking wet clothes was a feat in and of itself, and he nearly broke down sobbing behind the partition as he peeled off his outer layer because of just how done he was. He didn’t want to be cold and wet and tired and hurting, he just wanted to sleep and make it all stop. 

Sara helped him into bed as soon as he was ready, and aside from the agony of having to stumble all the way over to the corner of the room where his bed was, the experience of getting into it and laying down and feeling the warm covers fall over him was wonderful.

“Galya went to find your mother,” he heard Sara say softly, but there was something else in her tone. Fear. 

Guilt crashed over him. “‘m sorry,” he whispered, opening his eyes and focusing on her blearily in spite of the blinding candle in her hand. “It’s my—” that was as far as he got, though, before another series of hacking coughs took over his body, and tears filled his eyes once more because it hurt. As he shook and jolted and gasped for breath that only prompted more coughing, Janner took comfort in the way Sara’s hand held onto his, because it was something he could feel and see in his mind’s eye, and it didn’t hurt at all.

*****

Notes:

The title got a little metaphorical...but it's basically saying that this chapter is the "rain falling" (i.e. the calm before the storm).

I'm not sure how many chapters this will end up having...I'm guessing somewhere around 30-ish based on where I am in writing and planning as of this moment.

Note the contrast between Janner's thought process in reference to Galya and Sara...when it's only Galya he considers getting up but doesn't, and when Sara appears he goes through the effort of doing so. etc. ^^

Please alert me to any canonical errors or general glitches^^