Through Ages of Weary Fulfillment: Ch. 24

Title

Notes:

I'm so sorry I haven't posted recently! Things have been kind of crazy and I haven't had the time to post or write...

But here is a Janner update^^

*****

“Please, Mama, I can’t breathe in here,” Janner wheezed, his head and chest stuffed full of cotton, hot cotton that wanted to ignite more than anything.

“I know, sweetie,” Nia whispered. “But we’ve aired it out as much as we can.”

Struggling to focus on her face, Janner did his best to look her in the eyes. “What about outside?” he mumbled, almost unintelligibly.

Nia did something that might have been a shake of her head, but it sent his ears ringing. “I’m sorry, but we can’t.”

Janner wondered blearily if her words were really choked or if it just sounded that way in his mind. He felt something cool touch his hand, and then it (his hand?) was near her cheek, being pressed and squeezed reassuringly. Puzzling as to how she was able to lift his leadened hand with such ease took his mind on a bit of a sluggish journey as did the way his hand, and what he could see of his arm, looked. Everything was blurry, and nothing had crisp, defined edges—he squeezed his eyes shut briefly before opening them again. The thought of edges hurt—but it seemed as though his hand was thinner than it was the last time he had seen it. 

He’d barely eaten; that was why. Even water made him feel sicker than he already was, broth was barely tolerable, porridge had sent his stomach heaving and left him even more miserable the rest of the day. That might’ve been the day before, but he wasn’t sure. They were all starting to blur together. All the same. Many times worse, a few times much worse, never better, but all the same.

The sound of pouring water slipped into his ears, and the words, “do you think you can drink something?” predictably followed. Neither shaking his head nor nodding in response—he would have to drink either way—Janner watched the cup listlessly as it came nearer, first microscopic and then inhumanly ginormous in his mind’s feverishly distorted view of it.

As water squeezed down his throat, practically choking him in its merciless journey that gave him chills, he couldn’t help but be the tiniest bit thankful moving was unnecessary in the already terrible drinking process. He was slanted, not quite sitting up and not quite laying down to make “breathing easier” as someone had said. It might have been Nia or Mother Madalana or both of them or neither. 

If his opinion was asked, he would say it certainly didn’t seem as though it helped. The weight pressing against his chest was becoming unbearable, and sitting half-upright wasn’t making it slide off his body. 

“Wouldn’t slide off at all if I was laying down,” he murmured aloud accidentally, the room was sliding around again, and when it slid around, his mind did too. Or maybe it was the opposite. It meant sleep was near, which was a miraculously dulled version of the normal heat and strangling. Of course, it mingled itself with horrifying worries and worst-case-scenarios about Artham and mountains of guilt and doubt and regret about Kalmar but…it balanced out in its own twisted way. At least he could go outside during a nightmare.

*****

When Janner awoke at some unknown hour of the night—he could hear everyone else breathing deeply, evenly, and couldn’t help but envy them—he felt tears streaming down his cheeks. Why they were there he did not know, but he didn’t think it was because of his dream. Kal had been in it, and it had been a sort of summary of his brother’s life, all the bits he could remember flashing by so suddenly, ending with the Maker’s World and fading. 

He hadn’t felt sad by the end of the dream, more content than anything else. It was odd what a contrast that contentment was to how he felt now: miserable, disparaging, helpless. Come to think of it, he felt rather like he had when he had awoken in the Blackwood, trapped, strangled, breathless, hopeless, despairing. The only thing missing was Sara, standing by to free him. 

“Hey, what’s wrong?” came the soft voice of the very person he had just thought of. Janner puzzled for a moment, wondering if his fever was high enough that he had started hallucinating.

“I…I don’t know,” he mumbled back, wondering if when he opened his eyes, a shimmery figure of Sara’s imagined form would be there. 

A cold hand slipped into his, and imagined-Sara whispered, “Why are you crying? Does something hurt, or was it a nightmare?

Feeling absolutely childish and pitiful for saying it, Janner blinked open his eyes and looked at “Sara” through his tears, saying, “The air’s too thick. Breathing it hurts. Can we go outside?” his voice broke on the last bit, not because he wanted it to or planned to add it for special effect, but because he was desperate. Desperate enough to ask an imagined form of Sara if she could help him outside, like she had a month before. 

There was silence for what felt like an eternity of barely-breathing, and then Sara said, “Alright. But we have to be quiet.” Then his blanket was somehow arranged over his shoulders and a steady arm was behind his back, a gentle murmur encouraging him enough to where he sat upright—slightly slumped and definitely shivering, but that wasn’t important—and had both feet planted on the floor. They didn’t look like they were planted, of course, what with the way his head spun, but they must have been stationary. He certainly hadn’t told them to move. 

After a few minutes his legs stopped twisting themselves into pretzels, and there was an arm around his waist, and his arm was around someone’s shoulders, and he was standing—dizzy but standing nonetheless—and even walking (shuffling) and going up a flight of stairs!

There was no way Janner was managing it on his own and since with imaginary Sara meant the same thing as “on his own,” real Sara had to be there. And it had been real Sara the entire time, since he had woken up and she had asked why he was crying. 

Unless, of course, everything was just a dream and he was still actually lying in bed, fitfully asleep.

“Am I dreaming?” he asked, slurring his words a bit. With the way his head spun, anything else would be impossible.

“Shh,” was the answer he received. “Not until we’re outside. I don’t want to wake everyone.”

Janner couldn’t help but think that was a fairly dream-like answer, one where the other “person” in the dream just postponed answering your question, so it never really got answered and you never really got confirmation for the thing you had suspected since the dream began.

All of a sudden, a breath of cool air hit his face and hands and body and slipped into his lungs as if it were the simplest thing in the world. The air was so thin, so breathable, so perfect aside from the chills and dizziness, though the latter had begun subsiding the moment real air came to him.

They walked a few more steps before he was eased to the soft, grassy ground with utmost caution. “Thank you,” he said softly, smiling. “I know it’s just a dream, but it’s a wonderful one.”

Bell-like laughter followed, and as her hand squeezed and began massaging his, Sara said, “You’re welcome, but it’s not a dream, Janner. It’s real. You’re really outside the cellar in the middle of the night. Can you breathe better?“

Blinking, he turned his head, risking dizziness and not being met with it. Sara’s lovely smile and diamond blue eyes came into view, and he focused on them intently for a moment or so, wondering how it was possible, how she was possible. 

That was before chivalry snuck up behind him and reminded him to answer her question. “I can breathe,” he said, simply at first, then elaborated when he found out he could elaborate without choking. “The air is so thin, and…I don’t know. It just…goes in better?”

Sara’s brow furrowed in a sort of way that made him think his words made even less sense to her than they did to him, and considering they made almost no sense to him, her managing to understand them would be a miracle.

“Sorry,” he whispered, resting his throbbing head in his hand and closing his eyes. It seemed as though everything ached and burned and seared, especially his chest and stomach that felt like they had been torn to bits or maybe even whipped to shreds by the uncontrollable coughing and choking. He was so tired, tired enough that he wanted to fall asleep then and there, sitting up, actually breathing. That couldn’t happen, though, because then Sara might get in trouble.

Going back into the cellar that seemed to have one goal, suffocating him, sounded like a completely unbearable option. He wasn’t trying to be dramatic (though perhaps his fever was making him as such), but it was true. Or at least it seemed true.

Sara’s hand fluttered onto his shoulder and his mind told him to look at her since it meant she was about to say something, and looking at someone while they spoke was always polite, but his body refused to respond.

“Janner,” she said softly, near his ear. “You’re shaking and look exhausted. We need to head inside. We've been out here for a while.”

He felt her pulling him effortlessly into a standing position, looping his arm around her neck, then her arm was around his back, and they moved forward haltingly, despite his scattered, mental protests. 

“But I can’t breathe in here,” he finally managed to squeeze out, pitifully, childishly, perhaps playfully, when they were back in the stuffy cellar again, but in that moment, he really didn’t care that he couldn’t manage anything else. 

Sara hummed as if to avoid responding, and they continued inching forward. In the moment when Janner’s legs trembled so much he was sure others heard it, the feeling of being helped into bed greeted him and he sighed with relief. Somehow sighing didn’t hurt as badly as it had before.

“I know,” she whispered, compassion filling her tone and words. Janner felt something cool brush his cheek briefly—likely her fingers; perhaps she was making sure his temperature hadn’t risen too much, because that seemed to make a bit of sense—before leaving. “I…I hope the outing helped a bit though.”

Smiling weakly and certain it was one of the two only things he had the energy for before sleep would claim him again, Janner did the second: expressing appreciation. “Thank you, Sara,” he murmured as tangible reality slipped away again. He was asleep before he heard a reply, but he hoped whatever it was, it involved her lovely smile.

*****

Notes:

So you got to enjoy some Janara in the midst of everything :')