At the feast

[notagiraffe]

Characters: Taiki and anyone
Setting: Cafeteria, on the 18th during the feast
Format: Whatever you wish
Summary: Taiki is very ill and spends most the feast curled up under a table. Also it is his birthday but he's lost track of time :(
Warnings:

Taiki had already been unconscious before the monsters were taken care of and everyone passed out. He half woke to the announcement about refreshments. He half sat up from where he was laid, under a table; when he had gotten too week to walk around helping he had tried to get as far out of the way as possible and figured he couldn't trip anyone up under a table.

He was hungry, but he also felt sick. He thought he was probably going to pass out again, but he was really worried about Gyousou, he peered through the sea of peoples legs. He couldn't see Gyousou and he whimpered trying to move.

The blood sickness was too much though, he couldn't move he was too dizzy. He pulled his cloak further around him and curled back up crying softly.

Comments

[sageprincess]

"Peace-King...?" She whispers more to herself than anything, suddenly feeling rather nervous. Dealing with other royalty... is still something she needs to get accustomed to. And that child is his minister? Oh, Goddesses...

Swallowing her sudden onset of anxiety, she shakes her head. "Not as of yet, your Majesty. I wished to check in with those that were fighting before doing anything else."

And she'd like to pass out after doing that, in all honesty, but he doesn't really need to know that.

[eyeslikeblood]

"Then I insist you pause in your patrol to drink something," his expression, whilst friendly, was that of the commander, somebody used to being obeyed not just because of his rank but from the sense of his orders. "Whilst I know little of magic, the tower or these monsters, I am at least experienced in war and the toll it takes on both mortal and immortal."

[sageprincess]

"Ah..."

Gyousou.

Can she be you when she grows up.

"I suppose." Though she's still stubborn as a mule. "Though there are likely those here who need it more than I."

[eyeslikeblood]

She can be better.

"The need of others does not negate your own." He poured a cup of water during her protest, and now holds it out with the hand not pinned beneath the sleeping kirin. "You are a leader to these people, I believe, and it will hearten them to see you looking to your own health."

His reasoning is slightly skewed, coming as he does from a world where the health and wellbeing of a ruler directly affects the land and people they rule over, but hey. The worry of her friends and comrades is real, and she can alleviate that by making sure it's only exhaustion she passes out from.

[sageprincess]

"Will it?"

Stubborn as she is, she is not ungrateful when presented with even the smallest kindness. And so, after a moment's hesitation, she takes the offered cup, bowing her head in thanks.

"I was told not to fight alongside those who remained in the upper levels, for fear of how others would react should I have fallen. But... at what point are my actions viewed as cowardice and concern for only myself rather than caution?"

Judging by the way she's staring intently into that cup, it would seem this is not the first time she has contemplated this dilemma. For so many years, she hid for the sake of her own survival - would her people view that as abandonment, even if it was necessary?

[eyeslikeblood]

He smiles in return for her acceptance of the water, and just generally for the manner in which this chance meeting is progressing, but his expression smooths as he considers her question gravely.

"Whoever told you to do so was correct. The death of a leader causes turmoil, confusion, and can lead to the deaths of others," And the total ruin of your kingdom. But her question is directed elsewhere in her troubles, he can see, and he answers that with perfect frankness, "Some may indeed see your actions as those of a coward. You cannot control the thoughts of your comrades, and this has been a harrowing event. Many have lost friends, and will not be thinking logically."