Slaine's eyes slowly opened. The candle on the table had nearly burned away completely, and a single, pale line of orange light cut across the wood rafters and down the tapestry at the far wall. The sun was setting, and it was long past time to get up. For once, he felt well rested, but he was still too comfortable to climb out of bed just yet. It was warm, and the blanket and pillows were soft. Just a few more minutes couldn't hurt. He closed his eyes again, and almost immediately something touched his neck. He might have screamed had he not been in the process of yawning, but the surprise quickly waned when he realized what had happened.

This was not his room, or his bed. The person nuzzling into his neck was Inaho, but evidenced by the arm draped loosely over his side and the soft, deep breathing just behind his ear, the vampire was fast asleep. Slaine thought back over the night before, to the last thing that he could remember happening. He had come here on his own, lain down on this bed, and invited Inaho to drink of his own volition. There was nothing particularly amiss on Inaho's part, and it wasn't as though he hadn't slept in Inaho's presence many times in the past, but somehow falling asleep in a locked room with a dangerously unpredictable vampire seemed particularly reckless of him. Aside from the baffling marvel of his falling asleep at all during something like that, he had absolutely no idea how long Inaho had been drinking from him after he dozed off. He could have died, and it would have been his own fault. Thinking that his carelessness would probably be his undoing one of these days, Slaine let out a shaky breath and began to consider how he could extricate himself from this bed, which he suddenly no longer felt reluctant to leave.

It was actually surprising that Inaho was not already awake. Usually by this time he was off somewhere in the castle, most often the library, where lately he spent the majority of his days reading the few dusty volumes it contained. Confined to the castle and without companions, family, or work, there wasn't much else for him to do to pass the time. Apparently they wouldn't need him to do anything for a while yet.

Slaine moved forward a bit, hoping the movement would prompt Inaho to retract his arm, but instead it only tightened on him. Undaunted, he reached behind him and ran his fingers lightly over what he assumed to be Inaho's face. As Inaho moved his hand up to brush Slaine's fingers away from his face, Slaine escaped without issue. Unexpectedly, he found he could easily stand up and walk about the room without even the slightest faintness. The door was locked when he tried it, and he briefly wondered whether Inaho hadn't known this would happen, and had secured it to prevent him from leaving while he was asleep. He dismissed the thought. Inaho had probably only been thinking of his privacy, for which he was grateful. Now, as he searched for the key, he was more concerned with remembering where Inaho had set the thing down. Poking around in someone else's bedroom felt sneaky and wrong, but he assured himself he was only trying to get out of this room and not arouse suspicion in the Princess by turning up late. His heart leapt into his throat when Inaho touched his arm.

"Ah… I fell asleep, too," murmured Inaho from beneath the bedspread, which covered him so completely that had Slaine not just been lying there beside him, he'd probably have never noticed his presence at all. A single arm emerged and was handing it to him. "It was in the bed."

Slaine gaped at him in disbelief. "Did you even drink at all?" he remonstrated, pulling back the blanket before Inaho could nod off again. Two drowsy eyes peered up at him, and instead of answering the question, Inaho simply yawned. Well, if he could fall asleep while eating, he must not have been terribly hungry, after all. It almost worried Slaine, but the Count seemed confident that the elixir was safe and effective. Still, he had been shaking. He was still shaking. It was slight, but the hand that rested lazily on the pillow beside his head was trembling. If it wasn't hunger or the elixir, the only alternative cause, that the extended exposure to silver was beginning to cause visible symptoms, was no less concerning. A glance at Inaho's other wrist, the one that bore the silver bracelet, seemed to confirm it.

"How long has it been like this?" Slaine questioned, and snatched Inaho's hand before he could retract it. The skin under the band was raw and inflamed, and some areas had even begun to bleed.

"There's no need for you to worry about it." Inaho tried to pull away from Slaine's grasp, but it quickly became apparent that he no longer possessed the strength.

Slaine shook his head. "That is for me to decide. How long, Inaho?"

"About a week. This won't cause any permanent problem, so please don't-"

"Don't be ridiculous. I'm going to fix this." Slaine examined the affected area, before setting down his arm and leaning over to study his face. His eyes were round, black pools, and his lips were blanched.

As Slaine straightened, Inaho sat up. "I don't want it removed," he insisted.

"You'd rather be like this?" Slaine pushed him back down to the pillows for emphasis. He might have enjoyed feeling strong for once, if the circumstances had been less worrisome. "I'll ask if it might be removed just until your body recovers. Then you can have it back, I promise. They'll likely want to put you in the dungeon while it's off... are you alright with that?" He asked, though they both knew he would do it anyway.

Inaho nodded and looked away. It was difficult to tell whether he was sulking, or simply tired. "Slaine," he said suddenly, catching Slaine's hand as he rose to leave. "Don't do anything rash."

There was nothing very reckless in asking them to do something about Inaho's condition, and so Slaine assumed that Inaho must mean something else. He sighed. "Please trust me, Inaho."

"It isn't you that I don't trust. I only..." he trailed off. After a minute or so, he curled up and pulled the blanket close. "I hate that you're always out of my sight."

The word 'pardon' had nearly formed on his lips when he determined it was best not to inquire. Inaho was ill, which Slaine had over time realized made him bizarrely clingy. Now that the fear of losing control of his instincts was eliminated, Inaho's strange attachment had become much more pronounced. Slaine had never really been around sick people before, but he knew from his own experience that feeling poorly made a person desire comfort and some kind of relief, which right now for Inaho equated to being near the one person who was familiar and safe to him, and had relieved his pain in the past. His words just now were the product and proof of his miserable condition.

"Inaho, I will get us back to her, but to do that I need to take risks," Slaine reminded him. "You'll simply have to bear with it."

Inaho's eyes followed him as he turned towards the door. "I could smell him," he said quietly, "This morning when you came... it was faint, but I know someone touched you."

Slaine halted with his fingers curled around the iron door handle. So Inaho had picked up Harklight's lingering aura, even in this state. Is that what he was so worried about? "My paths cross with many throughout the night. It's nothing."

"It was more than a brush. Slaine, I won't let them do as they please with you."

Slaine's jaw tightened. This new vocal possessiveness was getting tiring. He unlocked the door and threw the key back at Inaho. "In that regard, you are the only offender," he returned irritably, "I can make no promises, but you should remember that my life depends on yours. If you kill someone here out of some idiotic quest for vengeance, I'm sure there will be grave consequences. Besides, what can you do in this state? You're the one who should be careful."


Even though Inaho had hardly taken a sip from him, Slaine felt exhausted for the remainder of the night. The next evening when he awoke, he could hardly drag himself from bed. It was a strange, heavy feeling, different from the faintness of blood loss, and he wondered if he wasn't overdoing it after all. It wouldn't do at all for his body to give out at a time like this.

He must have looked poorly, too, because nearly the moment he entered the room, Lemrina inquired after his health, and bade him take a seat beside her. He tumbled gratefully into the upholstered sofa and tried not to close his eyes. She then put a hand to his cheek, brow knitted with concentration, and after a moment or two of hesitation and uncertainty declared that he was most certainly ill and should take to his bed immediately.

"Ill?" he repeated lamely, wondering how he'd forgotten such a simple part of being human. While it was possible for vampires to contract illnesses, their bodies were so vastly stronger that it was extremely rare. Hunger was a much more present issue for them. With the current peace between the races, most law abiding vampires were chronically malnourished, while those who raided the borderlands tended to be much stronger. However, there was not much that could be done about either of those problems with the current state of things.

He wanted to stay and ask her about her knowledge of and interactions with humans, and how it was that she had known so quickly what was wrong just now. Her mother was human, but that woman along with her entire childhood was shrouded in mystery. But instead of prying for answers, as he was forced daily to resist, he took her advice and returned to his room to rest.

Slaine spent the remainder of the evening drifting in and out of sleep, tossing and turning in his bed, and wondering whether he would have the strength to fetch food and water for himself. He was no one's responsibility, so he would have to fend for himself until this was over, or until someone pitied him and took it upon themselves to care for him. For now, he wasn't very hungry, and he did have one pitcher of water, so there wasn't much to worry about. Perhaps this would blow over quickly. It would be terribly inconvenient if it developed into something serious.

At one point he thought he heard someone call his name, but then he remembered that he had been dreaming. They were strange dreams, filled with unsettling things that made him rather stay awake despite his exhaustion. So he lay in the darkness, staring up at nothing, until eventually the dawn light crept through his closed window, casting thin white lines across his bed. He followed them with his eyes, watching how they trailed up and down with the folds of the blanket before ultimately spilling onto the floor vanishing in the far reaches of the room. Everything was still rather dark, as it was meant to be with such heavy shutters to block out the daylight.

More than the boredom, or the strange dreams, or the fatigue, the thing that troubled him most was his inability to get comfortable. He ached all over and no matter how hot his skin felt, he simply could not stop shivering. He must have thrown off his blanket twenty times over under the impression that he was exceedingly overheated, each time dragging it back over himself as chills gripped him. This time, as he clutched the blanket to his chest, rolling to his opposite side, the movement provoked a soft sigh that was not his own. He froze a moment, attempting in his delirium to make sense of what he had unmistakably heard. And then, tentatively, he slipped a hand from beneath the bedspread and reached out into the darkness for the source. His fingers met with the soft texture of hair, and a smooth forehead, and the touch elicited another sigh. Slaine snatched back his hand. Someone was sleeping at his bedside, and he did not want to wake them until he was sure of their identity.

"Inaho…?" he whispered, though he knew it was more likely one of the servants sent to take care of him after all. He wondered why he had even said that name.

The person stirred and yawned. "Mm? What is it…?" came a sleepy voice, unmistakably belonging to Inaho.

"... nothing," Slaine answered confusedly, "Why are you here?" If it was drink he wanted, he would have to come back another time. He had already forfeited that this morning when he fell asleep in the middle of feeding.

A hand touched his forehead. "The servants were whispering that someone had contracted a sickness. I came to look after you."

Slaine wanted to say that there was no need, that he could manage on his own, but the will to refuse offered help seemed to have abandoned him. He muttered some kind of acknowledgement and closed his eyes again. Yet, tired as he was, he simply could not fall asleep. Perhaps he had already slept too much.

"Do you want anything?" offered Inaho, apparently noting Slaine's struggle despite the darkness. He heard the scuff of feet on the floor as Inaho stood up and began walking somewhere. The door opened and a very pale light filtered in from a window down the corridor someplace. He lingered in the doorframe, waiting for Slaine's reply.

"Some… porridge, I suppose…" As unappealing as food sounded at the moment, he knew he should try to keep up his strength.

When Inaho returned, he still had not managed to fall asleep. He was glad for the lantern that Inaho brought along with the food, but could not help but view the strange looking drink with suspicion.

"It's a brew made with herbs," Inaho explained, "It's perfectly safe."

While Slaine was fairly certain that Inaho would never poison him, at least not without good reason, he had always been a little wary of medicines and their effects. Especially having lived for so long amongst a race unaffected by them and thus unconcerned with what they might do to a human when added as flavor to food. But he had to remind himself that Inaho was not a born vampire and knew how to care for sick humans far better than he ever would. He took the offered cup and sipped the hot liquid. It tasted strange, but the effect was soothing. After a few bites of his porridge, he was so sleepy he thought he might doze off right into the bowl. Inaho graciously took it from him and tucked the blanket around his shoulders as he lay back down and drifted into a deep sleep.