Hey all ! I'm happy to treat you with a new chapter already. I'm on holidays until Monday and I'm enjoying the TTS world as much as I can ! So here you go !

So about this one... TRIGGERS, TRIGGERS, TRIGGERS. Please choose wisely if you want to read or not. Includes graphic depiction, mental issues as previously seen in the story and I hope that's not over the edge. You have been warned !

If you're still here, please remember that it is fiction. Stay safe, guys !

CHAPTER 81

It was so quiet. As if the world had stopped being crazy for once and had decided that a few hours could be spent peacefully.

Varian woke up in that peacefulness. Nothing could be heard, everything was still. In the dim light of dawn, he blinked his vision clear and it took him a few seconds to register where he was.

Right. So there he was, still in the royal bedroom. From where he was lying on his side, he could see the lilac chiffon hanging from one of the posts of the bed. He was grateful for the feeling of safety it oddly brought to him. Thanks to the transparency of the light fabric, he could see that the candle was out. Pretty much burnt-out actually. Good. There would be no fire risk. Content and utterly relaxed, Varian started to let his eyes shut gently.

His eyelids were barely closed when he snapped them open again in a millisecond, letting out a gasp. He fell asleep ! He fell asleep while on watch ! No, no, no, oh no, please, let her be –

Alarmed by the sight of the extinguished candle, Varian flipped his body around to look at the form next to him. His whole frame froze and he became very pale suddenly, all color leaving his lips and cheeks.

She was still there, lying on her back, but her face was tinted by a deep reddish color and her skin was moist with sweat. Varian touched her cheek with the back of his bare hand and winced at the heat radiating from it. The rag had fallen off her forehead and had mostly dried up. More worrisome, her breathing was weak and barely audible.

"No, no, no," Varian repeated over and over like a prayer, his both hands on her shoulders and shaking her, "no, Arianna, NO ! No, wake up, please talk to me ! ARIANNA !"

Panic was seizing him. If there was some thinking to be done to wisely choose his next action, he was totally incapable of putting ideas together. This was a nightmare, it had to be !

The teen felt the increasing stress clawing at him. On his knees on the bed, he was sobbing incoherent words, overburdened by an invisible weight on his shoulders and inside him. He painfully sucked in a deep breath.

"Open your eyes, please, ARIANNA, OH PLEASE NO !" he screamed, trying harder to jerk her awake. Tears of rage and frustration fell from his eyes and landed on her cheeks, but she remained completely motionless.

"WAKE UP ! WAKE UP !"

"Varian ! Varian, calm down ! Let her go !"

The boy could hardly hear the voice behind him and he didn't even feel the two hands on his arms holding him firmly. He only noticed that he was being pulled backwards, and he flailed wildly his hands in the air, kicking his feet at the same time, like he could swim his way back to her.

"No ! No ! Leave me ! Leave me ! I gotta – I have to –"

"Enough already, Varian !" the tone of Remyus was more final now, his grip surprisingly strong for an old man as he circled his arms around Varian's torso and arms from behind. "Stop it and look at me !", he ordered, expected to get punched or kicked as he tried to restrain to panicked teen.

Varian thrashed to pull out but Remyus had secured his own hands together and wouldn't let go.

After struggling a couple of times, the dark-haired boy finally caved in and went slack in his arms, head hanging and chest heaving with sobs threatening to come out. Remyus couldn't see his face, but he knew how distraught he was.

"There, Varian, that's it. Calm down. I've got you," he soothed.

"I…I…", the boy stammered, unwilling to meet the physician's eye., "I'm so sorry, Remyus."

"Hey, listen, kid…", the older man began, releasing his grip slightly.

But before he could go on, Varian seized the opportunity to break free, swiftly jumped off the bed and ran, panting, to the boudoir and slammed the door shut behind him.

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Remyus stood there bewildered for a moment, then decided he had to get working on what was the most urgent matter first so he quickly checked on the Queen. He could easily assess that she had reached the pneumonia peak, which explained the bout of high fever and her general weakness. He cursed under his breath for falling asleep earlier and having left her without care for way too long.

Now he could only hope it wasn't too late. For her sake, and for the sake of the boy for whom he was increasingly worried about too.

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Varian stumbled into the small room, not caring if he hit the pedestal table because of his lack of coordination and made all of Remyus' remedies wobble. His eyes quickly searched for a spot to stay, to hide, to be away from everything and everyone, his rational thinking out the window.

The only other piece of furniture in the boudoir was the day bed. The blanket the physician used for his rest had been pushed away unceremoniously in his haste to get up. Because of my cries, thought Varian. Because of me.

Releasing a deep grunt of frustration, Varian rushed to the corner of the room next to the day bed. The distance with the wall was just wide enough for him to fit. He clumsily dumped himself on the carpet floor and drew his legs against his chest like he was trying to make himself as small as possible. Curling up into a ball, he rested his forehead on his knees to hide his face and wrapped his hands over his head but that wasn't enough to stop him from shaking. Within moments, his fingers were fiddling in his hair and he started to pull his locks with his fists.

"I'm sorry… I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," he moaned over and over, rocking back and forth. He was pulling harder and harder on his hair, trying to get his nerves under control, but it didn't seem to help. All he could do was whine and cry, sobs wracking through him. His breathing was shallow and way too hectic. Having left his gloves on the bedside table, he could feel his thick hair on his bare hands, a sensation he wasn't very used to. And his hair felt soft, too soft.

Suddenly that was too much. Too much of what, he couldn't say, but something snapped within him as the anguish was too much to take. He growled angrily, barely recognizing his own voice and brought his arms down. He watched as his right hand connected with his left forearm by the elbow and his nails dug in the flesh. Grinding his teeth, he let out his rage and without a shred of hesitation, scratched the tender skin as hard as he could, all the way up to the wrist, one, two, three, four times, maybe more, he didn't know.

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After Remyus wiped the sweat off Arianna's face, he placed the wet rag back on her forehead and checked her pulse. It was weak, as he expected it, but he couldn't hold back a sigh. Moderate fever helps the body with fighting infections, but too high a temperature could cause brain damage and eventually death.

He didn't want to think of the King's reaction, should his beloved wife pass away. Worse even, of the Princess', when she would come back from her journey. She had been reunited with her parents for only one year, merely a fleeting moment in her life. She didn't deserve to come back home only to find out she would never see her mother again.

And what about the boy ?

Unwilling to dwell on fears and doubts, Remyus shook his head to push those thoughts at the back of his mind. First things first, he had to break down the fever. Where was his supply of white willow again ?

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Bright red beads of blood started to appear and well up all over the young boy's skinny forearm. Small ones, big ones, gathering along angry welts wherever the scratches weren't deep enough to draw as much blood.

Surprisingly, that didn't scare Varian nor make him feel queasy, as the sight of blood would always do to him. He felt strangely calm and his breathing was even now. He simply stared at the vivid color spreading over his skin like it belonged to a completely different person, or rather like he was watching from far, far away.

Unbeknownst by him, his body was fighting the stress and the pain with its own alchemy and although Varian didn't understand it, he welcomed the feeling and just sat there, eyes unfocused, zoning out of his body, out of his mind.