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As promised, Velen had come by the hour and tried as much as he could to flood the teen's weak body with the divine grace of the Light. But by the fourth hour, Anduin's body had turned so frail and weak, he struggled to lift his head on his own. By the fifth hour, his labored breathing had the most unsettling gurgling sound to it, his chest rising and falling unevenly as he fought for each breath. And it was in that hour that when Velen was about to leave the royal chambers, he caught Varian's red-rimmed eyes and shared a grim look with him. The outlook had taken a turn, and the boy's body could sustain little more.
He'd come and gone on the sixth hour as promised, but the Light did nothing to ease Anduin's suffering. The infected site on his chest blistered rottenly with raised postulates filled with a sickly black substance, the size getting worse and worse each time he tried to heal him. On the seventh hour, when the sun was just beginning to creep up on the horizon, it wasn't Velen that knocked on the door.
The sound of his guards arguing with someone dragged Varian from morose thoughts, seated beside his ailing son as he fought to breathe. The argument was a good distraction for him from watching Anduin's chest rise and fall, waiting and dreading when it wouldn't rise again.
Unshaven with black stubble covering his face, unbathed and still wearing his clothes from the day prior, he was sure he looked as much of a mess as he felt, but he didn't care. Pulling the door open to his bedroom, he stopped short and blinked at finding an Orc arguing with one of his guards to let him in, while a Sin'dorei stood a short yet safe distance away, content to convey his displeasure with a heated glare at the guards.
"Thrall? Lor'themar? If you're here to beg on Sylvanas's behalf, you're wasting your breath and my precious time. My words were ironclad - bring me what I need or-"
"We have it," Thrall quickly cut him off, lifting a small leather sack cradled in his arms much too large for a mere vial of medicine. Behind him, the Regent Lord carried a small hookah with one pipe already attached. "Let us see the boy. It will take time to do this and I need space." Seeing the hesitation on the King's face, Thrall gave him a stern look. "We do not have time for you to question us."
A sudden cough behind him made him shove the door open more graciously and usher the two in. There was no hesitation in their steps, each one moving with purpose and intent. One of the guards made to follow but stopped when Varian lifted a halting hand and solidified his decision by slamming the door on the guard's face. If the Horde wanted to finish the job in the wake of his son's death, he welcomed it.
"Where's Sylvanas?" He asked as he drew tense at watching them both approach Anduin on either side of his bed.
"Tantruming in her rooms."
Varian raised a brow at the Sin'dorei's deadpanned response. It answered his question on why the antidote didn't come from her, and while he wanted to know more of the discord, he didn't dare ask them. He couldn't find the will or want to know; his hunger for revenge had gone stale in the daunting eve of his only son's impending death. Whatever the Banshee's faction sought to do with her in the interim, while Anduin still lived, Varian didn't care. Stepping with the thundering steps he normally took, he quickly stood beside Thrall, protectively wanting to be near his son in the presence of the Horde. "He's been getting worse," he quietly mumbled, watching Anduin's sleeping, pale face struggle for another breath. "He fights to just breathe."
"That's how it takes you," Lor'themar replied in a cold tone as he began to set up the hookah on the floor, readjusting the pipe's valve to ensure the flow was right. "His lungs are likely filling with the blight now. The herbs will open his airways enough for Thrall to heal it and force it from his body."
Varian was quiet as he watched the Orc open the leather satchel and pull out several stems of dried herbs, crunching them up and mixing in a bowl before handing them over to Lor'themar. Part of him was tempted to call for Velen, for he trusted the priest without despair to handle his beloved son. And yet here he was, well within arms reach of two he once waged war against moving swiftly to try to save his son's life. He could only imagine the lecture he'd get from Anduin when he'd wake up, spewing on and on about how differences could be cast aside and peace could be sought if they only wanted to find it.
Varian blinked. When he wakes up. When. It was no longer an if.
The realization almost made a sob choke up his throat, but he caught it at the last second and turned away from the trio, hand rubbing over his scarred features as he looked out the window. "Thank you. Both of you."
Seeing Lor'themar light the coals in the bottom of the hookah out of the corner of his gaze, Thrall gently placed a hand behind Anduin's head and glanced over at Varian. He saw the despair and sleep deprivation, the worry that haunted his eyes, but he also saw hope. "As a guardian of the Earthen Ring, it is my duty to ensure the welfare of others." He paused and gently lifted the boy's head up slightly as Lor'themar adjusted the pipe valve again. A steam of heavily scented herbs, stringent and medicinal, billowed out of it. "As a father, I am doing only what I would hope another would offer my son."
Turning slightly back towards him, Varian caught his stare and held it for a few seconds. The unspoken exchange was there, more paramount and lasting than any meeting or discussion that could've happened over the week. And only after he was sure he conveyed his thanks enough did the High King intensely watch the procedure being done on his son.
The hookah pipe had to be held gently in Anduin's mouth as he breathed in the steam, Lor'themar ensuring the flow was robust enough while Thrall watched the teen's fighting breaths. It didn't take more than a few minutes before a round of hacking coughs whipped through the boy, making the hookah immediately get pulled back and Thrall turn Anduin carefully on his side. Despite how much grace and poise the Sin'dorei seemed to possess, Lor'themar didn't make a sound or look disgusted as he expectantly placed a bowl beside the prince's mouth and collected the sticky, black phlegm that flooded from him.
"What… is that?" Varian was immediately at his son's side, his hands carefully holding his shoulders.
"The blight," Lor'themar replied, continuing to watch the teen cough up another round of it. "It will take some time for him to fully recover, but the fact that he's getting this much up at all is already an encouraging sign."
Thrall waited until the coughs died down before slowly rolling Anduin on his back again and placed his large hands over the boy's chest, their size more than capable of curling around the side of his torso to inflict as much harm as he was healing. "I'll need to see him several times a day for the next week to re-strengthen his lungs. I don't suggest moving him back to Stormwind until at least a week's time. A portal will be too much on his body now."
Sweeping his fingers along Anduin's forehead to brush the blonde bangs out of his face, Varian nodded stiffly. "I'll inform the guards to allow you entrance as needed," he quietly replied. "As much as I would like to remain at his side, and I intend to as much as I can, the summit will require my attention at times. The guards will allow you passage."
An unspoken question was answered then, the impending threat of war having been dissolved in the face of hope and joy of his son's state. They said little more to each other after that, though not out of uncanniness but a comfortable silence that fell on them. After a few hours, Lor'themar excused himself first, content that the boy had been yanked away from the edge of death now that his breathing was more regular and stronger.
When Varian thanked him another time, the Sin'dorei paused, grim-faced, and looked back over his shoulder at the boy. "I don't have any children and so I won't pretend to know your plight or understand you. But I know that children, no matter their birth and station, are not harbingers of their parents decisions or indecisions. We bear arms to protect them and promise to protect their innocence. If that is forgotten, so too have we forgotten why we fight."
It was the next day that Varian, operating on less than an hour of sleep in the past two days, felt all hope restored.
Having returned from a particularly dreary meeting discussing the reparation sum for Ashenvale, he paused when he first opened the door to his chambers. Thrall's voice was one he expected to hear, having walked in on several occasions to find the Orc talking to a still sleeping Anduin. But what he didn't expect to hear was the weak voice that replied to him.
He crossed the threshold faster than he could remember. Sitting up with the help of a generous stack of pillows behind him, Anduin turned to his father just in time before the High King bent down and threw his heavy arms around the slightly frame. There was no hesitation from the boy, not when he felt the familiar warmth of his father's embrace or the smells that were distinctly him, both notions drawing him to a place of comfort and ease. And while he wanted to remain strong in front of the High King and Thrall still seated beside him, he couldn't manage it. The emotions spilled from him as fast as his tears did, running down and staining his cheeks. His shoulders must've given away his crying, for the arms around him tightened.
Rarely before had Varian been faced with such atrocities and threat that he experienced the unlikely feeling of fear and dread. Not when he was in the Crimson Ring. Not when he was battling at the Wrathgate. Not even when he was dealing with Onyxia to save his son. His proficiencies as a father mirrored far to closely to that of his masteries as a warrior and king, when he could confront an enemy with the surety of steel in his grip and rage as his fuel. Even when Onyxia flew off with his son, the taunting challenge to get him back had been delivered on a playing field Varian - both sides of him - knew very well.
But to face an illness was an assailant he was ill-fitted to counter, and perhaps the first time in his life that he found himself envying the strength healers possessed. The tellings of warrior etched on his very bones with ironlike instructions printed on parchment, he had always snubbed the thought of healers and their supposed powers in the shadow of a sharpened blade. They were retroactively powerful whereas he was the blunted front of a crippling assault. And yet, his strength was reduced to nothing in saving his son against the blight. No matter how sharp Shalamayne was, it'd do nothing to encourage Anduin to mend, to fight off the illness that gripped his life in an unwavering balance.
He'd almost lost Anduin and he'd been powerless to do anything.
Drawing back slowly, Varian dropped his hands to cradle either side of his son's face, using his calloused thumbs to wipe away the wetness on the boy's cheeks. "I can take you running away from your guards in the Keep. I can take you making friends with Deathwing's son. I can take you never touching another sword again. But this? Do not ever do this to me again."
A half-chuckle, half-sob choked its way out of Anduin's throat. "I give you my word. I will never do this again."
Don't worry! This isn't the end. Originally, I planned on it being the end but inspiration struck me. I'm having far too much fun writing Varian!dad.