Chapter Text
Harrenhal looked bleak in the misty morning sunlight.
Fin stared at the fortress a few miles away from him. He was standing on a lush, grassy hill, a perfect spot to see how much of a walk he still had to go. His rucksack felt like a thousand pounds on his aching shoulders.
The enormous black walls of the fortress were so tall that the only part of the castle that he could see were five towers. All five of them had warped, melted, crumbling tips, all without proper roofs. Each tower looked bigger and taller than the last, even destroyed as they were.
Fin sighed and started walking.
It took him another hour to reach the castle gate. It was absolutely enormous. He had to bang on the wood three times before he realized it was too think to make any noise on the other side.
“Oi!” Someone shouted.
Fin looked up to see a tiny speck of a man shouting and waving right above him.
“Hey!” Fin shouted back. He waved his arms around. “Lemme in!”
The man shouted something he didn’t understand before disappearing again. Fin threw his hands up and backed away from to gate with a sigh. He dropped onto his butt in the dirt and dropped his hands on his knees.
This was stupid. He shouldn’t have even come. He didn’t give a fuck about some old sickly lord. The man had probably drunk himself to near death or caught some std from prostitutes he was abusing. He shouldn’t even be here. He lost his ‘escort’ a week ago, he could have slipped off and never been heard from again.
Fin groaned and raked his fingers through his hair.
He hadn’t healed anyone in over a year now.
He’d been ready to never heal anyone again. Live as a hermit in some woods, maybe move north. Why should he heal anyone? He’d done enough in this life, hadn’t he?
But someone had sent three men-at-arms to hunt him down in the Vale and drag him to meet a Queen. An actual, literal Queen. Fin had never met one of those.
He had been curious, okay? Royalty had access to the most educated men in the world here. The ‘best’ healers, called maesters, served them night and day. What would send a Queen looking for some common boy-witch nobody?
She wasn’t even asking for healing herself, but for the Lord of Harrenhal. Maegor Towers. Apparently he was ill and Fin had been ordered to attend to him. Hence being kidnapped by old men who lost him a week away from their location.
They said the Queen had a dragon- that all of the Targaryen’s did. Fin had seen lots of dragons in his last life while studying dragon blood and dragon heart properties in Hungary. He wondered if the dragons here were the same or a new species.
He sighed again. Well, so much for answering his questions. Or meeting a Queen. Right as he was about to get up and sod off, however, the gate behind him creaked so loudly it was nearly a scream. Fin scrambled to his feet and stared as the gate rose into the air. It was wide and tall enough for fourteen horses to comfortably ride inside together side-by-side. Fin walked through the creaking gate cautiously.
The walls were shockingly thick. When he looked up he could see over a dozen holes in the ceiling, likely built in for soldiers to shoot at any attackers who had breached the gate. Murder holes. Fin walked through the wall as quickly as possible.
“There you are!” Someone said.
Fin whirled around and saw a boy- maybe twelve, grinning at him as he trotted down some stone stairs built into the gatehouse wall. He had sandy hair and dark eyes, pale skin and simple clothes. His boots looked dirty but sturdy.
“We’ve been waiting for you! You’re the healer, right?” The boy skidded to a stop right in front of him.
Fin held on to the straps of the rucksack and blinked at the excitable teenager beaming up at him. “Uh- yes, I’m the healer.”
The boy brightened. “That’s awesome, our Lord ain’t doing so well, pretty poorly, wait- where’s your escort? Jemson, Luke, and Ryker? Are they behind you?”
Fin grimaced. “Uh, they got lost about a week ago. We ran into a bear, you see, and we all kinda scattered… she was a very angry bear. I just kept going without them.”
The boy gasped loudly. His hands gave up to his cheeks. “ARE THEY DEAD?!” He shrieked.
“No! No, I don’t think they’re dead, I didn’t see the bear get any of them. We all kinda ran at the same time in different directions. They’re probably fine!”
“Oh, thank gods,” The boy heaved a giant sigh. Then he smiled and perked up like a switch had been flipped. “Well, glad you came here anyways! The Queen will be happy. Come on, I can take you to meet her!”
Fin glanced at the wide-open gate behind them. “Uh, shouldn’t you close the gate first?”
The boy skidded to a stop and whirled around with a gasp. “Oh my gods, you’re right!” And then he was scampering back up the steps and ducking into the gatehouse to lower the gate.
Fin stared. Well, this was… not the welcome he had been expecting. Not that that was a bad thing, just… he had not anticipated a small child with the personality of a literally puppy to be meeting him first. Maybe a group of puffed-up guards immediately escorting him under the threat of their mighty swords to the sick Lord.
Oh well.
The castle was dark and dreary even in the morning sunlight. It also seemed eerily abandoned. The castle was so large it seemed designed to house giants, not humans, and every ceiling Fin saw was at least ten feet tall. They walked through dusty, dirty, moldy halls and rooms. There seemed to be a draft in every part of the castle.
It took ten minutes to get to the great hall, and they were not walking slow. They had to climb one flight of giant stairs and pass three huge halls just to get to the welcoming wing of the great hall. The giant door groaned as it opened. It took both Fin and the hyper little kid using their whole weight to crack one door open enough to slip through. Fin stared at the enormous hall in front of him.
The chamber could hold a thousand people easily. The stone floor was dusty and dirty, the high cathedral ceiling was dark and cracked in places, allowing the sun to peak through. At the end of the giant hall there was a hole in the ceiling big enough for a dragon to fly through comfortably. The sunlight that streamed through the hole in the roof seemed to shine right on the raised floor that held a single wooden chair. It looked tiny on such a huge stage.
The rest of the great hall was completely and totally bare. A few torches were lit on the walls, but not a single hearth was. Fin stared at a pile of dust and dirt and mud by his feet.
The place was even worse off than people said. This was kind of mind-boggling to Fin. Harrenhal was the largest, grandest castle in the Seven Kingdoms. It had a walled-off Kingswood that stretched over twenty acres of land. The castle had a bear pit, a kitchen the size of a moderate keep, and five veritable skyscrapers.
“She should be here soon,” The kid said nervously. “It takes a while to walk her from the Widows Tower. That’s where the queen lives.”
“I see,” Fin smiled awkwardly at the kid. “What’s your name?”
“Oh! It’s Cam, mi’lor- I mean! Er- good man! What’s your name?”
“Finten.”
“Oh.”
They stood in awkward silence. Fin studied the shitty room around him and the kid practically vibrated at his side.
Then Fin frowned. He looked down at the stones under his boots. Something was… off. With the castle. He could feel it better now that he was actually inside of it, but…
Fin knelt on one knee and let his bare fingers touch the dirty floor.
“Umm-“ Cam started.
“Shh,” Fin cut him off. He was trying to focus on-
Oh. Shit.
“Oh no,” Fin let slip out, his whole palm pressed flat against the stone. He glanced around the room reluctantly.
“What? Whats wrong?” Cam asked nervously.
Fin sighed and stood up. “This castle is totally cursed.”
“What?”
“It’s- yeah, it is super cursed. Like, down to the stones. That’s kind of impressive, actually. Do you know what-“
The doors at the side of the stage burst open. Fin and Cam whirled around to stare at the person who stalked out.
The woman was out of breath and very slightly red-faced. She had very pale skin, sharp eyes, and a lean frame. She looked to be around average height and wore a simple but very expensive purple dress. The dye alone must have cost a fortune.
Her hair was a strange silvery-gold color that shimmered in the weak lighting of the room. The hair at her temple had been pulled back in two braids on both sides of her head and tied together with a simple ribbon. Her eyes were a piercing lilac. She looked to be in her thirties, perhaps getting close to forty. For a muggle, anyways.
Dowager Queen Rhaena Targaryen stared right at Fin and it felt like a glare.
“Come. Let’s not dally. You are the healer, yes?”
Fin gulped. “Uh, yeah? Yes, I’m the healer.”
She nodded once and stalked back to the small door. Fin and Cam scrambled after her. They passed through a smaller hall with a normal ceiling not made for a giant.
“You are young for a healer,” The queen didn’t look back at him as she spoke.
“I am eight and ten,” Fin offered.
She scoffed. “My daughter is eight and ten. Do you think yourself a man then?”
Fin faltered as he ducked through a servant’s door into another tiny hallway. “Uh- yes, my queen. I am not a child anymore.”
She scoffed again and banged on the next door until the knob finally unstuck. Merlin, the place was in shambles.
“How many people have you healed?” She demanded.
“I’m not sure,” Fin admitted. “I haven’t been counting. But more than a thousand.”
She stopped. Turned around. Fin almost ran into her, and he had to take a step back to not be too close. It suddenly occurred to him that Cam had fled at some point and now it was just the two of them, alone, in some maze of a servant’s hall.
“Over a thousand people? That is impossible. How long have you been a healer?”
“I healed someone for the first time when I was nine.”
Her pale eyebrows scrunched up. “Who taught you?”
“My mother.” It was an easy enough lie he had come up with. Fin was as common as one could get in this world. He had no parents, no land, no name, and no family. Not anymore. It wouldn’t be hard to make up a fake mother who taught him her woods witch ways.
Rhaena hummed and kept staring at him for another three seconds straight. Fin blinked back at her. She took off again with a swish of her long hair.
“The Lord of this castle has been declining in health for years. The maester here is useless. The shriveled oaf nearly killed Towers with his last ‘treatment’.”
Fin winced. He had heard a little bit about maester’s craft, and he was never very impressed. He hadn’t met many of them, however. The few he had insulted his intelligence, birth, and station and then left as quickly as possible.
“What are his symptoms?” Fin asked. This Queen seemed like the no-nonsense type. The more he knew and the sooner he knew it, the better for everyone. Specifically him and getting out of this freaky kidnapping situation scot-free.
“Symptoms?” Rhaena asked with a narrow glance.
“Ailments,” Fin adjusted.
“He coughs and does not stop. His spit is sometimes pink. He has stopped eating much beginning this year. He is tired at all times and rarely leaves his bed, and his chest hurts him when he coughs. He has a fever that rises and then ebbs.”
Fin turned the symptoms over in his head. That could be a lot of things, unfortunately. Pneumonia, bronchitis, tuberculosis, even Bronchiectasis. He’d have to do tests to narrow it down.
“Has the Lord been vomiting or experiencing watery bowels? is his spit ever green or yellow or is it only pink, do you know? How long has he been experiencing symptoms?”
They opened a door and started a long climb up winding, endless stairs.
“His stomach does not ail him,” Rhaena said between breaths. “I have only seen pink spit when he coughs. I believe his symptoms began six moons ago and have slowly worsened.”
Six months ago. Okay then.
They walked over a balcony with crumbling stone railings and Rhaena barged through the doors at the end of the hallway. Fin followed after her with a wince.
The room they entered was a solar. The floors were covered in plush, but worn rugs with faint colors remaining. The hearth was full and lit up to chase off the draft still lingering in even this room. The windows were shut and covered with heavy drapes. It was almost stifling in the room after the breezy, cracked-open castle just behind the doors. Candles and torches cast flickering shadows on the old sofas and chairs and large desk by one covered window.
Rhaena walked through the partition wall on the right. Beyond it was a large bedroom with a giant canopy bed almost totally covered by dark drapes. Two giant wardrobes, two overstuffed sofas, a huge roaring hearth, two tables, and a small stand holding up shiny armor filled the dark room. It was sweltering hot.
It also stank. Badly. Like days-old sweat and spit and shit and piss. Fin glanced at the queen and felt both glad and concerned when she didn’t so mad as wrinkle her nose. Instead she ripped open one of the curtains shrouding the huge bed in darkness and then did the same on the other side.
A groan weakly left a mound of blankets and bedding. Fin blinked and shrugged off his rucksack. He plopped it on a large, round table and started unloading his things.
“Mae,” Rhaena said softly. Fin almost thought someone else was speaking. “The healer is here to see you. The one I told you about, from Maidenpool.”
Fin froze. His hands shook taking out his next item. He had to clench his jaw tightly to get a fucking grip.
“What?” A weak voice drifted into the room. “Rhaena. Where did the maester go?”
There was a shuffle as Rhaena sat on the side of the bed. She was leaning over the pile of blankets with her back to Fin.
“He left for Oldtown, Mae. Remember? After the leeches I spoke to him, and he left.”
After the leeches? Oh, fuck no. Fin despised leech therapy and anything to do with bloodletting as a medical procedure. He had a feeling the Queen had done more than talk to said maester, and he wasn’t mad about it. Not at all.
Fin shrugged off his cloak and tossed it on a sofa. A tiny cloud of dust rose off of the cushions and Fin’s nose wrinkled.
His potion bottles and tools were spread out on the table along with his open rucksack. He washed his hands with a bowl of clean water he found by the bed and soap he had made himself. He scrubbed every inch of his hands with a touch brush and the hard bar of soap for five whole minutes as Rhaena and the Lord spoke softly to each other. Days of dirt and sweat and dead skin were washed away, and then he was satisfied.
Fin walked around the bed and stood beside Rhaena. He still couldn’t see the Lord under all his blankets. Rhaena eyed him and glanced at his fresh, clean hands with vaguely approving eyes. They were the strangest eyes he had ever seen. Lilac.
“Hello, Lord Towers,” Fin said softly. “My name is Finten. I am a healer, and Queen Rhaena has summoned me to attend to you. It is very nice to meat you.”
A huff and a wheeze answered him, along with a squirm from under the covers.
Rhaena and him shared a look. She stood up and stepped aside without a word. Fin knelt on one knee beside the bed to get on the patient’s level.
“I need to examine you, my lord, in order to know your illness and treat it. An examination would consist of touching and examining your chest and stomach as well as your throat, mouth, and nose. I will ask you some questions about your symptoms as well. Your ailments. Are you able to sit up, or would you like help?”
The man scoffed and threw off his many, many blankets with a kick of his feet. “I’m fine,” The-
Oh, shit. That was no man. The Lord of Harrenhal was a boy. He couldn’t be any more than fifteen.
The teenager blinked angrily at him. He had dark, almost black eyes and ink-black hair that fell in greasy waves around his flushed, sweaty face. His skin was ghostly pale and almost translucent. The boy was dressed in a sweat-soaked nightgown that showed how thin he was. Fin would bet money he was underweight. His eyes were glazed over for all the annoyance he seemed to be showing off.
“Go away,” The boy demanded weakly but angrily. “It’s just a cough. Where is maester Valkan? He said I was recovering.”
Fin nodded easily. “I’m happy to hear that. I’m afraid I don’t know where maester Valkan is. How about this, if you let me treat you now, I’ll leave the second he comes back. Does that sound good?”
The young Lord eyes him suspicious. His teeth were chattering now. He had been clenching his teeth to stop it before.
“Okay,” He relented. “I guess. But no- no magic, okay?”
Fin hesitated. He glanced at Rhaena, who was glaring at him right over his shoulder. Her arms were crossed and her eyes sharp.
“I’m afraid magic is how I heal, my lord. But I believe it is different magic than you have heard. I do not kill animals or people to use magic. I create tonics and pull magic out of the world to heal. My magic will not harm you or any other people or animals.”
The teenager blinked at him. He looked confused. “Huh?”
Fin grimaced. “Here, how about I demonstrate, yeah?”
He held his palms up to cup the air between them. Rhaena and Towers tensed immediately. Rhaena seemed ready to jump him any second.
Fin said, clearly and calmly, “claria papiliolio.”
Three tiny, bright, glowing butterflies appeared in his hands. They glowed a warm gold color through their tiny heart-shaped wings. The butterflies took off into the air slowly and lazily and ambled over to the gaping teenager on the bed. They fluttered around in front of him and lit up the dark bed ever-so-slightly. Rhaena gasped sharply through her nose and took half a step back.
One of the butterflies landed on the kid’s nose, and he squeaked. His eyes were wide as saucers. Fin held back his laughter and plucked the little glowbug between his fingers before letting it fly away with its companions.
“Those are called glowbugs,” Fin explained to the deadly silent room. “They are created using light and magic. They will last until the sun sets, and then they will dissipate back into magic again.”
Towers gaped at him. “Oh. Okay,” He squeaked.
Fin smiled at him and held up his hands. “So, can I give you an examination?”
The kid glanced at Rhaena and stared at her helplessly for several long seconds. Fin waited until Rhaena nodded once and Towers nodded as well to smile again.
“Thank you. Now, let me start with a few questions.”
The little Lord was named Maegor Towers. An unfortunate name, considering Maegor had been a tyrant, raping, mad, kinslaying king who had been solidly labeled a usurper since his death and the crowning of his nephew. The only nephew he hadn’t killed or had tortured to death, that is.
The teenager went by Mae. Pretty reasonable to Fin.
Mae was fifteen years old and his cough started around six moons ago. He got sick a lot as a child, but not this bad. At least, not for this long.
“When you cough, do you cough up phlegm? Very thick spit that might be yellow or green or even pink?”
Mae blinked and nodded. “Yes. It- it used to be green, but now it is usually pink. And- and when I cough my chest hurts very, very badly. Like I’m being stabbed.”
Fin frowned sympathetically. “That does not sound fun. Has your stomach or bowels bothered you at all? Have you vomited or had watery bowels at all?”
Mae flushed and glanced once at Rhaena, who hadn’t moved an inch and didn’t seem ready to go anywhere.
“I have vomited,” Mae admitted. “And my… have had the watery stuff.”
Fin nodded and clasped his fingers together loosely. “When you cough up the phlegm, do you swallow it or spit it out?”
Mae blanched. “I don’t spit, healer. I am a lord.”
Fin smiled. “And a good one, I hear. But that sticky phlegm you swallow can upset your stomach if you swallow too much of it, and clog your throat. I know it isn’t very lordly, but I will ask you to spit any phlegm you cough up into a cup. Then your stomach might start feeling better, how does that sound.”
“I suppose so…” Mae muttered.
They talked about his fever and aches. The on-and-off fever had been happening for an entire month, apparently. He had stopped leaving his bed since then, and his maid had been tending to him with Rhaena and the maester ever since.
After a lot more questions Fin finally nodded and glanced at Rhaena. He stood up with a hum and put his hands on his hips.
“Well. You have some sort of lung infection, that is obvious. The good news is I don’t believe it has spread to your blood, in which case the infection would be everywhere in your body, and treatment would have to be urgent and extensive.”
He glanced around the room and at the piles of blankets the shivering kid was sinking back into.
“I want to use a spell to determine which disease you have, Mae. Once I know I can begin brewing the potion for the cure. The enchantment would not hurt at all. It would feel like a tingling all over your body, or like a wave of water over your skin. It would last one to five minutes at most. I would say the incantation and hold your head without moving it or pressing, just maintaining physical contact. Do I have your permission to use the spell?”
Mae looked terribly overwhelmed, but also exhausted. He nodded shakily and didn’t speak through his violently chattering teeth.
Fin sat down on the side of the bed and but both of his hands on the sides of Mae’s head. His fingers immediately felt soaked from the sweat between the poor kids hair. He was burning to the touch. A fever-reducer would be needed almost immediately. Luckily he had two doses in his rucksack.
Fin closed his eyes.
“Morbum tuum revela, invasorem tuum revela.”
The Latin flowed off his tongue as smoothly as butter. A faint, baby-blue light lit up his hands. Mae gasped and shook harder as the light spread across his skin from where Fin was touching him. Rhaena gasped loudly behind him, but thankfully didn’t freak out. She had been completely silent since Fin began his examination.
The kid was fucked up, was what Fin was reading. His upper and lower respiratory system was infected. His lungs were rough from infection and so many months of coughing. He was underweight, malnourished, had a fever, and a bad headache.
It took two long, silent minutes for Fin to interpret the magic he was feeling react to the sickness it was finding.
Tuberculosis.
Fuck.
“Well.” Fin said slowly, drawing his hands back once the light died out. Both muggles stared at him.
“So, good news. I can heal you. The bad news is what you have is highly contagious, and everyone in the castle will likely get sick too if they aren’t treated as well. But-“ he added quickly at both of their alarmed expressions. “I can do that too.”
“What does he have?” Rhaena demanded. “Is it deadly?”
Fin met her eyes calmly. “It can be without treatment. It is called tuberculosis. It can stay hidden in the body for months or years before becoming active, when symptoms- or ailments really begins. It can also never become active and simply remain latent in someone for years without ever causing symptoms.”
He glanced at Mae, who was pale and gaunt against his giant pillows. “Only people with symptoms can spread the illness to others. That happens when someone with active tuberculosis coughs, speaks, sings, or sneezes into the air and another person breaths that air in. When any human coughs we let out tiny droplets of spit into the air. That is how the disease spreads.”
Mae looked horrified. “I made everyone sick?”
Fin gently grabbed the boy’s clammy hand. “No, you did not. No one has developed symptoms, have they? I am going to treat everyone before their symptoms start. So no one will get sick.” He squeezed the boys hand. “This was no one’s fault. Sickness spreads as easy as breathing.”
He smiled at his own joke and glanced at Rhaena, who glared murder at him. Fin winced. Tough crowd.
“I’m going to brew the cure for you and a different one for everyone else in the castle. No one should come in or out of the castle for… three days. Everyone will have been treated by then. Your potion will take seven days to brew, but I can help with your fever and cough until then.”
He stood up and grabbed the vial of fever-reducer out of his rucksack. He unwrapped the sheep’s wool he kept around all his glass bottles to keep them from breaking and shook the vial on his way back to the bed.
“That’s going to taste weird. Some people say it tastes like sour milk, others say it tastes like metal. Personally I think it tastes like bad chicken eggs. It doesn’t have metal, milk, or eggs in it though, just herbs and magic. I suggest taking it like a shot.”
Mae took the glass in shaking hands and looked up at him with wide eyes. “A shot?”
Fin mimed swigging it. “Like the strongest alcoholic you can imagine, you just choke it back as quick as you can.”
Rhaena glared daggers at him. Fin grimaced internally. Why did he have to bring up alcohol in front of a kid and said kid’s parental figure? Fin was an idiot.
Mae unscrewed the top and sniffed it suspiciously. He didn’t grimace at all, so his nose must be stuffy as hell. The kid squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed the whole vial in one gulp. He gagged and cough immediately afterwards. Fin took the vial from his shaking hands and muttered apologies.
“Yeah, I know, tastes like shit. You’ll start to feel better very quickly though. I promise it’s worth it.”
“What is in that,” Mae choked out.
Fin shrugged and put the vial on the little table beside the bed. “Plants, magic, water, and a species of bug, actually. Dragonfly.”
Mae stared at him in betrayal. “You fed me bugs?!”
Fin grinned and glanced at Rhaena proudly. “Look, strong enough to yell at me already!”
“If you hurt him I will feed you to my dragon alive, Healer,” The Queen swore.
Fin slumped. Really tough crowd.
The rest of the day passed smoothly after that. Fin unpacked all of his belongings and settled down to sleep on the longest couch in Mae’s room. He opened the windows and let fresh air in despite Mae’s angry complaints about it being freezing outside (it was summer).
After settling in he set up his brewing station by the fireplace. Mae and Rhaena gaped and stared when he pulled an entire cauldron out of his rucksack, but seemed too stunned to question him, which was a relief. He began building the base of Mae’s potion first and started up the other potion over the fire in the hearth. Luckily he had most of the ingredients he needed for both potions. The three ingredients he didn’t have should he in Harrenhal’s Godswood.
“This place is not very… suitable for healing.” Fin said delicately. “I can clean up the dust and dirt and stuff with a spell, with your permission. It is your room after all.”
Mae hummed his assent. He was half-asleep already. His shaking had stopped and he said he wasn’t hurting all over like before. Rhaena was at his side with a cold cloth pressed against his forehead.
Fin snapped out three scourging charms one after the other, one on the floor and the remaining two on the sofas. He cast a dust-removal spell over the entire room and used tergeo, a spell that removed liquids, on Mae’s bed and sheets. Both Mae and Rhaena gasped and jumped. Mae slid his hands over the dry, fresh blankets in a daze.
He found a dusty, slightly moldy, wooden bathtub behind a partition that also had a full chamber pot of shit and piss. Fin grimaced and banished the mess with a wave of his hand, and then cast a thorough disinfectant spell over the entire little partition just to be safe. That should help the smell of the room.
He dragged the circular bath out into the main room with a lot of grunting and heaving. It took some special spell work to get rid of the mold that had burrowed into the wood grain, but after that he was satisfied enough to start filling it with conjured water.
“Have you been giving him sponge baths?” He asked Rhaena curiously.
She was staring blankly at his hands, which were pulling moisture out of the air and pouring it into the bathtub in a solid stream of water. He was lucky the Riverlands were so humid.
“I believe maester Valkan warned against that. The man believed that sweating out the bad humors that Mae was plagued with would be halted by washing.”
Fin barely stopped himself from making a very loud face at that drop of information. This maester was doing a great job of keeping Fin from wanting to ever meet a maester of any kind ever again.
“Right,” He said shrilly. “Well, that’s a load of bullshit. Mae, do you want a bath? I promise it won’t make you sick.”
“Yes,” Mae said, both dreamily and desperately. “I feel disgusting.”
Fin tutted sympathetically. He heated the water to barely-steaming with a whisper of a spell and tested it with his own hand.
“Yeah, I can imagine kid. Here, let me add some salts. These should help your muscles feel a little better, yeah?” He dumped a solid cube of lavender salt into the water and swirled it around until it fully dissolved. The. He shook his hands and walked back over to Mae and Rhaena.
He smiled easily at Mae. “Alright, I don’t know if you can walk since you haven’t in a while, right? That means your body might not remember exactly what to do when you suddenly go upright. You might get dizzy and feel like you’re going to pass out. That’s totally normal after so long laying down, especially if you are sick. Since we don’t want you falling I’m gonna help you, okay?”
Mae nodded and struggled to sit up against his pillows. Rhaena stood up and wrung the now-warm cloth in her hands.
“Do you want Rhaena to leave while you bathe or are you okay with her staying here?” Fin went ahead and asked.
Mae seemed to freeze. His eyes locked with Rhaena’s and a massive blush spread over his cheeks.
Rhaena huffed and stepped forward to smooth his hair back and hold his face. “I am going to get the maid to bring some food and wine up here.”
Mae looked desperately relieved he didn’t have to banish his guardian or withstand her seeing him butt naked. “Yeah, that’s smart.”
Rhaena chuckled and left with a sharp, deadly, threatening glare at Fin’s back.
“I think she’s going to kill me if you don’t get better, kid.” Fin whispered once the door closed. Mae laughed, obviously startled.
Fin helped move the blankets out of the way and scoot Mae closer to the edge of the bed.
“You are very… uncouth.” Mae told him.
“Wow. That’s a big word, I don’t think I’ve heard uncouth in ages.”
“See,” Mae said wisely. “Most smallfolk would be afraid for their lives with they said that to me. And you keep calling me kid, even though I am your Lord and could have you flogged for it.”
Fin gasped dramatically as he got a good hold of Mae’s arm and swung his legs over the bed. “No way, you seem like a good kid, Mae. You’d never flog me for being uncouth.”
Mae laughed. “I’ve known you for three hours.”
Fin grinned. “And we’re best friends already, aren’t we?”
Mae did in fact almost pass out when they stood up. Fin ended up carrying him to the chair beside the steaming bathtub and sitting him down in that to help him out of his nightgown. It was easy enough to lower the kid into the bath after that.
Mae moaned at the feeling of the clean, warm water envelope him. Fin laughed. “Feels good, yeah? Here, let’s get you clean.”
Mae’s eyes had slid closed and didn’t seem to be opening again any time soon. Fin scrounged up another bar of soap from his bag and got it soft and leathery in the water. He sat on the wooden chair beside the tub and gently dipped Mae’s head back in the water.
The poor kid sighed like he was in heaven when Fin started washing his hair. He gently scrubbed the grease and sweat off of the dark waves and dirty scalp. He made sure to take his time and not use too much pressure.
“How’s the aching?” He asked, checking the time since the fever-reducer was applied.
“Good,” Mae said, before coughing so hard he lurched in the tub.
Fin held him up and murmured whatever he thought of as Mae coughed up half his lung. It sounded horribly wet and choking. Fin spotted a goblet on the table beside the bed and used accio to yank it into his hand from across the room. Mae was too busy hacking to notice, and Fin brought it up to his mouth and told him to spit it out when the cough started to die down. Mae spat out a mouthful of pink and green mucus.
Fin vanished it after inspecting the color for a few seconds. Mae was gasping for breath and slumping back down in the bath.
“Does your chest hurt?” Fin asked calmly.
Mae just nodded. He sniffled and gasped for breath quietly. Fin pretended not to see the tears welling up in his dark eyes. He went back to scrubbing at his scalp and neck before moving onto his face, which he gently washed with his fingers. Mae nearly fell asleep.
“This is so much better than leeches,” Mae slurred, a bit wheezy.
Fin laughed. “I would hope so.”
While Mae soaked in bliss after his hair and face had been cleaned and rinsed, Fin started looking for a rag or sponge to clean his body with. He found a linen closet beside the partition separating the chamber pot. Fin grinned at the sight of the clean, if dusty sheets and bedding he found, along with a rag and soft blanket that seemed good enough to use as a towel.
He managed to scrub Mae down thoroughly with a rag and his soap. Mae was able to wash himself between his legs and Fin covered his eyes dutifully until he was done. Then he scooped the kid out of the bath and covered him in a soft blanket. He dried the kid off thoroughly and stopped when he had a coughing fit again, and then made sure to dry off his hair as best as he could. Then he sat him up on the sofa in front of the fire while he tried to change his sheets.
The bedding was stupidly complicated, and the bed was so big he ended up having to crawl all the way over it at one point. He spelled a disinfectant across the surface of the mattress and the dumped the dirty sheets on the floor by the partition wall.
Mae had fallen asleep on the sofa when he glanced over to check on him. Fin smiled.
This was much better than some sleazy old Lord, if a bit more heartbreaking.