For #LineByLineTime : “Illness”

“What’s wrong with them?” The king’s anxiety revealed its severity in his voice.

“Dragon fever,” his brother Frederick sighed. “Every dragon rider we’ve ever trained caught it. They get over it with plenty of care, but it makes them very sick.”

“But they are children! You said you weren’t going to train them yet!”

“I haven’t,” the dragonmaster groaned, rubbing his forehead. “But they rode the dragons themselves. I didn’t even know until Hannah told me about it. From what I understand, she sort of dragged Gerald along. Now they are both sick. We’ve never had patients this young. I don’t know how they will do.”

Frederick’s wife Alice elbowed him away from Hannah’s bed. “Out of my way, you men. We need to bathe the children to cool their fever. Go away and do something useful, like pray.”

“The dragons,” Hannah croaked, interrupting them.

“Yes, child, you have dragon fever. Lie still now, and I’ll cool your face a bit,” Alice said softly.

“Need the dragons. Take me,” the little girl insisted.

“Okay, okay,” Gerald grunted from the bed behind the dragonmaster’s wife. The adults stared as the lad struggled to sit up, his body shaky and his eyes unfocused. “Give me a minute.”

Frederick’s wife sprang to his side and pushed him back down. “You stay where you are! Neither of you are going anywhere! I am perfectly capable of taking care of you. I’ve been taking care of men with dragon fever for years. You lie still, now!”

Both children protested weakly, but Alice stood firm. She shooed the men out with no respect for her husband or the king. A couple of hours later she tucked the children between clean sheets and cleared away the soup she had almost forced down their throats.

“Now you two sleep. I’ll check on you in a few hours.” She bustled out of the room, her arms full of dirty linens.

Gerald obeyed, grateful for the clean dry sheets and warm soup. But he thought he had just closed his eyes when he awoke to Hannah’s stubborn shaking of his shoulder. “Wha-?” he groaned.

“Come on! We have to get out of here before she comes back! We have to get to the dragons!” Hannah let go his shoulder to hold on to the bed as her balance wavered.

“You’re fevered! We can’t go anywhere! You can’t even stand up!”

Hannah thumped his shoulder. “We have to get outside! The dragons will help us from there! Help me open the window!”

Exhausted and sore, Gerald thought seriously of just shoving the little pest through the window. Maybe then he could get some rest. He struggled up and held on to his mattress as he tried to focus. He could just make out the opening in the wall between the beds. He grabbed Hannah’s arm and they staggered together to it.

He found the latch by feel and pushed the window open, slumping over the sill as his energy gave out. He could feel himself falling back into the darkness in his mind just as the familiar sensation of a dragon’s tail wrapped around him and pulled him out before he could protest.