Under The Weather (Farkas)

 A/N: 8 and a half pages of sickfic lets goooo

The road to Riften for once is fairly uneventful, a few packs of wolves here and there, but none of the usual dragons, vampires, bandits, etc. It’s a good thing too, because with the way the weather is looking, it would not be very enjoyable to deal with all that in the rain. “Are we there yet?” Anna asks, despite knowing the answer already, dragging her feet as she walks next to me. “Does it look like we’re there yet?” I question “No…” Anna mumbles in reply, choosing instead to look around at the foliage. Around five minutes pass before I’m asked the same question again, and shortly after that a third time until finally the view of the city walls comes into view and Anna stops pestering. Luckily the guards don’t give us trouble, for once. Not wasting a moment of time Anna walks through the gates, into the city, and makes a direct path toward the local inn.

Due to it being only mid afternoon the inn’s main downstairs room is relatively empty, Anna pays for a room from the innkeeper and then trudges up the stairs. Unlocking the room she kicks off her shoes and immediately falls face first onto the bed. Also taking off my shoes I come and sit next to her after closing the door, moving some stray hair away from her face. “Not feeling well?” Anna shakes her head and mumbles something I can’t quite make out. That would explain her behavior the past couple of days, minor irritability, fatigue, lack of appetite, congestion, the list goes on. “You want to go downstairs and have something to eat?” I ask, as we had not stopped for lunch, however, it will be dinner soon enough. “Sleep.” Anna replies, “Eat later.” That’s a reasonable decision. Before I get up I feel her forehead quickly, she’s a bit warm, and her cheeks are a little more flushed than usual, but I’ve seen worse. Anna refuses the offer of a blanket, instead preferring to just sprawl out over the top sheet and take a nap.

While she takes a seemingly much needed rest I stay mostly close by, there’s a small desk in the room which allows me to work on sorting contracts to be given out to Ria and the other members of the companions when we return to Whiterun. Every now and then a noise or shifting of movement draws me out of my work and I look over at Anna, poor thing, feeling ill is never enjoyable. One positive aspect of lycanthropy I suppose is resistance to things like that…though I’m not sure the cost is worth it.

An hour or so passes, and so I lightly tap Anna on the shoulder to wake her up. “Do you want to keep sleeping or do you want to go downstairs and eat something?” Anna thinks for a moment before sitting up with a groan and stays there for around a minute before standing up. Putting her shoes back on I hear her mumble something but I can’t quite make out what she said. Most likely complaining about being sick.

The two of us sit in a quiet corner, a rare commodity in this inn. The innkeeper had brought over two bowls of soup, today it seems to be chicken with rice, and leaves us in peace to go deal with the more rowdy customers who have begun to trickle in as night falls. Anna eats some, but mostly just sits staring at the bowl and stirs the liquid around. “It will get cold if you keep doing that, you know.” I point out and Anna looks up at me “Not hungry.” she replies, but does take another spoonful and eat it. With time in between spoonfuls the small bowl is eventually mostly emptied, and the bland crackers that had come with it are gone. A good thing I suppose with Anna is that even if she is not hungry she will at least attempt to eat something, even if it’s only to keep other problems related to not eating for extended periods of time at bay. As she calls it the “am I nauseous because I didn’t eat? or the am I not eating because I’m nauseous? game” though it doesn’t sound like a very fun game. The innkeeper collects the money for the food and clears the bowls, and since it’s rather loud and busy now we retreat upstairs once again, where it is even ever so slightly just a little bit quieter.

Once upstairs Anna practically collapses into a chair, exhausted. Her breathing seems to be a bit quicker than normal, too. A glass of water seems to help luckily, the culprit most likely being an imbalance having recently eaten the soup, with the result being a minor spike in heart rate. Moving back over to the bed and laying on her side helps as well, as it’s known that laying on one side is better for your heart than the other as it doesn’t have to work as hard. Whatever mild temperature she had earlier also seems to have resolved, which is an improvement. Hopefully with whatever would classify as a good night's sleep under these conditions helps her feel better…I’m very glad that I have no need for sleep and immunity to diseases as a side effect of lycanthropy, now that I think about it again.

After laying there a few minutes to allow her heart rate to calm down Anna slowly sits up, stays there a few more minutes, and finally gets up and digs through her bag for a change of clothes while notifying me she’s going to go wash off and get ready for bed. Luckily this seems to be one of the few rooms with consistent hot water available. Having finished with paperwork for the day I put away the stack of papers and instead sit in another chair across from a window, looking out on the city. It had begun to rain at some point and with nothing better to do I watch the raindrops as they make their way down the glass of the window, almost as if they’re racing each other to the bottom of it.

While Anna is cleaning up I debate the idea of sleep for the night, it’s always a welcome thing when I can get it, but it is not an actual physical need, and while it can sometimes be a bit boring in a small inn room like this I’d rather find ways to keep myself occupied and stay awake in case Anna doesn’t feel well than sleep and have her need to wake me up. I may be a light sleeper regardless but still, it requires energy to wake someone, and I’m not quite sure she would have the energy at this point. At the end of the debate in my head I conclude that I will just stay up, it’s nothing I haven’t done before, after all.

The sound of the rain is rather calming, and I prefer it to what would otherwise be silence. The sound of a door opening gets my attention and Anna comes out, places the clothes from the day in their respective pile and then instead of going back over to the bed, crosses the room and over to me, climbing into my lap and going limp against me with a quiet noise, her head against my chest, just below the shoulder. “Hi there.” I say, giving her a light hug, and Anna raises one hand slightly before letting it drop as if to signify a wave. “Tired?” A nod, and it's rather obvious she’s tired as her eyes are half closed at this point. “How come you didn’t go to bed then?” At that question Anna pauses for a moment, raises her head slightly to look over at the bed, before turning back away from it with another noise and gives me a hug. As awful as she must feel right now that sequence of actions can’t help but make me smile just a little. “You’d rather sit with me?” Anna nods “That’s nice of you.” I tell her, moving her slightly so it’s a bit more comfortable for both of us. Anna stays there, content to sit there being cuddled as I hum a lullaby, mostly to myself. Despite being tired she protests whenever I even suggest her going to bed in the actual bed. Eventually she falls into a deep and untroubled sleep.

Something I had noticed is when Anna does not feel well, not only does she sleep more, but she also drools in her sleep more- probably because if you’re congested it’s rather difficult to breathe through your nose at times. At least there is a cloth nearby I can put over my shoulder in order to avoid wrecking my shirt. Aside from the usual occasional fussiness I’d expect with not feeling well that is easily fixed by some water and/or a hug and eventually being lulled to sleep again Anna sleeps relatively peacefully. Her heart rate is still a little higher than it usually is, but still well within the normal range, if anything, it’s more normal than her typical heart rate, when taken into context of regular people. The quickened breathing and temperature from earlier in the afternoon had returned to their baseline, always a good thing. Fevers are never an enjoyable thing to deal with, and especially not on top of other illnesses. The lack of a blanket I think helps with that, and whenever I’d offered one it had been declined, anyways.

A few times Anna wakes up briefly only to look at me with a dazed but content expression, smile ever so slightly, kiss me on the cheek, manage to somehow cuddle even closer, and fall back asleep. Around four in the morning I grab the blanket from the back of a nearby chair, placing it so it covers the two of us. The early mornings can certainly get cold, even in Riften. While the city may be close to the southwestern border, it’s still Skyrim after all, and with that comes cold weather, dreary days, and apparently now also dragons. Now that I think about it, the cold weather is likely the cause of Anna not feeling well- we had just come from Windhelm, which is notoriously cold…and Anna being a Breton makes it so she does not have the natural cold resistance that Nords do, instead she has a resistance to magic, like all Bretons. Throughout the night I don’t fall asleep, but I’m not entirely awake either, more in a relaxed state where I’m awake enough to react to things, but if I were normal I probably would have likely fallen asleep hours ago. It’s an interesting feeling, but I don’t mind it. The part that is a bit trickier to deal with is finding ways to pass the time while not being able to get up. It’s analogous to a cat or dog falling asleep where getting up will wake them and result either in unhappiness or running off, neither is a good result, and so one stays put. For the most part I sit there thinking, looking around at the things in the room or out the window, daydreaming…or whatever the equivalent of it would be at two in the morning. Not dreaming in the typical nighttime sense, just getting lost in one's head, I suppose.

Sometimes I wonder what Anna dreams about, especially on nights like these where there’s the chance for interrupted sleep. Occasionally she’ll tell me about them, usually they’re good. I very rarely dream, usually it’s either a dreamless sleep or tossing and turning with nightmares. On the nights where I do dream though they’re detailed and I can sometimes remember them even hours after waking up. There are times where I can guess what goes on in her dreams, a recognizable noise here and there, the increase or decrease of her breathing, sometimes her cheeks might go red even, context clues put the pieces together based on the situation. Nightmares are much more obvious unfortunately, she tends to wake up crying.

Anna pulls the blanket up as the sun begins to rise over the mountains and shine light through the window onto the walls and the floor. It’s still far too early for waking up, and once comfortable again she goes back to an uneventful sleep. The patterns of the sunlight change on the floor and walls as the hours pass and I watch the light beams as they bounce around from place to place to pass the time. Whatever rainstorm occurred overnight has passed, though it still seems to be quite wet outside. Anna wakes in the mid to late morning and while still a bit foggy with sleep she seems to be overall feeling better. “Good morning.” She whispers softly, pulling the blanket closer over her head almost like a hood. “Good morning, you sleep alright?” Anna nods slowly, still half asleep and rests her head against me once more, but I don’t mind it. For a while we sit there quietly as she wakes up fully, we sit mostly in silence, with the occasional comment in between.

By the time mid morning comes Anna has fully woken up and with a bit of bargaining eaten something for breakfast. Getting dressed is a bit of a challenge in her still somewhat dazed state but she succeeds eventually on her own. “I guess we should go do what we came here to do then?” She asks stuffing the clothes from the night before in a bag. It sounds like a good idea to me, so long as she feels up to it. After a bit of discussion we agree, might as well get things out of the way early than save them for later in the day when everyone will be a bit tired. Having packed up the small amount of things we came with, the next stop is the Jarl, Leila Law-Giver, she seems nice enough, all things considered.

Anna gives the Jarl a report on the task that she had assigned her to do, which earns her the gratitude and thanks of both Leila and the people of Riften, as well as a bit of gold and an invitation to stay for the night. The guest quarters here are certainly nicer than the inn, and as a result the offer is accepted. The steward shows us to the room, or series of rooms, on the second floor that are meant for guests. After doing a few minor tasks around the keep for the court mage and steward it’s decided that fresh air seems to be a good idea given dust and who knows what else is not the best thing to be inhaling for long periods of time. Unfortunately for Anna, upon opening the door she is met with pouring rain, and so with a frown she trudges upstairs to go take a nap. Today is not the best day to be under the weather, especially given the fact the actual bad weather has caught up, it would seem.

I join her later, having gotten caught up in a conversation I quite frankly did not want to have with one of the jarls' sons, which resulted in my delay. Though I didn’t miss much, that’s obvious when I open the door after knocking on it softly to find Anna fast asleep sprawled out on top of the covers, entirely oblivious to my presence. As quietly as possible I step inside the room and close the door behind me, taking off my shoes to avoid further noise. After all, with how things look from the window, I won't be needing them anytime soon. Outside the rain falls steadily, with a crash of thunder or strike of lightning every now and then, it’s picked up in intensity since last night and yet Anna still remains peacefully unaware. Sometimes I envy her ability to sleep through practically anything, that is until I realize the reason that’s possible is due to fatigue making her so tired she simply cannot stay awake a moment longer, and then I mostly just feel sad. Chronic insomnia is one beast, chronic fatigue on the other hand is an entirely different one. I can’t even imagine a combination of the two…

Standing by one of the large windows I watch the city center outside, it’s understandably empty on a day like today but every now and then you can see a brave soul running by trying to get from one building to another without getting soaked by the steadily falling rain and wind. As I watch the city outside a small noise draws my attention and I look over my shoulder in the direction of it to find Anna rolled on to her side and looking at me, barely awake, but somehow still slightly conscious. “Tired?” I question, Anna flops over onto her stomach this time and nods slightly in response. “Rainy days are good for naps anyways.” Another nod along with a mumbled “especially when you feel like shit.” as well as a very quiet chuckle to herself. How someone is able to joke despite feeling awful a good chunk of the time is still somewhat baffling to me, but I respect it, that’s one skill that is definitely difficult to master and one most likely honed over decades of feeling poorly.

Walking over to the bed I sit on the edge of it “Why don’t you take a nap under the covers?” I ask picking up a piece of the blanket. Anna shakes her head, explaining that to do that would require another bath and it’s too early for that as we haven’t even eaten dinner yet, it’s barely past six o’clock in the evening. She has a point, but I do remember something the steward mentioned about having food brought upstairs if requested. After some discussion we decide what to do and thanks to the jarls very efficient steward a couple of bowls of soup are brought upstairs and other than that we’re left alone.

Getting Anna to eat can be difficult at times however today seems to be an exception as the bowl of soup with its mixed in noodles and vegetables is completely empty by the time she finishes with a remark about how soup really is it’s own form of medicine. Surprisingly the soup isn’t actually all that bad by Riften standards, and arrives actually hot rather than lukewarm. Having rolled out of bed Anna joins me at the small table where the food had been dropped off and in between spoonfuls of chicken broth watches the rain continue to fall outside. “It is really raining…dreadful weather, honestly” Anna says quietly to herself which spirals into a discussion about Skyrim's overall generally terrible and strange weather, excluding areas of Whiterun hold and the limited areas immediately outside Solitude and Falkreath which can be alright most of the year if one’s willing to put up with either a sea breeze or being surrounded by forest. I even learn a new fact or two about the climate of Daggerfall and how it compares to Riften. By the time the conversation winds down and switches to another topic the general consensus is decided that when not raining The Rift can be rather pretty but on a stormy day like today one almost wishes they were in Windhelm, at least it would be snow rather than rain there.

Time passes quickly during conversation about many topics, none connected to each other really. Instead they either flow from one to the next or there’s a pause before changing subjects entirely. The latter is not an uncommon occurrence usually beginning with a question especially if one topic ends abruptly. Eventually all good things must come to an end though and the simple yet filling dinner is finished, bowls and utensils set aside on a nearby tray.

Despite the earlier nap and having had something to eat, Anna looks exhausted, pale and tired with even a slight purple tint under her eyes. After getting up with a groan of minor pain but primarily annoyance and a stretch, Anna informs me that she’ll be back and is going to go take a bath, wandering sleepily into the adjacent room where said bath is located. Accustomed to being on my own for short and long stretches of time I myself get up and wander about the main room, letting my mind wander while cleaning whatever needs to be cleaned and organized to pass time and make things a bit easier for the servants.

 I’m interrupted after a few minutes by a very quiet muffled “help” and upon turning around need to keep the urge to laugh from escaping as in front of me stands a half dressed Anna who somehow managed to get tangled up and stuck while in the process of undressing. Her dress collar over her head making it most likely impossible to see and sleeves partly pulled off but not quite, it looks rather ridiculous and very amusing given her usual confidence in doing things herself. After a few minutes of silent standing I’m dragged away from my own amusement with a flailing of arms, and sleeves, and a quiet, borderline embarrassed, request of “help?” from within the tangled bunch of red and white fabric. It takes a few minutes and a bit of skill but before long Anna is untangled as I pull the last of the dress off by the sleeves that had been already part way off and hand it back to her. Taking the dress and folding it Anna mutters a thank you while staring at the floor, her cheeks so red one might mistake them for tomatoes. “My guess is you can do the rest yourself?” I ask, gesturing to the plain white undershirt and matching not quite knee length underwear, which results in her going even redder in the face…I didn’t know the human body could physically look that color under normal circumstances. Putting the dress aside she begins to walk off back towards where she came from before suddenly stopping, marching back over to me while still refusing eye contact, grabbing my hand, and dragging me along off toward the other room with her. A silent admittance of “there’s a chance I might still need help…or I just want company.” Either way is fine with me, and the unique form of Breton stubbornness, that in itself is so unlike Nordic stubbornness, is a trait I will never find unamusing.

After being partly pulled and partly dragged into the small room and closing the door I look around, on the far side of the room is a tub made presumably of some kind of stone and walled off above ground as it would be impossible to have it so one can simply walk into it due to the location of the quarters on the second floor of the castle. Nearby is a table and chair, a set of drawers which are mostly filled with towels and similar contents, and a wash basin filled with water. Before I can think of making a sarcastic comment or other remark I register a knock against my shoulder and a squeezing feeling and realize I’m being hugged. Glancing down I see a face with closed eyes and still somewhat pink cheeks squished as much as possible against me and perhaps the tightest hug I’ve ever been given. “I’m sorry” I hear Anna whisper and in response return the hug, telling her there’s nothing to be sorry about, a conversation that’s occurred before. There’s a noise as Anna goes to retort that she should be sorry for being sick but it dies in her throat and accepts my response, eventually letting me go. Staring at the floor and wringing her hands slightly, I’m asked for help again, and said help is willingly provided until the remaining clothing is gone and she’s easily picked up and partly set down and partly dropped into the warm water.


If there’s one unexpected sensory behavior Anna has it’s the love of being picked up and otherwise tossed around, which works out given her small size. While similar in height, Anna prefers clothing or occasionally robes to armor, making one of us infinitely easier to pick up. Another behavior that I find rather endearing is her love of water, which I note mentally as I sit nearby chatting with her having pulled up a chair as she washes off and otherwise splashes the water around. It makes sense, Daggerfall is on a bay, and I remember the appalled face she made upon being told the nearby river was the only large body of water close to Whiterun aside from the lake, which is really closer to Falkreath and Riverwood, and the now ruined Helgan, rather than Whiterun. What can I say? Not all of us have the luxury of living by the coast, some of us are stuck in a cultural center that’s a major trade route but happens to be in the center of the country. Anna explains her symptoms in between washing her hair and splashing the warm water around for amusement having done the work part of taking a bath, they sound like a cold or allergies or maybe both just not including a cough. Between rest, soup, and maybe a healing spell or two she should feel better in the next few days, but for now like the city outside she remains under the weather…and I doubt the rain is helping.

Once the water is cold Anna climbs out and I hand her a towel to dry off before we exchange the towel for a pair of clean clothes. Thankfully she has an easier time getting dressed compared to getting undressed, unless something involves buttons, a fact she makes known whenever she manages to steal one of my shirts that happens to have them.

 Unfortunately for her I don’t plan on getting new clothes anytime soon so she’ll just have to steal Aelas clothes if she wants shirts without buttons. Letting the cold used water drain before refilling it with fresh hot water I kick Anna out as politely as possible and she goes willingly not so jokingly pointing out there’s some parts of the male body she’d never wish to see as she closes the door behind her. I clean up quicker having no distractions and return to the main room within twenty minutes, finding Anna sitting on the bed under the covers waiting. “Can you tell me a story?” She asks as I sit next to her, another interesting trait, a love of stories. “For you? Of course.” That causes her to perk up a little and she leans in attentively as I take a moment to think of what to tell her about before settling on an old folktale that Tilma would tell Vilkas, Aela, and I as children to get us to sleep while still fulfilling Vilkas’s need for bedtime stories. He still has that trait now that I think of it, just now the stories take the form of stacks and stacks of books, most that have already been read at least once. I know from experience to never leave him and Anna alone in a bookshop, especially with money. As expected the folktale works, by the end of it Anna is hanging on by a thread when it comes to staying conscious with nearly closed eyes and having already laid down at some earlier point. “Go to sleep, Kedvesem, you should hopefully feel better in the morning.” I whisper, adjusting the blanket and giving her a quick kiss on the forehead as her eyes fully shut. “What’s that mean?” I hear her mumble in response, having overheard me. “Kedvesem? It means ‘my dear’. Now go to sleep.” Satisfied with the answer as noted by a slight smile Anna turns over on her side and quickly falls off to sleep. The rain helps with providing white noise aside from the thunder and lightning every now and then and I find myself listening to it as I pace trying to decide if I should sleep or not. On one hand, she’s still sick, but on the other she’s getting better, however slowly the process may be. After several hundred counts of pacing back and forth I decide I may as well sleep, I don’t know when I’ll next be back in a jarls guest quarters and carefully climb into bed. Anna in response to subconsciously realizing there’s someone else in bed now cuddles up against me, adjusts the blanket, and goes back into a deep sleep.

Spring should be on its way soon, I realize as I begin to drift off to sleep myself. For now though we’re stuck in that strange period of not quite winter and not quite spring where the weather is disgusting and everyone is sick. With one final glance before sleep takes me I look at Anna who sleeps peacefully but still looks rather ill, being under the weather with less than ideal weather must be it’s own special kind of not particularly fun experience, and I’m glad I don’t have to experience it…though I pay for it in other ways.