Aleesia was sitting next to Mori, on the armchair, in her usual knees against her chest position.
She was staring at him, hoping those eyes would open.
Maybe he would call her names, or roll his eyes while sighing loudly.
Tell her she missed spots while cleaning, or that she did something stupid.
Maybe he'd get upset again. Telling her walking in underwear in front of maids wasn't the same with other people.
That in front of him, it was indecent, and 'unbecoming of a woman of her stature'. Whatever that meant.
He'd probably find things wrong about the soup, or with the way she held the knife to cut vegetables.
But he wouldn't be able to tell how she cut the vegetables... right? Could someone tell from the way they look?
She could imagine him telling her, 'You don't STAB THEM. You SLICE THEM. How hard can it be?!'.
Or 'You BRUSH the floor. Are you even touching it?! You don't LEVITATE THE BROOM ABOVE IT. I can't believe my eyes. In all my years...'
Am I older than him? She thought.
Maybe he'd be proud of her cleaning her clothes. But since he asked her to do it for days, that probably wouldn't happen. If anything, she'd get a 'finally'.
He'd probably say mean things, but then pat her head and tell her she did a good job keeping everything neat.
He did ask her to take care of him, after all.
Now, everything was clean, so she did part of the job.
Right?
"Just wake up already..."
Mori woke up a few times when he first fell ill, but he hadn't woken up in what must've been 3 days, now.
She barely slept, and her body wasn't working properly.
She would close her eyes, but sleep would not come.
"Come on, Mori..." she said, tears sporadically dropping.
She climbed on the bed, laying down next to him. She buried her head between his shoulder and neck, while her arms wrapped around his body.
She held him tight, ignoring the heat.
The tears stopped; she had fallen asleep.
—~~~—
Aleesia opened her eyes, slowly realizing she was still tightly holding onto Mori.
She would've moved away, but the comfort this brought kept her there.
She held him even tighter, her fingers digging into his body.
And she didn't move.
She glanced at Mori, still unconscious.
"Ah!"
Her eyebrows shot up, as she quickly walked to the only small round table, close to the fire.
She opened the shop, getting a simple sheet of paper out with a feather.
"Just in case he wakes up while I'm gone. Just tell him to read it."
She bought basic ink, dropping the tip of the feather into it.
She tried writing, but ended up crumpling the paper, and throwing it meters further in a slight burst of anger.
"What's up with this feather?! Is that how people write normally?"
Lines of ink covered her writing.
"I guess I truly am privileged, if even writing is harder for normal people."
She tried writing again, but it took her around a dozen of tries before being able to not cover the paper with trails of ink.
She had stopped trying to write, only practicing using that cheap feather.
"Alright. No more drawings of cats. Now, the real thing..."
She started the letter, but crumpled it halfway through.
"This isn't right... maybe more emotions?"
She started writing again, the smell of ink the only thing she could distinguish.
Her hands were covered in it. She had to be careful not to smear it on the paper.
"Hmmm."
She was reading the letter.
"This has to be too emotional."
She grabbed her chin, unknowingly staining it.
She crumpled about a dozen more letters, before finally settling on the last one.
"Alright, this one will do."
She then got up, grabbing her bow tightly.
"Alright," she said, turning toward Mori.
She watched him one more time, hoping he would wake up.
"Okay. Rest well, I'll be right back.
She opened her [Dungeon] menu, and disappeared, leaving Mori and the Unkindled behind.
Silence and quiet filled the room, everything remaining still.