He was miserable. Even on a day like today where the heat wasn’t beating them down into submission and he should be happy. He felt like shit. He had felt like this for a long time and frankly he was sick of it. It seemed he was only getting worse and not better, no matter how much his mom fussed over him. At first he had enjoyed the extra attention, the way that she catered to him, brought him food and herbs and made him feel like an only child. Eventually though, even that didn’t feel like it was worth how awful he felt.

Plus, all this extra time holed up in the medicinal den gave him a lot of time to brood. And brood he did. Brooded until a single thought seemed to be the only thing he could think - and nothing else mattered. Maybe it was the fever that came and went, or maybe it was teenage angst, but he couldn’t hold it in any longer. Waking up from a fitful sleep to see his mother’s form in the clearing near where he lay, he sat up rigid. Without any previous introduction he declared, ”Either she goes, or I go. I can’t stay here with her any longer.” That probably didn’t make a lot of sense, but gold eyes bored into his mom intensely, surely she would know.