AW for one or two others!
He didn’t know why he wasn’t expecting to catch it. It had been a very long time since Riven had had any sort of mundane little illness that it was a surprise to him when he woke up with chills and aches coursing through his body. His throat was sore and his stomach churned, and it didn’t take a genius to know he had a fever.
It was a good thing he’d been keeping his distance from his pack mates, he figured, though part of him wanted the comfort closeness brought. He didn’t really know most of them, and after the ordeal at Isla’s den, he wasn’t as comfortable with Chan as he used to be. It made him miss having either Huddy or @Adelard leading, made him homesick for a place that no longer existed. He couldn’t imagine either of them doing something like that - and at a whelping den, no less.
Riven felt a familiar weight in his chest, thinking of Adelard. It wasn’t that he was purposefully avoiding the man, but he didn’t want to interrupt his guarding Isla’s den - presumably with Ad’s children inside. The healer had no clue why Chan had been so aggressive toward him, but given that it had been after Riven approached him, he had to wonder if the healer had done something wrong, and he didn’t want to step on any more toes.
There still wasn’t any jealousy toward Isla herself. In Riven’s mind, it was only natural for a parent to want to be around to protect and care for their children. Adelard had given him no reason to worry that it was anything more than that, so he wouldn’t.
It didn’t mean he didn’t feel lonely sometimes.
Isolating himself hadn’t helped, but he didn’t want to subject these near-strangers to his anxiety, and he’d coped with it on his own this far.
He groaned as he headed back to the little fallen log he’d been huddling under recently. Throwing up was never pleasant, but at least he hadn’t done so in his sleeping place. It still smelled sour, however, and his stomach made an unhappy noise as he curled back up into a miserable little ball. He wasn’t quite as sick as poor Hazelnut had been, but he also wasn’t giving birth, so at least he had that going for him.