now you're weeping shades of cozened indigo [May 17]

The sickness wasn't getting particularly better. Not worse, but certainly not better. There was no real ignoring it any longer, as much as Krem would have liked. As much as his denial would have liked. There was no ignoring that something was wrong, and it wasn't just a flu that was going to be knocked back with tonics and rest.

He called out of work. He hadn't, in all nine months he'd been working at Off the Wall or Bardolf's, and so there was sympathy when he said he was sick and he needed to take a few days off to rest and recover. Then, he deliberated. There was a multitude of numbers in his phone he could call for commiseration, for consolation, for comfort. Krem knew he didn't need those, not quite. He needed a remedy.

He called Hild with a quiet misery in his voice between inability to keep down anything more substantial than broth, and then, curled on the couch and gently holding his stomach, he waited.