"Don't worry child, I simply put him to sleep. Some wounds cannot be cured. See his muscles? Healing magic would not remedy that. Only time will, his body needs to recover." The Queen said towards the young Rou, who was rather plainly dressed. A bit dirty, disheveled, his clothes lightly torn from the hurry in which they came.

Rou looked the Queen over briefly, then nodded before walking towards his forcibly slept father and sitting besides him. He was rather out of it at the moment, equally tired-looking, ears and tail and even whiskers droopy from having not slept much either. He hadn't even noticed the Queen had walked over to pick him up and was carrying him off until suddenly he snapped out of it and found himself moving.

"Have the healers get this boys father into a free chamber, clean and heal him what you can and let him sleep it off. It will probably be several days at the least until he comes to. In the meanwhile, bring the Claw commander to me."

–

By the time the Claw commander visited the Queen, Rou had already been stripped naked and was being bathed by a couple of palace maids under the instruction of the Queen, who was nearby, idly keeping care of the boy. Rou hadn't said much, talking in his head with Affection only briefly.

"Your Majesty, you called?" the fluffy feline commander of the Claws asked.

"Ah, yes. Use your rune, contact Shiela. She has been deactivated for several years now, but she should still be there."

Without even questioning it, the commander bit her arm and despite the blood, began to interact with it while channeling magic into the rune before suddenly the voice of Rou's mother came on.

"What is it? Why would you be contacting me?"

"I cannot say, it was an instruction from the Queen. Present yourself."

After a moment, the Queen walked over and said into the rune, "Your husband and child are safe, though currently your partner is sleeping off fatigue. My husband has already begun to take action, but your village is quite far out. It would seem he came across a black spore infestation on the journey between there and here, from what I can tell. You need to gather your villagers and flee in the opposite direction of the capital. We will let you know when it's taken care of, but we have no way of knowing just how large it is, or how far it will spread, without more information."

"...yes, Queen. My son, is he…"

The Queen snorted softly and added, "He is fine, Shiela, I already told you he is here. Believe me, I remember your injury. The boy is safe. If the gods saw fit to grant him to you, who am I to let him be taken away."

As Rou listened, of course his overprotective mother started to cry on the 'phonecall' which made him laugh but also feel unexpectedly loved.

The communication was cut off and before Rou could respond, he felt a wave of magic wash over him. Only… nothing happened outside of confusion.

"What?" The queen sounded confused and once again went to use sleep magic on the boy, but once again, it failed. "Impossible, there's no way a child could resist my magic. What is going on?" The confusion was writ on her face and even the maids and commander were uncertain before Rou asked, "What are you trying to do?"

Feeling awkward, the Queen said, "I was going to let you sleep like your father. A boy your age probably needs the rest. But…"

Rou looked up before saying, "Oh… try again now?"

Uncertain, the Queen did only for Rou to slump like a puppet whose strings were cut. The maids panicked and grabbed the naked, mostly clean child and kept him from submerging as the Queen looked at her own hand, then the boy, then the commander near her who shrugged.

–

How long it had been, Rou had no idea, but eventually he woke up. When he woke up, before he could even think about what was going on, his stomach growled and he heard a woman nearby laugh. When he looked around, the Queen he had met before was looking at him with amusement. "It would seem you are hungry. Lucky for you, you are in the palace, the kitchen is always open." Rou barely had a chance to think about responding before she lifted him and carried him out of her room through the hallway and stepped onto a rune which ferried them like an elevator through the castle until they appeared in a kitchen.

"Put together something for the boy. Filling, with some sweets too."

"My father, is he…"

As Rou asked, the Queen shook her head. "Still asleep, it's been about two days now."

"Then, the bl–"

"Silence child. That is not to be spoken about openly. Trust that it will be taken care of. I cannot imagine a child your age even caring about it."

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Rou didn't respond, but looked up again like he had in the bath, the Queen noticing and thinking to ask, but held off as she watched the chefs in the palace hurriedly putting food together. Rou was walked to a countertop where he was sat on the counter itself, only now noticing that he felt heavier than normal. As it turned out, his clothing was different.

When the Queen saw him looking at his hands and feet, she put two and two together. "Those clothes of yours have been cleaned and the gloves, shoes and belt are secured. Such interesting things. You surprised us with those. Was that a gift from your parents? Neither of them know dark magic from what I recall."

The statement took Rou by surprise before he tried to think of an answer. But as the food was placed in front of him, he put on a more childlike behavior and quickly started to stuff his face. The chefs tried to maintain themselves but after one lady giggled, everyone began to laugh. Even the Queen, who was briefly annoyed at not receiving an answer, relaxed and smiled and dropped the topic for the time being.

–

After the meal and a chance to use the lavatories, it wasn't long until he once again found himself in the throne room, but this time, it wasn't just the Queen, but the King as well. The lapine King seemed quite exhausted but looked at the boy with curiosity. "You are certainly a curious one." he finally said towards Rou, who was stationed about ten feet before them and a few steps down with a maid standing behind him, one hand on each of his shoulders as if to remind him to behave.

Before Rou could think to respond, the King added, "Dragged halfway across the kingdom by your father, survived a skirting with a black spore infestation no worse for the wear despite your age, even resisting my wifes sleep magic that she learned to help me rest better, and wearing pieces of clothing enchanted with antiquated applications of dark magic…"

"If I didn't know you were Dominic and Shiela's child, I cannot say I would know what to make of you. Have you anything to say?" It wasn't quite meant to be an interrogation, after all, Dominic likely saved a /lot/ of lives and settlements so who was he to question the man's child, but all the same… he felt obliged to at least inquire.

Rou thought about what to say before looking around and spotting on the back wall a shrine of sorts like in his village. A collection of statuettes, only these weren't made of wood but instead fine and expensive materials with pearl inlays and rare metals.

"Don't ask what you shouldn't know." Rou said, causing the adults in the room to seem confused. The King even got angry, "Boy, watch your mouth. I am the King, though you may not know that at your age!" He tried to calm down after the Queen patted his hand, reminding him it was a child. But suddenly hearing something fall with a clatter, they turned and noticed one of the Gods statuettes had fallen. "Who's…" the Queen started to ask before Rou said simply, "Affection."

The statuette righted itself.

"She said do not ask what you shouldn't know."

The statuette fell over again."

Those in the room besides Rou proceeded to look incredibly uneasy before the King walked over and picked the statuette up to put it back in place. It promptly shook and fell over again as he put it back up, the process repeating a few times.

"...very well." he finally said a bit obediently.

–

The throne room was incredibly awkward for about an hour as Rou had walked to the side of the room and took a seat in a chair out of the way, quietly minding his own business and trying to sort out why in the hell Affection would make him say things like that so grandly. Now he was in the spotlight!

"Well it's not your fault they were being nosey. You should feel grateful I didn't ask you to thump their forehead like I did your mother."

Rou rolled his eyes, though thought it would have been funny had he.

Finally the silence was broken when the Fang and Claw commanders both showed up and the Claw commander spoke out, "We have dispatched a collective of mages. As per standard, the fire mages will burn it out of existence, but the advanced intelligence squad insists they've never even conceived of an outbreak this size. It must have been happening for weeks if not months. It's a miracle that Dominic came across it, was it anyone else who wasn't capable of using wind magic to get here this fast… the kingdom may well have been in danger. Still, even after the fire mages burn it, we will likely lose far more to the firespread before it can be dampened. The domain of it is staggering."

The fang commander said nothing, standing there in silence. The King looked at the fang commander. "Have you anything to say for yourself? We could have caught this several days sooner had you simply listened to the fellow and brought it to my attention."

As the King stood up, he walked towards the commander who seemed nervous. "Sire, I…"

Then suddenly the claw commander turned and with a swing of the sword at her hip as she gracefully freed it, the canine fell dead with his head and body separated.

Poor Rou was already weak to blood in his past life, let alone a scene like this, and as soon as he saw it he promptly gagged and turned, vomiting onto the floor behind the chair. The queen saw the boy and instantly felt bad for him, getting up to cater to him as the claw commander received a confused look from the King. "Why would you…"

"He betrayed the Kingdom. He was the one who caused the Black Spore outbreak. I took the Queen's guidance and sought a divine oracle as to find the source. If we could find the source, we could determine the possible area of the outbreak. What I didn't expect was to learn the source was tied to him. According to the priest who gave the oracle, he received notice from Affection that someone high up was trying to stop us from impeding things to try and profit from the reward. And when a group of his subordinates turned up severely injured from an unnecessary punishment, I realized he was the one trying to silence things. Pardon my action but I did not want to risk him possibly having a means to spread such here if he got caught."

The claw commander looked at the headless corpse that was pooling blood on the ground before back at the king, and offered her sword towards him. "If you think I deserve punishment, I will accept it."

"No… no, you did your duty." The King said softly, staring at the body of his previous commander. He'd known him for many years now. Since they were young. "I just cannot imagine this having taken place. It's all a bit much."

By the time he looked over for Rou and the Queen, it would seem the Queen had already shoo'd the boy out of the room and was caring for him.

–

"I'm sorry… the smell of the blood…"

Rou apologized to the Queen as he tried to collect himself, still dry-heavy from the suddenness of it all. "It is okay, I do not blame you. It was rather sudden after all."

While emotionally Rou wasn't as disturbed as he was physically, his body actually began to tear up and he wound up sobbing into the Queen's hug. A bit awkward, but perhaps it was a blessing as it did remind that despite it all, he was still a child in the eyes of the world.

Though before long his body finished crying about it and when she checked back into the throne room, cleaning was already taking place. "Want to go check on your father?"

Her question had him think then nod, "Sure."

Though all told even after seeing his father it wasn't anything special. Bathed, dressed, healed and just sleeping off the muscle fatigue and exhaustion. While it wasn't a hospital, even in his past life Rou was never one to sit awkwardly at someones bedside - unless it was his pet - so after seeing everything was fine, Rou asked, "Do you have a library? I can stop bothering you until I am needed."

"Oh, you can already read?" she seemed curious.

"...No. And yes." He wasn't about to elaborate further on 'Affection reading it to him'. The royal family was probably confused enough about him, but having the gods reading to him? Would probably be a bit much.