InsaneJournal

Who: Cuthwulf + NPCs
Where: King's rooms
When: Morning
What: Care package!





From somewhere in the vestibule between the castle halls and the king’s quarters, a pained voice protested for no less than the seventh time. “Your Majesty, please stop laughing so much.” It might have been more effective if every other sound in the room wasn’t that of suppressed amusement. From multiple sources. All of whom were in agreement that the king did indeed have lovely legs.

Cuthwulf was painfully aware that it was probably in his best interests to stop laughing at least until he had taken whatever concoction that scraping noise required. Aforementioned awareness was painful because he had thrown his back out the evening -- night? -- before, trying to dance. Rather, he had successfully danced right up to the point his back decided not to cooperate. So while it truly hurt to laugh, and oh it hurt, he could not stop because some idiot had set up the reason so it was facing the foot of his bed, therefore him.

With Lord Locan’s note still in his hand and the purple cushion on his knee (it seemed wrong to examine tiny embroidered dragons while he could hear someone doing Creator-knew-what with their scales, but did nothing to stop his chuckling) Cuthwulf looked far more comfortable than he actually was. He felt like someone was slowly stabbing him in the spine with an exceptionally thin blade. Depending on how he moved, the stabbing changed position.

The tired and rather fed-up physician whose name he did not know and had never known, piped up again. “Someone move that--” From the emphasis alone, Cuthwulf knew he was talking about the painting and snorted. “--the less strain on his back the better.”

“He can hear you,” the king remarked with an arched eyebrow, reining in his amusement long enough to make his point.

The wince was audible. “My apologies, your Majesty, but I think it ought to--”

Cuthwulf’s attention had turned to one of his guards, a man who understood the humour taking up a portion of the wall beside him. “Have arrangements made for this to be put on the throne.” The statement was made in all seriousness, but since the guard was stood beside the painting he had found himself smirking before he’d had the chance to finish the sentence. As he patted the cushion, belatedly underlining precisely what he was talking about, the very idea had him sniggering.

“I would recommend against making such decisions after taking Master Alaricht’s brew,” the physician warned hesitantly. Most people would have recommended against making such a recommendation to Cuthwulf. Someone from the Council really needed to speak to the physicians.

“The one that made my tongue go numb?” Not a pleasant sensation, but had the amusing effect of altering his speech for a while.

“Indeed, sire.”

Pausing, Cuthwulf tilted his head. “How is my tongue related to my reasoning?”

“I--...”

Since he did not have a clear line of sight to the physician who had just gone deathly quiet, the king looked to his guard. The man gave a discreet shake of his head and a moment later the sound of ‘preparations’ resumed. “That deserves a place in the great hall,” he mused, smiling at the sound of at least one person in the room choking. He wasn’t actually joking, but he doubted he could get away with it, king or no. Well, if he could find no room for it in his rooms he would either make room or make sure it found a place in the family galleries. Now that he could get away with.

“Sire? Drink this.”

“I-- No--” Creator-forsaken physicians.

Across the room, the guard had frozen in an uncertain panic as the potion-bearing individual actually force-fed the king. He had to wonder if it was at all worth the murderous look the man was giving his physician.

Opening his mouth with the intention of hurling abuse -- his tongue no longer felt at all numb, that was interesting -- Cuthwulf stopped and settled for fixing the idiot with a glare. “I’ve not changed my mind about the cushion.” Generally speaking, minor assaults did not make him change his mind about anything.

The physician stepped back with a nod of concession. “I imagine you’ll need it.” Then he made his exit as though everything had gone precisely to plan. Cuthwulf felt like he had missed something.

“He changed his tune,” the guard said off-handedly, before dismissing the fact and moving to take the cushion to its new home on the throne. He left the room carrying it rested on up-turned palms, almost reverently -- and as the door closed behind him the king started laughing again. He made quite the one-man procession.

With only his manservant left, it was now a waiting game until he could -- possible, maybe -- get out of bed to dress. The appearance of a second cane (just in case) only made him determined to not need it.