The drawn curtains had plunged the room into the pallid embrace of the lush twilight; the youth of the night had grown inwards to it’s blue hues over the stretch of time, inky and restful in the silence that lingered, unbound as it roamed the skies above.

The previous hours have been the clutter of porcelain against the bronze of the tray; deft swipes of cool cloth against his flushed skin, the soft timbre of murmurs, the silken handkerchief tied over his eyes, shielding the wintry blue of his gelid irises from the unrelenting spike of pain that rose each time the fervent light feasted on his eyelids.

The night was opaque with the familiarity of the situation: Richard had predicted the migraine’s arrival a few days before, following the sombre symptoms of the upcoming turmoil — he felt one coming on, unmistakable. Noises got louder; objects shimmered, his peripheral vision darkening and all sorts of unpleasant things hovering at the edges. Terrible pressure in the air. He would look at a street sign and not be able to read it. Flat on his back in a dark room, ice packs and silk over his eyes.

You nursed his head in your lap, combed back the raven locks that framed his ivory, marble-like features as the soft flow of your voice sank in satin whispers. The tepid touch of the cloth that cooled his skin, the ambrosia that you had trickled into his mouth from a small vial you’d kept around. He stirred at the delicate press of your lips at his temple, his brow, his eyelids. One fluttered open, barely a whisper of vision, a frozen arctic lake in the grip of Boreal winds. “ Prevent from taking the interim meekness of mine for feebleness; my mind remains undefiled of the physical tumult. Do cease the coddling, as well, before you embolden and dare to kiss me somewhere beneath my eyes. “