ImmediatelyWriting's One Shots

#38. Snow White With The Red Hair - Zen/Shirayuki) Does Poison Create Love?

Summary: When stabbed with a poisoned sword, Zen finds his faith in the hands of the castle's herbalist, Shirayuki.

Fandom: Snow White With The Red Hair
Ship: Zen/Shirayuki
Genre: Poisoned, Angst, Fluff

part of Shipbruary 2021!

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Shirayuki couldn't be happier with her job as the castle's herbalist. Saving people's lives or healing them from milder sicknesses on a daily basis had always been the job she loved doing most.

Doing it close to Zen, whom she's been growing closer to with every day that passes, is even more fun to her. Especially since he tends to drop by and chat with her a little during the course of the day.

Yet, today, she wished she'd been far away from the castle, or out in the forest to pick herbs. That way she wouldn't have to deal with the sight she sees when Zen walks into the room around twelve in the afternoon, the only time that Shirayuki is the only herbalist around because the rest is eating lunch; he's paler than he should be, his skin is almost grey-ish green.

"What happened to you!" Shirayuki asks Zen as soon as she notices how bad he looks.

He glares at her with dull eyes before one of his hand moves up, almost as if he's about to wave it off casually. At the same time that his hand moves, Shirayuki spots the red fluid soaking his vest just around his waist. It doesn't last long before Zen collapses and lands on the floor with a loud thud.

Shirayuki drops everything she's doing right away, literally, but while the rare herbs land on the floor and become unusable, all she can think about is the hurt prince.

She kneels down beside Zen and quickly checks if he's conscious, because she'll need to know what happened so she'll know what to do. But she doesn't get any response other than some irregular breathing and very soft, most certainly unintended, moaning.

She turns him on his unhurt side in a recovery position so he doesn't choke on his own saliva while Shirayuki tries to find out what on earth happened. She immediately knows it's not just loss of blood that's causing this. The fainting and clear mental confusion Zen was in before he collapsed proofed a lot already; he's clearly been poisoned with something. The question isn't how or when or why, but rather what he's been poisoned with and how Shirayuki can fix it?

"Just stay with me, Zen," she whispers as she lays her fingers on his wrist to check his pulse. His heartbeat is way too quick, she immediately notices. If it keeps beating this quickly, together with his extremely fast breathing, it'll probably lead to both respiratory and cardiac failure.

"Damn it," she mumbles, collecting her hair into a ponytail before getting on her feet. "I thought you were supposed to be immune for poison."

She walks to cabinets with the herbs she's got laying around, knowing which ones should help ease these symptoms a little; they won't fix his poisoning, but she'll have to really be sure with which poison she's dealing with before she starts trying to work it out of his body. If she doesn't, she might only do even more harm.

She's collecting the herbs she needs to lower his pulse a little, but as she's grinding them together quickly, she hears something behind her. When she turns around, Zen's entire body is twitching. The uncontrolled spasms immediately cause Shirayuki grand worry; a seizure, so soon after being poisoned, can only mean it's a quick acting poison. She has to work faster or Zen might, no scrap that, will not survive.

She crushes the herbs quickly and runs towards Zen. She immediately slides her jacked off her shoulders and props it underneath his neck and head; she can't have him accidently banging his head against the hard wooden floor while he's in this terrible state. She'll have to keep an eye on him for as long as he's having a seizure, so she gets the herbs to her side and continues to make the mixture.