Tu Es Ma Lumière

115 - Sickness

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Prompt - How about little Francis getting sick, like what was mentioned in 2x13?

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"This is unbelievable." the eight year old, Dauphin of France pouted, folding his arms around himself. Folded up arms hit against his little torso, which in itself was covered by his nightshirt and his bed sheets. "How is it physically possible that you two were the ones throwing snow at each other, and yet I'm the one who gets a chill?" the little, blue eyed and golden haired Dauphin pouts towards his brother and betrothed. 

Sebastian, who had been positioned at the window of the castle's sick bay, looked away from the noble children who were engaged in an intense snowball fight, swallowed down his envy and looked at his little brother. He gave his best smile to the rosy-cheeked little boy, exposing the gap in his mouth where his front tooth had fallen out three days earlier. "I don't know." he shrugs. "At least you're away from your mother's constant pestering," the eleven year old grinned mischievously.

From her place upon an overstuffed chair, the small Queen of Scotland looks up from her embroidering, to giggle at the favourite bastard son of the King of France. They shared a secretive smirk between them both, for the Queen of France hated both the Queen of Scotland and the bastard son of France more than any noble at Court. Once upon a time, it bothered them. But now, it was something to relish in, that they didn't have the Queen's love or acceptance into her home. After all, it was better to be chastised than it was to be smothered and overborne by the Queen, after all. They both saw how irritated Francis got whenever his mother fretted over him, or how she acted with little Charles or tiny baby Henry. Her daughters were loved, but that love was nowhere close to the one Francis received. No matter if it irritated him or not.

"I am not!" Francis yelped in infuriation. "She's worse now! Sending in nurses and nursemaids at every hour, never mind spending each and every moment she can hovering over me." he scoffed in irritation. Mary smirked at him.

"See?" she asks. "This is why it's better to be hated by Queen Catherine, rather than to be loved by her." she reasons, cocking her head to the side. Her pretty face worse its prettiest smile, the one she only wore for her small Dauphin, raven hair falling messily in waves.

"Still." Francis pouts. "I want her to like you." he says. "After all, we're going to get married one day." the little Dauphin finishes, little fingers twiddling with the blankets his mother had insisted be thick and pilled on to a degree that nearly smother him, keeping his chills away.

"I don't." Mary shrugged. "One indifferent and haughty mother is enough, thank you very much." she states, remembering the coldness of her mother's letter that had arrived three months ago, just before the snow. It didn't hurt, the small Scottish Queen was used to it by now, her mother's aloofness towards her only living daughter.

The Dauphin opened his mouth to reply, before a round of coughing suddenly thundered all around his little body, making it tremble underneath the thick layer of blankets and furs. Mary hopped into action, jumping up from her chair to go over and rub his little back. Then, she gave him a taste of his hot coco to settle him, remembering the insistence that the nurses showed when they told her that it would be up to her, one day, to look after her husband. Well, he wasn't her husband yet, but the point stuck.

"Thank you." he smiles up at her. Mary giggles.

"See?" she says, looking at Sebastian. "He likes me better." she stuck her tongue out at the bastard son of Henry.

He scoffed in anger, poking his tongue right back. But the Queen was quicker, throwing one of Francis' tossed aside pillows into Sebastian's face. He licked it accidentally, making him squeal in surprise, jumping back. Mary laughed with her betrothed at that, as Sebastian coughed and spluttered.

"I'll get you for that!" he grins, throwing the pillow with such ferocity that it exploded in a cloud of white feathers. Francis gasped as Mary grinned in the mealy of white feathers, shaking them from her face and hair.

And that, they remember, is what started the mother of all pillow fights. Snowball fights be damned.