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It's already late morning when you finally stir, sit up, and stretch your wings out behind you. For a moment, you don't recall where you are or what happened - then you rub your eyes and feel the ring on your finger almost poke you right in the eye. Oh. Right. You got married last night. To a demon prince, to smooth things over with his kingdom, since yours wouldn't have it any other way. And you still don't know shit about your…new husband. There's a weird thought you won't get used to for a while. You groggily ruffle your hair, put your glasses on, yawn, and stretch some more. Dave doesn't stir, move, or mumble even with the noise you make. A heavy sleeper, you guess. You probably shouldn't wake him, given how tired he was last night. Poor guy was barely on his feet by the night's end - probably up for half of the previous one like you were.
But you turn to look at the other prince anyway, to see if he's still asleep or just super quiet. He hasn't moved in the least since he fell asleep, it seems, and for a moment, you just think that's funny, but an alarm slowly starts to ring in the back of your mind. Something doesn't feel right. Dave's still enough that you can't even see him breathing. And he's pale as a sheet - maybe it's the lighting, but you could swear he wasn't that pale last night. Then, slowly, it occurs to you that you can't tell if Dave's even breathing. That immediately snaps you into panic mode - if he's dead, you're fucked. Your whole family is fucked, your truce is fucked, but you're incredibly fucked because no matter how much it's proven otherwise, this will look like your fault.
Quickly, you put a hand in front of your new husband's nose and mouth to check for breathing - holding your own breath until you feel his, weak and shallow, against your hand. Feeling his pulse yields the same result - present but far too weak for your comfort. When you touch Dave's neck to check it, his appearance almost…flickers, and a faint growl leaves his throat. If this were just usual demon shit, you're pretty sure almost slapping him in the face would have woken him up - but Dave is still as asleep as he was before and incredibly still. You have to wonder if there's some sort of shapeshifting going on. You've heard demons can do so. If so, you wonder if he genuinely looks anything like what you see in front of you. At the least, you guess he'd have to be alive to be shapeshifted, so you try to shake him awake. It doesn't work - he doesn't even stir, and he's fucking cold to the touch. He definitely wasn't that cold last night.
"Dave?" You ask, gently shaking him again.
He still doesn't wake up. Nor does he stir when you try harder, almost yelling and shaking him harder. Dave just groans quietly in his sleep. You roll him onto his back, and you realize his eyes are slightly open…but so glassy that it's fucking scary. More like marbles than eyes - you swear they were yellow last night, but now they're an orangey amber. Fucking weird, but you don't have time to worry about a color change when the prince's eyes are open, but he's almost totally unresponsive. You carefully pull him up into a sitting position, and he groans, image flickering slightly, but remains limp as a wet noodle, head flopping back like a doll's.
You recall your own study of healing abilities. You're no doctor, but you trained yourself to do this shit in case you ever needed it, including on yourself. You carefully shift Dave to lean on you and press a hand to his chest, earning you another faint little growl. You ignore that and focus on feeling what's wrong. What you sense from even a basic scan of Dave's pains would knock you down if you were standing - you can barely feel any sign of life from him. Still, you can feel overwhelming magical and physical exhaustion, as well as entirely too many alarms of bodily hurt. It's too bad for you to fully assess, let alone fix. The damage you can feel even with a rudimentary check is frankly overwhelming - just the exhaustion is too much for you to make a meaningful dent in, and the rest of it only hammers in the message. Something happened, and Dave's not even close to okay - that's all you know. It's all you need to know to know that you need to get some help.
Now frantic, you jump up to get help, letting him slump back to the bed…and the stupid string the demon made with that spell he performed the previous night yanks you back when you try to leave the room. You can't just run and get help. Grumbling, you whip around and scoop Dave up - for his build, he weighs fucking nothing, way less than he looks like he should. More demon bullshit, you guess. His image flickers again, but you ignore that, and since he's still not waking, storm out in search of someone who can help. You figure your families must have set at least something up lest something like, well, this happens. As a few minutes of talking to people and several phone calls prove, Dave's father conveniently didn't set up any medical care for him, which is really fucking helpful to learn when he's catatonic and badly hurt…somehow.
You don't know what the fuck is going on here, why nobody would have set up something so vital. A doctor from the demon's home kingdom is soon en route, but you and the people you ask agree that you shouldn't wait that long - so, reluctantly, you carry the sleeping prince to your personal doctor. You know Ms. Maryam isn't going to be as much help as someone more familiar with demon magic and physiology would be, but she's certainly better than nothing. And it's clear that, although further assessment proves his injuries aren't life-threatening, though the exhaustion might be, 'nothing' isn't an option if you want to keep Dave alive and healthy. You may not like him, but that doesn't mean you intend to let him suffer. As such, you open Dolorosa's door with your shoulders, earning you a loud gasp from the troll-turned-angel.
She was warned before your arrival but evidently not warned enough.
"What happened?" She asks, darting around her desk to carefully take the unconscious demon from you, her wings fanning open to balance herself and knocking a couple things over.
"I don't know what happened…he seemed okay last night," you reply as you hand him over to her.
Dave's light enough that she frowns more upon taking him as if she didn't expect that - much like you didn't. She carefully sets him down on her exam table before seemingly starting a magic scan of her own, and her frown deepens. You wait for her verdict, not wanting to distract her.
"I don't think this could have happened overnight. The magical exhaustion is likely from last night, but these injuries… they're not new. And whatever happened to him has been happening for some time," she explains softly, still frowning.
"He's shapeshifted; I can't see what he truly looks like - but my magic is telling me that he's malnourished, which likely isn't helping anything. It is a guess, but I would blame the marriage spell for Dave's exhaustion and current state. Given his physical condition, even a weak spell could break his strength, especially if he's staying shapeshifted a lot…and even for a demon, shapeshifting while asleep is not a habit that's formed in a night. Much less doing so when in a condition this severe. I doubt this is the first time your husband has performed that magic when he is in no condition to," she adds, then sighs.
"All in all…this paints a worrying picture. I'm certain I don't need to elaborate on what that is. I'll perform some healing spells to fix the worst of it, but…prince Dave must rest if he is to heal, and we must figure out how this happened. The spell may explain the exhaustion. Perhaps it was even strong enough to reduce him to this state on its own - but these injuries and this starvation can't be explained by anything good. The conclusion that someone else, likely someone close to him, has done this seems obvious - but who?" She muses half to herself as she begins her spells.
You also find yourself frowning and nodding along with her words instead of answering. The implications of that, even disregarding whatever magic he did that put Dave in this state, are…dire. If someone's hurting a demon prince, his family is either very interested in knowing about it, or they're the culprits. Either way, for all that you physically couldn't have done the deed, unless you're very careful, you'll be the first possible scapegoat should they find out. For your sake, Dave's sake, and the sake of both your kingdoms and the peace between them - you'll have to ask him some tough questions as soon as he can answer.