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Teor knew it had snowed before he even opened his eyes. It was fucking freezing, for one thing. His ears were numb and his nose was so stuffed that he was sure he had to have been snoring horribly. Despite the noise, though, his arms were full of little brother. Cyd must've either dragged his bedroll closer when he got in from his shift on watch, or else curled closer in his sleep to share body heat.
It was also quiet in the way a war camp only ever was after a fresh, deep snow. Not silent, by any means. Teor could hear folks starting to wake up, the cooks getting breakfast ready, teams being assigned to clear the main thoroughfares of the camp, but the sounds were muted, the echoes dampened. His and Cyd's breathing was loud in contrast. When he finally did pry his eyes open, ice crystals crusted on his lashes, he could see that the snow had piled up on the walls of their tent. It had compressed them slightly inwards, making the space smaller and insulating them from the noise outside. At least the stakes had held. Otherwise the whole thing could've collapsed on them.
It was in this quiet that he heard shouting. “Thjazi!” That was Thimble's voice. She was so loud for her size, some faerie magic amplifying her unless she wished to be silent. “Not you too! Wake up, wake up, wake up!”
Teor could imagine that she was jumping up and down on her partner's chest, maybe even his face, trying to wake him when shaking wasn't an option. She did not sound like this was a regular playful wakeup call. She sounded desperate. Something was wrong. Shoving Cyd off of him, Teor scrambled out of their tent into the snow. It immediately burned at his toes, since he hadn’t taken the time to fluff up the fur around them and his thicker winter coat was still growing in. He ignored the pain as he dashed over to Thjazi’s tent. As an officer the man had one of his own, though he of course shared it with Thimble, and they’d taken Azune in when the kid was passed off to the Torn Banner.
It was the kid who seemed to be the center of attention now. Thjazi had woken in the moments it took Teor to reach their tent and get its flap open, and was now leaning over a small form wrapped in a blanket. He was shaking him, as Thimble hovered at his shoulder.
“What happened?” Teor demanded.
“He’s fucking freezing,” Thjazi said. It wasn’t clear if this was in reply to Teor, or just an observation. The man was already lifting Azune up, curling him against his chest, still wrapped in his blanket. A shock of red hair was about all Teor glimpsed of him. He wasn’t moving.
“Azune won’t wake up,” Thimble explained. “I was trying to ask if he wanted to go play in the snow, but he wouldn’t wake up. I felt that he’s breathing, at least, but it was slow and wasn’t warm like it should be-”
In Thjazi’s arms, the kid finally stirred. A weak motion, a slight groan, turning his head in against Thjazi’s bare chest as if seeking out his warmth. Teor could see all his bony limbs through the blanket wrapped around him. It was the one they were all issued when they joined the Banner, thin and ragged if not torn, since Azune could Mend it. Most soldiers bought or stole extra blankets to add to their bedroll once it started getting cold out, since the provided one alone was deeply inadequate for sleeping outside. Even Teor and Cyd had extra blankets to complement their thickening fur.
“We need to get him by a fire,” Teor said. Thjazi probably knew that, or would have if he’d been thinking clearly. After half his life soldiering, Teor knew well enough how shock could affect people. Even in a situation where one was expecting their fellows to get hurt or killed any day, one didn’t expect it to happen in their tent. Or to a kid. From something as mundane as cold.
“Yeah, yeah,” Thjazi stood up. It was disturbing how easy it was was for him to do so while holding the kid. Teor didn’t have a great idea of how big humans should be when they were growing, nor did he know exactly how old Azune was for comparison, but something told him he was too small. “Thimble, get a medic, meet us by the mess tent.”
Before Teor could so much as blink, Thimble was gone and Thjazi was moving. He didn’t run, not when Azune whined at being jostled, but he walked with long, purposeful steps. Teor would have offered to carry the kid, since he was taller and stronger than Thjazi, if his weight had seemed to be any kind of burden. Instead, he loped quickly back to his own tent and snatched the blankets. Cyd, who was just starting to wake up after being shoved unceremoniously off him earlier, yowled at the further cold indignity.
“Sorry, they are needed,” Teor apologized. After all, he wasn’t twelve anymore, when he would have stolen Cyd’s pillows, blankets, sheets, and pajamas for no reason other than to mess with his little brother.
“Why? Was’ goin’ on?” Cyd grumbled, his voice rough with sleep.
“Azune isn’t well.”
Bundling the blankets into his arms to keep them from dragging and keep them dry, Teor jogged as fast as he could through the snow to the mess tent. Thjazi was silhouetted in front of one of the large cooking fires, kneeling down. He hadn’t set Azune down, but instead kept the kid in his lap, held close against his chest. The ground around the fires had been cleared of snow already, but it was still colder than his body would be. Even though he hadn’t grabbed his coat or boots before dashing out of the tent. Well, neither had Teor, but orcs weren’t used to going barefoot and didn’t have thick fur like Nama. Teor wrapped the blankets around both of them, sealing their heat together.
Thjazi didn’t acknowledge it, too focused on Azune. The kid’s eyes were finally open, though his pupils were oddly dilated, making them appear darker than normal even in the flickering light of the large fire. He blinked slowly, and seemed to start to drift off again, but not on Thjazi’s watch.
“Hey, hey, kid, keep those sunsets open for me. I know you’re tired but you just woke up, we can’t have you fallin’ asleep on us already,” he teased. His light tone betrayed the utter terror in his own blue eyes.
“M sorry, Thaz,” Azune mumbled. The words were so soft that even from no more than a foot away, Teor was only able to hear them because of his sharp hearing and the fact that the snow was still muffling the sounds from the rest of the camp.
Thjazi couldn’t possibly miss the words, though, not when his head was right beside Azune’s. “You don’t have anything to apologize for, ‘cept maybe not telling anyone you needed another blanket. But that’s on me as much as you. Just stay awake and we’ll fix it, okay? Get you all the blankets you could ask for.”
“Here,” Casimir said suddenly, holding out a waterskin. Teor hadn’t realized he was there, but as a chef in the mess, of course he would be. He was probably the one to have started the cook fire they were huddling in front of in the first place. “Put it on his neck or chest, not his limbs. I’ll get you more.”
Since Thjazi’s arms had been tucked in below the blankets, Teor grabbed the waterskin, which was full of hot water and warm to the touch, and slipped it in against Azune’s neck and upper chest. From what he saw of the kid while he did this, his face was very pale, making his bloodsplatter-like birthmark stand out even more prominently than usual. He realized they should cover his head as well, and pulled the blankets up until barely enough of him was exposed to be able to breathe. Thjazi tucked his chin over the boy’s head to help provide extra insulation and keep the blankets in place. His teeth got knocked together as Azune suddenly shivered violently before going still again, but he didn’t pull away even slightly.
“Thaz! Thaz, I found Norma, she’s on her way,” Thimble informed them rapidly as she flew over. “How is he? Is he okay?”
“He will be, once we get him warmed up,” Teor said with confidence he didn’t feel. He couldn’t help but try to reassure her. Thimble was older than she looked, with a fierceness much greater than her size, but she also looked and in some ways acted like a child as much as a soldier. “It is good you noticed when you did. It could have been worse.”
Norma arrived not thirty seconds later. She was breathing heavily and there was snow crusted on her clothes all the way up to her hips; evidently her side of the camp hadn’t had its paths cleared yet, and wading through the deep drifts was a bigger problem for a dwarf woman than the rest of them. Azune probably would struggled with it too. Not that he wasn’t struggling with it now, in a different way.
“Turn this way, let me get a good look at him,” Norma ordered Thjazi as she bent down. All of this was happening so close to the fire that Teor would have suggested they scoot back if Azune hadn’t needed the heat. “Ancients, no wonder the cold got to this kid. He doesn’t have an ounce of insulation on him,” she murmured as Thjazi unwrapped the blankets slightly. Norma reached into the bundle to lay her hand on Azune’s head and cast Cure Wounds. Her touch was almost dislodged by another violent shiver, and as soon as she nodded, Thjazi pulled the blankets tightly back around the bundle in his arms.
“So?” Teor asked. His tone came out perhaps more impatient than it would have in other circumstances.
“He’ll be alright. No sign of frostbite or other permanent damage, and his core temp’s already coming up. Keep up with the blankets and body heat, and give him something hot to drink when he’s able. And make sure he starts eating more! His body needs more energy for stayin’ warm than he’s obviously been getting.”
“It’s not fair for me to have more than anyone else,” Azune protested softly. Norma’s healing must’ve helped quite a bit, as his words were no longer mumbled and he sounded much more coherent than his previous instinctive apologies. He showed no sign of wanting Thjazi to let go of him, however. If anything, he turned a little towards him, pressing his forehead into his chest. Thjazi just held him tighter.
“No, kid, it’s more than fair. The rest of us aren’t still growing, and we all want to make sure you’re getting what you need to grow up big and strong, yeah?”
“I’ll make sure he gets enough,” Casimir said. He handed Teor another skin he had filled with warm water. This one he tucked in at the back of Azune’s neck. The kid had started shivering more consistently now.
“And I will make sure this does not happen again,” Teor said. “Azune should sleep in our tent. Nama are good people to have around when its cold.” On top of the extra blankets they could share with him, their fur would help make up for the insulating fat the skinny kid lacked. If they tucked Azune in between Cyd and himself, he’d be at more risk of overheating than freezing on all but the coldest nights.
Thjazi looked pained at that offer, and Teor decided he would have to talk to him later. It was not meant as an indictment of Thjazi’s ability to look after the kid; he was already keeping him as far from the fighting as was at all possible, and making sure he was getting training to protect himself when he was inevitably forced into a battle. But a kid Azune’s size had little chance against an adult, much less a sorcerer, even with the little magic he possessed and used for fixing things around camp. And Thjazi was a busy and popular man. He couldn’t spend all his energy looking after Azune, nor all the others that looked up to him. The boy needed others taking a more active roll in his survival until he got big enough to take care of himself.
“I don’t want to be any trouble,” came a weak voice from inside the bundle of blankets.
“It’s okay to be trouble,” Thjazi immediately told him. “Hells, that’s what this whole war’s about. The right for us little folk to be as much trouble as the Houses, without getting stamped out under their boot for it. I want you to be trouble, kid, if it means you’re still with us. I don’t mind trading to get us a bigger tent, and we’ll get more of us in it, and it won’t get so cold.”
Teor had a feeling he and Cyd were going to be recruited to said larger tent, given what he’d just said about them being the best blankets one could hope for. Well, if Thjazi wanted to deal with his snoring rather than let Azune out of his sight, that was his prerogative. He couldn’t blame the man, when it seemed the kid wasn’t inclined to tell people he needed things in advance. Azune had to have been cold before tonight, enough to make it hard to sleep, and he apparently hadn’t asked for another blanket. Maybe if Teor helped, they could train some more self-preservation skills into him. And until then, they’d keep an eye out.