The Crown's Entrapment



"Black Rose? No treatment?"

Aurelia felt her blood run cold as she received the report coming from the Midnight Pack. Her sister-in-law, Lena, had just relayed to her the exact details of what she knew about the disease. Apparently, it was transmitted via a bite from an infected insect that had bitten an infected person, and it could only come from a source that wasn't normally accessible to any nearest civilization.

"This is deliberate then," she coldly whispered, her eyes trained solely on her mate who was still unconscious on the bed. "Someone must've intentionally spread this disease in our Kingdom."

"Still… No cure…" Niro weakly murmured. "Is there a way to stop it then?"

"There is always a way," she quickly rebuffed him, her voice coming out far stronger than she expected. "I believe there's always a cure for any kind of disease." 

She felt her heart pounding within her chest. She was getting heated at the mere implication of being unable to cure this Black Rose, but she refused to let it affect her.

"Please look after him," she harshly droned out. "No one shall disturb me. I will find a cure for this." 

Without even waiting for a response, Aurelia rushed out of the room to make her way toward her makeshift laboratory in the manor. Her eyes started to sting as she fought off the tears threatening to consume her. She refused to let this news affect her. She was the smartest woman in this kingdom, dammit! And she refused to give up without a fight.

[I won't let you die that easily…] she angrily relayed to Calypso through their Bond, her emotions warring inside her as she forced herself to remain composed. [I'll find a way to cure this. Just hold on until then…] 

Although he was unconscious, she knew for a fact that he could hear her. Even though she knew it was illogical of her to think about it, she wouldn't believe anything else otherwise. No, he was still in there. She just had to bring him back.

[What do we know of this then?] Aura began to speak, her wolf's tone devoid of anything beyond cold calculation. [What's our plan of attack?]

Aurelia's face remained cold and impassive even as she all but slammed the door behind her as she entered her laboratory. Her eyes scanning all of her flasks and mixtures, she made a beeline for her workstation as she went to work.

"According to Lena, this Black Rose is, in her own words: a freak of nature," Aurelia began, her mind methodically planning and coming up with ideas as she talked to both herself and her inner wolf through her process. "A pathogen so deadly and virulent that even the slightest exposure could kill a werewolf in days."

[Assuming then that it spreads throughout the body in mere days, our immediate course of action is to halt its spread,] Aura talked back, her other self echoing her ideas. [Slow the spread of infection, save as many of the afflicted's systems and flesh as much as possible.]

Aurelia blinked as she flitted through her workstation, tinctures and tonics flying through her hands as she came up with one mixture after the next. Using her extensive knowledge of medicine, she worked her way through the symptoms, combining ingredients known to alleviate said ailments before moving on to the next.

"This will stall the fever… This one for the swelling…" she mumbled to herself, her eyes gleaming with unbridled focus as she mixed her ingredients with pinpoint accuracy. "Willowroot to slow the infection… Mosswine to help with the weakness…"

[The black rashes are the telltale sign of the disease spreading,] Aura reminded, using the knowledge they just received to their advantage. [The moment it appears, it's a sign that the patient's entire body is infected with the disease.]

Aurelia nodded as she stared at her arsenal of medicine. Taking a quick look at what she had, she decided that Jenvine would be the next to add to try and fight off the infection. While it won't slow the spread of the disease in the body, it was more potent in killing off whatever it was that was causing this Black Rose.

[Jenvine might be too much,] her other self reminded her. [Adding it to the mix might cause the patient to enter shock from how strong it is.]

"It's a risk I'm willing to take," Aurelia quickly rebuffed as she finished up her selection of bottles and tonics. "If this disease is said to be incurable, then it's all the better that I bring the strongest medicine that I have available."

With her arsenal ready, Aurelia placed them all on a cart and wheeled them back to the infirmary. While her irrational self was screaming at her to treat Calypso right then and there with what she had, she still wasn't stupid enough to try an untested medicine mix on someone she actually cared about.

No, if she was going to treat Calypso properly, she was going to make sure that her treatment worked…

[Do we have the time to do this though?] Aura worriedly asked, losing the cold calculation that her wolf once held. [Calypso's dying as we speak.]

[You said it yourself that so long as the black rashes haven't appeared, the disease hasn't spread across the body yet,] Aurelia coldly replied despite the erratic hammering within her chest. [Calypso has the time to wait just a bit. I don't want to tax his body with untested treatment if I can help it.]

With a goal burning in her mind, she entered the infirmary, quickly commandeering one of the wards before then going through the patients with the cold calculations of a woman possessed. Her keen eyes took note of every single reaction her experiments yielded, mixing and matching her concoction accordingly before she finally achieved her desired results.

"You… is that…"

"Yes," Aurelia nodded at the one nurse following her around during her experiments. "It's not much, but it'll at least slow the rate of infection and keep our patients alive."

She eyed her newly-concocted medicine with both hope and determination. It wouldn't cure the disease outright, but it was a step in the right direction if they wanted to keep the fight going.

[I told you to give me time, but it would seem that I'll be buying it myself,] she humorlessly chuckled to Calypso through their Bond. [This will keep you alive long enough until I solve this…]