Chapter 217 - 215: Bad Night.

Chapter 217: Chapter 215: Bad Night.

​"...Eh, good point," he admits, giving him a hearty slap on the back, "...Well, it’s been nice knowing you."

Khobi smacks him back, but the grim expression loosens as he turns to ask Rogard how soon he can expect him to be joining them again.

Because obviously it’s no good him being nice and toasty warm while the rest of them are suffering.

​"Couple of days," Rogard assures him, "So you better not slack off."

​"You’re one to be talkin’ about slacking off!" Gandy growls, digging a fist into his ribs.

Rogard’s wearing so many layers he barely feels it. "Look at you with your fancy coats and pretty gloves while we’re out here slaving away!."

Rogard waggles said pretty gloves at him and gets shoved for his cheek.

​"Ahh~ master , I didn’t know you had such good taste – ow !"

​"Oh yeah? Give them to me, then."

​" Ow, ow ! Such a bully~ No wonder no one will marry you –"

​"Stop baiting him," Jaga sighs, stepping between them before Gandy can bodily launch himself at Rogard’s throat.

Rogard ducks aside anyways, and (probably deservingly, for provoking him) slips on a wet bit of mud.

To his horror his feet go skidding out from underneath him, and he would have wound up as filthy as the rest of them had a hand not shot out to catch him before he hit the ground.

​Loac’s hand, in fact.

​He holds onto his elbow just long enough for Rogard to stick his footing again, but spares a glance for his bad foot before he withdraws.

​"Uh, thanks," Rogard says weakly, straightening up and wondering why he always has to look so lame in front of Loac.

Just once he’d like to be able to prove to him that he’s not the same as he used to be.

​Soon .

​Crisis averted, the others start to move off in the direction of the mess hall, the promise of something hot to eat finally starting to take root.

Loac doesn’t follow.

He never does; just drifts off to wherever it is he goes, and materialises back here the next day.

​"...How’s the ankle?" he asks vacantly as he ambles past, sword hoisted up over one shoulder.

Rogard’s honestly a little surprised he even noticed.

​"It’s fine," Rogard assures him airily, and shifts his weight onto it to prove it. "I just slipped, is all. I’ll be back to full strength in no time. Khobi and I have unfinished business, you know."

​"Is that so?" He doesn’t seem to care.

Rogard could be telling him about his socks, or his favourite kind of tea and he’d probably have the same reaction.

​"...Don’t worry," he tells him to his back, an edge creeping into his voice, "I’ll come for you too one day, Loac."

​"...Give it your best shot," are the words that fall from Loac’s lips, but Rogard hears what he’s really saying.

You can try .

​And it irritates him because he knows he’s not being challenged. He’s being humoured .

​Still.

​Again. As always.

​"I plan to," Rogard assures him, and even though his tone is light, his gaze is sharp, and fierce.

"It won’t be like last time, I can promise you that."

​Loac pauses. Then yawns.

​"You always say that."

​"...Then I’ll keep saying it," Rogard tells him vehemently, hands balling into his fists at his sides as he glares into the space between him; burning a hole into Loac’s back, "Until it’s true."

​Finally, Loac looks back at him. And the expression he’s wearing isn’t one he’s accustomed to.

​"...You’ve changed, Rogard" he states, blue eyes narrowed and oddly piercing. Rogard’s not sure what it is he sees. "...Your eyes are different now."

There’s no way of knowing for sure whether he means that as a good or a bad kind of different, but as he turns away again his gaze shifts; pulled to the soldiers in the distance, and catches for a fleeting moment on Khobi, and Rogard decides that it can only be a good thing.

​More like Khobi’s, you mean , is what he wants to say, but Loac is already walking away, the way he always does.

The way he’s been walking away since he turned cold. Since they all turned cold, and drifted apart.

​(Alone.)

​Rogard lingers a moment, watching him leave, and wonders where it is he goes.

​All these years he’s had his father and all the circles of all the people he was supposed to want to associate with.

It hadn’t been real , but it had been something , and he’s pretty sure that Loac didn’t even have that.

​It’s another dreadful night for Khobi.

​Even another blanket between him and the stone floor doesn’t help; the cold still manages to seep right through the layers and into his bones.

If the furs Jaga had loaned him weren’t so dirty from the day’s training he would’ve worn them to sleep.

But they were filthy, and hadn’t dried out, so he makes do without.

​If it can even be called that.

​He wakes up more exhausted than he went to bed.

...

Xena honestly hadn’t even been meaning to come this way.

She’d been meaning to get to a late lunch with her father so that they could make preparations before holding court this afternoon, but there had been some stuffy, earnest ladies lying in wait in the hopes of pitching their sons to her for the thousandth time, and she just hadn’t been in the mood for it this morning –not after having sat through a whole dinner of much the same the night before.

​If she’s turned them down once, she’s probably going to turn them down again. But that didn’t stop them trying, did it.

She’s not proud that she saw them and promptly veered in the opposite direction, but she knows for a fact that her father employs the same tactics to avoid her so she doesn’t feel too bad about it.

She’s sure there will be more marriage offers made before her at court; she’d rather not start early.