Chapter 347: Going Back.

Chapter 347: Chapter 347: Going Back.

So he changes the rhythm; disrupts the flow, and makes Loac move the way he wants.

He gives chase , with everything he has; pulling all his strength and all his fire and throwing it at him.

He doesn’t even hurt anymore. There’s no such thing as pain, only heat. And for all the sparks dancing in Loac’s eyes, the ones in Khobi’s shine just as bright and just as blinding.

​And then it happens; he finds that moment and drives his blade in and up and away, and the blades laugh as they embrace; overjoyed, and then with a howl Khobi throws his entire weight behind him and tears them apart.

​Loac’s blade goes flying through the air, screaming. But before Loac can hurl himself after it --because Khobi knows that game; he invented that game --he follows up with a swift, satisfying kick to the chest.

The wind whooshing out of his chest, Loac goes tumbling backwards down the bank, spilling across the snow next to his fallen sword in an ungainly flurry of white.

It’s easily the least elegant he’s ever looked, and Khobi barely has any time to savour it because when he bounds down after him and finds him with his sword already back in hand, the way he’s poised to spring feels like he’s staring down a beast of the night granted human form.

​Without hesitation, he goes straight for Khobi’s knees.

It’s a trick Khobi is quite familiar with though, and he has no problem leaping up and over the blade as it swings harmlessly through the air where his ankles had once been.

​The landing is a different story.

​That, he whiffs completely .

​Maybe it’s the snow, or the uneven ground, or maybe this is just not his day, but for whatever reason, the moment he touches back down, instead of catching firm his feet go sliding out from under him and he eats absolute fucking shit as he crashes to the ground, taking Loac out with him.

The momentum carries them down the small embankment, tumbling over one another with their swords flying loose to the winds and snow scattering in all directions like a small, very annoyed avalanche.

They hit the base of the hill in an ungainly tangle of limbs, and then by unspoken agreement just keep going; pushing and shoving each other into and through snow drift after snow drift, efforts focused not on finding their feet but making sure the other stays off theirs.

It’s dumb, and it’s petty, and there’s snow all through Khobi’s clothes and in his hair and in his furs, but Loac’s no better off, and for all their curses and for how much snow they stuff down the back of each others’ shirts, they’re laughing.

​And it feels so good to laugh like this.

​By some miracle Khobi eventually manages to disentangle himself from both Loac’s limbs and the foot of snow he’s tried valiantly to bury him under, and continues to try burying him under even as he kicks his way free.

​" Hey ," Khobi grumbles good-naturedly, and mashes a handful of snow into the side of Loac’s face to push him to a respectable distance as he finally manages to work his entire body free.

​Exhausted, he flings himself down on his back with a sigh; a couple of last, lingering chuckles still working their way out his chest, "That’s so fucking cold !"

​"You started it," Loac sniffs childishly from the space next to him, and when Khobi glances over to tell him that that’s not the fucking point , the words die on his lips, because with his chest still heaving with exertion and face flushed so deliciously red, he looks a sight . And for all the shades of blue they hold, he’s never seen Loac’s eyes quite so luminous.

​(He didn’t know blue could be so warm.)

​And just like that he feels that pull again; that one he’s been reeling him into Loac’s orbit for weeks now.

It’s stranger today; softer --more of an idle spring breeze than the tumultuous vortex of a gale he’s used to feeling --yet somehow stronger and more insistent than ever.

​"...What?" Loac breathes, voice pitching dangerously low as he runs a hand back through his hair to dislodge the last flecks of snow that haven’t yet melted away.

And when Khobi wets his lips, he makes no effort to hide that he notices. It makes his mouth run dry, and he can’t help but think back to the other night, when he’d let himself get caught up in that current and Loac had almost kissed him.

When, despite everything he’d sworn to himself, Khobi had almost let him.

​(Might even still let him.)

​And would that...really be so bad?

​Because Loac’s seemed... different , lately.

Or maybe this is how he’s actually always been; these days Khobi’s not too sure.

​Far beyond them, Khobi’s ears pick up the distant sound of thunder.

Loac must catch it too because he drags his gaze away from Khobi and raises it to the sky; breathing deep and frowning at what he sees and smells.

​"...We should head back," he announces matter-of-factly, "It’s gonna storm." He says it like it’s fact; like he can feel it in the air, and Khobi knows instinctively that he’s right because he can feel it too.

And while whatever’s coming doesn’t feel so much like a winter storm as a summer one, it’s not something he really wants to be caught out in either way.

​But heading back?

​Khobi’s stomach drops like a stone. So bewitched by the wilderness as he was, he had forgotten one important thing.

That no matter how much he pretended, this freedom was fleeting and temporary, and always had been.

At the end of the day he’s still a prisoner, and the city and its walls are still back there on the edge of the wild, waiting for him.

And that hurts all the more because these past few hours spent wandering the wild without a care --and with someone who lived to breathe its air the way he did --had felt like everything he’s ever wanted his life to be.

And he doesn’t want to leave that; doesn’t want to leave this place.

Doesn’t want to stop pretending that this could be his tomorrow, too.

​It would be nice to stay here forever, he thinks; to run away and get lost in the forests or head for the mountains.

Because now that Loac’s shown him this, how can he possibly just go back? It would be so easy not to; he has a sword, and a horse, and the wilderness.

No one knows they came this way, and there are no trails. If snow falls tonight the tracks they’ve left will be swallowed up and it would be as if they’d never passed this way at all, so he’d be sure to have a good start on any riders that came after him.

And if he was lucky, it would take a couple of days for anyone to even notice he was gone.

​There’s a glint from just up ahead; the afternoon sun catching on the blade of his sword.

​(It would be so easy.)

​After all, there’s only Loac out here to try and stop him, and it’s the strangest thing but Khobi’s not entirely sure he would.

​Khobi starts picking his way up the embankment, making sure to scoop up his sword as he does so.

There’s blood in the snow surrounding it, and when Khobi wipes the blade down it comes away red.

It’s an old sword; plain and well-worn but well-loved and still deadly sharp.

A soldier’s sword. It makes him think of Montrel, and how his favourite shirt once belonged to him.

How the furs he’s wearing now were a gift from Gandy, and how the ones he’d worn through most of winter were Jaga’s, and how almost everything he owns was paid for by Rogard.

He thinks of the training grounds and the soldiers, and the smell of the kitchens and Binny singing as he washes his hair, and of blue, blue eyes that for some reason had always made the wilderness feel almost within reach.

​(He hadn’t realised just how good all those things felt.)

​And then he thinks of his uncle, lost to the world; disappeared so deep into the wild that even those who would hunt him to the ends of the earth to see him dead couldn’t find him.

So how would Khobi? Where would he go? Where would he even fucking start ?

​He doesn’t even know the way back home from here, and that realisation tastes like bile.

​But then, as he glances up to the sight of Loac greeting his horse; fussing and asking if he saw anything interesting, he can’t help but remember what he had told him the other night; words soft but serious, like he honestly believed them to be truth.

​He’ll find them.

​Khobi believes them too.

​So when Loac calls out to him and jerks his chin towards the horse, Khobi sheathes his sword, and nods.