Chapter 368: New Discovery.

Chapter 368: Chapter 368: New Discovery.

Only a couple of minutes later, there’s a knock on the door –perfunctory, really, more to let him know that someone’s about to come in than anything else –and then the all-too-familiar sound of the key turning in the lock.

​"Good afternoon Khobi!" the princess greets as the door swings open and two servants stream in alongside her bearing her favourite tea set and a pretty assortment of sweet treats.

They make a beeline for the parlour table in the corner and immediately set to work. "Oh, you didn’t have to get all dressed up for me!" she chimes as she steps in, and Khobi sends a withering glare towards the servant pottering around the room trying to make it look just a little more presentable.

​"Apparently I did," he grinds out.

Unfortunately, Binny’s supernatural hearing doesn’t seem to be working so well just now. How convenient.

​The princess apologises for the intrusion –unnecessary in that he had nothing planned –and, if it wasn’t already obvious from the tea set and the sweets, declares that she thought it would be nice for them to have tea together.

Apparently she’s suddenly realised that they haven’t spent much time together, and even though Khobi tells her that really, it’s fine, she is quite insistent that it is not.

They’re going to be family, after all, and she knows hardly anything about him and he knows hardly anything about her, and that’s just absolutely not good enough.

​He’s not sure what she wants to know about him, but she’s already here and the tea is already poured and it’s not like he had anything better to do.

There’s also a mug of ale sitting on the table with the two pretty cups of tea.

​"Not everyone likes tea," she supplies, as she settles down into her seat and gestures for him to join her.

​The tea isn’t bad, but the ale is much better, and for some reason she smiles when he subtly pulls the brimming mug a little closer. It’s not too sweet, either, so washes down his first honeycake nicely.

He recognises a couple of the other sweets laid out between them, but some of them are unfamiliar.

They’re pretty good, though, and the princess seems overjoyed when he says so.

She patiently waits until he’s sampled a few, and then starts in on her interrogation by asking how old he is, and what month he was born in. He’s a little surprised to find out that she’s older than him.

​(He’s somewhat less surprised to find out that Loac’s younger. Just .)

​She wants to know his favourite food, and if he likes summer or winter, and who taught him how to fight.

Those are easy questions with simple answers.

​Meat. Summer. Mozry.

​She seems intrigued –if a little surprised –by his last answer, especially when he tells her with a grimace that his aunt was just as much of a hardass as Drogger when it came to training. Maybe even more.

And while Khobi was too young to know much about where and how Mozry learned how to fight, he answers all her questions about it as best he can.

And then some, because somewhat unsurprisingly, the princess has a lot of questions; she asks about his family and his childhood, and about the landscape and what he remembers of the customs of Scargga.

​She doesn’t ask about Briyagi.

​"...Is there anything you’d like to ask me?" she finally inquires, and apologises for having needled him so extensively.

He waves away her concerns; for a princess she’s surprisingly easy to talk to and talking about these things always breathes new life into the old memories.

The snacks certainly help, and she brought plenty.

Khobi licks sugar off his fingers and considers her question.

​There is, actually. Something that’s been nagging at him for a little while now.

And she asked a lot about his aunt and his uncle, and even a little about his parents –he never knew them, so there wasn’t much to tell apart from what Khojin Frost had told him –so it seems like it would be okay.

​"...What happened to your moms?"

​That takes her by surprise.

​"Mama and Auntie?" she says quietly, clearly caught off guard by his frankness, "Oh, I...did Loac say something?"

​That’s the first hard question she’s given him. Because it’s not that Loac’s said anything, exactly –the only time he can remember him even really bringing her up was that day at the lake, and that had been nothing but fond.

It’s just that since that day; maybe even before that –maybe since that day he’d stood before her portrait and felt as though there was someone within that painting staring out at him –Khobi’s found himself wanting to know a little bit more about her.

And about the man she’d married, and why the mention of him had made Loac so sad.

​(About Loac in general, maybe.)

​"I just...wondered," he mumbles, because that’s the safest answer, "...What happened."

​"Ah," she says softly, setting her teacup down and folding her hands in her lap like she’s preparing herself to say the words aloud. "...They...passed away. Some years ago now."

​Khobi had figured that much.

​There was a sickness, she tells him, when they were much younger.

Sicknesses came and went with the seasons, but this one was different. Lots of people throughout the castle and the kingdom got sick, and lots of them didn’t get better.

Khobi thinks he knows what she’s talking about.

There’s a bad sickness like that in his memories too; Scargga had fallen by then and he was in Briyagi and it had been terrible there.

So many of the other prisoners had gotten sick, and a lot of them had gotten weak. It was a miracle he never caught it, but he’d seen the others waste away when they did.

​"Mama caught it," she says, and Khobi immediately feels terrible for how sad she suddenly looks, "So did Auntie."

​"...Sorry," he mumbles after a beat, suddenly not all that sure where to look. He wishes Binny had stuck around. "I uh, shouldn’t have asked."

​"No, no, it’s fine," she quickly assures him, shaking her head as if to try and shrug the sorrow of her expression away, "It’s better that you know these things, and I...wouldn’t expect Loac to tell you."

His confusion must show because that look --kind of lost and kind of mournful returns with a vengeance as she explains, "He...never really talked about it."

​Xena sighs to herself, wondering how much she should say.

Khobi probably wouldn’t believe it, but growing up, Loac Trent was the kind of child that everyone liked. He laughed a lot back then; so bright and so infectious that you couldn’t help but laugh along with him.

Cried a lot, too, but it was never for long.

​But after Auntie died, he got quiet. Xena tried, but he just pushed her away and kept pushing, and maybe it was her fault too for not trying hard enough.

But she had lost her mama too, and they’d been at that awkward, no-longer-a-child kind of age where little princesses were meant to grow up and start behaving like princesses and little princes were meant to grow up and stop acting out and start acting like princes.

And with the queen suddenly gone, she especially was expected to step in and step up; to take over some of her mother’s duties and learn her place in the world.

And while her cousin had always been stubborn and talented beyond measure, the unpredictable nature of his father’s people was starting to take root.

​Or so the castle liked to say.