Chapter 425: A Dream?

Chapter 425: Chapter 425: A Dream?

Today, the whole castle joins them. There are lutes and drums and all manner of voices rising up into a clear summer sky, and they must be celebrating something because the courtyard is in bloom .

There’s colour wherever Khobi looks; festive streamers hanging from every post and flowers in every window.

And the closer he draws to the central courtyard, the more people he finds dressed just as festively; eating, and drinking, and dancing to their heart’s content.

​This can’t be a memory. Khobi doesn’t think he’s ever seen the castle like this –or if he has he was too young to consciously remember. But it makes him happy, to see it this way.

So full of life, and colour. And the people here must be happy to see him too, because as he drifts towards them they turn and they clap and they raise their drinks to him.

It’s a very strange feeling, and he’s not sure what he’s done to deserve it but they look like they’re enjoying themselves so who is he to question it? Especially when his uncle and aunt are doing the same.

He can’t quite hear what they’re saying from here, but they both have drinks in their hands and smiles on their faces that he knows are for him. ℯℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

​They’re wearing their crowns.

​Khobi rarely saw them both in their crowns.

Khojin Frost was forever losing his, and Mozry found them pretentious.

But even they knew that some times called for such dignities. As well as that, Khobi only ever saw his Aunt Mozry wear a dress just twice in his life.

She’d always been a battlemaster; a soldier in her own right, and she dressed and carried herself as one. She wore leathers and armour, drank like a fish, and was never without a blade.

So it says something that she’s wearing one today; a silken thing like a princess would wear.

​It’s kind of weird . But she looks happy and would definitely hit him if he said that to her face, so he won’t tell her that. He’d like to linger here a little longer; see their faces as he remembers, but that’s not what today’s dream wishes of him apparently, because it keeps him moving, some unseen force beckoning him onwards.

​Where is he? Khobi finds himself wondering distantly, b ecause if this is Scargga, then Loac is definitely here, and it says how accustomed he’s grown to finding him in these dreams that he automatically finds himself seeking him out.

He doesn’t spot him immediately; he never usually does, but sure enough, as Khobi moves out into the wide open space of the courtyard, there he is, down amongst the dancers; dressed all in white.

​And by the look of it, having the time of his life.

​He hasn’t seen him yet; too busy weaving his way through the dancers to the beat of the drums.

There’s a wide grin plastered across his face –open and loose like it had been that night out at the tavern –and despite the crowd swirling between them, he’s suddenly the only face that Khobi sees.

​It’s like that at training, sometimes.

The way Loac moves –with music, or without –is different . Even before they’d crossed blades for the first time he’d already proven that there was something different about him; something beautiful and exciting, although Khobi might not have chosen those exact words at the time.

It’s funny. Khobi’s seen this guy drunk, tripped him over more times than he can count and shoved him into walls and sent him crashing through pretty old and-slash-or-expensive artefacts but to see him like this it feels impossible to imagine that he could ever stumble.

How somehow, even though he’s but one of many, it feels like they’re the ones dancing along with him.

The song finishes just as Khobi reaches the steps –he’s not sure why he goes towards him, but it’s what the dream seems to wish of him and like usual he finds himself at its mercy.

As he makes his approach though, that’s when Loac turns, his eyes blazing bright and his lips curling even wider into an expression that somehow both knocks Khobi off his feet and roots him to the spot; that look in his eyes, so soft and full of wonder, like Khobi is somehow everything he’s ever wanted and the only thing.

He didn’t know it was possible for his heart to stop and race at the same time, but apparently in dreams anything is possible.

​What business does Loac have looking at him like that?

​"...About time you showed up," Loac jibes, voice light and full of lazy laughter as he ambles up to greet him since Khobi’s still rooted slack-jawed in the spot where his stomach dropped, and when he extends a hand out towards him Khobi suddenly understands what it is they’re all celebrating, "...You finally gonna dance with me or what?"

​He’s wearing a ring.

​Khobi doesn’t need to look down at his own hands to know that he is, too.

​"You...want to dance with me?" he queries, brow creasing, but Loac is already taking him by the hand and dragging him down towards where the dancers are impatiently waiting for the bards to strike up again.

And because this is a dream, Khobi lets himself be led.

​(Maybe he’d let it happen, even if it wasn’t.)

​"’Course I do," Loac chuckles easily, and flashes him a playful wink. Khobi keeps waiting for the look in his eyes to fade, to disappear the way it had when he’d last glimpsed it, but it doesn’t.

It lingers like it’s affixed to his face; a window to his heart, like he knows it’s there had doesn’t care who sees. "...You’re not gonna hold out on me now, are you?"

​It’s a good thing that that’s when the bards settle on a song because Khobi does not have an answer for that.

​He doesn’t know this song.

​He doesn’t know this dance.

​But that doesn’t matter, because even as Loac reels him in close; his hand as warm and as real as if this was really Scargga, and they were both really here, that’s when the dream changes.

​As dreams so often do.