Chapter 445 - 446: The King Has A Heart.

Chapter 445: Chapter 446: The King Has A Heart.

​"Well," he declares cheerfully, and the echoes as he claps his hands together reverberate around the chamber like peals of thunder across the sky. Montrel visibly jumps.

"What a feast~" He picks up the fork next to his plate and gestures towards the platter closest to him, glancing across at Gurdet. "May I?"

​"Please, go right ahead," Gurdet replies invitingly, gesturing for him to help himself.

​"...Khojin Frost, read the room..." Mozry can be heard muttering to her husband, shaking her head in exasperation.

​"What, no one else was going to start...?" He points out, casually picking up a plate to offer its contents up to his nephew, "Khobi?"

​"Right," Khobi says blankly, automatically reaching for a piece of bread.

Khojin Frost gives him an encouraging nod and cracks a small smile, and in that instant it feels suddenly as if almost no time has passed at all. As if this is something they do together every night.

Khobi visibly lights up, and as he sighs the room sighs with him like as one they’ve all collectively been holding their breaths, and a smile crawls its way out across his face. He takes three more pieces of bread, and then a fourth, and Khojin Frost laughs as he wipes away the dampness fogging up his eyes.

And now that his eyes are clear again Khobi takes a good look at his uncle and his aunt. They’re so much older than he remembers. A little thinner. Much greyer. They both have scars he doesn’t remember.

Aunt Mozry’s wearing her hair shorter than she used to. But he takes comfort in the fact that they’re still the same.

​"...You look well, Khobi," Mozry tells Khobi, one they begin to eat. She refuses both wine, and tea, and takes food only from the plates that have already been eaten from, but despite her obvious reservations about their being there her voice is still laced with an undeniable fondness, and from the moment she first laid eyes on him she’s hardly looked away.

​"You look old." It just comes out. She cuffs him over the head for that like she always used to, and Khobi could have probably dodged it but he lets it connect because it’s been too long since she last did it that he’d almost forgot what it felt like.

​It really hurts.

​She’s still got it, and he’s so glad to know that even the years in the wild haven’t stolen Khojin Frost’s warmth or his Aunt’s fire. Fear and hopelessness and a life on the run could have made them cold; turned their hearts to stone, but no, even at a glance he can tell that there’s still a hearth burning in Khojin Frost.

Even after all this time, and whatever has happened in the life they’ve spent apart, there’s no hiding the softness in his eyes, and Khobi takes comfort in the knowledge that his heart is still capable of cheer.

...

One of the things no one warns you about being a king is just how exhausting a formal dinner can be.

Remaining civil is oftentimes half the battle, not to mention the numerous nuances and niceties that have to be observed as a king, and obviously these change depending on the guests and their own customs.

And regardless of company, one always has to take care to keep their wits about them. Everyone expects soldiers to be fatigued, but Gurdet would rather like to see them sit through a six hour banquet with a lord who has less personality than raw potato, and his lady who, for someone who so loves to talk, has surprisingly little to say.

​Perhaps they’d like to meet Montrel. Oh, now that would be fun. They would be so delighted; a personal dinner with the Crown Princess and her betrothed-to-be? Which would of course mean that they would have to extend a personal invitation to all the noble houses, so as not to be seen to be favouring one over the others.

​Ah, how easily inspiration strikes when one is exhausted.

​And Gurdet is in fact, quite exhausted.

This dinner was no six hour banquet; in fact it was surprisingly pleasant, tension aside, but once the plates are cleared and their guests have been escorted off to their quarters with their nephew in tow, he finds himself surprisingly drained.

Perhaps it was the wine. It felt like he was the only one drinking, and he didn’t even finish his last goblet.

​With a sigh, Gurdet rises to his feet, and as he does so he hears his bones click back into place.

"Well," he declares with exaggerated lightness as he glances around for his daughter.

"That went well, don’t you think, Xena –" He doesn’t get the chance to finish his sentence because that’s when Xena rushes in and hugs him. 𝑓𝑟ℯℴ𝓂

She’s still small compared to him but the suddenness more than the force knocks him off balance.

For a moment there he’s too stunned to speak, but then the surprise melts from his shoulders just as it melts from his face, and he can’t help but wonder, as he dusts a stray lock of her hair back into place, just when his sweet daughter got so big.

​She really looks more like her mother with every passing day.

​"You’re a kind person after all, aren’t you," she mumbles into his chest, sounding cross, relieved, and so happy to have discovered this.

​Ah, she even sounds like her, too. Gurdet’s starting to grow accustomed to this odd sense of blossoming warmth in his chest, and he’s still not entirely sure that he likes it.

​"...How long have you been planning this?" she demands on a whisper, "Why would you...?"

​"I made a promise," Gurdet tells her gently, a hand falling lightly to the top of her head.

"...One I needed to keep." It’s hard to know whether or not she seems this an acceptable answer, but s he pulls against him a little tighter all the same, and his expression softens as he glances across to where his nephew is still sitting, staring at the door Khobi has just left through with a small, fond smile on his lips.

Like somehow seeing him so happy has made him whole.

​Gods, he knew nephew was in love, but he has been so carelessly showing it.

​(Gurdet wonders if Khobi knows yet. If he’s realised that he looks at Trent the same way.)

​"You could have told me," she whispers, but she doesn’t sound cross. She sounds relieved.

At what? That her father has a heart after all? "Did you see him, father? Khobi was so happy."