Chapter 85: Blue and Red.

Chapter 85: Chapter 85: Blue and Red.

Xena hits him.

Not hard, but enough to shock him.

"I can’t believe you!" she exclaims hotly, and hits him again. It’s uncharacteristically unprincess-like. "Forcing them to live together ? What were you thinking ?"

"Ow," Gurdet deadpans, even though it didn’t particularly hurt. " You were the one who said to let them get to know each other." He’s not sure why she’s so upset.

"Yes, so they wouldn’t kill each other??" she hisses crossly, yanking her warm winter robe tighter around herself. She’s a little pink in the cheeks,clearly embarrassed to have been seen dressed so casually by someone outside her family. "They’re definitely going to kill each other!"

"Oh, don’t be so melodramatic," Gurdet rolls his eyes. "Have some faith in your cousin. And Khobi, for that matter. No one’s managed to kill either of them, yet. Not for lack of trying, I’m sure."

She doesn’t look in the least bit reassured. She can be so old-fashioned when it comes to marriage and romance, never mind the fact that the pair don’t necessarily go hand in hand.

"You worry too much," he sighs after a long moment, shaking his head at the concern in her eyes. "Khobi knows not to cause trouble. And he knows what will happen if he does."

"...He still seemed upset," she says a moment later, with a touch of sadness in her eyes, like she feels sorry for him, "I know I would be if someone ordered me into bed with a stranger." It’s a dig at him of course, and is completely unwarranted, and entirely unsubtle.

"I’m not ordering them to sleep together," he scoffs, and she flushes a deeper shade of pink. Naive girl. What does she think her cousin chooses to spend most of his time doing? "Although, how convenient would that be? We do have some rather outdated consummation laws."

In a kingdom as progressive as theirs --in that, slavery was outlawed, and that daughters and sons of the reigning monarchs had equal rights of succession --it did seem a little old-fashioned that a marriage wasn’t considered legitimate and binding, until after the wedding-night. Or rather, the events of. So to speak. "In any case, he should count himself lucky he has a bed to sleep in, at all."

"...Forgive me, father, but I don’t know if Khobi quite sees it that way."

"Of course he doesn’t," he sniffs. Maybe he’s spoiling him too much. Silas would have never granted him the leniency or freedom he’s afforded him.

"But a man has to sleep. And my men have their orders." Because it would hardly be proper to let his nephew’s fiance live in the halls like some kind of vagrant.

Which he would, given the option. He’s no idiot. Khobi Frost has made it abundantly clear during his time with them that he wasn’t the kind of man who would just do as he was told. He just had to be difficult .

"What’s he going to do, sleep on the floor?"

...

As it turns out, that’s exactly what Khobi does.

He’s honestly not really looking forward to sleeping on cold stone again --it may as well have been ice for how cold it is to the touch, and the evening has a bite to it that feels uncomfortably like winter --but it sure beats the alternative. There’s no way he’s going anywhere near that bed.

"What are you doing?" an irritated voice asks from somewhere across the room. The bedsheets rustle, sounding endlessly loud in the night’s silence, and when Khobi briefly looks up from the pile of blankets he’s trying to arrange into a makeshift bed, there are a pair of blue eyes watching him in the moonlight.

"Oh, like I’m getting in there with you?" he snorts, gesturing distastefully at the bed --and its occupant --as he buries himself under his pile of blankets. It’s not nearly as warm as he’d been hoping, and it’s by no means comfortable, but it’ll have to do.

"No way."

...

Khobi does not sleep well that night.

In fact, he’s pretty sure he’s never slept worse. And that’s saying something, considering he lived in a cell for ten years. He dreams a lot that night,of Briyagi and long nights in winter, and hands reaching out of the darkness for him, and of piercing blue eyes.

And then when he’s finally roused from sleep, he finds that the hands are real.

In a flash, he’s wide awake, one hand reaching automatically for the knife he’s kept under his pillow every night since Loac left it with him. He slashes wildly at his assailant, flinging his blankets off and lunging in one blind, swift movement, years of instinct guiding him.

The blade misses flesh by a hair’s breadth, his attacker leaning away from the knife’s trajectory and leaping back towards the window.

And directly into the path of a second knife. One that Khobi would swear on his life wasn’t even there a second ago. It’s a bad habit in a soldier, to take your eyes off the opponent in front of you, but in that instant, Khobi can’t help it, the way eyes are inexplicably drawn to the extraordinary.

The untrained eye probably wouldn’t have even seen him move, and even Khobi’s trained ones have difficulty capturing Loac as more than a blur --a streak of shadow set against a full, pale moon.

Their visitor doesn’t stand a chance, in the moment it took him to clear Khobi’s range, Loac’s flown almost the entire length of the room to corner him.

Khobi catches up a beat later, when by some stroke of luck, Loac’s blade slices nothing but air as the shadow dancing up onto the windowsill beyond reach. And then, unbelievably, flings his arms up into the air in surrender.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! I yield, I yield, okay!" he yelps in alarm, and hurriedly snatches both of their arms out of the air as a pair of knives come streaking out of the darkness towards him.

The blades quiver and grind to a halt barely an inch away from him, Khobi’s mid sternum, and Loac’s at his throat. Irritated for some reason, Khobi glares across at the man beside him,eyes flashing.

Loac’s a whole lot closer than he’d been anticipating, and Khobi’s a little caught off guard by the sharpness in his expression, all signs of his usual indifference vanished.

In the moonlight the blue of his eyes is clear and vivid, and particularly striking.

"...I had things under control," he growls hotly, shifting his gaze back to the problem at hand. Because that’s what’s got him annoyed. He can take care of himself. Obviously.

"Sure you did," Loac drawls mockingly, voice low and husky from sleep and at odds with the alertness in his face and body.

"I did ."

Loac doesn’t sound like he believes him. Either that, or he’s trying to piss him off.

(It’s working.)

" --Um, sorry to be a bother, my lords, but could you uh....maybe reconsider the knives?"

The nervous remark snaps their attention away from each other again, and Khobi’s jaw drops open when he sees just who exactly they’ve cornered on their windowsill.

"...Binny?" Khobi asks in disbelief, as who should the clouds part to reveal but the servant himself, grinning ruefully and teetering precariously on the lip of the window.

"Good morning to you, too," Binny chuckles, apologetically releasing his grip on them and dusting off his pants like he’s self-conscious about having touched them.

Which is a bit hypocritical considering how insistent he could be whenever Khobi tried to bathe himself. " Phew ," he remarks good-naturedly, as though he hadn’t just almost gotten himself killed. Twice. "...Haven’t done that in a while. You guys almost got me there!"

It’s amazing how casually he says that. Amazing, actually, that he’s even alive to say it at all.

"Fucking...what the fuck were you doing ?" Khobi complains, dragging his hand down his face and dropping his knife back down to his side and out of Binny’s personal space. For which the servant looks to be very grateful. "I could have killed you."

"Yeah, that’s my bad," Binny admits with a wry grin.

"Tsk," Loac grumbles, irritably spinning his knife between his fingers and then tossing it back towards the bed in a single, sleek movement. "...You shouldn’t go sneaking around like that."

The blade hits the headboard with a thunk , and suddenly, like a candle being snuffed out, his eyes turn back to glass.

Yawning wide, he turns his back on the pair of them and pads back to bed on sluggish feet, the dappled moonlight catching on his bare shoulders and illuminating the sharp ridges of his back.

"I’m just here to wake Khobi up," Binny explains, and Khobi’s expression morphs to one of horror as he hops down from the windowsill.

"Well, maybe next time -- what ?? It’s that time already??" he exclaims, pushing past him to stare out the window in alarm. It still looks plenty dark outside.

But then again, it always does when Binny wakes him up. And he still never manages to make it to the training grounds before the sun rises.

"Yup." Khobi can’t quite be certain in the dark, but he’s pretty sure Binny’s laughing at him.

" Fuck , why didn’t you say so??" he groans, rummaging around amongst his pile of blankets for his training gear. Somehow, his boots have found their way up under his pillow, which explains a bit of the bad night’s sleep.

"You’re going to be late," Binny points out unhelpfully, as Khobi topples over trying to tug his shoes on.

He glares up at him from the ground, and flings a withering glance in parting back towards the bed as he hastily yanks his leather jerkin on.

"I know ."

...

"Wow, Khobs, you were later than usual this morning."

Apparently, Rogard has a death wish.

"Your face looks more annoying than usual," he snips back, in a tone that Rogard maybe didn’t quite deserve.

Unimpressed with Khobi’s sour greeting, and not gracious enough to blame it on the laps he’d just had to run, he cocks a hip out and sticks his nose in the air.

"Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed," he sniffs, noting Khobi’s bleary red eyes, and a couple of the soldiers around him snicker.

Honestly, Khobi doesn’t even have the energy to yell at them.

"That’s not it," he says instead, scrubbing his eyes with his palms and trying to stifle a yawn.

Training has him aching all over pretty much full time, but combined with a stiff body from sleeping on the floor and how badly he slept, his laps today had been the torture Drogger probably intended them to be.

"I got kicked out of my room last night."

"What? By who? Where did you sleep?"

"...It was Gurdet," he complains crossly, "He...tsk...he made me move into Loac’s room with him..."

The news earns him cringes of sympathy all round. Except for Rogard, whose shit-eating smirk Khobi could do without at this time of day. Or, like, ever.

"Locs kept you up all night, did he?" he says wickedly, implication not in the least bit subtle.

"Rogard, that’s so gross," Montrel says with a grimace, and lets Khobi get away with grabbing Roard by the scruff of his shirt for the insinuation.

Rogard seems under the impression that their friendship goes both ways, because he doesn’t look in the least bit nervous. Like he thinks Khobi won’t punch him.

" Take that back --" he growls hotly, face right up in Rogard’s personal space. Rogard just leans away from him and hides a small smile behind a sly look.

"Jumping into bed with him before marriage? How scandalous , Kobs," he teases, like he’s just uncovered some particularly juicy gossip.

" As if ," Khobi snaps back with a grimace, and surprises himself a little by releasing Rogard and shoving him a pace back, "...I slept on the floor."

That gets a laugh, and Montrel gives him a hefty clap on the back that’s probably meant to be supportive.

"Are you sure your uncle didn’t do anything to Gurdet, too?" he asks, shaking his head with amused disbelief, "...Coz sometimes it really seems like he hates you."