Chapter 143 - 142: Privilledges and Happiness.

Chapter 143: Chapter 142: Privilledges and Happiness.

And as they grew it became clear that if there was ever a boy destined to become the kind of swordsman that bards wrote songs about, it was Loac Trent.

There was no question, after all, that he was gifted --exceptionally so --and anyone who watched him fight could see that he loved it with all his heart.

​Not just see it.

​They could feel it.

​When he fought, it brought joy .

​Wild, uncontainable joy .

​She used to love watching him fight. When they were small she would sneak away to where he and his friends used to play at soldiers; sometimes joining them, as they freed princesses and slayed dragons, and sometimes --when she got older, and bossier, and it was less acceptable for her to play in the dirt with boys --would just watch; parroting to them the kinds of things their masters told them time and time again; like how Rogard was off balance, or that Vogrid was too stiff, and would giggle when they didn’t listen.

And Loac --for that was who he was to her, back then --win or lose, would always fight with the biggest smile on his face. Like he loved every second of it, and never wanted the fight to end.

​It was a sight that had always filled her with warmth, in the way only watching someone do something they love can do.

​When he was a little bigger, he even took to challenging soldiers. They humoured him, because he was their prince, and at first he lost --because he was a child and they were grown men --but over time, they slowly found themselves being defeated by someone half their size and half their age.

​Men don’t much care for that. Even if that boy is their prince. But Loac didn’t care, because he was getting to fight stronger and stronger opponents, and beating them.

Visitors from foreign kingdoms didn’t believe it, until they faced him for themselves, and lost. It didn’t matter to him so much that his friends --and her --didn’t come by the courtyards like they used to.

They had their own paths to walk, after all, and so did he. Children couldn’t stay children forever.

And there were certain expectations of both princesses, and princes. Expectations that Loac, like his mother --so wild at heart --before him, had no interest in fulfilling.

​Years passed, and he kept on fighting, because it was what he knew, and what he was good at --he won tournament after tournament without a single loss, beat back bandit raids, put an end to border skirmishes, and made First Captain as a teenager; the stuff legends are built upon --but somewhere along the way he stopped smiling.

​Princess Xena watched him, once, and to see him look so empty had made her feel cold. So terribly, dreadfully cold .

So much that she couldn’t stand to watch anymore, and had to look away, because it was clear that this thing that he had once loved with all his heart, no longer brought him any joy.

​And then he pretty much stopped fighting altogether. He still got into bar brawls and roughed up his guards when they bothered him, but the spaces he used to train long into the night in grew dusty, and he never challenged strangers to duels to test their mettle like he used to.

Like he’d just simply lost the desire to.

​Looking at him now; grown, but somehow a shell of himself, she remembers that there used to be a time that, when he looked at her in the right light, that she could have sworn that she could see the wilderness within him, staring back.

​She doesn’t see it anymore.

​(She wonders, sometimes, if it’s still in there; if he still feels its call.)

For some reason she’d held hope that today would be different. Her dear cousin, hadn’t shown much interest in, well, anything in the longest of times, and for him to appear here out of nowhere without even being summoned or dragged against his will, and with a sword in hand...

​Well, she had thought that that had to mean something .

​But as soon as he’d stepped out into the arena that tiny shred of hope had wilted; chased away as if by unforgiving winter frosts.

​He was as incredible as ever --the kind of skill that was just undeniable --but just as cold.

​She wants so badly, to see him fight with a smile again.

​...

​The arena feels different, with Khobi Frost in it.

​Xena can’t quite place it, but somehow, when he steps out there with his sword in hand and head held high as if to defy the gods, the air changes .

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly how, or exactly why, but she feels it like how some people can feel a thunderstorm brewing days before it hits; a shift in energy that gives her goosebumps.

For better or for worse, ever since his arrival here his presence has been felt throughout the castle, like the fire that burns inside him is too hot for his body to contain, and can’t help but spill out into the world around it.

​She’s seen it in his eyes; a blaze like the one that had wreaked chaos upon the plains when she was young, but now, as he walks out to meet his opponent, it’s like she can see it dripping from his skin, changing the very air around him.

​The crowd --whether or not they know it --can feel it too. They cheered for her cousin because he is her cousin --their prince --and they’re supposed to cheer for him, and because they know he is going to win.

None of them would really care if he lost. None of them really support him.

​It’s not like that, with Khobi.

​Maybe it’s just her ears, but the cheers for him, though fewer, seem louder than all the rest; the passionate cries of inspired men.

Men who believe in him. Men who want to see him soar.

​Her men. Her father’s men. The same men charged with guarding him, and keeping him chained.

​Xena can’t help but think that it would take a special man, to change men’s hearts like that.

​(She wonders what her father thinks, and for just how long he’s known.)

​(And what, if anything, he’s going to do about it.)

​He’ll never tell her, if she asks. A ruler should never be the last to know anything, he liked to tell her; hypocritical, since he so enjoyed keeping things from her.

He believed wholeheartedly that knowledge was power, and the more one knew, the less frequently they could be surprised.

She listens to the walls, like he and her mother taught her, but her father loves his secrets, and is surprisingly good at keeping them, considering how much he loves to talk.

​But funnily enough, when Khobi fights, even he quietens.

​So do a lot of people. Even the ones who have seen their fair share of fights.

Even the ones who have no interest in him, or whose only interest lies in wanting to see him fall. Because he doesn’t fight like the rest of them, and on some level, they all know it.

He towers up over many of the men down there; a brawny giant of a man with an urgent, almost brutal kind of strength behind his blade, yet the way he moves is so light and sure, like the earth has no pull on him.

​Like if he were to want to, he could just leap up into the sky and never come back down.

​Somehow, despite the ferocity of the fight down in the ring, it’s...inexplicably uplifting to witness.

​He doesn’t look like a prisoner, or a even a soldier, really; he looks like a survivor . One that will not be shackled again. And in him, clawing its way to the surface, she sees the wilderness again.

​Hears it’s call.

​It looks like fire in the night, and moonlight upon a clear lake.

​It sounds like the hoofbeats of wild horses, or a lion’s roar echoing across it’s plains, and a wolf’s howl stretching out long into the night.

​It’s as fearless and as beautiful as it used to be.

​Only this time, it looks more red, than blue.

​And as much as Xena knows it is a privilege to be born a princess; as content as she is with her lot in life and her place in this world, when she watches Khobi Frost fight, she feels the spirit in him; nurtured from a half-life spent caged, and suddenly finds herself longing for a world without walls.

​And when she feels that pull; that whisper on the wind that calls to the latent wanderlust in the heart with promises of adventure and freedom, she finds her gaze seeking out her cousin; wondering if he hears it --if he feels it --too.