Chapter 214 - 212: The Princess And Her Nose.

Chapter 214: Chapter 212: The Princess And Her Nose.

There are three breads left, tidily bundled up in a cloth so the mice don’t try for them. He takes two of them.

The last one he wraps up again and leaves it where it is. Binny will find it and know it’s for him.

​"...What are you, five? Don’t just sulk when you lose," Khobi complains irritably, and shoves one of the stupid breads into Loac’s chest as he passes him by.

" Here . It’s what you wanted, right?" Jolted out of his stupor, Loac stares blankly down at the bread in his hand, then across at Khobi.

​"Better make the most of it," Khobi advises flatly, tearing into the other with his teeth as he pushes past, "It’s the last freebie you’re ever gonna get from me, got that?"

​(He’d never admit it out loud, but it was kind of fun.)

​(And he kind of gets the feeling that Loac thought so too.)

...

He’s here again .

​Xena notices her cousin almost immediately, and not just because she was looking for him.

For someone so notoriously difficult to find, Loac certainly stands out in a crowd, and even in the organised chaos of the training grounds she has no trouble spotting him.

​"Oh, you were right, Your Highness. He’s here again," one of her handmaidens remarks, and Xena isn’t quite sure why she sounds so surprised.

Her cousin first appeared at the training grounds over a week ago, and if the whispers were to be believed, he hasn’t missed a day since.

Xena hadn’t doubted them in the slightest; she’d confirmed them for herself only a few days ago after all –she just wanted an excuse to look in on him.

​What else is she meant to do, when he’s so determined to shut her out?

​Just because her father seems to think he’s a lost cause doesn’t mean he is, although how he can even still think such a thing after seeing him at the tournament she’ll never understand.

He saw, too. She knows it.

​She’d seen it in that corridor the other day, too; a glimpse of the person he used to be.

​She hopes that if she comes here enough, she’ll see it again, although at this distance and so high up it’s impossible to discern what kind of expression he’s wearing.

​Right now he’s off on his own to one side, leaning back against a fencepost and staring up at the sky as he catches his breath.

The soldiers he’s been training with today are doing much the same thing, loitering around the fencing in a loose cluster some distance from him.

The space between them doesn’t seem outwardly malicious by any means, but it’s glaringly obvious, and clearly deliberate.

They meet for their drills but the moment they’re done he goes one way and they another, like oil separating from water.

​It’s kind of sad to watch, but he doesn’t seem to want to be included, and while they don’t go out of their way to include him, when there’s a waterskin being passed around it doesn’t pass him by.

Like even if they don’t like him and don’t like that he’s there, on some level they still respect that he is.

It’s not much, but it’s something, and for now it feels like enough.

​Satisfied for the time being, she turns to leave her vantage point when she realises that she’s not the only one looking down on the training grounds from above.

But Vogrid, who certainly wasn’t here when they arrived, isn’t watching the archery –which has always been his speciality –but the sparring.

​She wouldn’t have been surprised if he was watching Khobi.

For all he likes to pretend he’s above the childish rivalries and declarations of war Khobi and Rogard like to throw around, Xena knows he harbours the same desire to best them. It’s so obvious.

​Men are funny like that.

​But she can tell that he’s not watching Khobi, because Khobi is lined up at the archery range, in trouble for trying to throw a bow at someone.

Rogard, by the looks of things. She wonders what he did to warrant it.

​"Good afternoon," she greets, picking up her skirts and making a beeline for him.

Her handmaidens immediately drop into step with her. "Fancy seeing you here."

​"Your Highness," Vogrid states, and seems neither pleased nor irritated to see her when he glances her way.

She’ll take it. "I was merely...on my way to the library."

​Something in his voice doesn’t quite ring true, and Xena instinctively picks up on it.

Her father likes to claim that as her mother’s influence. Her mother always liked to blame it on her father’s.

​"I hope my father hasn’t got you working too hard," she replies, and settles in beside him without asking permission to.

​"I will do my utmost to serve His Majesty."

The way he says it comes across like some kind of weird mantra.

Some of the nobles think he’s being sarcastic when he says such things, but she knows him well enough to be able to tell that he genuinely means it.

​"As do we all," she replies brightly. He knows her well enough to be able to tell that she genuinely doesn’t mean that, and he gives her a disapproving look as she politely cranes her neck to see what has captured his attention so completely to have interrupted his trip to the library.

Because while the exploits of her cousin and his unwitting betrothed typically generate the most interest amongst the nobility, he doesn’t seem to have been watching either of them.

The bout has just finished, but it was between a soldier whose family name escapes her, and a servant.

​Khobi’s servant, to be specific.

​"He’s quite good, isn’t he?" she comments –because he is –and wonders if Vogrid will keep up any pretences. He adjusts his glasses, and doesn’t.

​"...Indeed," he replies smoothly, and Xena’s certain she spies the softest and most tentative beginnings of a smile.

How strange. Nice, even.