Chapter 478 - 479: Why Does It Hurt.

Chapter 478: Chapter 479: Why Does It Hurt.

Gurdet hears them coming up the corridor long before they come bursting through the door, and when there’s no guard stationed outside and the handle turns without resistance, he can practically feel the concern rising from behind the door.

"Oh good," Gurdet muses dryly, bracing himself, "He’s back."

Right on cue the door blasts open, swinging back with such force he’s genuinely surprised it doesn’t fly clean off its hinges. Khobi, in true Khobi fashion, barrels on in like a human hurricane, eyes blazing and fists raised ready to defend his aunt and uncle from whatever certain peril he’s imagined they’ve fallen into.

"I thought we were past this, Khobi," Gurdet remarks conversationally, glancing over his shoulder just in time to see the wind sag clean out of his sails when he sees the four of them gathered around the table like old friends. It’s not nearly quite so cordial as all that, but it’s clearly not quite the life-or-death situation he’d barged in expecting to find.

"Oh." That’s all he has to say for himself. He makes a solid attempt at breaking down another of his doors, and all he has to say for himself is oh.

"Did you have a nice sleep, Khobi?" Khojin inquires by way of greeting.

"Uh," Khobi says abashedly, dropping away from his posturing and adjusting his shirt. Gurdet’s hardly surprised to find Trent not a pace behind him, looking likewise ready for a fight. "Yeah, I did actually. What’re...what’re you doing here?" That last comment he directs to Gurdet, but Khojin answers for him.

"We were just having a little chat is all," he assures him, which Khobi doesn’t seem to like to sound of. Which is fair enough; Gurdet’s still not entire sure whether he can definitively say one way or another whether or not it went well.

"...It’s fine," Gurdet says airily, giving Khojin and Mozry each a curt nod as he stands and smooths down his tunic, "I was just leaving." Now is as good a time as any, he supposes, beckoning for Bongo to follow on after him. He’s said everything he came to say, after all.

Well, almost everything.

As he makes to go however, he stops short just when he reaches Khobi standing there in the doorway. Gods, it’s almost been a whole year since he first set food in this place, hasn’t it? How strangely time moves. How things change, and how they don’t. Just look at him now, all dressed up and looking like a real prince.

And Gurdet does look at him. For a long time, in fact; something he should have done a long time ago. And Khobi meets his gaze for every lingering second; red eyes fierce and proud. It’s a bitter thing for a clever man to realise; that maybe he isn’t so clever after all. Because he missed this, didn’t he? For so long he’d looked and seen only what Silas had seen; a remnant of a broken kingdom burning up with rage and desperation. But there’s always been more to him than that, hasn’t there? Bongo had seen it. And Xena. Trent, too.

Ah, if only he’d looked sooner.

He’s been a prince all along, hasn’t he?

Gurdet doesn’t say that to him though. He’d hate that. Instead he merely reaches out and lays a hand on his shoulder. Once upon a time Khobi might have flinched away from him, but not today. Today, he still looks at him with suspicion, because he’s who he is, and Khobi is who he is, but he doesn’t shrug away from him.

"Thank you," Gurdet says softly, voice pitched low so that his words reach only his ears. And it’s possible Khobi will never know how much he means it or how deep his gratitude goes, but that’s the price a king pays, when he earns a reputation such as his. But he can honestly say that he means every word. "...For saving Trent."

Khobi’s red eyes turn to him; the suspicion there wilting into confusion.

Perhaps it’s good, that he doesn’t understand.

"For what it’s worth," he says, and hopes that he understands that for once he means both his smile and the words that come with it as he steps on and past as if nothing has transpired, "I was looking forward to having you as my nephew."

...

Why?

Something is wrong. Khobi can’t pinpoint exactly what is wrong, but as the king turns away from him; hand falling from his shoulder, he knows deep in his heart that there is.

From the moment Khobi had met Gurdet Horang there had been something about him that set him on edge. To his knowledge, not once had he been armed, but the most dangerous of men never need to parade around how dangerous they are. More than in simply the way they carried themselves, they have a feel to them; an aura that need not be seen to be perceived, and the same could be said for untrustworthy men. And there have been many times where Gurdet has felt like one of those, too. There’s something unnerving about his gaze; like somehow his eyes can see right through him to his innermost thoughts, and something false about the face he wears that feels full of lies and secrets. For so much of his time here he’d felt so cold. So calculated.

Not this moment. Not now. Not those parting words or the way they’d been whispered to him; solemn and almost kind, and laced with regret.

Why does this feel like goodbye?

"...Your Majesty...?" Khobi says blankly; confused and ill at ease and not entirely certain of why. But Gurdet it appears has nothing further to say to him, because he doesn’t look back. Bongo, however, lingers, and in the uneasy silence that follows the king’s departure, a helpless Khobi turns his gaze to both he and Khojin for explanation.

"...He knows, Khobi," Khojin supplies with a small shrug; matter-of-fact, "...What we’ve been planning. And he came to warn us that we should do it soon. Before Silas gets here."

"Soon?" Khobi echoes hollowly; unable to place the tight, gnawing feeling in his gut as anything other than dread. He wets his lips, giving Bongo a confused look, "But if he knows..."

"Don’t worry, Khobi," Bongo assures him stoically, giving Khojin a reproachful look, "His Majesty has no intention of stopping you from leaving. Something that your uncle and aunt here have had a bit of difficulty believing."

"Ah, can you blame me~" Khojin hums with another one of those airy shrugs, like it can’t be helped.

"He said that?" Khobi whispers, chest suddenly inexplicably tight despite the implication, "...That he wouldn’t stop us?"

If that’s true, they can leave quietly. No guards. No fighting. Just like he told Khojin and Mozry.

No one needs to get caught in the crossfire. No one needs to get hurt.

(Why does it already hurt?)