Chapter 90: Thought’s Of Home.

Chapter 90: Chapter 90: Thought’s Of Home.

The training grounds look really weird before dawn. It can’t be far off by now, but it’s still kind of dark, and infinitely more eerie than it’s meant to be,the moonlight staining the world a dim shade of grey.

It’s completely empty.

Save for Khobi.

Not wishing to overstay his welcome in the kitchens, and not wanting to go back to his room, he’d just started walking, and this is where his feet have brought him.

Forgetting, of course, that it’s still far too early for any reasonable soldier to even dream of being here.

The wide spaces give little cover from the wind, and when it next blows by, cold and crisp and smelling like snow fresh off a distant mountain, Khobi shivers.

It’s sharp and unforgiving, and sneaks in through the joins of his worn leather and light, summer clothes to numb his skin. Dry leaves, torn from the trees that grow through the castle’s courtyards, come with it and litter the ground, red, cracked, and wholly uninspiring.

It’s peaceful, and a little depressing.

He wonders if maybe this is what Scargga looks like now.

It might already be snowing there.

His aunt, if she was still there, would have made them train anyway.

Without really knowing why, he starts to move.

And as he moves he closes his eyes, and lets the world around him fade away. When he opens his eyes, it’s taken a new shape.

This one has its high walls cut from thick uneven stone, and wooden walkways, and uneven ground beneath his feet.

Instead of plains and open sky, this one is set against a backdrop of mountains, and the air is frosty and tastes like snow.

It’s rustic, in a way that some might call backwards --barbaric, even --but there’s no place in all the world that Khobi would rather call home.

In this scene he’s eight years old. And out in the cool evening air without a coat. He’s been there all day, angrily pacing out the same old boring steps while the other kids his age, and older, and younger, all get to practice sparring with his aunt’s soldiers.

Real soldiers. Ones who’ve fought in battles.

He’s seething, sulking because of all the kids who had snuck out past their bedtime, he was the only one who got caught.

Attention only on where he’d rather be, he trips, and might have gotten a bloody nose but for the strong arm that shoots out and catches him before he falls.

And when he looks up, embarrassed and annoyed at being saved, the kind face of his uncle is beaming down at him.

He’s brought him a coat.

" Slow down ," Khnoji tells him, laughing and ruffling his hair in a way hobi pretends to hate. He’s getting too big for that sort of stuff now. " I think you’re meant to be concentrating ."

" But it’s so boring ," his younger self insists petulantly, and pouts in the direction of the other kids.

Because he can do everything they’re doing right now, and better, and they all know it. " I wanna do real soldier stuff ."

Khnoji just smiles at him, and makes sure he shrugs into his coat before he catches a cold.

" I know it doesn’t seem like it ," he says patiently, fetching himself one of the blunt, training swords that most kids Khobi’s age can’t even wield yet.

Khobi can, though. He’s strong enough. Khnoji gives it an experimental swing and Khobi buries his face in his hands as he nearly tears a hole in his cloak by accident.

His uncle can be really embarrassing sometimes.

He laughs, in that way of his, and then something changes. For some reason, when Khnoji turns back to face him, he looks taller, and more serious, and the sword in his hand, though severely blunt, and old enough that it no longer shines, looks dangerous.

"... But this is real soldier stuff ."

Khnoji Frost was a king. One that could set fear into the dark, pit of a heart that resided in Luminus Silas.

He was also, in the same breath, a king who had never believed that he was anything more than any other man.

And so, where most kings would have never even entertained the notion, he thought nothing of taking up an old, worn sword --the kind that had once served his men well --and dropping into step alongside a child.

Oblivious to the watching eyes of his training ground, Khnoji starts his sequence, the same one Khobi has been grinding away at for hours. He’s sure it’s the same, but on his uncle it looks completely different. It looks mighty . And dangerous. And exudes a kind of power that leaves Khobi, and all those around them, spellbound.

" Come on, Khobi ," Kiyoshi says, chuckling as he glances over his shoulder, and nodding for his nephew to join him, " Aren’t you supposed to be practicing? Your aunt’s watching ."

Khobi hurriedly shuffles to join him, eyes flicking up with a degree of fear to where he knows his aunt Mozry will be standing, overseeing the proceedings and making sure her nephew is carrying out his punishment without complaint.

But her eyes aren’t on him. This time, she’s just leaning on the windowsill and gazing down at her husband the way even a child can tell is with love.

Which, because he’s eight, is really gross.

He says as much to his uncle, and Khnoji laughs, and tells him he’ll understand when he’s older.

(He hates when adults say that.)

As much as he hates these boring routines, he thought he was doing a pretty good job until he watched his uncle.

And now, as he moves alongside him, he realises that as good as he is for a kid, he’s still a kid, and he hopes one day he can move like that.

It’s comforting to know that if he tries, he can still remember it all.

Not the steps, apparently, but his family’s faces.

" Khobi ?"

A voice calls his name out into the silence, deep and not a part of this memory.

Abruptly, his past dissolves around him, and he’s back in the empty training grounds, in a castle he’ll never call home.

Well, empty no more. When he turns in the direction of the voice, he finds a handful of figures walking towards him, shadows bobbing in torchlight.

The light makes his eyes water a little, he hadn’t realised it was quite so dark out, even with the moonlight, and it’s not until they’re practically upon him that he identifies the foremost as the Second Captain himself.

"Khobi," Drogger repeats severely, gaze sweeping over him with suspicion, "...What are you doing here."

It’s only now that Khobi realises he’s holding his knife. Outstretched, as if to strike an invisible foe. Which, he supposes, was what he was doing. Hurriedly, he tucks the knife away again, because he’s pretty sure he’s not meant to have one, but Drogger makes no move to take it from him.

"...Training?" he answers weakly, and Drogger’s frown deepens at being answered with a question.

"Obviously," he replies stonily, arms folded across his chest. Illuminated by the torches flickering behind him, he looks huge. "I mean, what are you doing here, now ."

It’s got to say something that Drogger’s concern is not that he has a knife, but that he’s early .

"...I couldn’t sleep?" He winces when it comes out as another question and Drogger’s brow twitches.

"I see," he remarks, and nods at the tracks Khobi’s movements have left upon the dirt. "Did your uncle teach you that?"

"...Aunt."

"...Forgive me," Drogger says solemnly, surprising him by dipping his head in apology for the assumption, "Mozry Frost, right?"

"Yeah, that’s her," Khobi replies warily, not entirely sure why doesn’t appear to be in trouble. He feels like he’s in trouble.

"Then she definitely taught you better than that," Drogger states, rolling up his sleeves, and Khobi bristles at the insult until he sees the serious look in the older soldier’s eyes. "You’ve forgotten some of it, haven’t you?"

"I...yes, sir," he admits gruffly, because there’s no point in lying when clearly Drogger’s already noticed something off with what he’d been doing.

Again, he expects to get yelled at, but for some reason, doesn’t. Drogger just looks at him sideways, and the intensity in his expression sends a small shiver down Khobi’s spine.

"And what would your aunt think of that?"

He’s right. He is in trouble.

Khobi knows exactly what his iron-fisted aunt would think of him forgetting those fundamentals she’d spent years painstakingly drilling into him.

And Drogger knows too, because they’re both captains, and he’s dedicated his life to doing much the same thing.

She’d be furious. She’d probably make him walk through sequence after sequence for the rest of his life. Definitely until his feet were bleeding, at least .

She’s not there, and Khobi hasn’t seen her in something like a decade, but the reminder of the kind of wrath she possesses still makes him gulp.