Chapter Text
Sand crunched underneath his feet. Or, what lingered of sand and led towards the sharp shards of shale as he picked his way through the desolate landscape. He hadn’t been there long, and the loneliness hadn’t sunk in quite yet. His chest hurt, yes, and a deep pain throbbed in the back of his head, but the fact that his ravaan was nearly a mile behind him hadn’t entirely set in. He hadn’t been walking for an hour. It was fine. He was fine.
Khalid took a deep breath, looking up at the sky for a moment. Of course the sky was clear. There wasn’t anything around, no clouds to give him a break from the sun, and nothing other than the rocky canyons scarring the landscape to distract him from the swirling thoughts in his head. He didn’t want to think about the past, though. The past hurt, and he didn’t want to be subjected to that while alone in the desert without half his soul. However, not thinking had always been his weak point, and he closed his eyes as he resumed his travels. His thoughts couldn’t help but drift there. Perhaps that was the point of all of this, to reflect and acknowledge what had happened to lead to this point.
But he was in the middle of his ordeal, now. He needed to travel through the canyon and the desert to where his family and Shirin would be waiting, and then he would be king. What would his childhood self think if he knew that he was doing this at long last? Nearly twenty years after he realized who his father was, who he was to Almyra, he was finally taking his place as king.
“Khalid, come here, please. Baba and I want to talk to you about something very important.”
Khalid looked up from where Shirin was trying to fight with a cricket, spotted cat fur puffed up so she looked twice her usual size, and he pulled her close to walk over to his parents. Eyes wide, Shirin crawled out of his hands to curl up next to Maman and Baba’s ravaans , nosing against them and mirroring his Maman’s stag as a small doe, while the three of them sat close together.
“You know your Baba’s a very important person, Khalid?”
He nodded quickly, and he grinned over at his Baba before returning his attention to his Maman. “Baba’s the king, right? He’s real important and everyone’s gotta listen to him.” He shifted where he was sitting, bouncing as he waited for his mother to tell him he was right, and tell him what a clever little boy he was.
She smiled, though Khalid could almost see something hidden in that smile. She didn’t seem to be quite as happy as she usually was, but she still tapped his nose and nodded. Khalid giggled at the motion, and at the way his Maman’s stag ravaan nuzzled up against Shirin’s doe nose. “You’re so smart. So, so smart.”
“Too smart for his own good, I’d say,” Baba said, and Khalid grinned his gap-toothed grin up at him. There was a smile on his Baba’s face, though, especially as he continued speaking. “Do you know what that makes you, if I’m the king?”
Khalid frowned for a moment, chewing his lip, before looking around the courtyard, and the plants that lined the edges of the comfortable space. He looked out further, and saw the servants quietly scurrying around the open hallways with their ravaans following close behind in their muted colors in such contrast to the bright tiles lining the walls of the corridors. Even at such a young age, he could see the differences that laid between his life and theirs. “I’m the prince, right? I get to be king next.”
His mother had a weird look on her face, and her ravaan kept nosing and nibbling at Shirin’s head, his antlers bumping against Shirin’s head. Eventually, Shirin moved to curl up as a snake against the side of his Baba’s cobra ravaan , scale-to-scale. Khalid curled in tighter, frowning up at his Maman. She sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose before she settled down next to Khalid, wrapping her arms tight around him.
“Do you know who I am?”
Khalid frowned, lip sticking out as he pouted and tried to think of the answer that she wanted. He couldn’t think of anything though, considering she was his Maman, and his Baba loved her, but he had a feeling that wasn’t what she wanted to hear, even if that was the only thing he could think of. After he knew he was taking too long, though, he finally piped up again. “You’re Maman.”
Baba laughed softly before settling down on the other side of Khalid, messing up his hair gently. “Your Maman is from Fódlan, and she’s very important there. Maybe you’ll follow in her father’s footsteps and lead them to amazing things, or maybe you’ll stay here and follow mine. But...your Maman and I want to tell you something important because of this.”
“Do we—”
“We need to tell him.”
“Tell me what, Baba?” Khalid looked up between them before pulling away to frown and look at them. “You said I’m smart and a big boy, so I should know.”
Baba sighed softly, looking at Maman before looking back at him. “People won’t like you. Lots of people think you’re dangerous, and a danger to Almyra—”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone!” Khalid didn’t entirely know what Baba meant by any of that, but he knew enough about the world to know what dangerous meant, and he looked horrified at the idea that he could be like a cobra hidden in a blanket to his homeland.
“I know, baba, I know.” Baba sighed softly before pulling Khalid back onto his lap. “But that’s what some people think. They think you’ll try to lead the Fódlans here to...to enslave everyone.”
“Enslave?”
Baba sighed again before glancing around the courtyard. “Enslaving is when someone says that you own a person, that they can’t be their own person, because you own them like you own a toy, or a tool.”
Khalid felt his lip tremble as he looked between Baba and Maman, before he broke into sobs. “I don’t wanna own anyone! I don’t wanna hurt anyone!”
“I know, baby. I know.” Maman immediately scooped the sobbing Khalid into her lap, and he could feel her frown against his temple as she hugged him tight. “I told you. I told you he was too young to understand all of this. We never should have—”
“And wait until someone tries to assassinate him? At least he knows. We’ll have Nader begin to teach him how to fight, get him other tutors to ensure he can protect himself and learn as much as he can. It’s going to be fine. Promise.”
And he had started his work towards being the future king then. His parents had arranged lessons with Nader and other tutors and the more trusted generals, and he had been presented properly to the court as prince. For better or for worse, that quiet conversation when he was five led him through his twisted life to where he was standing now, twenty-three and going through the last test and ordeal before he’d be crowned King of Almyra. His entire life led through assassination attempts, and constant supervision, and then eventually a war, and Khalid still didn’t know if it was worth it or not, even if he knew he wouldn’t change a thing about his life.
He couldn’t fault his parents, though. At least he survived. And he’d survive this. He took a brief moment, looking back at the west where he had left his ravaan behind, and he looked back to the east, where the sun would rise in the morning. He’d return to his soul. He’d survive this. And then he’d be king.
And perhaps he’d be able to get away with never hurting anyone again.