Collaterals

Old Plaster

A/N: two updates today! And no injuries sustained on my end!

Mother was whispering something into his ear. 

Whispering was not the right word, really. Not when all sense of decorum had been thrown out the window, Lords and Ladies alike shouting: in confusion, in question, in anger. 

It made it so very hard for Khaled to hear Mother, who was an entire head shorter than him, and very much against raising her voice. That, of course, coupled with the fact that Khaled would not lower his head to better hear her, not when his eyes were glued on the back of Leila's head. 

She had not turned to face the crowd. Not once. Her shoulders had neither tensed nor relaxed. Her pose had not so much as shifted an inch either which way. No, she was effectively locked in place, which made it so Khaled could not gauge what is was she currently felt. 

He put a hand on the one mother now had on his arm, tapping it re-assuringly as his foot took a step forward. 

"Silence!"

It was Advisor Hafiz. His guards took a step forward, in unison and into the crowd, threateningly, so that the noise trickled away, leaving in its place the humid thrum of anxiety. Khaled's revoked his step as he plied his eyes off Leila's unmoving back, scanning the room as much as he could without turning. Four days trapped in a palace, four days of being threatened not to speak of the incident, four days of being questioned, of being unable to bury the dead...it was too much. That much was evident on each face present in the gathered crowd— old and young alike— fatigue creeping through skin like the cracks on old plaster. 

Where was humility? Where was nobility? Where was the grace of royalty?

Khaled looked ahead, to Haitham, as mother laced a hand through his bent arm.