Collaterals

Pray Tell.

It did not take long for the banquet's chatter to die down. Haitham, for one, did not seem all too pleased with Khaled's interruption. 

And so the Young Lord made sure to bow deeply, taking a breath as he rose. Someone coughed, and the sound of clinking utensils was still present, albeit haphazardly. Haitham only raised a brow, "Yes, Lord Khaled?"

"Your Highness," Khaled began, not quite having anticipated how his voice carried through the banquet hall. He gulped down the knot knitting through the walls of his throat, ignoring the daggers he could practically feel mother staring into his back. "I have come to speak on the Princess's interest, should you allow it."

Khaled had known Haitham since the Boy King had given his first laugh. Khaled had grown to know his humor, his sadness, his irritability, and his anger. And so when there was just a tug, and ever so slight tug, on his right cheek, pulling at the corner of his lip— there for a moment then gone— Khaled knew exactly what that was. Humor. Amusement. The kind that would have the Boy King snicker when he returned to his quarters. The kind that had Khaled grind his teeth together as Haitham's head cocked to a side, raising his brows as he said, "Go on."

"She is entitled a reprieve, your highness, should one stand in her stead."

"She is," Haitham's agreement was monotonous enough that it ebbed on boredom, his eyes scanning the room before he straightened. His voice carried more formality when he said, "though you'll recall that the person standing in her stead should be her kin, in some capacity or another. I," Haitham gestured to himself with his good hand as he gave a theatrically lopsided frown, "cannot stand in her stead, not only with my injury, but as her patron." He placed his hand on the table once more, giving Khaled a one-over, "Though, I suppose you knew that, coming up here. So, tell me, Lord Khaled, who do you suggest?" He raised a brow, voice dripping with irony as he asked, "Surely not young Boody?"

A tense chuckle went through the crowd, eyes sliding to where the little boy played ever-so obliviously with his Governess. His ears perked at the mention of the name, the Young Boy looking to the laughing people and laughing along. There was a twist to Khaled's inside, a small sense of indigestion clambering its way through his abdomen. It carried enough discomfort that the Young Lord made himself recall, internally, that beneath the scarring arm and the royal chair and the royal medallion he know had pinned to his chest....Khaled now spoke to a boy. Just a boy. A boy who was, even now, slouched in his seat, pale with dark circles painting the sunken skin below his eyes as his body pushed itself to heal from its traumatic amputation. The very amputation Khaled had to push him down on a bed for the surgeon to follow through with as the Young Lord ignored the smell of the room when the boy's bowels had let loose. A boy Khaled knew well enough to know that he would not be able to bare the weight of the crown he now so greedily reached for, to know that he'd regret this adolescent outburst soon enough.

And so Khaled smiled, looking to the side briefly before he straightened his face and looked to Haitham once more, allowing for the laughter to die down. "As a matter of fact, your Highness, I do."

For a moment, a dangerous moment, Haitham said nothing at all. Any earlier humor melted off his face. He craned his neck ever so, chin raised, eyes  squinted with his lips just slightly pursed as though in disgust. "You'd put a child at the end of a sharpened sword, Lord?"

"I know of not one man in all of Aradia who'd dare challenge the young boy should he stand in his sister's stead so that she may take a moment of reprieve, your Highness."

"For a throne?" He challenged. "I can think of worse things done for a throne."

The chatter flittered through the hall once more as whispers of agreement littered the seated lot. Khaled grit his teeth, unsure what to say, exactly, as his eyes moved to the Young Boy, having left his wooden horses, ears perked at the mention of his name.

"Perhaps we should ask the boy, then?" Khaled raised his voice over the murmurs of the crowd.

Haitham grit his teeth, slamming his fist down on the table so that the plates shook, "I think not!"

And that was when Boody began to cry, his Governess shushing him, wrapping her arms around him and glancing to the Boy King. Haitham only waved his fingers, looking away as she ushered Boody out the room. It was when his cries were a distant thing, the banquet deadly silent, that Haitham looked to Khaled, once more with downturned lips, "The boy is too disposed crying at the mere mention of your proposition, Lord, and so I bid you si—."

"And so I bid your highness allow myself to stand in her stead!" Khaled blurted the words out before he could truly think them through. It took a moment to close his mouth, feel the scrape of his tongue over the roof of his mouth, fisting his hand against the moisture gathering in his palms. 

The Boy King raised both brows, humor quick to remerge into lines of his face, this time, when he asked, "Pray tell me, Lord Khaled, in what capacity are you her kin?"

A smattering of laughter reverberated through the crowd, eager to please their new King if only by laughing along.

Khaled forced a breath in. Out. He gave a small nod when he said, 

"We are engaged. To be married."

\