The Knight Who Breathed Fire

TWO | ii

For Kira, as there are cheerleaders, and then there are friends who cheer just loud enough.

[ HAMA, THE CONQUEROR featured here is a small prompt connected to the series. If you're interested in taking a look a the 600-word drabble, feel free to message me! Also, #Wattys2016 and Prince Nolan this time around. Commence! ]

•∞•

TWO | Even Conquerors Are Not Guaranteed Happy Endings

QUEEN KYA DALLAS CHOSE HER CHILD'S name with the same literary affection she is pleased to now see apparent in her son.

There were many people, expected from her subjects and friendly acquaintances, eager to drop hints and small personal touches ("Martha is the name my parents called me!" or "I think if James VII didn't need to follow the tradition, Ethan would have been adorable!"), all of which she took with open ears.

In simpler terms, it went in one ear and came out the other.

After the magical physician predicted them to bore a son, the struggle had only intensified. Her husband, a lump of a lousy loaf (an alliterate phrase she says often, although not without a loving sigh, and even more loving elbow to the side of said lousy loaf), decided to "be a dear" and "let Kya's feminine judgement name their cherished lovechild!".

He wisely knew that, like many things, some were better off in her wife's hands.

(She accepted this responsibility when she realised one of his main name choices were Eustace or Uranus and she values her child's affections too much to have it unreciprocated after nine gruelling months).

In the end, with her rounded stomach and aching back, her search was fruitful one tepid day out in June. One hand rubbed soothing motions over her womb as she read aloud her favourite story, Hama, the Conquered, written in her home tongue, Luxon.

"'Hama came into this world with gold blood and penetrable skin; a battlefield, with her rose velvet snarls and moon crescent palms dismantling angry weapons and abusive intentions. Her lips are a cupid bow and her tongue is a well-aimed arrow,'" she reads softly, smiling.

Queen Kya cooed, "Doesn't that sound quite nice, darling? She uses her grace and sense to diffuse situations, like your midria!"

A bark of laughter left her lips giddily when her child, a normally inactive and calm being, moved happily in tune with her words.

Her son often found the time to remind her of his presence—aside from the swollen feet and uptight morning sickness, a thing even magical herbs could not cure—when she shared between them their most treasured connection; words.

Excited at his reception, she continued soulfully. "'I like to think that means I'm but a soldier pierced by her dart, at her mercy.' Oh, this romantic sap better not have been betrothed to another or so help me..."

"'Weirdly enough, Hama Pilar is the perpetual conqueror,''," she starts, before breaking off with an abrupt gasp. Her son gave a surprisingly strong kick. "Why, you'll be a conqueror of your own, my beautiful?"

With a blinding smile, Queen Kya lowered her voice, as if sharing a secret between her son and her.

"'She is high and mighty under her golden skin—armour—and silver war paint—scars—, and even as we, all of us, kneel, we do not feel any sense of lost liberty. No bloodlust at the power shift. No argument against decisions everyone already decides. No revolution bold enough to argue the rightness of Hama Pilar being Hama Pilar.'"