The prince can’t move right away.
Of course he can’t. This is his dearly trusted knight, the person who has seen him at his highest and his lowest, and who has never asked for anything from him beyond just himself. Perhaps the only person on earth who knows the prince at his core, who doesn’t ask him for anything more than that.
This is his beloved knight, baring himself to his beloved prince. Not truly bared, the prince will allow, protected by at least a few layers of leather and padded cloth, but still vulnerable. How else would you describe the act of angling a blade to your own body and telling the wielder to push it in?
And the prince considers refusing, he really does. What would the knight be able to do about it? He would be disappointed, and that would sting, but not the way a dagger to the shoulder will. Besides, what is this accomplishing besides injuring his own bodyguard? How does that not put the prince in danger?
He could refuse. He understands the lesson anyway. There is no need for this.
But there’s something. The way the knight looks at him, completely fearless. Not because he believes the prince won’t do it, but because he believes the prince will. He wants him to.
And the spot is harmless enough, after all. The prince, with all his studies, couldn’t have chosen a better part of the body to practice on. And it’s true, he can’t afford to be afraid of this. The prince may not have the luxury of refusing to cause harm, someday. And if he’s going to cross that line, safely, with someone he trusts, there is no one more suited to the task than his loyal knight.
At first there’s just a creak as the leather protests, holding up surprisingly well under the pressure. The prince watches the material dip with the point of the blade, heart racing as he waits for the leather to split, for the knife to suddenly sink the rest of the way in, right up to the hilt in his knight’s flesh.
The knight doesn’t take his eyes off his prince, pushing back against the press of the dagger, a strange little thrill of the familiar curling in his stomach at the feeling. It aches, certainly, just the pressure and the instinctive adrenaline of allowing this, of soliciting it, but the knight stands firm, gritting his teeth while continuing to watch his prince, murmuring encouragement. “Good, just like that. Don’t be afraid, your Highness, press harder. That’s it.”
They both gasp when the leather yields, suddenly, and the gambeson beneath offers little resistance. The knight gasps more as a form of release, the pain expected and welcomed, the pressure finally abated as the point of the dagger enters his flesh, deep enough that it will likely require stitches, but won’t cause him to bleed out, as long as he seeks the medic reasonably quickly. The prince gasps too, his mouth opening with an apology that doesn’t come, because if he thinks about it, he’s not sorry. He doesn’t feel one ounce of remorse. His knight had asked this of him, and who was he to deny his dear knight anything?
No, the prince gasps out of something else. Fascination, perhaps, his hand still firm on the knife’s hilt as he watches the knight’s gambeson stain dark with blood. His mouth actually begins to water, which is the most distressing outcome of the whole encounter, because why would the act of stabbing his knight cause him to hunger?
Maybe it’s because of the way the knight’s eyelids flutter, the way the knight releases a slow breath that sounds more like relief than pain. Maybe it’s because when the prince lists his head to the side and watches his knight’s expression while he twists the dagger, the sound his knight’s makes would be not out of place in a brothel.
Regardless of the reason, the knight need not worry about his prince’s willingness to stab when necessary. Quite the contrary, in fact; now the knight may have reason to fear when he notices the prince adding a new accessory to his daily attire: a jewelled dagger at his hip, for his fingers to graze over whenever he meets the knight’s eye.
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