A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"You know that I can't catch you if you try, don't you?" Oliver said.

"Don't make fun of me. I know what I'm doing… I've seen this a thousand times…" Nila tried to talk a big game, but the stake shifted again, and with a rather feminine yelp, she abandoned her position and jumped back to the shore, leaving the stake standing at an angle, just a finger away from jumping in.

"Is that a tactical retreat, or are you fleeing?" Oliver said.

She looked at him crossly. "It's because you'd already weakened them. I bet when you first jumped across, they were far more stable."

"If that is what you choose to believe, then I will not correct you. However, does that look like a troublesome ask to you?" Oliver said. He made a point of sticking out his right leg as far as he could, and showing off his single legged balance, without hardly swaying.

As soon as he did so, a stone came sailing his way. Its trajectory was carefully picked so as not to hit him, but to surprise him. It went skidding past his torso, and thudding into the bank.

"Was your intention to get me to flinch?" Oliver asked, but before he could receive a reply, a second small stone came this way, this time targeting his feet.

Of course, he could very well have let it hit him. They were small enough that they wouldn't hurt. Even in her play, Nila tended to be careful of things like that. But it also would not have been in the spirit of competition. Instead, he gave the lightest of jumps and allowed the rock to pass under him, landing gently, but still causing the stake to sway violently as he did so.

"Now that doesn't seem so stable, does it?" Nila said with mock cruelty. "Why don't you beg for your life, Ser Patrick, before the great Lady Felder pushes you into a watery grave?"

"Please, my magnanimous Lady, spare the life of this lowly one, who, in his hubris, thought that he could make thee," Oliver said, putting his hands together in a display of solemnity.

Of course, his only reward was another stone. This one was placed towards his chest. It was smaller than the other, and unlikely to do more than tap him, but the rules of the game had been set – dodge whatever came his way. He had to twist and abandon his perch for it. He spun midair, narrowly dodging the stone, but he could feel the stake giving out beneath him as he did so.

He was still hovering above the water when he heard it splash.

Nila's guilt was immediate. "W-watch out!" She tried to say. But Oliver was already in the process of landing on the other side of the bank, just barely making it, after stretching out his leg as far as it could go.

He did everything he could to make it look graceful, knowing that it would irritate Nila, but the truth was it was right on his own limit. When he turned around to look at her, across the waters of the stream, her look did not disappoint.

The worry was replaced by good-natured irritation. She had her arms folded, as if she could hardly bear to look at him. "You're such a show-off… Now how are you meant to get back over? You've broken your bridge."

"I could make another one," Oliver offered, but then he looked around him, and nodded to himself. "However, it seems to me, Lady Felder, that this side of the stream is far nicer than that side. After all, I've got… trees, I suppose."

"I have trees as well," Nila said, pointing to the many beside her. "And far finer trees than yours. Look – they're still green in the leaf, despite the coming autumn. Yours are already beginning to wither."

"Ah, but look what a nice seat this tree makes?" Oliver said, sitting himself on the lowest branch. "The furniture is already made. I don't even have to build a house here. I could live out the rest of my days here quite comfortably."

"Really now?" Nila said. "Well! I suppose if it's a seat you're looking for, you had need look no further than this rock. It's a far greater seat than your tree – far older too. This was here when the first men crossed over the Black Mountains to settle in the Stormfront, you can be sure of that. In fact, I'm sure one of those great men sat here."

"Hoh… An interesting argument. I suppose I could listen, and I could pretend to believe it… It does look old enough," Oliver said. "However! You can't easily reach down to the water from your seat. The bank is too high there. Perhaps you might manage – but what of the family that comes after you, once you settle there?

You'll see your children drowned by the high banks."

"My children would never struggle with a high bank," Nila said. "They would be my children, after all."

"…I should have figured you'd use pride as an argument. Very well. I will allow you it. But, I will stand by my initial point. This side is far better than that side, and you don't have a chance of reaching it," Oliver said.

"Well, I said that I control the crossing now. You can't return home without going through my territory, and I'll make you pay a tax," Nila said.

"Home? This is home now. I'm settled here. I have no intentions of moving. It seems to me that the only direction worth moving in, right now, is north. Perhaps I can outrun the winter?" Oliver said.

"…Outrun the winter?" Nila wavered there. It was the very sort of ridiculous idea that would capture her attention. She chewed her lip. "Where's this crossing meant to be…?"

"I told you, there isn't one," Oliver said, sitting back on the lower branch of his tree. "How devastated you must be, Lady Felder, to see paradise right in front of you and be unable to reach it. I suppose I could help, but I'm no saint, after all. It's far more relaxing just to sit here and watch you struggle."