A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"We will struggle to find a foe as mighty as General Tavar," Oliver agreed.

The world was lesser for his absence. The felling of a mighty oak, within the confines of an overgrown forest. The man himself felt differently as to his death. He had held the certainty of victory from the start, but once that had been snatched from him, he felt no regret, but relief. Since the time of his youth, he had been quite aware of how tall he had grown, and how he snatched the sunlight from others that needed it. That was why he had chosen his post at the Academy, so he might nurture those young buds, in the same way that he was stealing their light away.

"Ah, now it is good to rest," Tavar murmured, from within the confines of a dark blackness, tainted by a few solitary specs of light.

"You have done much in our absence. Forgive us the burden," came a voice that Tavar recognized immediately to be Arthur, despite not having heard it in twenty years. His eyes were still firmly closed, he thought – but now he had the sudden impulse to open them. If he did, he feared for what he would see. The sort of trepidation of a child, and indeed, he was just that. He was an old man, born again, into a different realm. Here, Arthur's experience far outweighed his own.

"I give my thanks, for looking after the boy," came another voice – a voice that was always likely to be paired with Arthurs.

"...Dominus," Tavar said.

"You have taught that little monster much," came a third. "And in doing so, you have eased my burden. If my Dominus were to look any more stoney, he would have turned into a rock – you managed to save him from that tragic fate, good General."

"Persephone…" Tavar said, and then he did open his eyes to see. That trio, drenched in that golden light of a different realm, on the shores of a black lake, reflecting the light of the sun from up above. As they were in life, in death, they were radiant. They were a trio that alone had seen the Stormfront permanently changed. Alone, they had altered its history, and its fate, merely from the fact of the time they had spent together. Such a short time it had been, and yet the world trembled to see it.

Seeing them together like that brought a strange comfort to Tavar. Something that made him weep. He had concealed the truth from the young Oliver Patrick, but he had wished now that he could show the young man below what it was that he now saw. The beautiful Persephone, with her chin resting on a stern Dominus' shoulder, and with Arthur smiling so widely you would have thought he was eternally in receipt of the best news that he could possibly have.

"Don't cry, General," Arthur said gently. "You have no reason to."

"I could have done more for you…" Tavar said. "We were robbed, we all were, of the three of you. My apologies… My most humble of apologies…" He dipped his head to them.

"You have struggled General," Dominus said. "We have not missed that fact. Such is the difficulty of the lives that we all spent. There was ever the question of whether our suffering truly would be acknowledged. Know that we found that which we were looking for, not in life, but in death."

"That should not be so. It's far too tragic, Ser Patrick. Far too tragic indeed," Tavar said.

"Ah, but aren't we all famously tragic little figures?" Persephone grinned. "Rest, General, and watch along with the rest of us. Watch those poor men still left below, who must carry the burden that we were unable to bear all the way."

"With eyes to your son?" Tavar said.

"...I do keep a careful watch on him," Persephone said quietly, not yet bothering to correct Tavar. Wordlessly, Dominus slipped his hand together into hers, in quiet acknowledgement.

Finally, they were brought together, under that banner of the magnificent General that had seen the war started. The mere sight of them, formed up, in their battle formations, was enough to evoke a feeling of awe. Queen Asabel certainly felt it, as she saw those different Generals, at the heads of their armies, listening to General Blackwell give his speech to all of them.

They had waited the longest time for this – all of them had. They waited for the moment in which General Blackwell would be able to once more plunge into the battlefield entirely. It had seemed almost a rushed thing, but in the end, Blackwell had once more been allowed that opportunity, and he'd been allowed it with a good set of men beneath him.

Skullic, General Karstly and General Broadstone. They were all good reliable men, and all of them were brought to heel by the seriousness of the moment. Not even General Karstly wore a smile. They were grim, as much as they were certain. They knew the magnitude of the enemy that they faced in the form of Tiberius. But they knew too, that they could likely not have made a stronger army, even if they'd had perfect pick of all the Stormfront had to offer.

Twenty thousand good strong men, with three Generals between them, and then one Great General at their head. Once, Karstly had been promised the position of Commanding General, but he did not seem to mind in this battle that he was relegated to his usual role. It was the only thing that made sense for their command structure. They did not need two heads of their armies.

The Blackwell sigil flapped on banners in the wind. The wise owl with its red eyes seemed to look into all of them. Seeing that sigil flapping behind a mounted General Blackthorn, surrounded by a thin guard of spear-wielding men, and alongside Asabel's own flapping Pendragon sigil, one could well believe that he'd seen it all. That through the same eyes of an owl, he had seen as far as this current battlefield, and made plans all the way, so that they would end up where they were, exactly when they were.