A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"You know, sometimes, I wonder if it's worth even trying?" A flash of a memory shot through him, in the voice of Penelope, the same that he wished to dampen, for the pain it caused his heart. "Sometimes, it seems like we get in our own way, you know? In the court, everyone seems to. That's why I think I like being out here with you. Neither of us are trying, and then we have the most wonderful days together, the sorts of fun we could never predict. So why bother trying at all? We're always clinging to something or another, perhaps, at times, its better to let go."

A flash of pain, worse than anything that Dominus had ever felt. A ghost – was it truly asking that of him? The one thing he could never do? Was it asking him to forget Penelope? Was it asking him to forgive the High King? Was it asking him to forget his friend, who had been tortured by the monster that now sought to claim his own life as well? How could he accept that? He was a mortal man. His was not a heart of stone, though others said it to be. He loved, and he loved strongly, more deeply than a mountain valley.

"We are taught discipline," another fragment of a memory, this time, his father. He couldn't remember the entirety of his father's saying, but those few words alone had hung in the back of Dominus' mind, throughout thousands of hours of training. The word discipline, then the word duty.

Himself in the rain, another memory, swinging his blade, unfeeling to all who watched. Yet he did feel, and he did suffer. He suffered intensely in those cold nights alone. That acute loneliness. The humiliation of not matching up to his peers. He suffered, but he would not allow his anger to boil. Discipline, he reminded himself. Discipline.

All those years, he held to the belief that his discipline would be rewarded. And had Claudia not been good in that? The friend that he'd made in Arthur, and the wife that he'd found in Penelope. Had she not been good? Were those short few years not worth all that suffering?

'A single day was,' Dominus thought with a flash, managing to curl his fingers, despite the pain that immobilised him. He could feel the lumbering of the Pandora Goblin growing ever nearer.

Discipline, he reminded himself. Arthur had asked it of him. Arthur had warned him against it. He'd warned himself against it when Penelope had died. He knew that vengeance for the sake of pleasing his base emotions would please no one. Certainly not the Goddess that he worshipped and believed in above all others.

Discipline. Discipline. Discipline.

He'd had it, he'd been brave when she died. He'd managed to tolerate it. For just a single moment, he'd wavered, seeing Arthur die too. He'd failed, reaching the end of his rope. He'd made a mistake, and now he lay here dying, unable to fulfil that which was asked of him.

To let it go. For all eternity? Perhaps not. He was only human after all. To put it a distance? Dominus knew to do that. He knew how to put the pain in a seperate room for himself. He knew how to endure, more than any other. Discipline. Discipline. Discipline.

He sent the pain next door, that which burned through his chest from where the Pandora Goblin had struck him. He distanced himself from the pain too of his grief. He took it, acknowledged it, and then bound it away for safekeeping. Now was not the time. The discipline to control one's emotions. They had no place on the battlefield. Both Arthur and now he himself had learned that the hard way. Without discipline, they entered the realm of the High King. Their power turned into that of corruption.

With foggy eyes he found himself on his feet. He did not intend to. His only focus was in controlling his pain. His body, and something else, took care of the rest.

The Pandora Goblin hovered a few metres away from him, looking at him curiously. It lowered its head, observing him right up close. Its smile was gone, it didn't seem to understand.

"Ah…" now Dominus understood. It too had a weakness. As cruel as Pandora was, this was her trick. It was a creature that delighted in cruelty, and the very foundation of its cruelty was the wanting of those that came to it. Each and human that had confronted it had done so with a want, magnified for the wish that it was said to hold in its box. It turned that wanting on them, it made their desire a weapon of self destruction.

Dominus had no wanting. He could not afford it. He knew not what the years would bring, or even the current moment. It took all the effort he had to simply remain on his feet. Yet, that effort had brought its own results. The poison that so quickly seeped through the veins of all others it had afflicted had slowed to the point that its progress was no longer traceable just with the naked eye.

The Pandora Goblin hissed at him. This gargantuan beast, it threw a tantrum like a neglected hose, slamming down with its front legs, and casting up a wave of sand. Dominus did not react. "Discipline," he told himself once more, completely unmoved.

He breathed in a deep breath, and sought for further control over his pain. He set it at a greater distance aside. Discipline. Built up over hard, long years. That discipline that even Arthur had admired. That discipline made him take a step forward, and in the same moment, the Pandora Goblin took a step back.

It hissed again, and then roared louder, an angry child throwing a tantrum now, realizing that it had been cowed, and seeing that it had backed away involuntarily. It turned upon the powers that it had to control the space around it. It brought to life demons of the foulest sort. Goblins that went beyond Goblins in the form of giant Ogres. Those creatures came lumbering at Dominus with enough might to dismantle whole armies – and, with a single hand on his blade, for the other was impaired from the poison, Dominus dealt with each of them, without panic, without even triumph when they were cut down.