A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

Blackness, but with solidness beneath his feet. Voices in the darkness, the scampering of creatures unknown and terrifying. A sense of the space that he stood in. There were limits now. At least to the basement of the house. But then there were creatures that defied those limits. Who were present for a second, and then they weren't.

Darkness, navigating it. His feet pulling him forward. Pushed now. No will of his own. The door had already been opened, it was already done. It slammed shut behind him, and he was food for all the demons that lay in there.

They bit at him, clawed at him, and had their fill. They came in the form of memories, both good and bad, wearing the faces at times of those that were important to him. Dominus here, Asabel there. Lord Blackwell sat hunched over a desk, quill in hand, filling out endless letters. He looked up at Oliver, and he smiled, just for a moment, before his head fell from his shoulders, and his fleshy body turned to bone, and the rest of him fell with them.

Loss. Loss. Loss. That basement only wanted to take. The space within it was limited. The creatures that inhabited it were awfully aware of that fact. That reduced Oliver Patrick, bit by bit. They feared the space he took up.

Fear? A strange thing. Those demons, they feared him too.

A raking claw across the chest, exposing Oliver's ribs, and then he looked down, and saw his beating heart. Thump it went, then thump again. Why could he see it so clearly, despite that darkness? It was as if it gave off a light of its own. Whilst it was visible, he could see around him, just far enough – and he could feel something. A memory of what there was once before.

There was that feeling. How could he even describe it? As if there was something at his back, pushing him forward. No. That was only a part of it.

It bore a sentience that was not his own. He had a will separate from his own mind. It growled, and it reached, and Gods, it was filled with certainty. So much arrogance. He had felt it since his battle with the Emersons, and he detested it. He feared it. And then, he had used it. It had been so sure that all would be well.

"LIAR!" Oliver accused it, shouting into the darkness. His anger outweighing his fear now. He shouted at all those demons that lay in there, and at that sensation that lay at the heart of him. "Liar…" he accused it more quietly, more timidly. Whatever it had felt, and been sure of. It was wrong. He looked down, and his heart coiled itself like a snake, the muscles moving separate to themselves, winding around. A pair of eyes appeared on it, deep, and stormy. Disagreement written in them. Wordless. No mouth, but Oliver could feel its smile. This dangerous thing.

A horde of demons stood all around him, all of them wanting something from Oliver Patrick. But when the eyes of that heart laid upon them, they stood still. Meekly. The horrors were right before Oliver's eyes now. That which he feared in coming down into that basement. And still, the pressure was building.

It had been loosened for a second, as if some problem, in a world separate from this one, had been removed, but now once more did it return, with an increasing vergence. There was an order to things, a fate that he could not disobey, suffering that he could not avoid. They stood locked in a vicious standoff. It would go no further now, if Oliver willed it not. Then, in the end, it was his own words that ended it.

"Come forward. Do your duty," he told them. They that would do him harm.

They lunged, the whole crowd of them, all at once, and the weight of them tore him from his feet, and brought him slamming back down into the ground.

Every ounce of flesh that they could take from him, they did. One bit through his fingers, and another munched through the flesh of his hand. Another gnawed at the two bones of his forearm, and a third went munching for his leg, snapping his femur in half, and galloping off into the darkness with the limb, pursued by a crowd of other angry, starving demons.

With Oliver's blood, there leaked pieces of his soul. Those same memories, but now hopes too. Ideas for the future that he had considered. Queen Asabel – he had hoped that, and sworn to himself that, when the war was over, he would make an effort to visit her, and look after her. He thought that he could introduce Nila more properly to her. He was sure that the two would get on. The burden that she carried, he knew that he'd need to do all he could to relieve her from it, in those quieter days when the war was over.

He'd wanted to spend more time at Lord Blackwell's residences, considering those graves that he'd found behind the estate. Graves of ancient men. He wanted to ask Lord Blackwell about them, so he might better understand those that had seen the city built. There was a wealth of meaning there, in sitting like that. It was as if all the knowledge in the world was right at his fingertips.

He'd wanted to see Mary again too. He'd sworn to himself, quietly, that he'd get Skullic back to her. The relationship the two of them shared, when he caught glimpses of what it was properly, he'd dared to hope that might find truly such a thing for himself one day. That he and Nila might marry, and find the same happiness that the two of them had.

That promise to himself, torn away. One amongst many. An entire future cast down. General Patrick, at the head of the armies of Queen Asabel. He had dreamed, perhaps, one day that it might be so. He had decided that if he were to continue to fly so high, it was a perch by the Pendragon Queen that he would have liked to reside. Her cause was a just cause. To fight for her – that would be a good reason to live. So much purpose, so much ambition and drive.