A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor

"...Ignore it," Hod muttered under his breath. "Ignore it, Patrick. Gods damn it… Don't let this venomous creature break you. There's more to you than this… Find yourself again, you fool… Don't let our cause end just like this."

Oliver stared at the crown at his feet, feeling Tiberius' gloating gaze on him. Somehow, it was meant to be an insult. Oliver didn't understand it, but he could tell that he was being mocked. His lips twisted. He didn't like the man in front of him one bit. Ingolsol burned with righteous indigence, and Claudia was reaching away to slap away the hands of grief that threatened to consume her.

Asabel. Something about that name struck Oliver with a terrible amount of importance. It belonged to her, that tainted thing on the ground, covered in blood, and stinking of suffering. It was a very manifestation of pain. Whomever it was that such a thing had belonged to, they had not died an easy death.

"...I hope you're okay," Oliver murmured to himself. He could not summon up a face. Just a memory of warmth. He realized how concerned he was with the way that person had died. Not grief, but injustice. In his forest – in his domains, such a thing had occurred. Death was one thing. A natural part of the game that all those creatures played, but they were one within it all. There was a sense of fair play. They could be taken from, and lose, without ever losing fundamentally, for they were all one and the same, in that great vast forest that encompassed all that Oliver had cared about. Except those creatures touched by Tiberius. They died without dying – they died still with all the burdens and sufferings and reconciliations that living men had to achieve.

Oliver bent down, his knee touching the ground. He reached for the crown with shaking fingers, hearing Tiberius' laughter in his ears. His heart felt unbelievably complicated. Something gnawed at him there. Pain. He knew it to be that. But not for him, for her. His fingers touched the cold metal, and he brushed away the mud, just slightly, revealing the silver beneath.

All that had been important to her, somehow he knew it. Somehow, he could see the woman right in front of him. A beautiful woman, terrifyingly so. So much life in those eyes, so much passionate fire in her heart. A woman that one could found a whole country based upon, and know that she would rule it justly. So much want to her. Oliver recognized that want, for he could feel it in himself. That uncontrollable urge to grasp for all that had meaning in the world around them. Robbed of it, she was, by unjust contest, by a creature that truly should not have existed. Something that even the Gods had missed, in the form of Tiberius.

That which she was – the worst of her – it swirled around that crown. Less of it than it should have been. Evidence of the bravery that she had died with. A strength to contain her malice, and not become less than she was.

Overwhelming respect. A high sort of creature. Understanding. The sort of existence that Oliver himself could strive towards. Another creature that gave life, like Dominus, the swordsman with the purple armed. Richness in her. Flowers blooming along the shores of the river that she was.

He could not neglect her. He dared not to. Leaving that crown in the mud, where it would be sullied, along with her name. Leaving all that she was there along with it, all her ambitions tainted. There was too much richness to her. It was too much of a travesty.

There was an implicit understanding in himself that what he did was not natural. That he ought to have been overwhelmed by pain. Indeed, he felt it. He almost wanted to indulge in it, but he realized that he could not. With the largeness of the space that he occupied and ruled over, there came a responsibility that mattered more than himself. There was a duty to her, and all those connected to her.

With a steady gaze, and trembling gone from his fingers, Oliver put the crown upon his own head. Muddied crown that it was. No jewels visible in the sight of it. Tainted by blood. The worst that a crown could be. Only the smallest hint of silver.

But there was a prize that he was given that went beyond what any beautiful crown could possibly have done – the wiping of the smile from Tiberius' face.

A man who had beheld the silver crown of a perished Queen, lying in the mud, with grief written upon his face. An army that had borne witness to it, trembling, knowing that upon his shoulders rested their own lives. That upon his fragile heart, and the contingency of it breaking, rested their entire futures.

In that crown itself – there was everything that they had once fought for. The very meaning behind their cause.

Then, like Tiberius, they had borne witness to it. That which ought not have been. A decision made, easily criticized. To be condemned as lustful, and power hungry. To be condemned as disrespectful, and out of line. To be called corrupt, and opportunistic.

And yet, not a single one of them could bring themselves to say, or even think such a thing. For when that crown was upon his head, and the wind stirred, loud enough to silence any voice that might dissent, and it cast up a light shower of falling snow up with it, there was such a feeling of rightness, that none could rebuke it.

For they had seen the suffering themselves. They had noted a man broken, on the brink, and they had feared for where he would end up. Few had loved their Queen as much as he. None had lost more by the hands of Tiberius than he. He put a crown upon his own head, and in doing so, he made a tremendous sacrifice.